In the following video, Kent Sessions, founder and CEO of iFLY, discusses how he has been able to leverage excess capacity and save cash on business expenses by being a member of a business trade exchange. iFLY is a vertical wind tunnel that provides a skydiving simulation. They offer individual sessions, team building sessions and company conferences including a meeting room, flight experience and catered lunch. By being a member of a business-to-business barter exchange, iFly has been able to leverage excess capacity and save cash on advertising, promotions and employee incentives. Kent says he believes companies should leverage their excess capacity wherever possible and a barter exchange provides that opportunity for businesses.

Here’s a collection of the barter and business articles that caught our attention this week.

How to Share a Waffle: A Eugene, Oregon waffle restaurant uses a “barter wall” to entice customers who want to trade instead of pay cash for the waffles. Apparently the owner’s interest in barter began as a child when he wanted to trade his toys on the playground.

Teen swaps stuff, works way up to a Porshe:  A lot like the one red paper clip project, this 17-year-old traded up from a used cell phone to a 2000 Porshe.

Venture Tuesday: The Tuckshop – reintroducing barter system: Store owner, Raina Sahu, allows customers to barter for merchandise in her store. She doesn’t want people to be discouraged by the price, so she takes trades.

The Abusive Math of Cold Calling from Duct Tape Marketing: Unless you love cold-calling, you’ll love the advice in this article. “Make fewer calls, get better results,” is a sales department’s dream come true.

Tips for Dealing with Cash Crunches from online.wsj.com: Some basic, but important tips to remember if your company’s cash is tight.

Understanding the Small Business Cloud: You’ve probably heard of the cloud, but do you know what it is or more importantly how it applies to your business?

In this video, Don Asher of Golden Gate Litho discusses how he uses business barter to improve his printing company. He knows that is it expensive for his printers to be sitting idle, so he uses a B2B trade exchange to fill his excess capacity and get value he wouldn’t have otherwise.

Company or personal moves are a time-consuming and expensive task. Reasons for a company move or a personal move can vary greatly, from needing more space, needing less space or needing more amenities. But regardless, moving for any reason requires a lot of planning and often a lot of cash. Anyone who has ever had a personal or office move knows the process always takes longer and costs more than expected. There are often unplanned expenses and incidentals that pop up. But by being a member of a business barter exchange, companies can use trade dollars for the goods and services they know will be needed, including a moving company, painting, new signage and new furniture, and even save cash for expenses they may not expect.

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By Cassidy Shore, Account Manager

Whether you are going out on the town with friends or family or entertaining important business clients, barter can provide a lifestyle upgrade and can help grow a business in the process. With a number of shows and packages available through barter, members of a trade exchange can purchase many entertainment options without paying cash. Not only are members able to entertain their friends and family, but many companies have provided employee or prospective client incentive gifts through barter. Putting on a corporate event at a big game or sending clients or prospects to a hip, Broadway production helps foster and grow business. Whether it’s a night cruise, river raft excursion or a show many options can be found through a business barter exchange.

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By Sean Sykes, Account Executive

When the historic Grand Lake Theater in Oakland needed a new paint job, they turned to barter to help with this costly, but much needed expense. The iconic building stands out in the city with its famous rotary contact roof sign (the largest west of the Mississippi), but the exterior paint on the building was chipping, blotchy and no longer reflected the “Movie Palace” image that was intended when it first opened in 1926.

Funding the $70,000 paint job would have taken capital the theater had put off designating to this project. But when S&S Painting, a fellow member of the theater’s business barter network, was willing to do the job on trade a deal was made.

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A main reason companies join a B2B barter exchange is to gain more market share, which is often an expensive and time consuming task in the cash market.

In a cash market, companies hire new sales staff, offer special discounts or promotions or spend on advertising or other marketing campaigns to obtain new customers, which are costly expenses with no guaranteed ROI.

A business to business barter network will introduce your business to an entirely new group of potential customers and partners.  As a member of the network, your products and services are exposed to the membership who will bypass competitors to work with you.  You will generate sales that will have otherwise not occurred.  By joining a barter network, companies gain access to an untapped market, bringing new customers and new networking opportunities within an exclusive association.

Barter networks can ensure they will bring companies new sales. New customers are willing to spend barter dollars on a company’s product or service more likely than they are with cash because:

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By Heather Popa, Account Executive

I love when members are able to take full advantage of the network and use barter as a part of their continuous business model. A locally renowned wine bar was looking to save cash to increase their bottom line, so they incorporated BizX into the business and found ways to save cash on fixed and variable costs.

By accepting trade dollars from customers, the restaurant can fill their empty tables and is able to offset expenses they otherwise would have paid cash for.  BizX markets the restaurant to their network of businesses to bring them the desired amount of business to offset their expenses.

By filling their empty tables, they were able to gain another form of income to later pay for these expenses:

• The restaurant has been able to purchase wine from Patterson Cellars. As sales begin to increase on these wine sales, the wine bar says they are saving about $2000 a month.
• They have been able to purchase crackers from Partner’s Crackers. The restaurant uses crackers in many of their appetizers and saves money by purchasing them through a barter network.
• They were able to purchase memberships to a membership based health care group for the owner and two employees. This allowed the restaurant to save on a huge cash cost and still provide a valuable benefit.
• They began outsourcing their book keeping and accounting to Knowledge Integration Solutions and pay for this monthly service with BizX.
• They were also able to revamp and update their websites by outsourcing to a web development company.

By being a member of a business-to-business barter network, they have been able to pay for all of these products and services at their cost of goods and save cash.

This article was originally featured in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Finance issue of their monthly magazine, Octane. See the original article and the rest of the publication here.

By Bob Bagga

Many people know the benefits of barter: it saves cash on expenses and allows companies to acquire products and services at their own cost of goods. But people are also very aware of the many problems that can arise when participating in direct barter. Many of these can be solved by joining a business-to-business trade exchange and allowing them to be a facilitator between trading partners and handle accounting and reporting.

No need for a simultaneous coincidence of wants

When bartering directly between two individuals or companies, each party involved in the trade needs to have exactly what the other person wants, for the same value and at the same time. This can be difficult to achieve and requires finding a product or service that the other is wiling to accept for the trade. When a company is part of a B2B barter exchange this is no longer a requirement. After a member makes a sale, they can use the trade dollars received to purchase from any other member. Companies are free to buy from and sell to any other member of the exchange. And the trade dollars never expire.

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