Barter
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Posted by Bonny Albo Jan 21, 2007 |
Day Thirteen: Barter
If this is your first time visiting the thirty-day Make Money without Spending a Dime Challenge - Welcome! If you want to start from the beginning, you'll find the first posting here, and a list of all of the challenges to date here. Questions, comments or ideas to add? Join the discussions for free.
Before there was money, there was barter. All known civilizations (except perhaps the Incas) used bartering as a method of exchange. The practise became somewhat obsolete, however, as currency came into play. No longer did you have to find a butcher who needed some metalworking in order to make an exchange!
Today, the same issues occur with bartering: if you are going to barter one-on-one with another small business, they'd better have something of value to you as well - and therein lies the rub.
I registered with several free online bartering companies to check out how things had changed over the years, but there were unfortunately few options. There is no eBay of bartering (although I must admit it's an excellent business idea), but there are numerous groups to get you started.
In barter's defence, I did receive more than thirty barter requests from people all over the world after posting my profile as an seo copywriter. The problem, however, was that none of the people who needed my services had anything of value to me (not to say what they had to offer wasn't of value!) I'm still wading through the responses though, so there may be a gem in the pile yet.
Also, bartering allows someone with no cash flow (i.e. a person taking this make money challenge) to generate leads almost instantly. Join a paid barterting system, and I'm sure the leads will quarduple - as well as become more palatable as many of these systems use a currency-like approach, where if you provide a product or service to someone, you receive credits, and in turn you can spend those credits on other products and services needed.
Free Bartering Services
Paid Bartering Services
- BNI USA, yearly membership fee ($250) + $10/month + 12.5% of all purchases.
- Bartercard International, prices vary per country.
- International Barter Alliance
- Barter Your Services, $18/3 months or $48/year.
Ready to Post Free Classified Ads for Day Fourteen?