When there is no cash for medical bills, introduce barter

Getting sick is expensive and not everyone has the best health insurance, or even any insurance at all. There are a lot of parties who want to see that those bills get paid: the patient—unpaid bills equals added stress; the hospital or doctor—they need to receive payment for the care they give; the rest of us—unpaid bills often results in more expensive insurance policies.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, an average visit to an emergency room costs $383. And according to the American Medical Association the average physician's office visit costs $60 But what if the patient finds them self in need of an emergency room visit or doctors visit but they don't have the financial means to pay for the services they receive with cash or through insurance? One solution would be to introduce organized bartering through a barter exchange. Often, its' not that the patient does not WANT to pay-- it's that they CAN'T. If they own a business or have a trained skill or any available resources or inventory, an option would be for their bill to be paid through an alternative currency: barter dollars through an organized barter exchange.

A professional barter exchange is a membership organization of business owners that trade their professional services, available resources or inventory and receive trade dollars (intangible but the same value as a cash dollar) which they can in turn use to acquire needed goods and services without spending cash.

As the patient provides their professional skill to any of the business members within the barter network, they earn trade dollars at their full cash retail rate and in turn can pay these trade dollars into a barter account that the doctor's office or hospital opens. If the patient builds websites, owns a restaurant where other members can dine, sells jewelry, or perhaps they own a condo on the beach that they can rent out on barter when it is not rented for cash, or have excess and aging inventory for a business they own, the patient would trade their services or resources to any member of the barter network and use the earned barter currency to pay off their medical expenses at their OWN wholesale cost of doing business. Say the healthcare bill is $1000 cash. If they own a restaurant and the cash cost to earn $1000 trade dollars is only $300 cash, this gives them not only the opportunity to work off their debt and fulfill their responsibility, but doing so at THEIR own cost of doing business(the $1000 trade dollars paid out only actually cost them $300 cash to earn)

The hospital or doctor's office can now spend the earned $1,000 trade dollars to acquire (office equipment and repair, printing, graphic art and web design/maintenance and SEO, advertising, administrative assistance, food items, batteries, linens and towels, janitorial work, handyman work, art work, furniture, gifts and jewelry for the lobby gift shop, employee perks and incentives etc )

This is a great example of taking a nationwide healthcare problem and finding a solution. Barter can be introduced after they cannot successfully receive cash payment due. The paitent as well as the hospital or doctors office, can set up a barter account through a local barter company, and the patient works it off or trades it off as they can. Gradually, that bill is going to be trimmed. In the case where the services were extensive and expensive, maybe it takes a few years. Maybe the bill is never paid in full, but it’s better than the other option— nothing at all.

Join Us for Two Exciting Events in Gwinnett This Week

We have two exciting events coming up this week and we hope you’ll join us!

The first is the Southern Barter Club Monthly Networking Meeting, which will be held on Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at Cafetal Latin Grill, 1605 Buford Highway, Buford, GA. If you want to learn more about how barter can increase your revenue as a small business owner, this is the event to be at. You’ll not only learn about how barter works, but you’ll also get to hear from other local business owners who will share how they utilize barter to increase their revenue. Of course, if you’re already an SBC member, you know how great these events are for getting to know other business owners and finding out what you can get on trade!

The second is the official grand opening of The Trading Post. Swing by on Saturday, April 24, 2010, 10am-5pm. We’re at The Cornerstone Village retail shopping center, 2300 Liam Avenue #205, Dacula, GA. Bring the whole family and invite your friends! We'll have a live band, inflatable bounce houses, face painting for the kids, food sampling and more. If you’re a member of our club, you can use your barter dollars to purchase merchandise. New inventory that arrived this week includes silk pjs, credit repair CDs, silver jewelry, wallets, handbags and more. We’ve had great feedback on our store so far. Not only have our members been extraordinarily happy about shopping with barter dollars and only having to walk out with paying for tax only in cash, but we’ve received some excellent coverage from 11Alive and the Gwinnett Daily Post too!

The Trading Post - A Cashless Store

We're always trying to up the ante on the services that we provide to our Southern Barter Club members. So...we'd like to announce the official opening of The Trading Post, our new brick and mortar store at The Cornerstone Village Retail Shopping Center at 2300 Liam Avenue #205, Dacula GA. The store will open at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, March 22nd, 2010.

What's in store? We have a wide array of items including jewelry and accessories, home decor items, furniture, gifts, gourmet food items, clothing, toys, gift certificates and more. We even have some beautiful Sharper Image golf bags available! The Trading Post also houses a Southern Barter Club membership desk and training center, so you can come in for barter club orientation or get trained on our barter software. We also offer copying services as well as printer and ink cartridges for sale.

This is a "cashless store", meaning that if you're a Southern Barter Club member, other than the 6% sales tax that must be paid in cash, all purchases can be made with your barter dollars. If you're not currently a member, you can purchase items with cash, just like you would at any other retail store. Of course, ultimately, if you're a small business owner, we recommend you join our club so that you can aquire what you want without cash by trading your goods and services. Our goal is to help you save your cash. Why pay cash for gifts and home decor items when you can conserve your cash for other essentials? If you're unsure as to what barter entails, go here. Come by and say hi to us at the Trading Post on March 22nd!

Would Barter Work for My MLM Company?

MLM (Multi-Level marketing also known as network marketing) type companies (think Amway, Tupperware, Avon, Shaklee, etc.) often do not work for barter members as a sole source of trade because of their high cash cost. A question that often comes up is: Is bartering worth my while when I have to make a cash outlay and then only receive 35% income on the products that I resell? Is bartering worth it on such a small profit margin?

While we can tell you that barter is a good way to move excess inventory, samples and end of season items, the answer may very well depend on what you plan to do with the income that you're making on trade and introduces a concept called "Reverse Trading." What is Reverse Trading? Let's illustrate... Mary, who is an independent distributor for a cosmetics company needs to get some dental work done. She knows that the dental work will cost her $1,000. She's strapped for cash, so would prefer not to pay $1,000 out of pocket.Here's what Mary does. She orders $650 worth of wholesale cosmetics from her company and sells it retail for $1,000 on trade. SBC then charges her 6% when she sells the cosmetics to the trade member ($60). She'll then go to an in-barter-network dentist and will get the $1,000 worth of dental work done (with the barter dollars she earned from the sale of her cosmetics). SBC will charge her 6% ($60) for the transaction. So, out of pocket, she spent $650+$60+$60=$770 in cash for what otherwise would have cost her $1000. That represents a savings of 23%! That's certainly something to think about, especially in our economy.

If you have big ticket items that you'd like to purchase or have recurring expenses such as chiropractor work, cleaning services, landscaping, etc., utilizing your MLM business may be your ticket to getting what you need for less. If you need help figuring out how you can make your MLM business work for you, we're here to help, so let us know!

Ramp Up Your Marketing in 2010 While Your Competitors Slash Their Advertising Budgets

According to Variety magazine, Twentieth TV has sealed a cash-plus-barter deal with Tribune and Fox stations for the second cycle off-net run of "Family Guy." Beyond the cash deal, Twentieth will get 1½ minutes of ad time on "Family Guy," while stations will keep 5½ minutes -- similar to what they now get on the show. Yes, barter is alive and well in virtually all media.

Media companies (from TV stations, radio stations and magazines to those little coupon flyers that you receive every few days in your mailbox) all follow the same agenda – they must all sell their ad space or airtime by a certain deadline or they’ll be at a loss. As that deadline approaches, many owners of media outlets are anxious to fill the open spaces and are willing to trade out the unsold slots.

Does your marketing plan this year include some type of media advertising in order to attract more customers? How can you tap in to that available space so you can reduce that expense by bartering for all or part of that line item?

One option would be to approach the media executive or publisher to find out if they’d be willing to do a one-on-one trade with you. This may work well with a smaller publishing firm. However, it could become problematic if you’re say, a painter and you’re dealing with a larger company and the sales rep has no idea if the company would need a painter and may not even know how to facilitate such a transaction. Or, the firm may simply have no need for a painter at this time.

The other option would be to contact your broker at your local barter club and find out what advertising opportunities are currently available on barter. You can also ask about any design and production services that they may have. That way, you can work for a client who actually needs painting, and use those accrued barter dollars to pay the media company for your advertising. In turn, should the campaign that you have chosen proves to be effective, you’ll turn those barter dollars that you’ve spent in to valuable cash-paying clients.

There’s an old adage that says that you “have to spend money to make money.” Well, here at SBC, we believe that you can “spend barter money to make money.”