Club Med Partners With IMS� Corporate Barter Division NTA Trade
International Monetary Systems (OTCBB:INLM), a worldwide leader in
business to business barter services, today announced that vacation
resort giant, Club Med, approved a corporate barter agreement for
high impact media through NTA Trade...IMS� corporate barter
division.
Club Med launched its all-inclusive resort concept in 1950. It seeks
to leverage vacation opportunities for media exposure through its
newly forged transaction with NTA Trade.
Jill Halper, Vice President of National Accounts at NTA Trade, was
enthusiastic. �NTA delivered a cash-free advertising program to
bolster Club Med�s traditional marketing methods. It was a good fit
for them and an excellent trade for all IMS members.�
Don Mardak, CEO of IMS, concurred. �Fulfilling this need for Club
Med showcases the powerful opportunity that is unique to IMS� brand
of barter. We provide both corporate and retail barter opportunities
that allow us to make available a broad network of products and
services for purchase with IMS trade currency.�
For more information visit
www.ims.com.
IRTA�s Corporate Barter Council Revisited
This fall at the International Reciprocal Trade Association�s 29th
Annual Convention, to be held at the Westgate River Ranch Resort
outside Orlando (September 22-24), the organization looks to
re-establish the Corporate Barter Council.
In the early �90s it was a very viable entity for IRTA when
excitement about the use of corporate barter was at its zenith. In
1991 at the New York Hilton, some 110 representatives from corporate
barter companies met for an electric-like meeting to discuss the
future of the industry.
Alan Elkin of Active International and Allen Hackel of The Hackel
Organization will be in attendance, seeking to generate the first
step effort to reinvigorate the Corporate Barter Council. The focus
will be on expanding the membership to include the media
sector�where many more companies exist than corporate barter
companies
Your Idea Alone Has No Value
By Wil Schroter
Contrary to popular belief, great companies are
not born from great ideas alone. We�d all love to think that if we
could simply invent the next sticky-note, we could sit back and
watch the cash tumble in.
But if great ideas don�t spawn great companies,
what does?
The short answer is: you. The longer, and far
more complicated, answer is how you specifically position yourself
and your company to execute on an idea. Anyone who overhears your
idea, has the same idea at the same time, or basically plans on
doing anything similar, is already on the same playing field as you
are.
In order to differentiate yourself and your
idea, you don�t need a patent or some proprietary method. You need a
focused plan that allows you to execute above and beyond your
competition every day of the week.
Think of your competition like your favorite
professional sports league. There are dozens of teams which have
talented players on them, but only one team is going to perform
better than everyone else. Your goal is to build that team.
Focus
On Execution
There is a massive chasm between having
a great idea and executing flawlessly on a business model for
a great idea. Lots of people have great ideas, but very few people
ever execute well on them.
Execution isn�t just about showing up for work
every day and punching a clock. For the team that wins, execution is
about going above and beyond the call of duty each and every day.
It�s about reaching out to your customer when
there are no problems just to see how they are doing. It�s about
releasing a product feature faster than your competitor even when
you�re already ahead. It�s being the first car in the parking lot in
the morning and the last one to leave at night. It�s doing what the
guy next to you isn�t willing to do.
Service The Heck Out Of Your Customer
Even a product that�s a total commodity, like
food, can take on an entirely new meaning when you compare the
service that comes with it. In your city there may be a hundred
places where you can order a filet mignon, but only a handful that
are considered top notch.
The difference is that the elite restaurants
understand that in order to differentiate their product, they need
to rely on better service. They pay attention to every detail of
your experience, from the greeting you get from the host/ess to
whether you�re given a white or black napkin based on your pant
color.
Exceptional service is by no means a commodity.
It�s a rare and unusual thing that very few companies can deliver.
Chances are your competition isn�t going to go the extra mile to
service the heck out of your customer, which creates an incredibly
powerful competitive advantage for you.
Determine Weak Spots
It�s not uncommon for a startup company to go
toe-to-toe with a much larger company offering a very similar
product. On its face, it looks like the startup is at a severe
disadvantage. Surely the behemoth megacorp can provide better
execution and better service with its vast resources than a scrappy
little startup can.
If you were to try to compete against the
behemoth on their own terms you�d get crushed. That�s why startups
tend to look for the weak spots in larger companies and exploit
them. You can easily differentiate your product from a larger
company by focusing on stuff large companies tend to fall short on.
Unlike a large company, you can offer the
personal service and attention your customers love that they�re
probably missing from your bigger competitor. You can leverage your
speed by releasing new versions of your product faster and
responding to market conditions more quickly. You can offer talented
managers founder�s stock, while a big company can only offer another
bonus plan.
Every weak spot that you can exploit is another
way to add value to your idea. Once you�ve identified the points,
the more pressure you put on those weak spots, the more value you�ll
build for your own product.
Tying It Together
Outmaneuvering your competition isn�t about
doing any one of these things � it�s about doing all of them
consistently. If your idea is great and novel, the only guarantee is
that it will be copied. If it�s not, you have to wonder how great of
an idea it really is.
When your idea does get copied, the only thing
you�ll be able to rely on is your team and your execution. All of
the points about going above and beyond the call of duty, servicing
your customer, and exploiting the weak spots will soon be used
against you.
The only defense against the next up and comer,
and the only way to consistently create value around your idea is to
stick to fundamental execution. Nothing else has value.
(Wil Schroter is founder and CEO of the Go BIG
Network, the largest network of startup companies and entrepreneurs
at
www.goBIGnetwork.com. He is also the author of the new book
Go BIG or Go HOME.)
Money-Making Reports Available From BarterNews
5 Important Reasons For Repeating
Your Company Message
Possibly you have become tired of seeing or hearing your company�s
advertising messages, and you feel they should be changed more
often, or perish the thought, discontinued.
Here are seven reasons why you should develop a visibility and
continuity in the marketplace:
1) Your audience forgets 99% of what they see and hear within two
weeks.
Why is this? Because in the USA we�re exposed to more than 3,700
advertising and marketing messages daily. And of those, we pay
attention to about 85. At best we recall and take action on only 12
of those messages.
2) Your market changes constantly.
The marketplace is not stagnant. Because we move, because of better
communication, because we get bored, because we want new challenges,
because we want to dive into new opportunities, the market changes.
When that happens you have to chase it, thus you need to repeat your
message.
3) Test new ideas on a continuing basis...and retest old ideas.
Your marketplace is like an octopus�never staying in one place for
long. You need to find out how to reach it best, and do it in an
ongoing manner.
4) Talk to your customers on a regular basis.
There is no reason for you to think that your audience remembers
what your offer is. Or why they should respond to it. Reach them
through multimedia, a combination of mail, phone, broadcast, and
hand-outs to keep your message in their minds.
5) You are more likely to be remembered, when it�s time to buy, if
your messages are seen frequently.
Hotel
General Managers
Work With Audio/Visual
Vendor On Barter
Collect cash, as usual, from the guest accounts staying at
your facility that require the use of professional AV
services. And rather than shouldering your ongoing employee
costs, or your current vendor�s cash agreement for AV
services, here�s a much better alternative:
Work with a proven national vendor (a sterling 25-year track
record) who will provide all of the AV services for your
hotel on a 100% TRADE BASIS! (Payment to be in the form of
trade dollars.)
Your hotel�s annual AV billings must be a minimum of
$200,000, and this offer is available only in the
continental United States.
For a confidential introduction contact Bob Meyer via
e-mail:
bmeyer@barternews.com.
Attention Trade Exchange Owners:
If your member hotel(s) have a minimum of 10,000 sq. feet of
meeting space and annual billings of at least $200,000 for
AV services this is a great opportunity to earn substantial
cash service fees on the hundreds of thousands of trade
dollars your hotel member will be paying the vendor. Contact
Bob Meyer at the above e-mail. |
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