I briefly mentioned bartering when I discussed keeping home office business costs down, but I wanted to expand on the topic just a bit.

When you work from home, you no longer have an entire company filled with people with varying skills. Instead, you generally only have yourself. While some of us may be able to consider ourselves jacks or jills of all trades, most of us are skilled in fewer areas. Of course, you can always outsource projects to others for pay, but I believe shelling out money should be the last resort…not the first.

The best way to get things done is to barter or trade for the services. While there are bartering services available, that requires utilizing strangers for the work. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does involve an element of trust in someone you’ve never dealt with before. You may need to blindly trust a few strangers, especially in the beginning, but the sooner you start building up a list of bartering partners, the better off you’ll be in the future.

Start with the people you know in the offline world. Maybe your friend or neighbor speaks another language fluently. If you are looking for someone to translate your site, talk to that person. Find out if you have some talent or skill that your friend could use in return for the translation. Even something as simple as teaching someone more about using the Internet may be all it takes to successfully trade services.

If you don’t know anyone in the real world that possesses the skills you need, it’s time to turn to the virtual world. This is one of the reasons it is always good to participate in online forums. Being a regular in a forum ensures that you meet various people who may have just the skills you need. Sometimes, asking for help in your favorite forum will enable you to get that help absolutely free. This is one of those “you generally get what you give” scenarios. If you’ve given freely of your help, others will likely do the same. If you don’t get the help for free, you can simply let the forum members know that you are looking to trade services. If you belong to several forums or other types of online communities, chances are good that you’ll find just what you need.

Here are some other ideas for finding bartering partners.

Use Craigslist if you live in the U.S. You’ll find Bartering under For Sale in the city nearest you.

Use a barter service such as U-Exchange. You can find a list of services at Gigafree.

You do still have to be concerned with taxes when bartering. If you receive $500 worth of services in a barter, that’s the same as if someone gave you $500. Of course, if you gave them $500 worth of services in return, it’s a wash, but you’ll need to keep records for tax purposes. I suggest you read the IRS information on how bartering is taxed for more information.

Over time, you’ll develop an extensive network of people you can call upon when you need services. Make sure to keep your partners list current so you can easily get in touch when needed. And one last piece of advice…be sure to give as much as you get. Don’t abuse others’ generosity. If you get great service, give great service in return.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on September 7th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Cutting Business Costs