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Hundreds of valuable articles, techniques, and strategies are found in the following various barter categories:

�  Entrepreneur�s Corner,

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�  Trade Exchange,

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�  Offset & Countertrade,

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�  Community Barter, and

�  Restaurant & Entertainment

(The Barter Categories are found on the horizontal bar at the top � 3^rd button from right.)

Chicago-based trade exchange owner Jack Schacht built one of the largest, most successful trade exchanges in the world, starting it all from his kitchen table on a part-time basis. That�s really an incredible accomplishment. One of his strengths was facing the continual changes in the marketplace. This article was published August 6, 2002.

(Note: all back issues of the Tuesday Report are found on our website.)

As you will see, Schacht believed that the marketplace, not an exchange, determines what a client charges. He also embraced the belief that many unimaginative members of an exchange are ill-suited for barter and shouldn�t even be members; moreover the entrepreneurial small business owners should be more appreciated by the industry.

�Though I gave up arguing with my fellow trade exchange owners a long time ago, I feel compelled to respond to Don Loughnane�s comments in your recent July 16 Tuesday Report. Don�s comments unfortunately represent a common misconception still held by many exchange owners.

�First of all, an exchange cannot control barter pricing through the enforcement of trade rules and regulations. It is the marketplace, not the exchange, which determines what a client charges. No trade rules will have a significant effect on our highly entrepreneurial marketplace.

�It is under the exchanges control, however, to properly develop its marketplace which in turn will help control pricing and keep it competitive. For example, an exchange with only one computer vendor in its marketplace will find that computers are sold for a much higher price than an exchange which has several computer vendors. In the barter market, as well as the cash market, prices are always affected by supply and demand.

�A second way to develop the marketplace in order to keep pricing competitive is to see that key clients have products and services readily available to them. A computer dealer who knows he can immediately use his credit for things he needs at reasonable prices can obviously be encouraged to do a more competitive deal.

�This is readily demonstrated with clients who trade with more than one exchange and offer the same item at different price points within the different exchanges. The value of a trade dollar is simply not the same from exchange to exchange. No trade rules can change that reality. 

�It should be pointed out that even in the strongest, largest, most developed barter companies, the trade dollar is not on par with a cash dollar. Since we need to interface with and work with the industry as a whole, it is important that we take our cue from the barter main stream. This will avoid the need to arbitrarily raise or lower our own client�s prices when working with other barter companies.

�It is high time that retail (trade) exchange owners got real and started appreciating the great opportunity we have for highly entrepreneurial business owners. We must stop catering to those unimaginative business owners who will probably never fully appreciate what barter can do for their business and their personal lifestyle. Barter is really not for them and we can never build highly profitable businesses if we cater to them.

"Finally, the very best that we can do is educate our marketplace, not legislate it into some petty bureaucracy where we delude ourselves into thinking that clients will somehow serve our interest as opposed to their own!�

Is Your Trade Exchange Missing Out On Valuable New Business?

If your barter company�s listing on BarterNews.com isn�t current, you are definitely missing out on new business. The web site BarterNews.com receives heavy traffic � with over 150,000 page-views every month. Entrepreneurs and corporate executives check the thousands of articles, the weekly �Tuesday Report,� and the �Contacts Section� of our site. They use the latter to find barter companies with which to do business.

Is your barter company�s listing up-to-date?

To keep your listing current is very easy. See the links below to (A) update any changes to your company�s listing, such as new location, phone number, web site or other information, and (B) if your company has not been listed.

Here�s how to get on board:

To make changes to your listing click here.

For new listings click here.

Marketing consultant George Walther�s startling thesis is this: Most businesses waste time trying to land new customers when they could be making much more money reclaiming former customers.

You should go after new business, of course, but as Walther explains in his book Upside-Down Marketing, customers who have walked out or fallen away are a major source of profits left untapped by most companies. The fact is former customers know who you are, thought enough of you to buy, and could  �without much effort� be induced to do so again.

A much-quoted survey found that 68% of those customers who drop off do so simply because they sense indifference. Walther points out that most customers leave our �conveyor belts� because we don�t show them how important they are!

His prescription? Call them!

According to a survey of more than 1,400 people around the world with an average net worth of $2 million, the wealthiest respondents exhibited 80% more energy than those at the bottom of the sample.

Energy, of course, is a subjective quality. In the survey respondents were asked to use a scale from 1 to 10, regarding how much energy they put into certain tasks � with 10 being the highest.

The survey found that the wealthiest of the group devoted 60% of their energy toward focused goals like �making things happen� and �hunting out new opportunities.� They not only focused their energy but they also devoted more total energy (80% more) to all of these goals than the lower samplers.

(The report was done by Scorpio Partnership, Standard Charter Private Bank, and SEI.)