Aside from the obvious benefits of donating our time and money to a cause we believe in, there are tax benefits as well.  What most people don't realize is how to offer a larger contribution without using money at all.

Bartering your excess time or inventory and donating some of that credit is a great way to keep more of your money instead of giving it to Uncle Sam needlessly.  I'm not saying that taxes are all bad, I'm saying we get the chance to keep more of our money depending on how many expenses we have for that tax year.  We get the opportunity to write-off losses, list expenses and contributions and it's all legal.  This applies to all small business & entrepreneurs as well as large corporations.

Many Tradia® Members have taken advantage of this concept.  Some members donate large sums of Tradia® Dollars to various 501c3 corporations and the IRS allows a dollar-for-dollar contribution if you use barter dollars from a legitimate barter / trade exchange system.  This is one of the many advantages of maintaining a barter account with a trade exchange.

A small hotel chain could barter unsold rooms accumulating Tradia® Dollars into their Tradia® account.  As a separate transaction, that same hotel chain can make a charitable contributuion and list the entire amount on their tax records.  The hotel fills several empty rooms, finds new clients and uses some of the barter currency to help a charity bringing more good media exposure to the hotel chain.  Everyone wins and it is all made possible due to the trade exchange and a hotel with more empty rooms than they would wish for.  Barter allows the hotel to fill empty rooms as they see fit.

There are 5 reasons that a small business or entrepreneur would open a Tradia® account.

1) Immediate New Barter Customers.

2) New Cash Referrals from the New Barter Customers.

3) Additional Advertising Budget using New Barter Dollars.

4) New Cash Customers from New Advertising Budget & Campaign

5) Every Time You Use Tradia® Dollars to buy something, Your Money Stays in Your Pocket.

We've had 3 meetings with investors and key marketing people in Florida over the past five months in an effort to dramatically increase the number of Tradia ® Franchise Operations in the USA and Canada.  We're almost complete in our negotiations and feel certain that Tradia ® will be the largest Barter Exchange Franchise in North America.  There's always room at the top and we expect to be there in 2 short years.

In mid-April of this year, we video taped a key portion of our Franchise / Trade Director training that will play a huge role in our Franchise & staff training efforts.  Franchisee's will use our training system to teach their growing staff members how to do the Tradia ® business.  You can be in all places at all times when you use the technology available to us today.  On-line training as well as weekly web-conference training will add to our vast training system and make it possible that every single Tradia ® representative will speak from the same platform based on a systematic and readily available training format.  If you buy a Tradia ® Franchise, you expect to get more results and our training does deliver that at every level.

We have the name, the marketing materials, the training system, a trained corporate staff, a targeted business plan with 6 levels of profitability and a dynamic business opportunity aimed at small business, all ready for this expansion.  We're ready for the wave of growth and we're excited.  Tradia ® is a cash-less alternative to banks, credit cards and debt.  People can literally trade what they have to get what they want using the Tradia ® Barter Exchange & Database.

 After a lot of preparation and testing, Tradia ® is ready to set the pace and take the lead in the Barter industry.

Want to know how to make a customer loyal and how to get the most out of your relationship with your customers?  It's simple.  Ask questions your competitor doesn’t ask!  Whether it’s during an in-person sales presentation, over the phone or at a networking event, identify the types of questions every other salesperson just like you is asking their prospects.  Examples might include textbook, unoriginal questions like, “How much are you currently spending on…?” or “How happy are you with you present suppliers?”

Knowing what questions your prospects are used to and tired of being asked is a powerful sales weapon.  Because now all YOU have to do is NOT ask those questions!

So, create 2 lists:  “Top Ten Most Common Questions Asked by a Salesperson in My Field", and “Kick Butt Sales Questions My Competitors Aren’t Asking.”  Think of the best, most creative and most original sales questions you’ve ever used or heard.  Questions that made customers smile.  Questions that caused customers to stop in their tracks.  Questions that enabled customers to share their needs and wants.

13 Kick Butt Sales Questions Your Competitors Aren’t Asking
1. How are you making it difficult for your customers to…?
2. How are you making it easy for your customers to…?
3. How many customers are you losing by…?
4. What are the benefits you’d like to see as a result of…?
5. What are the bottlenecks in…?
6. What are the three biggest mistakes being made by…?
7. What do you think makes the difference between…?
8. What excuses are preventing you from…?
9. What one word do you want customers to use when describing…?
10. When someone comes to your website, what's the ONE thing…?
11. When someone walks into your store, how do you want them…?
12. When was the first occasion you noticed…?
13. When was the last time you actually…?

Questions ARE differentiators.  Make your own customized list based on your industry and needs, then start asking the hard questions.  These questions will set you apart from the competition and change the way your customers do business.  This will make them more successful and you will have a part of their success.

* If you need sales or business coaching/training, imagine using a barter/trade exchange for this service.  Trade your excess inventory for the training you and your staff need.  This way, you keep your hard-earned cash and get the product or service you need.  Business coaching is one of the many services you can get as a Tradia ® Member.  Why Pay Cash When You Can Tradia? ®

The AICPA (http://www.aicpa.org/) is the nation’s largest professional non-profit association representing more than 340,000 CPAs that specialize in the area of tax, accounting, and consulting services such as personal finance.

As one of small businesses’ most trusted advisors, CPA’s offer these eight steps to help entrepreneurs in tough economic times:

Step 1: Focus on your balance sheet.
Business owners love to talk about sales and tell you how many millions of sales they had this year, but as you get closer to the recession the focus should be on your balance sheet. Make sure you’re managing your cashflow well. It’s something you should be doing all the time but it’s even more critical in a recessionary environment, because there’s just that much less cash floating around. While the going is still good, try to put cash aside to build a war chest.

Step 2: Diversify and launch.
Economic downturns have a benefit for business. A recession gives you the opportunity to step back, rethink, and review all sectors of your operation. Consider launching a new product or service offering not currently offered in your market. Use the time for diversifying your products, services, or industries so you don’t have too many eggs in one sinking basket.

Step 3: Start looking at your credit and debt.
You should begin looking at increasing your debt. Negotiating with a bank from a position of power and good financial resources in a good economy is a lot easier to do than trying to negotiate in a recessionary environment. Don’t think of that extra credit simply in terms of reserves to get you through cash-trickling times.

Step 4: Review your accounts receivables.
When things are starting to turn down, you want to keep a sharp eye out for someone who is in to you for quite a bit, because if they go under and cash is tight that could have a huge impact on your small business. Similarly, review your agreements with suppliers. Maybe you don’t have to pay in 30 days; maybe you can pay in 45. Again, it’s easier to negotiate in a good economy than in a downturn.

Step 5: Review your company discretionary spending items.
Although small businesses are typically very lean, recession survivors often still manage to trim some fat. Think of all the discretionary items. Take whatever steps you can to reduce your debt. The less you have to pay out on a regular basis during an economic slowdown, the less painful it will be. Employ labor and time-saving technology to reduce business costs. More effective use of the Internet can save on travel, training, administration, and operations costs.

Step 6: Review your customers.
Start reviewing about how a recession will impact your customers. If your customer base is involved, for example, in the home-building industry, and home building is down, then you know these customers are not going to be demanding as much product, so you better get ready for that. One way to do that is to search out alternatives. Somebody’s always making money, even in a recession, so if you can find out where those pockets are and if you have services you can provide to them, maybe you want to expand those services.

Now is also the time to take customer service to a new level. Get in touch and stay in touch with your active customers. Take nothing for granted. Make sure your pricing is competitive, your service exceptional and your attitude reflects how much you value their business. Revisit dormant customers and see what you can do to bring them back into the fold.

Sometimes it takes as little as just asking to restart a relationship. Other times it can take some imagination, but resurrecting a past customer can still be easier and less expensive than finding and breaking in a new one. Ask your customers for referrals. While this is a good practice at any time, it is particularly important in a down economy.

Step 7: Keep up marketing.
Many companies cannot afford to stop marketing, regardless of economic conditions. New products are always sure revenue generators if marketed properly. Determine what sets your business apart from the competition and market it like crazy. Attend networking functions, spruce up your Web site, send out post cards, put out a new sign in front of your office.

New business, however, doesn’t have to come from new customers. Many small-business owners can find that their best prospects for new revenue are their existing customers and clients—established relationships mean an owner doesn’t have to spend time, energy and money trying to make a good impression and knowledge of customers’ needs makes it easier to come up with new products or services they’ll want to buy.

Whether prospecting for new business or working with a long-standing customer, success can turn on making a valid case that your product or service will benefit the buyer, even if the economic times are uncertain.

Step 8: Do additional research.
The CPA profession in the United States has created free resources and tools to help small business owners with personal finance issues.

To learn more check out the CPA profession’s 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy visit http://www.360financialliteracy.org/ and check out the “Entrepreneurs” tab.