No Money Down – This thing called bartering
Bartering is something that many people in my industry do. When I started my business with less than $500 in my account, I had to get things done and one of the major projects that were holding me back was my website. The first thing I did was create a list of things I needed for my business and then I highlighted what was priority and what could sit on the back burner, before I approached a barter situation. To my surprise just like the Law of Attraction I ran into someone who literally changed my image, brand and the way people viewed my business, she was known as the Online Success Queen and her work was fabulous, but she was costly. Since getting a website was at the top of the list and when I had consulted with the her about what she could do for me and her prices , I knew there was no way I would be able to pay her $1500 for my website development and design when I only had 3 clients at the time.
What to do, what to do…I decided to offer her services in exchange. I tallied up a bunch of services that I could provide her in exchange for my website to be developed. Let me take a step back, first came the relationship. I had taken the time to talk with her, meet with her, share ideas and tips with her, and after I had established a “know like and trust with her”, I hit her with the big bang. I asked the magic question of “Can we barter, I desperately need a website built, I am a virtual assistant and can support you in a number of ways”. I told her I was losing money, and that I can also advertise her on my website to help build her traffic since most of the clients and prospects I came across needed websites built or optimized.
To this day, I still have the same website; I absolutely love it and get rave reviews behind it. It is optimized, it works well and it pulls in massive traffic according to my google analytics, yes, she installed the whole works. The best part of this barter agreement is that I was able to support her with in return.
I sat down with her, reviewed her business goals for the next 90 days and helped her come up with a plan to get more exposure and market her business. I customized a package for her and had delivered a powerful marketing strategy that we implemented and she was pleased. This led to a deeper relationship and the next barter agreement was ready to role out, I began to get bold and savvy with this no money down agreement called “bartering”. When bartering you have to feel good about it. There were times were I tried to barter services with other business owners and was completely unsatisfied and upset because either party felt like they did not get what they bargained for. In this case, I was blessed because she then went on to build a second website for me for my training. I started to create a training module for virtual assistants and stay at home moms and she built the site and included other features such as the online training log in. This was a value of $2000 plus because she did all the graphics and banners and plug ins. I have received over $5000 in web design and development work from this one barter in less than 6 months.
Bartering has to be focused and outlined. You must know what you want to barter and make sure that it is of value. You can visit my site at www.ultimatevasupport.com if you’re interested in outsourcing or delegating and my training site at www.ultimatevatraining.com if you’re interested in learning how to work from home. These are two examples of a barter that I did not pay a dime for and have traded my hours and skills such as Press releases, article marketing and database management for something that changed my business image.
What services can you provide to barter for what you need, post a comment and maybe you can find one that is mutually beneficial.
Bartering is one of my (many) favorite free business building tactics! I have done a couple of barters so far and am about to start my third. This time for personal use: Writing a customized marketing plan for a dance studio in exchange for free lessons for my daughter. I also highly recommend getting to know each other first well enough to have a sense of trust with each other. Not only is that just good business sense but it just makes the experience feel so much better.
Glynns Thomas
Advertising Spark
Inspiring Ideas for Small Budgets
http://www.advertisingspark.com
http://www.advertising-ideas.biz
Hi, gr8 post thanks for posting. Information is useful!
I have a home business offering the following services for doctors, medical offices and hospitals: Credentialing/contracting, new groups, demographic updates, electronic medical billing for all types of insurances, fighting for the doctors’ money by investigating and appealing their claims, processing referrals/authorizations, and translations of different types of documents (personal & business) in English or Spanish. Basically, I can run a doctor’s office from home.
Besides, I help my husband with his new commercial refrigeration business: marketing, networking, clerical, negotiating prices with the supply companies, and more.
What I would like is to have doctors calling me for services. They don’t negotiate with someone they don’t know because of legal issues. There are so many offices having problems with their billing, and the doctors either want to have their wifes in the office or young girls who are not trained. This type of staff make a lot of mistakes because, most of the times, don’t know what they are doing, too busy texting their life away and making a million mistakes. The bottomline is that the doctors end up with a huge accounts receivable report of to $500,000 to $2,000,000 and I’m not kidding you. If they don’t want to hire new people, I can process their collections after their staff does the billing inhouse.
Any ideas are welcome!!!
I would love to speak with you please email me when you are available virtuallucinda@gmail.com
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