Recession-Proof Your Business: Leveraging Trade Groups for Stability and Growth

What if improving your podcasting skills could double your marketing impact? Join me, Trader Stu, as I share my personal journey of navigating the ups and downs of podcast production. From battling audio glitches to realizing the balance between comfort and sound quality, my story is filled with lessons learned and practical tips to help you avoid the common pitfalls of budding podcasters like myself. Discover how embracing imperfection and focusing on simplicity can lead to a more authentic and effective podcasting experience. 

But that's not all—our conversation takes a turn toward exploring the power of bartering, a potent strategy for businesses facing economic challenges. Uncover how joining trade associations can help you conserve cash, utilize your resources more effectively, and grow your network without a dime. By leveraging barter systems, businesses—whether in service industries or startups—can access essential goods and services, reduce debt collection woes, and even offset marketing costs. With real-life examples and actionable strategies, we explore how bartering can be your secret weapon to maintain operations and thrive when financial resources are tight. Tune in to elevate your entrepreneurial game by mastering both podcasting and bartering in these trying times.

“Whistles In The West” was written, recorded, and produced by Durracell, exclusively for use with Trader Stu’s platform, always rocking the cowboy hat. The track is protected under U.S. Copyright rights to use have been granted specifically to Trader Stu for content and promotional use related to his brand and media presence.

contact:
 📧 durracellmusic@gmail.com
🌐 www.durracell.com

The thoughts and views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and do not reflect the official policy or position of Metro Trading Association. Although the host is an employee of Metro Trading, this podcast is intended to educate entrepreneurs on the benefits of professional trading, regardless of their location. Additionally, the host reviews various pieces of camping gear due to the association of trade, barter, and prepping.

Chapters

• 0:00 Benefits of Joining Barter Groups
• 7:16 Benefits of Bartering in Trade Associations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Hello entrepreneurs, and thanks for downloading the third episode of the trading post. I am Trader Stu, I think, at least for the first few episodes, or maybe this will be a thing. I'm going to go over some of the issues I have while creating these podcasts in the very beginning. That way, if you're looking at using podcasts to market your business as well, that's going to be like the new thing they're saying right now is using podcasts to promote and market your business. Then I'm going to go over some of the issues I have because maybe it'll save you some time. If you want to just skip the beginning and you don't plan on using podcast to promote your business, then skip to this minute marker, six minute marker, and we'll be good to go. And after I'm done recording, I'll come back and put the minute and second here where you need to go, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:08

So the issue I had the last episode if you're one of the few who downloaded it before I caught it it's about wondering or it's about the audio. That's what happened. The audio was pretty bad. I listened to a little bit on my laptop when I was editing it and speakers are not, of course, as great as what happened in my car. So I was a little unsure about the audio. But I'm trying to get over my perfectionist issues to where, as probably most of you are, you'll get kind of locked up because you want something to be perfect and then you just end up never going forward with it. And that's kind of where I am. I would rather have the most perfect audio and the most I had when I was doing camera and YouTube. I wanted the best you know, shots and video, and it just never got published, never got uploaded, and what good was that, you know. So I'm trying to get over that and, uh, I'm kind of either I'm all in or I'm all out kind of a guy. So if I don't, um, if I can't be a perfectionist, then I just kind of hit, screw it, and I'm like, well, now I'll just upload anything. But then there's a point to where I just can't. I can't handle it. So the speakers in my car when I was listening to it, uh, it sounded really tinny. Um, when I was had it, when I had it edited with the audio, and it kind of hurt my ears, uh, so I didn't like and I just wasn't, I couldn't deal with it.

Speaker 1: 2:30

So I unpublished it and I had to change the title. And what happened was I'm using Camtasia software and also there's a Buzzsprout program that I'm utilizing, called Magic Mastering and that also filters the audio. So I think what happened was I double filtered the audio and it made it sound completely terrible and unlistenable to me. So I had to go back in to Camtasia, remove the filter and then re-upload it into Buzzsprout. And because I couldn't remove the audio filtering out of Buzzsprout, once you buy that program, if you have any other episodes that have utilized that magic mastering, you have to get rid of it on those episodes as well, re-upload them or whatever I don't even know how it works and then you can remove that from there. Otherwise you have to just deal with it. And so I just did it on Camtasia, since I already owned Camtasia.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So lesson learned I'm going to try and not use filtering in this episode and even though I'm recording it not in my sauna, which is the sauna studio that I have all the padding in there to try and remove the noise, I have it in my office now at work. The reason why I did that with trying to get out of the sauna studio, it's really dim, uncomfortable and it makes it so. It's so quiet, it makes me not even want to project my voice because when I do then it kind of reverberates off the walls because it's still not that soundproof. So you know, now I have to deal with the air blowing from the vents in the ceiling in my office. But I think that'll be better because I have this new sound foam thing that goes around the microphone. Hopefully that does remove that noise. We'll find out, I guess, soon enough. That being said, lesson learned Luckily I caught it before too many listened to it and the episodes are too old. Now's the time to learn.

Speaker 1: 4:26

If you're trying to get into podcasting to market your business, you know, just do it, hit record, try it, and I mean you're only going to have a dozen or so people listening to it at the time anyway. So don't worry about it, get over it and don't be a perfectionist. And the more you do it, the better you'll get. And you'll get better equipment and be able to maybe reinvest into it, which I hope I get to be at someday where I can start getting some sponsors and ads and make a little side income money off of this. That'd be kind of cool.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Plus, I found out that the failure rate for podcasting is I looked it up 99% failure rate for releasing less than three episodes. So, that being said, this is my third episode. I've already gotten past the 99% failure rate for releasing less than three. So and I get it because you're in your head, it sounds good. You're like, oh yeah, I'm going to be a podcaster. And then you know, you buy your mic and you get your computer and all that stuff, and then you do it and you realize how time consuming it is. That being said, I'd like to get to the point to where I can have somebody edit these for me and maybe even use their sound studio and then record maybe four episodes all at one time and upload them throughout the month. So, as of right now, I'm in the top 1% of podcasters, it seems, because I am now past that failure rate.

Speaker 1: 5:38

All right, so let's get into it. Last week, I mentioned that I wanted to talk about businesses and recessions and, depending on how you talk to about recessions, we're fine or we, I don't know. I got laid off of my job back in January, so I wouldn't say that we're doing great as a nation, but you know, I'm also getting a lot of business owners saying that people won't show up to work, so people are getting money from somewhere. I guess I don't know. Either way, I'm not going to get into that. So let's stay neutral and just talk about why you should get your business into a barter group before a recession hits. So I say before, because once the recession's announced, membership into barter groups goes up a lot. Studies show about 20% increase in membership. Applications go up into traders, trade groups or barter groups, however you want to call them, once the recession is kind of announced. So why should you get in before recessions hit? Businesses like yours might have already signed up. So the thing with barter groups is usually they have a rule across the world from what I've known internationally, because trade groups are everywhere, they only allow so many type of a certain type of business per area. So let's just say a plumber shows up, signs up, and then you know that area for that plumber is going to be reserved until they get enough business.

Speaker 1: 7:16

It's kind of like joining a BNI group. First and foremost, as usual, it preserves their cashflow. Bartering allows you to trade your goods and services without spending cash, which can be crucial during economic downturns and when cash flow might be tight. Another cool thing is that you can utilize your excess inventory or time, and if it's time, it's because you're in the services industry Inventory, of course, you have stock. So if you have surplus stock or underutilized services which is your time bartering can help you convert those into valuable resources without the need for liquidation at a loss. So a lot of times you'll see, of course, end of year liquidation sales and you kind of take a hit on that because you're selling it at a pretty substantial discount. You get to expand your network, so joining a barter association connects you with a network of businesses. Your network, so joining a barter association connects you with a network of businesses, potentially leading you to new partnerships and customer bases, and that's one of the reasons why people love this. You can be in a big city, but get the small town feel if you join a barter association.

Speaker 1: 8:16

Maintain your operations during a recession is important, so maintaining business operations can be challenging, though, and bartering can help you acquire necessary goods and services to keep your business running smoothly. And that's important, of course, too, because if you have your employees, they got a family to deal with, of course, and keeping your operations running gives you some or gives them confidence in you, I should say. Another cool thing, a bullet point here I wrote down, is you reduce your debt collection issues. Barter transactions involve immediate exchanges, so that reduces the need for debt collection and improving your overall financial health. Another cool thing I wrote down was buffers against economic downturn. So having established your barter relationships can provide a buffer during your tough times. It helps your business weather that storm more effectively.

Speaker 1: 9:08

Bartering can be beneficial for a wide range of businesses, but some types of businesses do tend to gain more from it than others. The big one is, of course, anything that has time involved, so plumbing, electrical handyman. Another no-brainer is really, I guess you could say, for joining a trade association is once you're already open. It costs you very little for product. So that'd be like car washes Restaurants benefit heavily from joining trade associations.

Speaker 1: 9:38

The big one that I'm trying to get involved with and I would love to start going around and talking to colleges and anyone in the entrepreneurship or small business startup programs, small businesses that are starting up. I don't know why it's so hard to talk to them about getting into a trading association. They usually have limited cash flow and using barter can save them money while acquiring their goods and services. So you know, the big thing I have when I talk to new businesses is that I need cash. I need cash. I'm like, okay, I know, but like here's what you got to think about is what are you spending your money on to get noticed right now? Are you spending your money on to get noticed right now, and can you do that by making money first? Right, so they're like well, I got to have cash to. I need to put my business in a coupon book or the newspaper or radio you know, insert marketing thing here.

Speaker 1: 10:38

Well, in your local trade group, your association Bayou probably has either the company that you're looking at doing business with or you know somebody else which is just as effective, probably. Let's just say it costs you a thousand bucks to run an ad for a month. Well, what's the likelihood that that's going to really pay back? I mean, how do you quantify that, unless you have a coupon code that lets you track, like I know I did ValPak once when I had a gutter cleaning business and they had a different phone number that was on there, so that way you could track how much business or how many phone calls you got from that and it would auto-divert it to your phone number. Way you could track how much business or how many phone calls you got from that and they would auto-divert it to your phone number. So that's the only way I can think of that. You can track where that came from. So, and that was cool and I did benefit from that.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Valpak was very useful to me. The only thing I didn't like about it was that they ended up putting our ad in other areas that I didn't want to service because of the drive. They were giving me gutter cleaning jobs way up in the Thumb of Michigan and I had to turn them down because it just wasn't worth me driving whatever. It was two, two and a half hours round trip to go make a few hundred bucks, a couple hundred bucks. It just wasn't worth me to spend that on a Saturday to go do that. It was one of those things that was supposed to be just side money, kind of like a beer money income, not a primary objective to try and pay rent. But that's the only way you can quantify, that is with a different phone number or a coupon code. So why not join the trading association to where you don't really pay for that service until you get that money.

Speaker 1: 12:18

So if you are a cupcake shop and you want to put an ad in it's a thousand bucks join a trading association. They'll come in or go to a trade show, sell your services or your cupcakes, I guess for a thousand bucks, then turn around and use that for your ad. So not only did you get to pay for that ad with guaranteed income, but now you got a whole bunch of people that are talking about you to their friends and family who are not in trade. So you also got quite a bit amount of marketing for that as well. You know, the hardest thing to get people to come into a new shop is having people change their habits, and if you can do that with other business owners that are in the trading association because most people, except for sub accounts, are all business owners then you're going to have that. You know, new traffic from business owners who are going to tell other people about you, and that's the best kind of advertising.

Speaker 1: 13:14

Obviously, service-based businesses and companies that offer services like marketing and graphic design, legal advice, accounting can trade it for other needed services. And that's the cool thing about even with this podcast is. I'm reaching people I'm noticing in California, kentucky, north Carolina, texas, and not saying that they're going to sign up with Metro Trading Association. But we do have people signed up in other areas outside of Michigan and Ohio, which is where our main areas are, because they can utilize their dollars either way. So we have one guy's a roofer, he's in Indiana, he'll drive up to Michigan to do a big job on roofing for trade, up to Michigan to do a big job on roofing for trade. Then he uses his trade dollars for other things that are outside of our organization because we have a membership into IRTA. As I mentioned in one of my other podcasts or episodes, irta is the International Reciprocal Trade Association, so he can use his trade dollars for other things outside of our network and it works really well for him. If you're an accountant, cpa, whatever you can do. All that's all online now anymore. You can get those digitally sent to you, all the paperwork and then you just do it and then you're done. We've had people come in from Colorado to do our trade show. We're not just limited to Southeast Michigan and Ohio, toledo, ohio area, we have membership everywhere.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Another bullet point I have written down here is to talk about seasonal businesses. Ah yes, here we are in the season, the holiday season. Those are the fluctuating income type businesses, of course, pool, maintenance, holiday product sectors of course, and you can use your bartering to maintain your operations during off-peak times. So a lot of people in the trading associations know that they can. Well, I guess they kind of have an insight in your business because you can talk to them. Like you know, I can't get to you right now. I wrote down this bullet point too Hospitality travel. So hotels, restaurants, travel agencies can trade accommodations, meals and travel packages for advertising, maintenance or other services.

Speaker 1: 15:24

I don't know why every casino is not looking to be in a trading association. They give away so much money to try and get you into the hotel room, knowing that you're going to spend all your money down in the casino floor. They're going to people are going to spend their money on the casino floor. So I'm trying to talk to casinos in my area here in Detroit. We have a lot of the Indian casinos up north, you know, and I just don't really understand why it's so hard, because I don't want to say it's a no-brainer, because that sounds mean, but to put somebody in your hotel room that's empty with trade and then maybe just don't kick them the $50 in spending on the casino floor that they usually do, like I know I think it was Motor City Casino, I was at. You know you stay there at a certain day. I think it was Motor City Casino I was at. You know you stay there a certain day, maybe, like not on a weekend, and I think they would kick you 20 bucks per person to go spend on the casino floor. Well, instead of doing that that's 40 bucks per room for two people Just take the $100 or 120 bucks in trade dollars and then, you know darn well, we're going to go downstairs and go on the casino floor and spend money. I don't know Either way.

Speaker 1: 16:40

What's the other one here? Media companies and advertising. So radio stations we have those. We have tons of media companies, marketing firms, bartering and advertising space for other services or products. You have a magazine and you don't have every area full. Great opportunity to take some trade dollars and find somebody that can do that for you. Now that's the other one with ValPak. It was hard to talk to somebody over there about using, you know, getting someone to do trade with them for their ValPaks, because I know, because I was a cash member before I worked for the company or I was actually between the times I worked for the company when I had my gutter cleaning business they're putting me for free in areas that I didn't ask for. Well, you know why would you do that? I mean, I get why they did that to make the ValPAC that you need your ValPak filled with, or whatever the case may be, magazine, newspaper, etc. Right. Another one I have down here is construction and real estate. These industries benefit from bartering materials, labor and property management services. Yeah, so, I just actually signed up. A contractor yesterday who does bathroom remodeling benefit from bartering materials, labor, even property management services, yeah so, uh, I just actually signed up a contractor yesterday who does bathroom remodeling. He does solar panels, uh, wind generation.

Speaker 1: 18:18

I got one last one here e-commerce. Well, yeah, I mean, um, I don't even know why I wrote that bullet point down, it's kind of a redundant one. But online businesses, of course, you know, like I just said, you can be anywhere, anywhere in America, and as long as you can do something online, then you can check your trade dollars. We have members that are members of three different trading associations. Right, you can consider them our competitors because we do the same thing. But you know, it's kind of like going to McDonald's or Burger King, if you want to compare it like that, and they're usually next to each other. They both offer something for everybody. It's a little bit different, right? I mean, in high school I would go to Burger King and get the Whopper and then go to McDonald's and get a Coke and fries. It's a win-win, you know. I mean I had time so I could do that. But you know, that's just an example. Not every trading association has all the different businesses that everybody wants.

Speaker 1: 19:13

I guess I'm trying to say All right. So that's it for this week. That's all I have to say about that. Oh yeah, and last week I tried out a rhymey, lame, cringy sign-off, just to like I'm just playing here, you guys. You know I'm getting into the podcast thing and trying to do the marketing thing and just I don't know, trying to catchy stuff. But anyway, it was enough to make your eyes roll and that's good enough for me. It was funny at the time, but I'm not going to do it again because it was rough. So I'm not doing that again. That's it for this week. Make it a great day and I'll see you next week. Trade Tuesday Bye-.