Is there life after
barter for barter addicts? Karen S. Hoffman, a former Executive
Director for IRTA, says yes, although it surprised her! This self
confessed barter addict was in the barter industry from 1981 to
2001.
She was employed by
a Barter Systems International franchise, then worked for Richard &
Bruce Harris at National Commercial Exchange before starting her own
exchange, Trade Resource International, in 1987. She became part of
ITEX in 1992, and was their St. Louis manager from 1995 to 1999
after selling the office back to ITEX.
After 20 years of
passionately living in the barter world, she has reinvented herself
by focusing on being a dream champion to entrepreneurs. �That was
what I loved about barter,� said Hoffman. �It was helping business
owners leverage their products and services so they could build both
the company and the personal life they wanted.�
Now Hoffman has been
dubbed �The IDEA Coach� and consults with companies on leveraging
their passions to expand, with a special focus on positiveness and
the activation of ideas. �The Gallup Organization rocked my business
opinions with their books, First Break All the Rules and
Now Discover Your Strengths, so I extensively use material like
theirs as well as work by psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman on
positivity.�
Besides coaching,
she has a partnership that created an online business called City of
Experts at
http://www.cityofexperts.com to help make business
connections for experts who want to speak, coach, facilitate or
consult. City of Experts is moving into two other markets beyond St.
Louis, and plans on covering at least 18 markets by 2009.
�Making business
connections is another passion,� confessed Hoffman, �and I learned
that being a connector is a great service to offer.� She noted that
Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point helped her see that
not everyone is a connector, and that it could be helpful to the
business community.
She is also the
small business blogger for the St. Louis Post Dispatch,
the daily metro area newspaper.
Hoffman shared that
not only was her time with IRTA very valuable in her life
experiences, but it created another area where she has been able to
have an impact...the world of non-profits.
"Before my time with
IRTA, I had never been interested in non-profits as I thought that
non-profits meant not-profitable,� Hoffman laughed. �However after
my tenure at IRTA, I saw that by focusing we had increased
membership by 40%, increased convention attendance by 28%, and
increased cash sponsorships by 580%. Being in a position of having
excess of money at the end of a year, taught me that running a
non-profit could be profitable.
�So, when a friend
wanted help in starting a professional women's organization in our
community, I volunteered to help and immediately started recruiting
cash sponsorships from banks and others in our city. We created a
low membership fee, but because of sponsorships we have made money
every year. By its second year we could afford a full time executive
director, which was not me!�
For the
organization�s first year anniversary with over 200 in attendance,
Hoffman brought in Catherine Ryan-Hyde, author of Pay It Forward
that was adapted into a movie. Hoffman also helped pull 4,800 6th
graders to an arena to hear Ryan-Hyde speak on how they could change
the world by �Paying it Forward.� Each year Hoffman helps work on
the anniversary speaker and, typically, they are authors of books.
The group, ESPW