Here’s the basic concept: You work with business owners. Business owners, by nature, are busy. Busy people forget all about holidays, even holidays that celebrate their wives, their children, or their parents and extended family. They forget that Halloween is around the corner, and probably only remember Christmas because they are in retail and it makes a huge difference to their bottom line.

Most barter exchanges limit their holiday offerings and promotions to a couple of basic holidays: Christmas and Valentine’s Day (maybe). A resourceful barter exchange owner will take the time to promote all interesting holidays. Some that I would recommend putting packages together for include Spring Break, St Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the 4th of July, Memorial Day (think vacation or stay-cation ideas), Halloween, Thanksgiving, and obviously Christmas.

Most business owners check either email, text messages, voice mail messages, or one of their social networking accounts on a daily basis.

A simple email or text listing a dozen or so options for your client to purchase for an upcoming holiday can do a multitude of things for your business. Your member feels like they are getting their money’s worth, that you are doing a good job, and most likely you’ll experience an increase in volume and make more money. Why? Because you did what they don’t have time or the desire to do: figure out what to do for the holiday.

For example, for mother’s day you could promote the traditional items like flowers, spa certificates, massage, and jewelry. An enterprising barter exchange owner would go farther. After a little time thinking, you could create a secondary list, a list of things that mother’s would want but maybe not think about like a family portrait session that could be given as a gift certificate. Maybe the mother in your client’s life would want to get some remodeling done and you happen to have a new painting company. Perhaps you have a new bed and breakfast that could be promoted, or a cabin rental, so that your client’s mother could have a night off.

By reaching deep in to the list of clients you have and promoting even the most vague of holiday-related things for the upcoming holiday, you show your clients how resourceful you are, how much you are thinking about them, and how good your service is.

This is paramount in the barter industry. How much service you render to clients will be THE indicator of your income. If you are showing great service, you’ll make good money. Service in the barter industry means opening new doors to new ideas and promoting your clients internally and externally. It means making clients aware of things they have never thought about, and providing them with new and exciting ways to spend their barter. Holidays are a great time to communicate those ideas.

Part of the training I provide for barter exchanges includes learning to think this way. Thinking around the box for barter exchange owners is one of the best ways to create new opportunities. If you are interested in learning more about how our training can help you maximize your exposure and volume, please contact us at 801-618-4901.

In the mean time, get out your calendar, look at the upcoming holidays, and jot down some notes about what you can and will package and promote.

I’ve been coaching a number of individuals for the last six months, and I keep tabs on the barter industry through the BarterNewsWeekly.com website, which I own and manage, and two related themes have floated to the surface of the industry chatter and experience. Both are subsets of one major idea: the barter industry isn’t great at making suggestions.

First, from the prospect of technology, most internet barter websites to a TERRIBLE job of suggesting things for you to try to barter for. I’ve done half a dozen video reviews of internet barter websites in the last four days. ONE of them actually had the cahones to suggest that I might want something. They all do a decent job of getting me to sign up, providing a place for me to place an ad for the things I want to trade away, but then are sorely lacking in the area of suggesting or even letting me search for things I want to get. Come on! Make a global search work! There’s got to be a programmer out there that understands that actually posting something you want to trade is only the first step, and arguably the easiest step, of a barter transaction?! I’m very frustrated by the lack of attention given to the suggestion part of the equation.

The only site to provide me with any suggestions as to what I might want is neighborgoods.net, who showed me a list of things in my geographic area that are available to borrow. It’s not even a true barter site, but it is miles ahead of the barter-internet sites in this one area. Miles ahead…

That brings me to my second point. A lot of people in the traditional barter exchange world think that a broker’s job is to ask one question, and then provide the answers. The question they ask is, “What can I get for you?” It’s a good question to ask. It’s a good starting point. It also makes for a really low performing exchange.

Asking what I can get for you is only the first step. It’s the job of any exchange owner to fill in the blanks for their clients, and I mean filling in the blanks that their clients don’t even know exist.

There’s something I have been saying for years, but apparently I need to say it louder>>>BARTER FEELS FREE <<< It’s not free, but it feels free. Barter costs you time and money, but it feels free. That’s why a good barter broker will take time to make suggestions to their clients, over and over and over again. Clients are more willing to try new things on barter, because it feels free. Even if the client never asked for those suggestions.

I remember one of the first experiences I had with barter. I was working for a business development company who owned a barter exchange that I later managed for them. They had set up a Friday relax/steam blow off afternoon and had invited three or four massage therapists to show up and give the staff a massage. I had never had a professional massage before, but that day I received, free of charge but on the bill of my employer, a massage. Our company didn’t pay cash for that, but got it all done on trade. And since that day I have been hooked. In fact, it’s been almost three weeks now and I should go get one…but I digress.

It is the duty and responsibility of a good broker to provide ideas and suggestions to clients daily. With technology being what it is and the ability to communicate with members in so many different ways with so little effort, there is no excuse for a barter exchange not to be, at very least, emailing its members.

The two things the industry needs to learn? How to make suggestions via software and via direct contact. It’s time for the barter world to step up its communication. Get to it guys! And if you are stuck and don’t know how to make technology work for your exchange, give me a call and I will help you update and create your suggestion systems.