I don’t know if I passed this tip your way before… but it came up in conversation with a client.

Her obstacle right now is not having the finances to afford the web design work, basic salescopy and graphic work she needs to move ahead with her site.

BUT… she has other resources, contacts (for referrals) and skill sets.

I reminded her of the world of “barter” … which, actually, is still pretty big and there are entire barter networks where money doesn’t even change hands.

You can Google around for “barter network [YOUR CITY]” and “barter company [YOUR CITY]” for local results.

… I have a book called “I Want That! How We All Became Shoppers”.

It’s an interesting read and shows the history and evolution of consumerism… how we evolved from various barter type social norms to monetary type transactions to now being the well trained consumers that we are today.

But it’s an important reminder that old civilizations developed out of mostly barters, not “dollar bills” being traded.

I bring this up especially now, with the pending Christmas season.

It’s definitely a cash-crunch season to say the least!

Now, I doubt you’d be able to get your little Johnny a Xbox 360 by going to Wal-Mart and offering your services or some other barter to the manager there …

But …

With the right barter offers you can definitely land free product and resources that you’d otherwise have to pay for or even land deals to help you make money.

In terms of what and where you can barter FOR … that list is almost infinite.

The real question is what can you barter WITH.

Meaning, what do you have to offer.

What do YOU bring to the table?

For now, let’s just call it X. Whether that’s a resource, asset, contacts, skills. I’ll address this in a second but for now, call it X.

Consider these deals:

- Is there an ebook or course that you’d like but it’s $49, $97, $177 and you’d rather not pay? Contact the merchant and offer X.

- Do you need a piece of software (script) for one of your projects to move ahead? Don’t want to spend your limited funds on it? Contact the publisher and offer X.

- Want someone’s attention to have them really consider a joint venture proposal? Sweeten the deal by offering X for them to just even look at it.

- Need a web designer? Overall techie? Basic salescopy? Graphic work from a professional? Trade them X.

You get the idea…

As long as you’re dealing with the entrepreneur/owner, a solid trade for a valuable X will always get their attention.

Okay, so what can “X” be? What could YOU trade?

- Swap skills (ie: maybe you know how to write so you could ghostwrite articles in trade for tech/graphic work)

- Contacts. Can you send them referrals from your contacts?

- Develop content (write articles, blog posts, ghost-author a short report)

- Offer to conduct Market research or Data entry for them (anyone can do this!)

- Setup a facebook account, facebook fan page, twitter profile, squidoo lens etc for them. A lot of people don’t have the patience for this but KNOW they should have a presence in social media. Help them out.

- Create an instructional video for one of their products… possibly to demonstrate the features of how to use a software or to demonstrate the contents of their membership site.

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Not every deal has to come down to the dollar.
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For example…

I had a graphic artist create a graphic for me back in the early days in trade for exposure. I’ve sent thousands of dollars worth of client work her way. Her cost was roughly 3 hours to work on a design for me.

Currenty, a video production and media company that was started by a friend of mine is developing a video for an upcoming project of mine. Free of charge. The trade? If I like it, I refer clients to them. I needed a quality video (and I’m sure this will be top notch), they want to build their portfolio and client base.

I had 2 seminar attendees at my Canada Marketing Summit 2009 trade their time as “volunteers” in exchange for access to the event. I already had the room and seats paid for so the extra entrance ticket didn’t much matter to me, but I certainly could (and was able to) use their time and efforts.

And back when I was getting started out, I invited top professionals out for lunch just so I could ask them “how to get started” questions. I did a weak job on this as I invited professionals from all sorts of sectors (instead of focusing on where my interest was). But I bought plenty of lunches and at each one I gained more insights than if I had paid for an hour or 2 of high priced consulting with them.

I’ve even offered to create a full info product to one particular marketer with 120k on her list … in trade for my name exposure in the product and to her list. She’d keep the product, sell it and brand it as she’d like… but I’d gain name recognition. THAT offer never ended up happening but she liked the initiative so much that we’ve become virtual-friends and she has been a lead affiliate in 2 of my previous promotions.

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THREESOMES! – Err.. 3-way barters!
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I’m tossing this in here just to really get the creative juices flowing…

Realize that you don’t have to have what your target merchant needs to be able to barter. You can strike up a 3-way barter:

1) Gym club needs better marketing
2) You want a paid for year membership
3) Your marketer friend wants new clients

You have a network of small business owners.

You refer them to your marketer friend.

Because you gave him several new clients, he agrees to take care of the client acquisition strategy for a gym that you want a free membership at for free.

Gym is very happy with their new marketing plan and is converting a higher number of new customers.

As a thank you, they award you a paid membership.

Got it?

So think of creating threesomes… errr… 3-ways or other creative JVs.

The end lesson is: do NOT assume that “cash” is the only way to your end goal.

This is all just something to think about…

Get creative.

I’m sure you’ll find a LOT more ways that you can bring VALUE into a transaction other than the dollars in your account.

P.S. If you have even more barter ideas, leave them as a comment Below.

P.P.S. IN FACT! If you have skills/services that you’d like to barter, then write a “Need” and “Have” list as a comment to this post. It’s a little informal (as this idea just hit me). But if there’s enough interest, I’ll create a more long term solution.