Rural Bartering Club: How To Start And Operate Your Own

No Negotiation Allowed In A Bartering Club!

A rural bartering club means trading for other goods or services by using a media other than government printed money.

Disclaimer:  I am an Amazon Associate; therefore, this post may contain affiliate links for me to earn a commission. RuralMoney.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Bartering has been around longer than currency or money as we know it today.

• Probably unknown to most people; recent estimates indicate at least 60 percent of the companies on the New York Stock Exchange use the principles of bartering as a standard business practice.
• Congressmen barter daily to gain support for their pet projects.
• U.S. Aircraft manufacturers barter with foreign airlines in order to close the sale on 40 million dollar contracts.

You personally have no doubt experienced at one time or another in your life, a friend saying, “Okay, that’s one you owe me.”

In basic terms, that’s bartering.

“The reason why bartering enjoys renewed popularity in times of tight money is simply because it’s the bottom line method of survival with little or no cash.”

Leo B. Minton

With today’s high interest rates, cash in anyone’s pocket is indeed a very precious commodity; and bartering is becoming more popular than ever before

A rural bartering club affords both the individual and the established business a way to hold onto cash while continuing to get needed goods and services.

In addition to saving businesses on the cost of borrowing, bartering can also improve the cash flow and liquidity of a business.

For anyone trying to operate a successful rural business, this is vitally important.

And for individual families in these times, it makes things a heck of a lot easier.

Start And Operate A Profitable Rural Bartering Club

First, you must think in terms of a banker.

After all, that’s precisely the reason for your bartering business, which is to receive and keep track of people’s deposits while lending and bringing together other people wanting or needing those deposits.

Therefore, your first task is to round up depositors.

As a one-person operation, you can start from your homestead with nothing more than your smartphone and kitchen table.

But, until you get helpers, you’ll either be very small or very busy–probably both.

You can run a small display ad in your local newspaper or on social marketplaces i.e. Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Marketplace, such as:

NEW RURAL BARTERING CLUB

Trade your expertise and/or time for the merchandise or services you need. We have the traders already, merchandise, specialized skills, buyers too! Call now and register.

RPM Bartering

555-555-5555/janedoe@gmail.com

When respondents to this ad call, you handle them just as a banker handles someone opening a new account.

Second, explain to him or her how your rural bartering club works.

Everyone pays a membership fee of $100 to $300, and annual dues of 50 to 100 dollars.

For example, the depositor tells you what he wants to deposit $150 worth of printing services.

And, what he’s looking for in return such as storage space for his boat over a 3-month period.

If you have a depositor with garage space for rent and needing printing services, you’ve got a transaction.

However, you have no perfect matches for this depositor.

Among your depositors, you have:

• A dentist who’s offering $500 worth of dental work for someone to paint his house.
• A woman with a garage to rent in exchange for dental work for her children.
• An unemployed painter willing to paint houses in exchange for a side of beef.
• A butcher who wants to trade a side of beef for advertising circulars.

Remember, when a new member joins your club, he makes a deposit and states his or her wants or needs.

In the above example, you have a typical rural bartering club situation.

Your service is to spend or line up those deposits to match the wants or needs of your club members.

Third, an affinity for people, and a good memory, are vital to this kind of business, especially if you’re running a one-man show.

Generally, when you have a buyer for one of your depositors, you notify hime or her right away with a phone call or email.

You simply tell him or her that Club Member A wants to rent your garage.

She tells you fine, but she doesn’t want any printing services.

You simply tell her to hand on because you are currently in the process of contacting the dentist who’ll do the work on her kids’ teeth.

And, so it goes in the operation of a rural bartering club.

Some of the larger bartering clubs with several thousand members, simply list the deposits and wants or needs on a computer, and then invite their members to come in and check out the available goods and services for themselves.

Others maintain merchandise stores where the members come in to first look at the computer, and then to shop, using credit against their deposits.

The smaller clubs usually publish a weekly “Traders Wanted” sheet and let it go at that.

Host An Amazon Hub

Attract more customers to your business location and create opportunities for additional revenue.

Partner with Amazon here.

Amazon Hub is a worldwide network of pickup and return locations.

The program enables any business with a physical location to offer secure package pickup and returns to Amazon customers, and in-turn reap benefits from the potential increase in foot traffic and sales at their location.

Our Hub partners can select from various product solutions, including Lockers, Counters, and Apartment Lockers, to serve customers in their neighborhood.

These methods all work, but I’ve found that instead of leaving your members to fend for themselves or make their own trades, the most profitable system is to hire commission sales people to recruit new members.

These sales people should get 20% of the membership from each new member they sign, plus 3 to 5 percent of the total value of each trade they arrange and close.

This percentage of course, is to be paid in club credits, spendable merchandise or services offered by the club.

Fourth, you will need a club charter, a board of directors or officers, and in may areas, a city or county license.

Check with your city or county clerk for more information on these requirements.

Also, you should have a membership contract–the original for your files and a duplicate for the member.

I most cases, you can write your own using any organization membership contract as a guide.

Or, you can have your attorney draw one up for you.

You will also need a membership booklet or at least an addenda sheet to your contract, explaining the rules and by-laws of your rural bartering club.

It’s also suggested that you supply your members with consecutively numbered and laminated club membership identification cards for their wallets or purses.

Some clubs even give membership certificates suitable for framing.

You can pick these up here.

Two things are important to the makeup of the membership package you exchange for membership fees:

1. It must be as impressive as you can make it.
2. It must be legal while serving your needs almost exclusively

Basically, you should have at least 100 members before you begin to start concentrating on arranging trades.

As stated earlier in this post, the easiest way to recruit new members is to run an ad in your newspapers or on social marketplaces.

Perhaps even on your local radio stations as well.

Follow up on your inquiries with a direct mail package, which is a brochure explaining your rural bartering club, a sales letter, and a return reply order form.

After you’ve sent out the direct mail piece, be sure to follow up by phone, and if necessary, call on them via Skype!

Another way of recruiting new members is via the “Amway Introduction Party Program” style on Zoom or Google Meeting.

Allow a certain number of club credits for each party a club member arranges for you.

Insist on the “Attraction of The Evening,” you or one of your sales people take the spotlight and give a motivation or benefits available recruiting talk.

Be sure you get the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone in attendance, and on’t forget to pass out your literature.

If all of those in attendance at these parties do not join, then follow up on them, first by phone and then with personal sales presentations via email, live streaming, etc.

Once you’ve got them interested in your club, do not let go or give up on them until you have them signed as members.

Look for those that would be most likely to want to promote a similar party for you.

Offer them an item of merchandise they’re particularly wanting, and club credits if they will not only join but, stage a few parties for you.

A bit more expensive, but just as certain of success, are free seminars.

Rent a large meeting room, advertise in your local papers, and then put on a hard-sell recruiting show.

Such a plan is very similar to the party plan idea, but on a larger scale.

Rural Money Tip: Whenever you stage a recruiting party or seminar, be sure to always “pad the audience” with your own people who will lead the way for those you’re trying to recruit.

It sounds unethical, but it works for many types of businesses.

Learn how to boost your party plan event here.

You can start and operate out of your home, but working out of your home has a number of growth inhibiting factors.

The growth of almost any kind of business is retarded so long as it’s operated out of your home.

So, just as soon as you possibly can afford it, move into an office of some sort.

Keep your eyes open and consider the feasibility of sharing an office with an insurance agent or Real Estate Broker.

Check your newspaper classifieds for businesses willing to share office space or to rent desk space and/or other office amenities.

This a kind of business that demands an image of success.

You just can’t keep people from dropping in when you’re operating strictly on a local basis.

Moreover, when you attempt to hire sales people, your place of business for them to work out of, is just as important to them as how much commission you’re going to pay.

Image is super important, so don’t neglect it!

Ideally, you should have one salesman for every 50,000 people in your area.

run an ad in your local newspaper and list your needs with your State’s employment service.

Hire ONLY commission sales people.

Give them a percentage of the membership fee for ea ch new member they sign, plus a small commission on each trade deal they close.

Assign each of your people specific territories; and insist that they call on potential commercial accounts ranging from the “hole in the wall” rubber stamp shop to magazine publishers and commuter airlines.

There’s plenty of business available in every city or metro area in the cocuntry.

Encourage your sales people to be creative and use their imagination when calling on prospects.

And then, be sure that you keep an open mind and listen to their wild trading proposals.

Schedule “open discussion” sales meetings every morning before they hit the pavement.

Have each of them report on their selling efforts from the day before, and present to you a written list of prospects they plan to call on today.

Set up sales motivation workshops for at least once a month, and at least once a week, schedule a motivational speaker or play one of the widely available success inspirational tapes as a closing event to your morning ales meetings.

Buy sales success books and encourage your people to borrow them, take them home and read them.

Your sales people will make you rich, but only so far as you turn them on and keep them flying high with personal motivation.

Should You Or Should You Not Accept Installment Payments?

Should you or should you not accept installment payments from new members?

Yes, by all means!

But, only when you’ve got their signature on a contract drawn up for your benefit and deemed legally binding by your attorney.

What About Bank Cards?

Yes indeed!

In fact, you will find that your capabilities to handle bank cards will double or even triple your sales.

How Will You Need In Actual Start Up Costs?

You will need at least $500 for your printing and legal fees, unless you can trade charter memberships in your club for these services.

Timewise, you’re going to be putting in 18-hour days, and 7-day weeks until you get those first 100 people signed up.

And, there won’t be any money for salary or long-deserved vacat ions from these first 100 members you sign.

You will nee it all for advertising, membership packets and office set up.

However, if you can really work at it, you should be home free in 6-weeks or less.

Then you can set up your office, hire a couple of assistants to handle the paperwork, and take on a sales person or two.

Reputation and success in matching offers to wants will be just as important as image.

So, give it all your all, don’t give up; and stand behind the implied as well as the real promises you make and/or offer to your members.

A couple of final notes:

• Should you offer a guarantee of satisfaction? Only so long as it makes money for you, and can back it up. There’s not a person in business anywhere who enjoys refunding a customer’s money. Even so, and but, don’t ever forget that the “existence” of your business depends on service.
• The more dedicated “people pleaser” you are or can become, the greater the success you’re going to achieve. This is definitely not a business for someone who doesn’t enjoy “waiting on” people. You’ve got to like people, enjoy helping them, and want the inner satisfaction that comes from selling new ideas.

A Rural Bartering Club Is A Growth Business

Bartering clubs in metropolitan areas of 300,000 or more population are reporting incomes of a million dollars and more, with the average in cities of 100,000 population about $150,000 per year.

That is not to say, however, that you cannot earn a comfortable living in rural areas.

No experience or special training is required.

The operation of a rural bartering club is equally suited to either women or men.

Both do equally well as sales people.

It’s a business that fills a need, particularly in a downturn economy.

It is a kind of membership program people will stand in line to be a part of, once they’ve been introduced to the benefits.

This the plan.

It’s going to take some of your time to get organized, but after your initial work to establish this business, you can become quite wealthy in a very short while.

Read over this post again, determine that this is “the one” for you, and then go all out.

It’s up to you; and all it takes now is action on your part.

One of the best of the best benefits of bartering businesses in rural areas is bartering is a taxable transaction even if no money changes hands.

Image Source