Your Trade Exchange (Bartercard) Membership is an Important. Appreciating Business Asset1

Bartering success requires having some common-sense and using your ability to look at a situation from a slightly different perspective. Now let’s look at WHY you should not only be actively trading, but spending more time on your bartering strategy and efforts. It all begins by ascertaining the true value of your Bartercard membership. A heightened awareness will be stimulating! Today, as all markets become more saturated with goods and services, new customer acquisition, especially in the cash marketplace,becomes increasingly

difficult. That’s why the new mantra in marketing and sales is lifetime value.

What Is The Lifetime Value Of Your Trade Exchange Membership?

First, let’s define this value. Lifetime value is a function of frequency of sales (annual) multiplied by the gross margin (your barter cost) multiplied by the years of duration (your active participation in the exchange).

In other words, if, as a member of Bartercard you’re making ten barter sales a month and your gross margin is $50 per sale ($500/month or $6,000/year) and you’re a member of Bartercard for twenty years, the value of your Bartercard membership is $120,000.

Imposing as this aggregate figure is, it’s just the “tip of the iceberg,” because these satisfied customers you’re successfully and happily serving will become a conduit for more business through word-of-mouth advertising. Bringing you additional Bartercard and cash customers!

If only one brings you another happy colleague the value of your Bartercard membership increases to $132,000.* (Actually the value of the membership will be even more because we’re not considering any continual referrals by the happy colleagues.)

Bottomline: The value of your Bartercard membership is really what you choose to make it.

But given the enormous advantages of doing business in this manner, and looking at it in this new context, you’ve probably realized that your Bartercard membership could well be one of your company’s most valuable assets. “Because it’s an appreciating asset.”

* Your figures may be considerably higher if you do more than $6,000 a year in gross margin barter sales, or trade for more years than in our example, and/or get more referrals than suggested.

Vietnam Government Understands Value of Barter

An international group of developers is proposing a $4 billion resort and casino in Vietnam. The first phase will feature 10 restaurants, a Greg Norman designed golf course, an 8-acre swimming pool, 1,200 hotel rooms and an 80,000 square foot Las-Vegas-style table games casino. The project has been in the works for three years. Developers say they have a 50-year lease from the government on the 3.5 kilometer long beach front site.Vietnam is now on the map with its improved international stature since its admission as a member of the World Trade Organization in January.

While the Vietnam government will generate money through the land lease, and a cut of the gambling revenues, the big payoff will come about through their bartering the use of the land. Decades from now these valuable assets (built by Asian Coast Development Ltd. of Toronto and Fontainebleau Resorts) will be turned over to the Government with the expiration of the lease.