First Phase Of Upgrades Complete.

Hello All,

In the last week, we have been working hard to complete the first phase of upgrades to the Smart Bareter website. The site now has enhanced profile and and classified sections. These enhancements will allow members to network and barter better. Members now can post listings from their profile page and add additional contact information. For more informations about the enhancements, visit or join http://www.smartbareter.com today!

Save Money & Save Your Business

There is a lot of talk about how much the recession is turning. I would agree with that, however I would suggest small business owner, entrepreneurs, and start-ups evaluate their businesses during this time and put a nest egg aside. I'm sure most have done so my now. During this evaluation process or rebooting the business, it is key to find what you need to stay a float.

You can seek out barter networks or use current relationships to bridge the gaps for your business. With this, you can build a trusted network to gain services, products and items to grow your business. Bartering and networking go hand and hand. The Better Business Bureau has a great article on this topic.

Let's go back to the olde way of doing business!

Why Pay to Barter?

Bartering has exploded since the recession. This was always an excellent business practice for start-ups and retail chains in need of unloading inventory. There a numerous third party barter sites that charge an annual fee to its members. With their services, you can earn points or barter dollars to count towards a trade for a service or product needed. This is all well and good, it also takes the hassle out of looking for someone to barter with. If the service or product received was excellent you make want to contact the individual and thank or refer them to a peer. Sometimes you so have to wonder, how much more can I save as a business if I didn't have to pay someone else to do all the work.

Smart Bareter is a free bartering website for small business owners and entrepernurs. Smart Bareter does offer membership services to increase it's value to members, but does not charge members to barter. Like any site we do have to have a monetary model to maintain the site, though we hope in the future to barter all site services.

I think of bartering as another form of networking. To barter with someone you have to build a relationship with them. This allows you the trader to get to know the tradee's service or product. You can use a barter agreement to feel better about the exchange taking place with the involved parties. With this knowledge, you are willing to trade with them more, possible refer them to friends and family.

With the popularity of social networking sites and social media, we have lost touch with the "personal touch". One aspect of one-on-one bartering is as a culture we can get back in touch with our peers to develop new relationships and create new vendors for services and products. I ask again why pay to barter, when there is plenty of people willing to trade products, services and ideas for free. Yes it may take a little work, but well worth it to increase cash flow and have extra money to invest in other ventures.

Happy Bartering!

How often should you barter?

This is a question I've seen a lot of in recent weeks. No really knows how often or how much you should barter. In my opinion you should do it as often as possible.

The reason why I say you should bareter as often as possible is because you never know when a good deal is coming. You build creditability within the network in which you bareter and the possibility to expand the network. You invite others to trade items or services with you. I guess you can say it the law of attraction, law of the universe or whatever you want to call it. For the abundance of benefits of baretering, see previous post.

There are a lot of people in the world that have services, items and ideas they are willing to trade for. Remember bartering is the equivalent to money. What ever you are bartering or bartering for make sure it's of value to the trade.

Happy Bartering!

Multiple Trades

The concept of baretering is not just limited to two parties. Bartering can happen with multiple parties. For example if one person has or is able to acquire an item or service of value that another desires, acting like a middle man to acquire this item or service for trade of equal value. This is when building relationships comes into play.

Networking is the most important element of bartering, this is something can't be stressed enough. Everyone has something of value. This can range from common items such as CDs, DVDs, video games, cell phones, clothes, and household items to professional and medical services. Anything can be bartered.

This concept of multiple trades is made up of a network of bareters. The trust is built on the level of service offered as well as integrity of the item and service traded. Remember just because an item or service is out of reach, doesn’t mean someone else can't acquire the item or service for you.

Build a strong network and barter!

Essential Items and Services to Bareter For

Today I came across an interesting blog about items you should bareter for before buying them. It was a list of 10 items and is as follows:

1. Information Products
2. Advertising Space
3. Web Hosting
4. Software
5. Writing/Editing
6. Accounting/Bookeeping
7. Consulting
8. Copy writing
9. Merchant Accounts
10. Internet Access

You can get more information from the blog.

The items listed above are essential items or services to run a business. If you are a start up and don't have the capital to pay for these services, baretering is is the best way to go. There are several business or bartering social networking sites to gain the services mentioned above for other services. The best way to ensure an equal trade is to do a little research on the service or item up for trade and add price value to it. As long as both parties agree on the value and terms of trade, you can barter for anything.

Happy Trading!

The World is Ready to Barter!

This is so amazing, I recently joined a small business online community and raised the question about bartering. I got a nice response from people saying that they are interested in bartering, but not enough reliable resources are available to bareter. My assumption is if you barter for a service or product, you are not taken seriously, but the economy is changing people's reaction to a great service.

There are small pockets of entrepreneurs who bareter to build relationships, a solid reputation and receive the goods or services for a mutual exchange. For example, here is an excerpt from an article I saw today on Entrepreneur.com. "As the cash economy cools, the cashless economy is heating up. These days, more entrepreneurs are experimenting with barter."

We all know the basic principal of trading of goods or services. So I say let's get out there and bareter!

A Noble Deed....

I read about more and more people trading on a daily basis. People are recognizing the value of baretering everyday. I read blogs and articles abut people trading all kind of services, everything from gas to massages. Yes people found a way to barter for gas. The details of the trade wasn't disclosed.

There was one article I found interesting. The article was about a dentist and his staff bartered there dental services for items such as watches, baseball cards, cupcakes and cookies, artwork, a journal entry, a bike, and even a dog. The dentist and staff saw 60 patients in this day, double of how many normally seen. The service was extended to those without insurance.

Since the recession, there has been a rise in unemployment and the cost of living in the US. Also the local free clinics has seen a rise in patients and fortunately in volunteers as well. But to people like this dentist and sites like craigslist, people have been able to receive medical treatment and downsize their lives. Since 2006 the postings for bartering on craigslist have tripled.

This is a true sign that times and people are changing and acknowledging their own self worth. We can add so much to this world by giving freely of self. Helping others is helping your self.

Bartering Sites

An article posted at entrepreneur.com poses the question to entrepreneurs "are barter sites right for you?" To answer this question I say yes, please refer to my previous post.

Anyone can use a baretering site to grow and develop their business, whether it's finding items or trading services. There are ton of sites, I could go down the list and name them all, but it will take all day. I will say there is a bartering site for everyone, just be sure to do your research or each site to make sure it's for you.

Is Bartering Catching On?

This is a great question to ask. Once again came across another interesting article. Seems that craigslist.com is an internet portal to bartering. You can practically trade any item or service you want as long as both parties are satisfied with the outcome.

This article is filled with people trading services or items. This goes back to one of my earlier post "A Life of Baretering."

To answer the question "Is Bartering Catching On?" I would have to say yes. And we have the economy to thank for that. There are still some people out there that prefers the almighty dollar, or should I say the weakened dollar. No matter the preference, money or trading services as long as end result is what is desired.

However, I will add to save money and finding quality people to trade with is well worth it.

A Life of Baretering

Here is a interesting story I ran across today about a woman named Catherine Chipman who made a life of baretering. http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/apr/18/lets-make-a-deal/

I've always believed in barter with other business owner and rising entrepreneurs. This give us other opportunities to grow a great idea and develop a working, trustworthy and on-going relationships and create possible partnerships. Bareter itself is great advertising, the most basic actually, word of mouth.

There are many blogs, niche or micro social networking, and classifieds sites like craigslist.com. Strangers exchange, barter or giveaway items all the time. In a time of a recession it's no wonder why baretering has not caught sooner. There are a plenty of people from graphic designers to real estate agents to massage therapist baretering.

This old time tradition is a testament of time itself and how sound the economy of today's society or world truly is. Bartering is more about giving freely of yourself, gifts, talents, hand me downs, time and a passion. Money isn't everything, though it helps to have, but having something of value someone else wants is worth a lot more.

Like the old saying goes "Another person trash is another person treasure."

What is Bartering?

This is one question I've always asked myself. What is bartering? Is it simple or complex or both? In my not so professional opinion, it's both depending on the parties involved. If I'm to develop a business around this concept then I have know what does it mean and where it comes from.

Bartering, baretering (Anglo-French) or barater (Old-French) was an exchange of goods between two parties; this started in the 15^th century, well as far back as history can prove, but maybe I’m wrong. This was meant to be an active exchange, to do or conduct business transactions. Bartering was a system was used to measure the economic wealth of a community or country when the monetary system failed. Eventually money became the new way to barter to build a sound economic structure, but we all know how true that is today.

One problem with bartering is that it was only beneficial to the parties involved when they each had something of value the other wanted; hence the reason why money became mighty. Everyone wanted to have money to show their value in the community, then it lead to greed, selfishness, power, etc., etc.

To downplay the true worth of bartering, over the centuries it was devalued. Eventually bartering became well know as swapping, exchanging goods or services or simply trading.
People across the world barter every day, unconsciously. A few examples of that maybe when you ask someone to do you a simple favor or task, borrow money and many other daily task. When you exchange a service or good for something in return, it’s bartering.

There is great power in bartering and should be used more often. I think it provides an equal playing field so-to-speak. I think of bartering as an honor system, i.e. you have want I need or want and vice versa, let's do business. Bartering is an art form, like bargaining, i.e. I'll trade you this if you give me a more of those. Bartering is not seeing the short term effects or results, but the bigger picture and developing a relationship with a new business partner. This is a valuable skill to have as an entrepreneur or business owner, especially if you are just starting out.

Now that I or we have a better understanding of what bartering is, let's use it wisely to create a better world to live in!

Going Back to The Old Way of Doing Business

I would first like to thank you all for visiting this blog and taking the time to read it.

I've finally succumb to the ever popular blogging. I never really understood what to say or share. Now that I am on the verge of launching a social networking site for small business owners and entrepreneurs, I have plenty to say. I have two great partners, who I’m proud to call friends. There is a bond of synergistic energy between us.

The purpose of the site is to help small business owners and entrepreneurs grow their business by the exchange or trading of services, posting jobs wanted and even enlisting the help of interns. This site was built by serial entrepreneurs for other self starters.

Most enterprisers in the beginning often have to trade business services to build a clientele list, promote services and even advertise. Being a entrepreneur myself, I've done all the above successfully. I understand the difficulty of accomplishing such small task when you are one person or even in a partnership. The rewards are great, but at what sacrifice, lack of sleep, increased stressed, uncompromising relationships, and a host of other event or elements to wear on the mind, body and energy. This was one of the sole reasons for creating Smart Bareter, set to launch in Spring of '08.

Smart Bareter is gong back to the old way of doing business, hence the Anglo French spelling of bareter. The mission or this site is to ease the daily burden of creating and establishing a business by building relationships across the world. Each entrepreneur has global aspirations and we are just making it easier for that dream of working from home and having your own business.

About 90% of the United States businesses is made up of small businesses.We have the power and reach to truly be the new voice of this nation to change, been seen and heard. No matter what it is you do or plan on doing, it will be accomplished. We are united through one common goal and purpose, with individual thoughts and ideas.

Help, learn and grow!