Bartering is a great business building tool. It allows for expansion without the need for exchanging monies to get things done. Here are a few steps to help get you started in your bartering strategies.

Step 1. Determine what your needs are.
It's the worst thing to make your initial trades for things that you don't truly need or that you are able to do yourself. It's not that they don't have their place in the world of the barter, but you want to make sure you first take care of those things you don't have the skill set and or time to accomplish yourself.

Step 2. Figure out what you have in your arsenal or at your disposal.
Make a list of all the things you are capable of doing. What are you skill sets? This step is extremely important when it comes to adding value to your prospective bartering relationships. You have to be able and willing to think from the "what's in it for them" mindset and exceed it.

Step 3. Connect
Now look for the professionals in your areas of need that are a good fit for you and find out what their needs are. You can do this by going through the directories or some of the bartering communities online. Can you meet their needs or do you have a resource who can?

Step 4. Make your request and barter options known. Present your win - win scenarios.
Sometimes you may find a great potential relationship, but feel that you're out of your league when it comes to being able to offer a barter agreement that's attractive enough for them to want to trade services with you. This is where you start thinking outside of the box. If you can't meet their needs, and they're the best fit for what you need, opt to locate the resource(s) that will suit their needs and create a trans-barter or a barter triangle. Here's how that one looks: You find a service that you need, but you don't have what they need to create an equitable trade, so you locate the service they need in someone else, who by the way needs your services. You fill in their gaps while in turn they fill in the gaps of the one who you need work from and in turn the one who you originally needed work from does the work for you you needed because you solved their needs. You've created a win-win scenario and gotten your things done in the process.

There are many bonuses to building your business this way.

1. You meet many new people in other fields who may be future clients and / or who are definitely new circles of influence.
2. You get your things handled - free of charge.
3. You create many warm contacts.
4.You market yourself to folks who may not have considered your services in exchange for professionally completing your projects.
5. You develop a new skill of reaching out that you didn't previosly have.

Take the opportunity to enter into a healthy barter, make new connections, get your things handled and watch your business organically grow. It's a shameless way of marketing yourself, putting your best foot forward and showing your wares to the masses by the word of mouth created through your win-win barter relationships.

As always, it's been my pleasure to share with you these business building tips. Until next time...