LIVING OUTSIDE THE BOX: Business to Business - Bartering Business Survival in a Cashless Recession

Living Outside The Box with Joe Wallace

When the going gets tough and the banks slam the vaults shut, the innovative business owners among us look for ways to sell their goods and services to other business owners that do not necessarily involve the exchange of money. In the absence of available cash and credit more and more entrepreneurial business owners are resorting to the age old custom of bartering to get what they need for what they provide.

Barter is not a new idea. It has been around forever and actually predates currency. There is a good reason for that. The act of bartering or exchanging goods and services for goods and/or services is generally beneficial to both parties. Why go out of business when bartering can provide access to inventory, travel, services, and many other things that are required to operate a business. About the only thing that can’t be bartered for in some way are utilities, government services, big company offerings, and of course...taxes.

Will Work for Stock:

In my own business of providing practical business advice to all stages of SME’s (small and medium enterprises), the recession has provided me with a fantastic opportunity to trade my business planning and advice for equity stakes in promising businesses. These are businesses that need my services that do not have the cash resources to pay, yet are willing to grant stock, stock options, or future profits in their business in exchange for my services right now. I like to think of this segment of my practice as Equity Based Venture Capital.

During the course of the past year my portfolio includes equity positions in Smart Grid, Battery Electric Vehicles, Recycled Plastics, Internet Publishing, and College Textbook Rental businesses. What is the value of this portfolio? If one were to have a fire sale today on any of these holdings the value is probably near zero. Several of these entities have however gotten through the prototype stage, gained national attention and are poised to attract real outside capital investment. The long term gains from such efforts are sure to be worth way more that my hourly rate if they culminate in an IPO (initial public offering) or are acquired. Of course they may not succeed, in which case I get zero for my work, but I have made some good friends, kept my skills razor sharp, and created a potential for Silicon Valley type returns during the worst recession of my life.

Will Work for Stuff:

In addition to providing services for stock, I am aware and have at times been involved in barter transactions where trips, lodging, books, home improvements, automobiles, stained glass, furnishings, collectables, gold, landscaping, art, and even partial interests in income properties have been exchanged. Many years ago I repaired a porch in exchange for a non running BMW then turned around and sold the BMW for cash. If I would have been unwilling to do this, the porch would have not been repaired. I made a good friend in the process.

Will Work for Promissory Notes: Be the Bank When the Bank Won’t

Just because a bank will not make a loan to a business that desires to purchase goods and services from your business, it is not necessary to forego that opportunity. See the bank, be the bank. You may create a trade note with whatever payment terms that you and your customer are agreeable to. I have on three occasions financed automobiles that I wanted to sell for new college graduates that a bank would not make a loan too. These kids got transportation at a fair price and terms and I got an income stream and a much better price than a used car dealer or a trade would have offered me. These kids all paid their notes too. Promissory notes can be win-win scenarios and are easy to write and manage with a simple program that is available commercially.

In times when the economy is not supportive of available cash, SME’s are well advised to consider barter to keep the business churning along through these rough waters. After all is it just as effective to barter for what you need as it is to write a check for it. Open minded business people skilled in the arts of negotiation and barter will be surprised just how little cash is needed when you can get what you want without it. After all, what would you rather have for dinner tonight, a steak and a fine wine or a pile of dollar bills. Money is simply a medium of convenience. The things we really need are tangible.


For more information, please visit Joe's TNNWC Bio.

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LIVING OUTSIDE THE BOX: Business to Business - Bartering Business Survival in a Cashless Recession

DEALING WITH GIANTS: Selling to the BIG BOYS - Doing the Job, Managing your Reputation, and GETTING PAID

Dealing With Giants
with Claudine Halpern

WOW, you’re business has it’s biggest customer ever, whether your business is a service or product business, there are some really important things to address now.

If you have a product business, you are probably finding yourself in the unenviable position of needing stock that you don’t have. You either need to purchase the stock or manufacture it. If you are well financed then it’s no problem, you go and buy it or make it.

WAIT, how did you set up your contract with your big customer? Let’s talk about some ways to make sure that you can keep your head above water while you’re getting the goods together.

• I very often suggest that a customer give you a percentage of the money that’s owed on contract signing, usually half, that might not cover all you costs but it should get you along the way to fulfilling your deal.

• Or you can get half up front and deliver incrementally, so that you can satisfy your customer and keep your head above water.

I did logistics work for a publicly held major BIG BOY catalogue retailer, it was Mother’s Day and the BIG BOY ordered squeaky bears that were selling for $5 as a bonus with other purchases. In order to save money, the BIG BOY outsourced the bears to China in January, with every expectation that they would show up in plenty of time for Mother’s Day. Each bear cost $2.50, so the profit margin was there. The BIG BOY had orders for over 1 million bears. They were planning on starting sorting and delivery in late March.

A storm hit the South China Sea, and the ship, carrying the squeaky bears, was delayed by three months. Oooooops, 1 million customers were not going to be happy, and the BIG BOY needed to do something fast.

In March, the BIG BOY ordered 1 million squeaky bears, from a local manufacturer, for $5.00 each. So the bears cost $2.50 +$5.00 or $7.50 each, and sold for $5 each. That created a loss of $2.5 million for that quarter, not happy shareholders.

1million bears showed up in July, decorated for Mother’s Day. What to do with 1 million Mother’s Day bears in July? The BIG BOY hired a local firm to redecorate the bears for Thanksgiving at $3.50 each and sold them in the catalogue for, you got it, $5. Total Profit ZERO, Total Loss well you figure it out.

So if you are producing goods for one of the BIG BOYS, Be smart, be careful, price intelligently and have a contingency plan, to keep your reputation intact you need to deliver quality merchandise on time and in budget.

If you have a service business, you may have a little more flexibility in pricing. I always recommend incremental pricing based on milestones. What does that mean? That means that you get paid for getting to the milestone, not for finishing the job. Here’s how you create the incremental milestones plan:

· clearly establish and document the BIG BOYS goals

· break down the deliverable into obvious, smaller pieces

· clearly establish and document what tasks belong to you and what belong to the BIG BOY

· clearly establish and document what the BIG BOY must provide (information, support, office space, technology, coffee, raw materials etc,) and when

· clearly establish and document change control procedures, that means that there are no changes unless all agree and the scope and dates are renegotiated

· clearly establish what you will get paid when you hit each milestones

I had a small software client who got a multi million dollar contract with one of the BIG BOYS. We wrote the contract following the rules above. We always got paid on time, even though we did not always hit the milestones, we could always prove that we didn’t hit the milestone because of something the BIG BOY promised and didn’t deliver.

When working with the BIG BOYS, Be Smart, Be Effective, Be Thrifty, Have Contingency Plans, Be Realistic, Be True to Yourself and Your Company, good ideas for business and good ideas for life.

Next Time; Building on current BIG BOY business to get more BIG BOY business.

About Claudine Halpern

Claudine Halpern is a chameleon; she has worked in many different situations during her more than twenty-five years in business; as a management consultant, Claudine advised many of the major brokerage, insurance, and financial houses, completing more than fifteen major corporate initiatives during the past ten years. As a crisis manager for major corporations, Claudine successfully brought in projects and products that other firms would not touch. As a specialist in business and management consultancy, Claudine consults to emerging businesses across the spectrum.

EMAIL chalpern@theychgroup.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/claudinehalpern

For more information, please visit Claudine's TNNW Bio.

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DEALING WITH GIANTS: Selling to the BIG BOYS - Doing the Job, Managing your Reputation, and GETTING PAID

IT ALL STARTS WITH US!: "B2B: Pay Forward Will Pay Back"

It All Starts With Us! with John A. Lee

I’m a strong believer in “paying forward.” What this means is. . . I help others make a connection without worrying about how or if I benefit. Instead of getting rewarded, I’m betting others will help others when given the chance, thus paying forward. What I’ve found, regardless, is the benefits do come back in multiples and from unexpected sources.

Let’s say I know a colleague or a company that does exceptional work and has a great product or service to sell. As the Seller, she may not have the connections I have amassed over 20 years of sales leadership. She wants to leverage me as a resource to find more business. If I believe strongly in the person and the firm, I will go looking for someone who has a need for her services. I play the role of Matchmaker.

I look at my current connections to see who I know directly that might be a Buyer. More often, I network through my connections to my connections’ connections to see who they know in a certain industry. Then I introduce myself first as a reputable contact who is interested in their business before teeing up my colleague.

To illustrate this more clearly, let me give you an example. I discovered a creative agency in the Midwest while attending a Chief Marketing Officers Summit last year. Their work is sensational. They have several national accounts particularly in the Wines & Spirits space. They want to grow but find it difficult to catch the attention of potential clients in the industry’s epicenters – typically California and New York. Because I feel strongly about the individuals and their work, I offered to help network them. I researched the industry and started personally connecting myself to key brand marketing individuals at various vineyards, distilleries, and importers - companies I know would be impressed with the offering if they only they were exposed to it.

Using my credibility as a management and marketing consultant, I first established a relationship with many of them to create a credible platform on which to then recommend the Midwest creative firm. Your online listing on LinkedIn™, for example, establishes your authority by way of resume, connections, recommendations, and group memberships (more on that in a future column).

Now I have a company with a solution (Seller) and a company with a challenge (Buyer). I tell the prospective client that I have someone they need to meet. I ask for one conference call that gives the agency the opportunity to pitch their services directly to the prospect and I function as the mediator. My job as Matchmaker is to make sure the client is hearing what the agency is saying plus I ensure that the agency is being pertinent with their pitch. Then, I wait to see what happens. If it works, it works. As with any great promotion or strategic alliance, both sides need to benefit for it to be viable.

Some of you reading this may recognize me through the above example. I may have reached out to you asking for a call with my favored agency. Did you respond or ignore my request? (If you did the latter, shame on you! You should reconsider. Pay forward!).

Business is an endless series of networks that connect on different planes. In simplest form, there are Buyers and there are Sellers. Each needs the other and the roles even reverse. We all “sell” and we all “buy.” Matchmakers speed up the process. In the above example, a vineyard needs to sell its wine. But, the vineyard needs to buy certain services like creative marketing concepts to discriminate their product in a highly competitive and congested marketplace.

Successful businesspersons conduct themselves as both great Sellers and great Buyers.

Here are five key points each for the Matchmaker, Seller, and the Buyer to think about prior to that first conference call:

For the Matchmaker:

1. Don’t sell yourself cheap. You must believe in the Seller before approaching your networking equity.
2. Be generous with your help if you believe. Think of everyone who helped you along the way.
3. Be a statesman, beyond politics. Match the Seller and the Buyer for the mutual benefit of all concerned. Want both to win.
4. Let the Seller sell and the Buyer buy while on the call. Your role is important but minimal. The positive impact of you bringing the two together is immeasurable.
5. Keep it rolling. Most deals fail because of inadequate, unactionable follow-up.

For the Seller:

1. Research the Prospect and be sure what you have to offer is needed as well as relevant, unique, and provides the Client with value. Compete on value not on price.
2. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Understand the conference call is a mutual exploration about the viability of both parties to work together. Success is a great phone call and an actionable follow-up task. Cashing the check is a few steps ahead.
3. Listen more than talk. Understand their need.
4. Remember that your job is to make the buyers’ business better (stronger, faster) and make their job easier. Take away the pain.
5. Initiate a concrete next step with a specific date and a time to reconvene if you both feel a spark of interest. Don’t let the opportunity bubble away with “Let’s talk again in a couple of weeks.” Make it urgent because success can’t wait.

For the Buyer:

1. Open your mind and see your business through fresh eyes. Not everyone knows it as thoroughly as you do, and that’s a good thing.
2. Don’t look at a call from a stranger as an imposition or a nuisance. The next great idea can come from anyplace. If you’re too busy to take a call from someone who wants to help you, you’re in the weeds and focused on the wrong things.
3. Expand your network. Your business will grow more with help from people you don’t currently know than from those you know now. How funny to see LinkedIn™ subscribers networked almost exclusively to the people they work with every day.
4. If you find yourself intrigued with the call, find a way to work with the new resource. You don’t have to turn over all your business, no one expects that. Carve out a project that they can nail. You only stand to benefit from their homerun and greater things may be in store.
5. Contemplate the irony of buyer and seller. Remember what it feels like to be pitched when you pitch your customers.

There is one additional point to make for the Matchmaker. Good things tend to happen to you when you pay forward. Doing a good deed brings it’s own rewards.

There are three roles in this drama The National Networker reader may play – the Seller, the Buyer, or the Matchmaker. All are great parts. However you find yourself cast, you are part of a great ensemble whose base motivation should be to do great things with great people. Because in business, as in personal life, we rely on interaction with our networks to secure success, find peace of mind, and enjoy a sense of accomplishment.

Each role we play is vitally important to creating forward momentum because, as always, it all starts with us.

Continued success,

John A. Lee, MA MBA
Laguna Beach, California

For more information, please visit John's TNNW Bio.


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IT ALL STARTS WITH US!: "B2B: Pay Forward Will Pay Back"

MASTERING THE MEMBERSHIP MAZE: Why Did You Join the Chamber?

Mastering the Membership Maze with Glen Gould

Why did you join the chamber? Have you stopped to ask yourself this question?

Usually members join the chamber with no clear-cut plan. Our study shows that members join for one of three reasons: Respect, Recognition, or Return on Investment. Unfortunately, members rarely know which of these they are seeking. In their minds, members usually join because they "ought to". They ought to support the community. They ought to because it will grow their business. They ought to because everyone does. And while "I ought to" is a reason, it will rarely lead to a benefit for the member beyond the momentary good feeling one gets when doing something they "ought to".

But there is good news. If you are one of the hundreds of chamber members in the typical chamber who still isn't sure why he or she joined, you can begin today to get a huge benefit from your membership. And if you are one of the few who knows exactly why he or she joined, you can get greater benefits too. All you need to do is to tap into the collective knowledge base of the chamber membership.

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One of the more valuable benefits of being a member of your chamber of commerce is being able to interact with like-minded business people and to learn best practices and cutting edge ideas to build your business. Chances are there isn't a problem, challenge, or opportunity you face in your business today that hasn't been addressed by someone in the chamber before. All you need to do is to tap into the collective knowledge base and find the answer. It seems easy, and it is.

At chamber events you have access to the best and brightest minds in business. By connecting with others you can help them, help yourself, and help your community. All you have to do is become engaged. Just attending meetings and meeting people will expose you to many new ideas that will help your business. While this process works, there is a better way.

Many chambers have formal idea exchanges. Whether panel discussions, interviews with successful business leaders, CEO Roundtables, or Business-to-Business Connection programs, there is an avenue for you to meet people that you can help and that can help you. If your chamber doesn't have a forum that regularly puts members together to discuss ideas, I have great news for you!

You can be the solution to the problem by volunteering to lead a group.

If you are a regular reader of this column or my blog (www.glengould.net) you know that the biggest benefit you can receive is through service to others. Helping your chamber develop a CEO Roundtable or Business-to-Business exchange will deliver amazing results. Imagine a group of business leaders who meet monthly in a non-threatening atmosphere to discuss challenges and solutions to problems they face. Whether it's hiring employees, sales training, or work-life balance, you can create a program for business leaders to come together and solve problems. It is a powerful tool that every business owner needs.

Or you could develop a business-to-business program to facilitate the exchange of leads and referrals for salespeople of member companies. Start out meeting once a month in an open format and then create closed groups of non-competing industry people to meet more often and build tighter relationships.

Often the best way to solve your problem is to bring others together who share a similar challenge to solve it together. Try building CEO Roundtables and Business-to-Business groups at your chamber and watch your business grow!

Glen Gould

glen@inspirationagents.com

770-435-0781

www.InspirationAgents.com
Inspiring Positive Change

www.IsYourNetworkingWorking.com
Powerful Networking Tools

www.AtlantaCommunityBreakfast.com

Bringing business people together to discuss faith and values in the workplace

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MASTERING THE MEMBERSHIP MAZE: Why Did You Join the Chamber?

The Evolution of Business Networking, By Chris Pareja

Business networking needs to evolve in order to retain its usefulness to business-to-business (B2B) salespeople. The biggest challenge facing business developers is finding the right types of opportunities within the right types of companies. The second biggest challenge is having the appropriate resources at hand to deliver the product or service once the deal is closed. Luckily, business networks are adapting to accommodate both of these problems.

When people think about business networking, two images typically come to mind: Chamber mixers and traditional leads groups that cater to people who sell to small businesses and individuals; or “old boy’s clubs” known for closed-door meetings in smoky backrooms where “under the table” deals are made. Neither of these scenarios is very fruitful for the average entrepreneur, consultant or salesperson who is trying to sell to established businesses at senior decision making levels.

The other problem with these antiquated networking strategies is that they are dependent on a network being geographically-focused or controlled by a few powerful personalities within a specific industry. If a salesperson’s territory is regional or national in scope, networks focused on specific zip codes or cities that work well for insurance, financial services, real estate and other community-based leads are relatively useless. And if they represent a smaller company, they can forget about penetrating the “old boy’s club.”

Some innovative companies such as LinkedIn.com, Xing.com, MySpace.com and other online social networks are allowing geographically dispersed-colleagues and long-forgotten friends or acquaintances to exchange ideas, leads and help stay connected. Other networks try to add value through online message boards or interest-specific email distribution lists. While these valuable tools help connect people technologically, their adoption hasn’t been as rapid as some would expect, because people are hesitant to blindly trust technology as a replacement for face-to-face networking and relationships.

The solution is a hybrid approach that combines local face-to-face meetings with technology-enabled meetings that expand the reach of the individual so they can collaborate with other business developers interested in common geographies, industries and/or providing complementary products or services.

This new approach takes into account the fact that technology is an augmentation to interpersonal connections, not a replacement for them. It also allows people to form alliances nationally and internationally, so they can develop and deliver business on a scale that would have previously been nearly impossible.

A culture of collaboration is sweeping the business-to-business sales world. And new technology is coming into play to enable national and even international collaboration, so small and large companies alike can change the way they uncover, close and deliver new business opportunities. Business networking must continue to evolve in ways that enable this collaboration, and companies must understand networking is not a face-to-face or technology-enabled interaction alone, but requires both online and offline components working together to be truly effective.

By Chris Pareja

Founder of B2BpowerExchange.com

chris@b2bpowerexchange.com

925-200-5333

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The Evolution of Business Networking, By Chris Pareja