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August 21, 2012

Written by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews

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From the desk of Bob Meyer... 08/21/2012

U.S. Entrepreneurship Turning Downward

The non-profit New American Foundation says America is seriously in danger of losing its entrepreneurial spirit, because the number of small businesses created has been declining since the 1970s.

The entrepreneurial businesses of 30 or 40 years ago have been consolidated � specifically in the retail space. With the advent of big-box retailers like WalMart, Costco and Walgreen�s, as well as internet operators like Amazon, it�s very difficult to start a new retail business selling toasters and appliances.

Maybe we need a new definition of entrepreneurship, too. People used to start a business with the idea of building wealth and passing it on to their kids. Now, what�s considered a small business is more and more someone working on a contract for a company that may have laid them off recently.

Creativity Aids Small Business Marketing

Small businesses can save marketing costs through free marketing options such as speaking engagements, local networking events, and engagements in social media and business review sites. 

Writer-Actor Uses Barter In Directorial Debut

Actor Martin Papazian raised $50,000 through small loans from friends and family to fund his directorial feature-film debut, �Least Among Saints.� The film follows the unlikely friendship between a suicidal Marine sergeant, suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, back from two tours in Iraq and the 10-year-old boy next door who is being raised by his drug-addicted mother.

Papazian, who wrote the scrip and plays the protagonist, shot the story at a �breakneck speed,� wrapping up the photography in 19 days. And he bartered with the cast and crew for a profit participation wherein they all become investors and owners of a share of the movie.

To help get the word out, veteran groups and military families will see screening of the film and create a social-media presence concentrating on the armed forces.

IRTA Extends Convention Discount

The 33rd annual IRTA convention, to be held in September, has extended the convention discount through August 31.

For details and registration click here.

David Siegel, King of Timeshares, Updated

Fifteen years ago BarterNews interviewed the CFO of Central Florida Investments (CFI), parent company of Westgate Resorts, the largest privately held timeshare company in the world, and a company started in the garage of founder, CEO David Siegel. The interview showed how CFI astutely used barter to cover many of their on-going expenses.

Now, some 15 years later, a new film titled Queen of Versailles is in the movie theatres. It graphically illustrates how the housing balloon explosion of 2008 affected the Siegel family�s fortune, and the lives of some 7,000 Westgate Resort employees who were subsequently laid off. 

The title of the movie refers to the 90,000 square-foot home David and his wife Jackie were building (modeled after the famous French Versailles palace) prior to the real estate downturn. Hailed as the largest private residence in the U.S., their unfinished $100 million home is now in foreclosure.

All back issues of "From the Desk...� can be accessed by clicking here.

(Please feel free to forward our newsletter to your friends and colleagues. We have a �box� at the end of the newsletter for your convenience. See you next week. . .)


FLASHBACK!

From time to time we take a look back at a prior year's issue, as we're doing this week....

Tuesday Report - August 24, 2010

August 24, 2010
 
From the desk of Bob Meyer... 08/24/2010

5,202 Restaurants Are Throwing In Their Dish Towels

Thousands of restaurants are closing their doors �in Southern California alone, nearly 1,000 more restaurants closed than opened during the 12 months that ended in March.

Nearly all the closings were among independently owned restaurants: small, family businesses that just couldn�t hold on as customers held back on spending � which has dropped about 20% from what was spent during the economic boom. (And, independent restaurants are not utilizing trade exchanges as much as they did 20 to 30 years ago in Southern California.)

Nationwide, the number of restaurants dropped in 2010 for the first time in more than a decade, falling 5,202 to 579,416 according to New York research firm NPD Group.

Gift Card Rules Updated � No Expiration For Five Years

The latest update on the Credit Card Act applies to retail gift cards for individual stores as well as cards with a MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover logo that can be used wherever those brands are accepted.

Balances now, beginning 8/22/10, cannot expire for at least five years from the date of purchase, or from the last date additional money was loaded onto the card. (If the physical card expires before then, you may get the balance transferred to a replacement card at no cost.)

When money is added to a card, both the new money and existing balance will be good for another five years. However, the new rules do not apply to reloadable prepaid gift cards and cards that are issued as a reward or through a promotion.

All back issues of "From the Desk...� can be accessed by clicking here.

(Please feel free to forward our newsletter to your friends and colleagues. We have a �box� at the end of the newsletter for your convenience. See you next week. . .)


Local Community Interaction Key To Future Prosperity

Thomas H. Greco Jr., author of Money & Debt, A Solution To The Global Crisis, stresses that the world has changed and local community interaction is the key to future prosperity in today�s unraveling economy. Greco, who has been a keynote speaker at IRTA�s annual convention, says we�re now in the early stages of �the great unraveling.� And the means to restoring resilience to our communities is taking action.

There�s a need to share, cooperate, and organize as never before � spend locally, save locally, and invest locally. Greco proposes we need to apply our dollar resources to projects that:

         Make the local community more self-reliant.

         Provide greater local security in food, energy, housing, water and other necessities of life.

         Improve the overall quality of life.

         Protect our savings against inflation of the dollar.

Greco also articulated that we must reduce our dependence upon banks and conventional money, by organizing private exchange systems that can be networked together to provide an interest-free and inflation-free means of payment while making credit reliably available to local productive enterprises.

Editor�s note: In book, Money & Debt, he pointed out that the compound growth of debt would eventually exceed the capacity of the real economy to bear it.

For more information see Greco�s blog http://beyondmoney.net and his web site www.reinventingmoney.com.


Is Your Company Filled With Hunters Or Campers?

It�s easy to like running a company when it�s profitable and growing. But it�s not a lot of fun when operating at a loss, or with insufficient profit. When you separate all the various pressures of being the owner of a larger company, you will find there are very few problems that can�t be solved through greater cash-flow.

And greater cash-flow comes from taking action on the following three key factors:

1.    Can the customer base be widened for additional sales?

2.    Can prices be increased?

3.    Can purchases or operating costs be cut?

One place to look is your trade exchange, where both points one and three are addressed: By working with your local exchange you will immediately increase your customer base, and bring in additional sales. And, when spending trade dollars for needed purchases, you�re acquiring them at your barter cost � which directly cuts your purchases to the bone!

Additional sales can be illustrated by looking back to the earliest days of civilization. Our ancestors learned it was easier to survive when they joined together in groups. In their camps there were two types of people. The hunters, who brought in the animals for food and clothing, and the campers, who used the animals caught by the hunters.

We know that this societal structure worked, and groups flourished. However, we also know that there was a tendency for the number of campers to grow out of proportion to the number of hunters. When this occurred it frequently became impossible for the hunters to bring in sufficient animals to feed the expanding number of campers � no matter how aggressively they pursued their prey.

Now the hunters were not fools. They had survived enormous dangers in the wild. They didn�t need consultants from another camp to tell them they either had to train more hunters, or force the least productive campers to leave the community. Which brings us to the point of the illustration � does your organization have the proper ratio of campers to hunters? Are there too many campers (salaries) for your existing hunters to support?

(No matter how small your business is, you must keep close track of direct and indirect labor costs, fixed and variable overhead, as well as general and administrative costs.)

Hunters looking for new business don�t jeopardize their lives these days. But they do get dumped on, ignored, and rejected � often forcing them to leave for greener pastures. To avoid that happenstance, and widen your customer base, you should consider the following questions.

What would happen if you eliminated two campers and replaced them with fierce hunters? How would your bottomline be affected? Where can you find more hunters?


Time To Invest In Yourself Or Your Business

Social Security Administration data show that taxes have soared over the program�s 73-year history. In fact, the program usually resorts to tax hikes to stay afloat.

The original tax rate was just 2% on a maximum taxable income of $3,000. Since then the payroll tax has been increased more than 30 times, the Cato Institute found. Today the tax rate is 12.4% on a maximum income of $106,800.


Did You Know That ... 

Eighty-three percent of Americans want to be more organized, says a survey of 600 by time-management firm Franklin Covey. At work, 62% lunch at their desks and 48% use some type of organizer.

Tuesday Report - August 24, 2010


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.


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The Growth and Use of Secondary Capital (New Money) Creates Unprecedented Wealth In Today�s New Age Of Possibility

There are many forms of secondary capital�which can be defined as any financial instrument that measures and communicates value in a common language. Would you like to see and learn more about the many forms of secondary capital?

 We have 70 free, informative and inspiring, articles for you in our �Secondary Capital Section.�

Check it out... www.barternews.com/secondary_capital.htm.


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