Trade away your Overdrawn Directors Loan

For those who haven’t heard of Bartercard.

Bartercard is the World’s largest business to business Trade Exchange servicing over 75,000 trading members across 6 countries with the World’s largest computerised Barter Network

http://www.bartercard.co.uk/about

Basically members exchange goods and services instead of cash and a Trade Pound has the same value as a Pound Sterling.

Bartercard is reported in your accounts in the same way as a Bank Account.

My Bartercard contacts tell me that currently one of the most popular ways to use Bartercard is to repay Directors Loans, the Director sells or auctions personal items, selling via Bartercard is easy and members are always keen to buy, they then use the Trade Pounds to repay the Directors Loan.

I know you might say why don’t you just sell for cash, which you could do, but because some products such as electrical items are in short supply in Bartercard, on the auction site (much like EBay) they will almost certainly be sold for a premium price.

Once you have paid off your directors loan you may be eligible for a Corporation Tax refund. http://stevejbicknell.com/2012/01/02/pay-off-your-directors-loan-and-reclaim-corporation-tax/

steve@bicknells.net

Is cashflow killing your business?

Many small businesses are suffering slower and slower customer payment as highlighted in this link

http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2011-07-12-small-business-late-payments_n.htm

Lack of cashflow is the main reason for business failure.

Bartercard can help because they can provide an interest fee credit facility to buy goods and services from their members, Bartercard have 4000 UK business members including solicitors and debt collectors (which can help collect your cash)

Contact me for more details steve.bicknell@uk.bartercard.net

How do you get new clients? take part in this poll and lets find out

This is a great opportunity to find out what techniques are being used and what your views are, I look forward to your comments and votes

steve@bicknells.net

How do you market your business?

Bartercard give a 100% guarantee of sales included as standard in their membership, what do they do to get those sales?

Did you know Bartercard promote your products and services in 17 ways?

Yes thats right, 17 ways and here they are:

1. Members Directory
2. On line Directory
3, E Auction
4. Account Managers (TCOs)
5. E Mail Campaigns
6. Mail shots
7. Fax Campaigns
8. Networking events
9. Trade Shows
10. International Hot Deals
11. Value Added Services
12. Moving Inventory
13. Last Minute Deals
14. The Barter Bulletin Magazine
15. Member Referrals
16. Offers to Supply
17. E Market Place

Thats why Bartercard confidentially guarantee that they will generate sales from their members for you, if you want to know more or want to link in my e mail is steve.bicknell@uk.bartercard.net

Whats the Return on Investment from Bartercard?

To join bartercard there is a “once only initial investment” so how can we quantify our return on investment?

Every business has had to make an investment in their business to get it started, for example a hairdresser would need to fit out her shop with fixtures, fittings and equipment, so in accounting terms how can we evaluate the investment that we make when we join bartercard?

1. Pay Back Period – how many years does it take to get back our initial investment in profits – for normal investments anything less than 3 years is considered good – because Bartercard specialise in selling spare capacity and as such only product replacement costs are relevant, its likely that the profit on each sale will be around 70% profit (as used in our hairdresser/accountant trading story) – as Bartercard guarantee to get more than the joining fee in sales in the first year, the payback period is likely to be less than 2 years – so thats an excellent return on investment

2. Average Rate of Return (ARR) – this method of appraisal takes the average of the profits made over say a 3 year period (or the life of an asset) and shows the result as a % of the initial investment I estimate a 70% ARR, obviously this will vary from business to business, but I am sure you will quickly be able to work out the return for your business

3. Net Present Value/Discounted Cash Flow – this method of appraisal takes into account the time value of returns, its often considered the best and most precise way to assess returns, to calculate the Net Present Value you create a cash flow table year 0, shows the investment as a cost, then the net profits are shown in the subsequent years and a factor is applied to remove the effect of inflation, the higher the NPV the better the investment

4. Internal Rate of Return – this is also described as the effectie interest rate, to calculate this we increase the Discount Rate in the DCF (3 above) until the NPV equals zero and that produces the return rate

If you need help doing this analysis for your business drop me an e mail

steve.bicknell@uk.bartercard.net

Increased Sales without discounting, guaranteed!

The reason most businesses join bartercard is to increase their sales. Isn’t that what everyone wants? it’s why we go networking, why we advertise and its generally the reason we went into business in the first place – because we thought we could earn more (by selling more) than working for someone else.

When you barter using bartercard you swap your services at their full value, there are many discount schemes now being promoted, they generally get you to heavily discount your product/service and charge you a fee on top. The theory being that the new clients who use the discount scheme will want to come back and pay full price, it could work, but I suspect many people just take the special offers.

Bartercard now have 75,000 worldwide members, so there are plenty of businesses to swap with and Bartercard give a guarantee that they will get sales for your business. So if you want more sales, why not give it a go?

steve@bicknells.net