Let’s face it: 2007 wasn’t the best time to start a new business in Miami Beach. The real estate market had already crashed, and spiraling gas prices would soon dent the vital tourism industry.
So when Cleveland Cook, 40, found the need to hire an accountant for Can I Have Your Attention, his new advertising and branding agency, what he really wanted to know was, “Can I have a deal?”
Fortunately he found Claudia Peralta, a former corporate accountant who was just starting her own accounting practice around the same time. The two worked out an arrangement: Peralta would do all of Cook’s number-crunching in return for a logo, website, postcards and “Everything else she needed to kick-start her business.”
Now approaching $100,000 in sales, Can I Have Your Attention is establishing a reputation and a client base despite the slow economy. But the company still has to keep expenses down, so cashless trades with other professionals make sense.
“Especially in this economy, barter helps out because it keeps your overhead low,” Cook says. “At the end of the month, the money you save goes right to the bottom line.”
He’s not the only one who thinks so. As the cash economy cools, the cashless economy is heating up. These days, more entrepreneurs are experimenting with barter. Direct barter, however, requires serendipity. Both parties must be looking for just the right product or service at just the right time–and both must be willing to trade, rather than sell.
Barter for Starters
- Barter News is the bible of the industry. Back copies are available online at BarterNews.com.
- To try direct barter, check your local edition of Craigslist.org.
- There are hundreds of state and local barter exchanges. For a clickable map, visit the National Association of Trade Exchanges.
- Looking for a national exchange? International Monetary Systems and Itex Payment Systems are two of the largest. Others are listed at Barter News, but focus on local support, rather than sheer membership size or volume of trades.
For tax purposes, the IRS considers barter transactions the same as sales. Commercial barter exchanges track members’ transactions and report them annually on a Form 1099-B.
Photo by Corbis.
Exchanging Biz Services Slash Startup Costs
June 17, 2008 by Rich | 3 Comments
In Advice, Barter, Small Biz
Stuart Ross on June 17th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Great blog
Stuart Ross
Who The Heck?
http://www.WhoIsStuartRoss.com
cassy on June 26th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Bartering is just mundane for us and i think this is a nice idea. Exchanging something is better than using money at all.
Anthony Donnelly on October 14th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Great article! Just for the record, there is another national barter company that utilized a much more refined, organized bartering system: MBE-barter, which operated in a much more streamlined manner than IMS or Itex and does not mix with the older systems, as Merchants Barter Exchange expels members for inflated pricing for trades, won’t allow any cash-barter blends (which isn’t true barter!), and controls fair barter trading.
Can any of the other barter companies brag a 3% attrition rate of members, or the ability to do all trades 100% on barter, even jobs like $100,000 worth of printing ALL without cash?
MBE - the only true barter company. Check us out, we’re different because we work for our clients.