How the Age-Old Practice of Bartering Can Help You Build and Grow Your Business

As every entrepreneur knows, it takes money to make money. However, it doesn’t always have to come in the form of cash or cash payments. I know what you’re thinking but wait a second and hear me out.

We’ll start with the basics. First, what does barter mean?

A simple Google search for the definition of barter yields this as the first result:

bar·ter

/ˈbärdər/

verb

gerund or present participle: bartering

exchange (goods or services) for other goods or services without using money.

“he often bartered a meal for drawings”

synonyms: trade, swap, trade off, exchange, give in exchange, change, traffic, sell

Now with that as the foundation, plus with the knowledge that before cowrie shells and gold and coins and fiat currency was created, goods and services were paid for by a bartering system. I’ll give you 17 bushels of the wheat I grow in my fields for 5lbs of your livestock meat.  That’s how the world worked.  Over time this has grown into our time and labor has been bartered for fiat currency in order to buy goods and services in which others have invested their time and labor. 

HOW DO I UTILIZE THIS TO BUILD AND EXPAND MY COMPANY?

I’m glad you asked that.  It is imperative that you know your worth. So first you must do some research to see how much others are charging for the comparable goods and services that you provide. Once you have that total, then you are able to barter using this amount as your basis to correlate to fiat currency.

Say you have a degree or expertise in marketing, but you are a horrible graphic designer.  If you need a graphic designer for your website or to further your outreach via social media through an incomparable graphics design, you can reach out to an entrepreneur who is a graphic designer and work out a deal to barter services.  For example; you will give them x amount of marketing expertise and help in exchange for them building a website (or doing your logo or making a flyer, etc., and so forth).  The key to bartering is making sure that you both are giving the correct amount of work for the correct amount of work you are receiving in return. 

WHY SHOULD I UTILIZE BARTERING AS A MEANS OF BUILDING AND EXPANDING MY COMPANY?

As an entrepreneur, we are often cash strapped and bartering makes it easier on us to get what we need done, while also giving us more experience and clientele to have as a reference.  You can create a coalition of like-minded entrepreneurs who will agree to barter their goods and services in order to help the rest of the coalition build and grow their companies. The more diverse the participants in the coalition, the better it is for all involved.  It is essentially group economics.  It can be practiced amongst a group of respected peers, friends, family members, classmates and more.  The possibilities are endless and there are also online communities dedicated to this as well (Blaq Gurl Moves will be featuring a forum just for this in the coming weeks).

Here at Blaq Gurl Moves, we have 13 women that are in various fields and have various experience and education that affords us the ability to build and grow this company without having to outsource and pay in fiat currency any outside of our company.  This has made our transition from a motley crew and a random idea after a great excursion into a full-blown LLC.  We practice group economics and we barter daily.  We assist one another with side entrepreneurial projects, class projects and more. 

Utilizing the barter system to further your entrepreneurial endeavors is not only economically sound, but also helps the cash strapped entrepreneur gain more clientele through the ever-pervasive word of mouth.  You treat the transactions as cash transactions in every way and you build a network of amazing professionals to reference and to utilize again in the future. It is a win-win situation for all involved.

Have you ever thought of bartering your goods or services to build or grow your business? Have you ever bartered goods and services to build or grow your business?  Leave us some feedback below and let us know your thoughts on the subject.