Barter?s Role For Entrepreneur Building World?s Most Expensive Home
Timothy
Blixseth, 55, is a most interesting guy. Recently he and his wife
split, doing so by sitting down over a glass of wine and dividing up
their assets. What a novel idea for a couple with over a billion
dollars to share.
He?s also the
founder of Yellowstone Club in Big Sky (MT), it?s the only private
resort community in the U.S. with its own ski mountain and
world-class golf course. Mostly wilderness, it?s a haven for the
super rich who pay an initiation fee of $250,000 and are required to
purchase property of $1 million to $10 million, plus pay annual dues
of $16,000.
The
Yellowstone Club has 200 members, and exists because of two barter
deals that Blixseth executed in the 1990s, when he and his
timber-business partner made a trade with federal officials. They
provided 164,000 acres adjacent to Yellowstone National Park in
exchange receiving 100,000 acres in the Bozeman/Big Sky area.
Of the 100,000
acres the partner took the timberland, leaving Blixseth and his wife
with a stretch of undeveloped land they originally intended to turn
into a family compound. After the newly built cabins and chalets
became wildly popular with their friends, they decided to create a
country club for millionaires looking for an alternative to pricey,
pretentious, and over-crowded destinations such as Aspen.
Thus, the
development of Yellowstone Club occupying 22 square miles. With an
eye toward natural beauty, only 20% of its acreage is slated for
development...and the rest remains untouched.
Blixseth?s
latest announcement is his plan to build and sell a home there for
$155 million. The 53,000-square-foot stone and wood mansion will
have 10 bedrooms and sit on 160 acres. A private gondola-like
chairlift will carry residents to Yellowstone Club?s private ski
slopes. Fully furnished, it will have an indoor/outdoor swimming
pool and a home movie theater.
The timber and
real estate baron is confident it will sell, suggesting that price
is not an issue with the world?s richest who insist on having the
best.
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ITM Hospitality Fund Creator Using
Barter To Help Those In Need
Years ago I met Jody Merl at an IRTA
convention. She was a panelist on hotel trading, and her knowledge
on the subject was most enlightening. Ms. Merl has impressively
taken another step in helping others through an effort that aids the
less fortunate, and I?d like to share her story with you. It shows
another side of barter that many people don?t realize exists.
As president of Innovative Travel Marketing (ITM),
the nation?s leading hotel barter company, Jody Merl knows the
formula for barter is a simple one: the exchange of unsold rooms for
media placements and other services, expanding advertising budgets
and getting maximum value for inventory that would otherwise go
unused.
The idea that spurred Merl to co-found the ITM
Hospitality Fund in February 2002, however, was even simpler to
her?using barter to help the less fortunate. With that goal in mind,
Merl considered her hotel rooms and how they could best serve those
in need.
Realizing that thousands of critically ill
people travel to New York City each year for urgent medical
treatment, Merl recognized that ITM?s excess inventory of hotel
rooms could greatly benefit ?healthcare travelers? who are unable to
afford accommodations for themselves or their loved ones.
?New York City is a medical capital, home to
many of the world?s leading specialists and facilities,? says Merl.
?For thousands of individuals, this city offers specialized care
that is literally life saving.?
Working in partnership with more than a dozen
hospitals, medical centers and medical societies, the ITM
Hospitality Fund is the only citywide program of its kind in the
U.S. It has so far provided more than 300 patients and their loved
ones with a haven in New York City during a stressful and difficult
time in their lives.
Led by Merl, and supported by advisory boards
of eminent physicians and healthcare and business leaders, the Fund
is a noteworthy example of a community?s high-achievers working
together to achieve a common humanitarian goal.
By making first-class hotel rooms available to
those who could otherwise not afford them (Fund beneficiaries only
pay room taxes), the ITM Hospitality Fund reduces expenses and
encourages the presence of a patient?s family at a time when they
are needed most.
?We pamper families who are in a very fragile
state with the convenience and comfort of hotel rooms in their time
of need,? says Merl. ?It is an enormous help to minimize their
emotional toll and expenses of travel.?
Patients are referred to the ITM Hospitality
Fund through participating medical facilities. Once a referral is
made, Merl scopes and coordinates accommodations at ITM client
hotels, with regard to the most convenient location for the patient
and/or family.
Beneficiaries are chosen based primarily on
financial need, with geographical distance from New York also a
consideration.
Describing her founding of the Fund as one of
her proudest accomplishments, Merl says, ?The ITM Hospitality Fund
captures the true philanthropic spirit of New York City. We feel
blessed to be able to make a difference in the lives of these
patients and their loved ones.?
The ITM Hospitality Fund was recognized with a
HSMAI Golden Bell Award for Community Service in 2004, and as
founder, Merl was named ?New Yorker of the Week? by leading
cable-news affiliate New York 1 News.
For more information on the ITM Hospitality
Fund visit
www.itmhospitalityfund.com, or call (973) 331-8171.
?What we have here is a failure to communicate!?
Years ago,
one of the most visible people in the barter industry said the #1
reason why the industry wasn?t farther along in its development was
due to a ?failure to communicate? by those in the business.
This
realization was the genesis of The Competitive Edge
newsletter, now into its 18th year of publication. Trade exchange
owners who use this powerful marketing and promotional tool are
never guilty of ?failing to communicate.?
As the owner
of a trade exchange you must stay in front of your clients.
Informing, educating, and inspiring them, because your clients?
bartering is a relatively small percentage of their overall
business. So if you don?t keep their interest and enthusiasm for
trade at a high level, you lose.
Your primary
aim, like all other businesses, is to get your clients coming back
for more. Every extraordinary business (and every trade exchange
owner who wants to be extraordinary) knows that the customer you
have, is a lot less expensive to sell than the customer you don?t
yet have!
Want to take
your exchange to a higher level? Use The Competitive Edge
newsletter in your operation?it ?sells? the many benefits of working
through your trade exchange like nothing else!
To learn
more about The Competitive Edge newsletter and how it can help build
your trade exchange, click
here.
Hotel
General Managers
Here?s
The Easiest $100,000 You?ll Ever
Bring To The Bottomline!
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
hotel rooms and/or 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.
(Please type in AV Services On Trade in the subject
line of your e-mail.)
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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The Growth and Use of Secondary Capital (New Money) Creates
Unprecedented Wealth In Today?s New Age Of Possibility
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many forms of secondary capital?which can be defined as any
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