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Thread: Accepting trade as payment

  1. #1

    Default Accepting trade as payment

    Seems that in this economy, or maybe just coincidentally, I've been getting a lot more requests to do work on trade than usual.

    It basically burns down to us paying our cost in exchange for items we may use/want/need. I received a new motor for my car recently on trade. We've recently been approached by a local ski resort and are finding that while our desire to work with them is very large... We will be losing about 500-800 bucks when it's all said and done. However, we get to advertise on the back of some of the products they want and we get to ski for free this season.

    I wish I were a bigger company and had employees I could give tickets to as gifts or something. It just seems like we're too small to make this valuable.

    There's greater incentive too - I have some ideas I've been wanting to pitch to this exact resort for some time now. I think the best "shoe in the door" I could get would be starting out taking some print jobs for the mountain.

    We're probably not going to be able to take over their printing entirely, as they've been with their current people for a really long time and are happy with them, but I'm torn here... I would love to do it, but I don't know how/if we can afford it. It's somewhat of a gamble but it might really pay off.
    Last edited by Vivid Color Zack; 12-10-2008 at 03:38 PM.

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    While I'm not theoretically opposed to taking trade for pay, it's not something I'm likely to ever do. People have offered, but what they've offered is usually pretty worthless to me.

    Most of the offers I've received for trade weren't really fair. It's mostly been people offering me something I don't want or need in exchange for my work. I can usually tell what they're offering also doesn't cost them much of anything either. It feels very similar to someone wanting me to work without wanting to pay me so they offer something that doesn't put them out at all in exchange for my services.

    Now if someone offered me something I actually wanted and the cost was equivalent to what I'd be charging for services I'd have no problem with that exchange. But it hasn't happened in the past and I don't expect it to happen in the future.
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  3. #3

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    Hmm, so far it's been pretty common. A lot of times their offer is worthless but in the case of my motor it was very win win, I saved a ton on something I was expecting to pay 1400 for, and they got a bunch of flyers, business cards and brochures out of it.

    I don't even know what kind of advice I expect on this topic, I'm just kind of confused how to decide if it's going to be worth it or not. There is opportunity here for otehr types of printing and other work if things go right. I'm definitely tempted, and realistically I'll need to see if they would let me resell any of the tickets they would give me... I could make up some $ that way too, but I shouldn't get into this to become a ski lift ticket business... guess i'll have to kind of see what exactly we get offered before I decide one way or another.

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    On the surface, I don't see that as a great trade for you.

    Be careful about falling into the trap of accepting trades because it's "business" (which is easy to do - I once traded for tires on one of the crappy cars I used to drive... I didn't really need tires, and these 4 tires were worth more than the car - I just did it because heck, I needed the biz.) I learned - trading usually doesn't work unless both sides really benefit.

    Already you're looking to move the tickets, etc - that tells me you are doing this because heck, you don't have much else going on (etc).

    Look at it this way - if your plate was pretty full and you were doing well, would you accept this trade? If the answer is no, then I would not accept it now.

    Good luck!
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    Another thing to consider is if you start accepting trade for work word spreads. You could find most people contacting are only contacting you because they think they can get away without paying you.

    When I first started in business I priced myself below what I should have thinking it was still work and some revenue. But the people who recommended me sent me clients who were also expecting that low price. I worked a lot for little money. As soon as I started turning people away unless they were willing to pay my price I started to make the money I needed.

    Again I think there are times when a trade can make sense, but for the most part I'd have people pay for your services.
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    I don't think it hurts to accept "trade" as payment. In fact, if it is truly something you would benefit from, why not accept? But if it wasn't something you really needed, accept at your own risk. Your certainly not going to feel the "benefit" as much as if it was something you needed.

    With many businesses being cash-driven, "trade" isn't helping. And "trade" certainly isn't going to pay the bills. Unless your landlord, utility company, insurance company, bank, and credit card companies are all your clients. Then in that case, go ahead!
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  7. #7

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    I think accepting goods or services makes sense, but only if it is a fair trade. About 20 years ago, I had a client who published a weekly newspaper. A couple of well-known Chicago restaurants would only buy ads if they could pay in trade. That worked out pretty well for my client, because part of his selling efforts required that he occasionally take people to lunch. If he had received cash, he might not have eaten at the same restaurants every time but he still would have spent the money someplace.

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    There are times you can be creative with trade. Example: get the ski resort to give you some free ski passes and offer them as a prize for new customers. Run an AD campaign in the local paper "all new print customers in December are automatically entered in our Free Ski Giveaway".

    Could be a roundabout way of getting extra customers in a slumping market.

    View it as a marketing expense.
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    I agree with seolman, use the free passes as part of your marketing.

    I believe that a lot of business do this, do some trade and realize i don't need this so they give it away as a prize, or if they have a few of something they may give it to their top customers as an incentive that they are thinking of them.

    Maybe another option would be to push the resort to give a 2 night package, that you can give away in a promotion to customers and get them to go half in the newspaper ad or something for the promotion. That makes it win win, both of you are getting promoted, and you are able to give away a prize that is worth more then you would probably want to spend if you were doing this on your own.

    One way to look at the trade situation is, to weigh up the cost factor, for example you have to pay for the supplies to do the printing, so you need to look at what you are getting from the financial point of would i be spending this money anyway and by getting this as a trade am i offsetting enough of my expenses to make it worth my while. If you are not, then you are losing money and unless you see an initial trade deal like this leading to much more paid work in the future, you may consider not accepting.
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    I think the key is to trade for something you would honestly buy on your own and also to make sure the trade is equitable for both sides. Unfortunately most of the time trade has been offered to me, neither of the above conditions were met.

    That's why I'm not opposed to accepting trade in theory. I can see how it could work out. So far though, in practicality it's never worked out for me.

    At the same time were a big name blogger to approach me to redesign his or her site and for payment they would simply mention me as the designer a few times that would be trade in a sense and one I would likely jump at, since the mention would probably lead to much more work of the paying kind.
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