Barter
Benefits All Types Of Businesses With New Customers

Auto Repair Shops Rev Up Business With Barter

As he opened his auto repair shop for business one morning, Bill Williams, owner of Bill’s Garage, was startled to discover that a rain-soaked ceiling panel had fallen on top of, and damaged, his copy machine. Scanning the room, Bill noticed that water also soaked a new box containing repair orders. To make matters worse, one of his workers pulled into the shop with a cracked windshield on the company pickup truck.

Despite having to face a morning of inconveniences, Bill didn’t even think about opening his checkbook to make these costly repairs. He had set his mind at ease 23 years earlier when he joined his barter exchange, and knew that a simple telephone call to his trade broker would solve his problems.

"By early afternoon, I had one of the area’s best roofing companies on the scene assessing my needs, and a client specializing in business machines had a service technician in my office repairing the copy machine by mid-morning," Bill said. "My broker even found me a local printer to start work on a new box of repair orders, and lined up a mobile glass company to repair my truck’s windshield. I did all of this on trade through the new business I’ve generated as a long-standing trade-exchange client. I never once considered paying cash for these items."

Bartering is an idea as old as civilization itself. By strict definition, bartering is the cashless, item-for-item trading of goods and services. Where our ancestors might have been trading chickens for cows, today’s savvy business owners are bartering hotel rooms for printing, jewelry for computers, or like Bill, auto repairs for

just about anything – all this through the help of a professional barter exchange.

Part accountant, part matchmaker, today’s barter organizations exist to bring their members new business. According to Tom McDowell, Executive Director of the National Association of Trade Exchanges (NATE), there are about 400 barter exchanges in North America, with more than 350,000 business members doing in excess of $4 billion annually.

Trade exchanges help cash-strapped entrepreneurs stimulate sales, develop new clients, convert excess capacity or inventory into revenue, and acquire the goods and services they need to conduct business. The most important benefit of barter is that the new business helps to conserve cash. Businesses can trade for things they need and keep their cash for the expenses they can’t barter for.

Bartering also can be an ally to small business owners looking to expand. Normally a business owner would have to

go to the bank for a loan - or save enough from receipts to finance the project. Barter is a way businesses can use the value of their own products and services to fund company growth.

Bartering enabled Fritz Morris, owner of Fritz Mo’s Auto Repair in Houston, to furnish his facility with new office furniture, a new telephone system, and a fax machine. With the remaining trade dollars in his account, Fritz found a computer company to develop a customer database, as well as design and create a Web site.

"I was surprised by how much new cash business I generated simply by making a trade decision to have a Web site designed," Fritz said. "I was able to list all of my products and services, and even had a system where customers could schedule their appointments with me by e-mail. My decision to use my trade dollars really paid off with this venture. I have new trade customers, not to mention new cash customers, and I didn’t pay cash for any of these services."