November 2 &
9 ,
2004
Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
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Meg
Whitman, eBay’s CEO, Sets The Record Straight
A few years
ago, when Meg Whitman began expanding eBay internationally, many
questioned her strategy. In fact, more than a few thought eBay was
a uniquely American concept—that it worked only in an optimistic
culture and that people really had to trust each other.
Whitman was
convinced otherwise, saying “the urge to trade is human
nature.” Today Germany is the best eBay franchise worldwide
with per capita annual trading volume the highest in the world—more
than $100 for every German man, woman, and child.
Get
New Money-Making Ideas And Valuable Contacts!
You can obtain
useful, informative ideas and contacts in every available back-issue
of BarterNews.
China
Working On Huge Oil & Natural Gas Exchange With Iran
Today, China
burns coal for most of its power needs and imports 40% of its crude.
However, under a memorandum of understanding just signed with Iran,
China will secure oil and natural gas valued at tens-of-billions
of dollars.
The deal sees
China’s Sinopec Group developing Iran’s Yadavaran oil
field in exchange for agreeing to buy 10 million tons of
Iranian liquefied natural gas annually for 25 years.
Japan
Worked On Similar Exchange Earlier This Year
Japan signed
a $3 billion deal that gave Tokyo the right to develop Iran’s
massive Azadegan oil field in exchange for oil. Japanese
officials said they had little choice in doing the exchange given
their country’s heavy reliance on energy imports.
Trade
Exchange Owners...
Build Rapport & Empathy With Your Client Base!!
The most powerful
marketing tool in the barter industry, The Competitive Edge
newsletter, is a monthly, ready to use, professional 4-page publication...no
work is needed! Click here
From the BarterNews Archives...
Part
3: How To Use Radio To Increase Company Sales
Call-in
commercials can be terrific. . .
If you have
a relationship with a local radio station and you can get them to
allow you to “call your commercial in” and have an ad
lib discussion with the personality/disk jockey, you can get great
results.
If you and the
host hit it off, you can become a regular character on his show.
Listeners will automatically perk up their attention when they hear
the lead in:
Announcer: Well,
it’s time to talk to old Joe at the Bargain Barn and find
out what kinda do-dad or whirly-gig he has come up with as the value
of the day. What have you got this time? I hope it’s not another
square wheeled bicycle.
Old Joe: No,
that was a one of a kind. Seriously, today we have a fruit dryer
that you can use to dry all kinds of fruits.
Announcer: What
if I don’t know any wet fruits.
Old Joe: This
allows you to slice and dry peaches, pears, and apples so you can
save them as long as you want. Just think how good they’ll
taste in your lunch box...and it’s good for the kids to snack
on.
Announcer: How
big is it?
Old Joe: I’d
say it’s about four feet high...etc.
The conversation
tone of the call sets the potential customer at ease, and the description
will cause the listener to visualize what you are talking about.
(The same thing works for restaurants regarding lunch specials,
and in many other applications as well.)
Ad Lib
Fact Sheet. . .
If your station
has live personalities, try to talk the station into letting you
give the announcers fact sheets so they can ad lib your commercial
in conversation manner. This makes the commercial sound like a personal
endorsement, and every commercial will be different.
Try to get the
announcer to drop by your place of business. If you run a restaurant,
insist they come by and have lunch or dinner. If you have a video
store, give them a free pass so they can review videos as part of
your commercial.
Sometimes you
will have to pay a premium, but don’t gripe. The spots usually
run longer than you paid for and the impact is tremendous. Be prepared
for some of the spots to go sour, and don’t be afraid of getting
kidded a little. The technique works. (Remember Arthur Godfrey?)
Once I worked
at a station where every commercial was live and 95% were fact sheet
spots. Most of the time we were told to “kid around”
with the sponsor a little bit, such as: Those chili dogs are so
sloppy you have to eat them in the bath tub, but are they good!
Or, I can’t figure out what that laundry does with the buttons
on my shirt...they always keep one as a souvenir...but that Ethel
and Bob at Cleanway Cleaners are such nice folks, and the prices
are so low, I don’t care what they do with my buttons.
That station
had nearly every business in town. Listeners were always going into
an establishment and saying...”Did you hear what they said
about you on that crazy station?”
Image
Campaigns. . .
For the past
few years I have been privileged to write and voice-in commercials
for a major drug store chain. Before I wrote a word of copy, I went
to a couple of locations and talked with customers and employees
to get a handle on the typical customers and how they viewed the
store. We learned that price was not the motivation that brought
people to the store.
We found that
among the primary concerns were a no-hassle refund policy, short
check-out lines, and selection.
I was allowed
to create “heart sell” commercials, which talked about
the company’s roots as a corner drug store that opened the
same year Judy Garland first sang “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”
and Ty Cobb said farewell to baseball.
The president
of the company approved a commercial which described him burning
the company policy manual and replacing 1400 rules with the statement,
“Use common sense and good judgment, and treat people the
way you would like to be treated yourself.” (This literally
became the standard of operating the business.)
We also found
out that one concern of people with young children was that there
were no public rest rooms. The president of this Fortune 500 Company
allowed me to go on the radio and say, “...and if the occasion
arises you can even use the employee rest rooms.” (How basic
can you get?)
The advertising
was geared to distance the chain, in the mind of the customer, from
the mass merchandisers. We even said, “We were nearly caught
up in the mass merchandising syndrome, like the others, but we have
vowed to get back to the basics”...etc.
To that end
about one third of the radio advertising was geared to the company’s
own employees! This campaign paid excellent dividends in long term
business increases and improved perception by the public and the
chains own employees.
(To
be continued next week...)
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Barter
Fairs & Holiday Expo's. . .
November:
Continental
Trade Exchange (Milwaukee, WI) Holiday Expo will be held Saturday,
November 6 at the Milwaukee County Sports Complex, 6000 W. Ryan
Road, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information call (262)
780-3640.
BXI Ventura-Santa
Barbara & BXI West Valley have scheduled their Holiday Trade
Fair on Sunday, November 7 at the Oxnard Courtyard by Marriott,
600 East Esplanade Drive, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information
call (805) 376-9466 or (818) 758-2929.
American Commerce
Exchange (ACX) will hold their Annual Trade Fair on Sunday, November
7 at the Glendale Community Center, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more
information call (323) 259-2340.
Continental
Trade Exchange (Modesto, CA) Holiday Expo will be held Sunday, November
7 at the Modesto Centre Plaza, 1000 L Street, from 10 a.m. to 3
p.m. For more information call (209) 543-9229.
BXI Inland Valley
Fair will take place Sunday, November 14 at the Elks Lodge in West
Covina, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information call (909) 592-7727.
Continental
Trade Exchange (Columbus, OH) Holiday Expo is scheduled for Tuesday,
November 16 at The Hoop, 4185 E. 5th Avenue, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
For more information call (740) 201-0201.
Continental
Trade Exchange (Pleasanton, CA) Holiday Expo will take place Saturday,
November 20 at the Crown Plaza Suites Hotel, 11950 Dublin Canyon
Rd., from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information call (925) 516-5600.
BXI Nevada Holiday
Trade Fair will be held Sunday, November 21 at the Speakeasy Convention
Center, 200 E. 6th Street in Reno, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
For more information e-mail linda@bxinevada.com or phone (755) 829-2990.
December:
New England
Trade will hold their 8th Annual Barter Expo on Wednesday, December
1 at the Danversport Yacht Club at 6:00 p.m. For more information
call (781) 388-9200.
The Barter Company’s
Annual Trade Show will be held on Saturday, December 4 at the Cobb
Galleria in Atlanta from 12 noon to 5 p.m.. Over 36,000 sq. feet
will be dedicated to the trade show. For more information call (770)
591-4343.
The oldest and
largest BXI fair is the Orange County Holiday Fair at the Costa
Mesa Orange County Fairgrounds in Bldg. 10 (same location for 24
years). Scheduled for Sunday, December 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information call (714) 847-5477.
Continental
Trade Exchange (Santa Rosa, CA) Holiday Expo will take place Sunday,
December 5 at Santa Rosa Veterans’ Memorial Building, 1351
Maple Avenue, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information call (707)
585-7722.
Trade Atlanta,
Premier Barter, and Barter For Less are cooperatively staging a
Holiday Festival on Tuesday, December 7 in Gwinnett, Georgia, from
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information call (678) 793-9463.
TradeAmericanCard
2004 Barter & Business Expo on Sunday, December 12 at The Grove
of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Avenue, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. For more
information call (714) 532-1610.
BXI Northern
California/Nevada’s Holiday Trade Fair will be held on Sunday,
December 12 at the Clarion Hotel at the San Jose Airport, 12 noon
to 4 p.m. For more information e-mail ron@bxinorcal.com or phone
(650) 592-2929.
BXI Southern
Arizona’s Tradefair is scheduled for December 12 from 10 a.m.
to 4 p.m. For more information call (520) 325-2929.
(Barter
companies: Send your holiday trade fair information to: bmeyer@barternews.com.)
Every barter company in the world is listed on our
web site, click through to our Global
List of Barter Companies.
Here
& There...
- The world’s
largest alternative currency is frequent-flier miles. Over 10
trillion are now in existence, valued at 2-cents each, for a $200
billion private currency. It’s a currency used in various
ways by many different companies and industries. Noteworthy is
the fact that major corporations routinely pay cash to acquire
this alternative currency because of its perceived (greater) value
in the marketplace.
The most recent example
of such a purchase was American Express fronting $500 million
to financially strapped Delta Airlines, to purchase SkyMiles
points. American Express will use the miles as incentive give-aways
for their customers.
-
Jacqui Macy, President
of TeleTrade International, announced the company had a 141%
increase in transactional volume for its three online service
centers: eValues.net, thebanc.com and intercambialo.cc. Total
combined transactional volume for the first three quarters of
the year totaled $51,151,789. (Last year’s totals were
$36,214,674 for the same time frame.)
Macy also reported
that TeleTrade saw a 194% increase in activity on eValue.net—TeleTrade’s
site for independent trade exchanges—on a total volume
of $31,257,736 for the first three-quarters of 2004. For more
information go to: www.eValues.net.
-
Have you
signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the Tuesday
Report every week? If not, go to the top of this issue
(right hand corner) and sign up!
-
Look who’s
making a comeback... Over the past decade, membership in the
Direct Selling Association has jumped 89%, to 227 companies
hawking everything from tools and golf clubs to legal services
and utilities. U.S. direct sales reached $30 billion last year,
close to 1% of all U.S. sales.
-
ARTrade (www.artrade.ca)
based in Hamilton, Ontario, has been busy promoting its high
quality art to the barter industry. Brian Owen, president of
ARTrade, attended the annual conventions this past September
of both NATE and IRTA. His latest move is to form a strategic
alliance with Bentley Commerce promoting their art reproductions
on Bentley’s hospitality exchange (www.hospitalityexchange.vbarter.com)
which has some 200 resorts, hotels, motels, and B&B’s
as members.
• With stock
prices sagging many online investors are making fewer trades,
while others have stopped trading altogether. Just 5.9% of U.S.
households will trade online this year, according to Forrester
Research, down from 7.2% in 2000. To boost trades discount brokers
are busy bartering with their clients, providing various incentives
including golf and ski promotions to win back or retain their
business.
• The Internet’s
“big three” (eBay, Google, Yahoo) are showing surprising
earnings and it now is obvious that not only has the Internet
changed everyone’s lives, but it has finally arrived as
a profit engine. And the potential is dramatic, given that internet
advertising still accounts for roughly $5 billion of the $500
billion world-wide advertising market.
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