When joining a trade exchange one of the first questions asked is “What can I buy?” Although this is an important aspect of joining, there are a number of other things to think about when joining a b2b barter network. This ensures that you receive the most out of a barter network and see the benefits from the relationship.

Where are you currently spending cash? – Knowing what products and services your company spends cash on monthly allows you to assess where you could be spending barter dollars instead.

What other products or services do you want to be spending on? – Are there expenses that you haven’t purchased yet, because you don’t want to be spending cash on them? Joining a trade exchange is a great chance to create a budget for expenses you haven’t wanted to purchase with cash in the past. Other business expenses, could you also offer more employee incentives? If they work off commission would they be willing to take part of their commission from trade transactions in trade if they were able to spend it on restaurants, car maintenance, spa services and other personal expenses?

Do I want to increase or start advertising? – Trade exchanges are a great way to purchase media space. Media companies are always looking for new advertisers and ad space to fill. Find out about advertising opportunities through the barter network. Then your company can add to an existing advertising budget or create a new advertising budget with trade dollars.

Who is my contact? – In most cases this will be very clear to a member of a business barter exchange. Someone will be in contact as soon as you sign up, but it is important to build a good relationship with this person. If you have constant contact with this person, tell them what you are looking for and what your business needs are, they will be looking out for your needs and notifying you when anything you want becomes available. They will also give you a heads up on exclusive offers.

How much can you offer? – Joining a business-to-business trade exchange is about leveraging your excess capacity. You need to know how much excess capacity in products or services your business has and how much they could offer to the barter network. If you have a set item in mind that you want to purchase, you need to know how much that will cost and be willing to sell that much of your product or service in barter dollars.

What types of services can you offer? – Or which ones are you willing to offer? Figure out which of your product lines or services it is possible to offer to the barter network. If you and the exchange know this from the get-go there is now confusion when the exchange is promoting and marketing you to members.

Figure these things out and you should be ready to start trading in a barter exchange and make successful and strategic business purchases.