Here’s how to maximize your profits this year… Use your products or services as a form of capital to acquire needed products and services. There are several ways to do so. The first is a successful reciprocal (barter) purchase.

Here are the steps to follow. First, realize when vendors call on your company intent on making a sale you have the perfect opportunity to form a trading relationship.

To maximize your efforts toward this end, do the following:

1) Tell them how you will buy from them, and the resulting advantages. Explain that by doing business with you in a reciprocal purchasing manner, they will gain a long-standing customer.

2) Ask, specifically, for what you want or expect from them. And reinforce that the method of payment will be in the form of your goods or services, not in cash.

3) Restate the benefits, of what you are proposing, and then take the first step to close the arrangement.

4) Continue to practice and refine your presentation. As you improve you will be amazed at how often people will give you exactly what you ask for.

5) Don’t give up after one, or even a few attempts. Realize that success is assured by perserving. Remember, however, that in many cases there won’t be a “double coincidence of wants,” in that they simply can’t use your product or service even though you want theirs.

6) Don’t panic when this situation occurs. Instead tell them you still want them to be your most valuable vendor and show them how they can do so, by introducing them to your trade exchange.

7) A “Trade Exchange” (barter company) consists of many local companies that trade with one another and use a common currency, called a “trade dollar.” When a member of the exchange makes a sale they (as the seller) receive trade dollars, which can then be spent for needed products/services which other members of the exchange offer. This new vendor, working through the trade exchange, can get what they want and you’re able to buy from them on trade.

For a list of trade exchanges in the USA see: TRADE

Become a barter pro fast! See: FastStart

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.