Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to the Barter Edge Podcast—your insider guide to smarter business, bigger networks, and better ways to trade.
Whether you're a seasoned member or just getting started, we're here to share real stories, expert tips from different industries, and fresh ideas to help you grow your business using the power of the Bartercard ecosystem.
Jen: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Barter Edge Podcast, your insider guide to smarter business, bigger networks, and better ways to trade. We are here to share real stories, expert tips from different industries and fresh ideas to help you grow your business using the power of barter cart. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Barter Edge podcast.
This is the final in season one for the podcast, and we thought, what better person to have in here? Again, other than Andrew, the CEO, and original founder of Bartercard, Andrew has been a driving force behind Bartercard's mission since the very beginning, and today we're going to deep dive into the some real conversations happening.
On the marketplace at the moment. So over, uh, my time with the team, I've heard both excuses and then mind blowing success stories from members. And in this episode, let's [00:01:00] talk about some of them and some of the things that you've been able to help businesses do and achieve things that they never otherwise would've been able to achieve.
So welcome back. Andrew. Do you wanna start by saying anything to our listeners?
Andrew: Sure. Thanks, uh, Jen, thanks for having me back. It's been. It's been good. Good to see and follow the, uh, the podcast as well. We had some, uh, great, great members, um, on the podcast and, um, yeah, it's, it's good to wrap it up and maybe unpack some of the not so popular, uh, comments.
Um, that, you know, we've, we've been hearing from people and so on, and people thoughtlessly actually passing on to others, which, um. It's not really fair, but that's just a society we live in. People like to concentrate on the negatives, you know, it's almost like being part of the media, you know, if it's not bloody and sensational, you know, we're just not gonna print it 'cause it doesn't sound newspapers.
The same goes with [00:02:00] stories. If you, you know, embellish your story and it's all full of blood and gore or, or bad things. Yep. People listen to that much rather than to having a nice conversation about something positive.
Jen: Absolutely. I always think that about a current affair or shows like that, that depending on who gets in first, the story is told completely differently because of that person's personal view.
But everyone has. Their own stories. Um, so let's start with a big bu okay. Spending trade dollars. Uh, some business owners say, I can't find anything to spend my trade dollars on. How would you respond to that? Well,
Andrew: if I knew this question was coming up, I would've bought in one of our older, new, uh, directories that are, that we used to carry around, which is around about this thick, um, think of yellow pages from the past.
Obviously with, you know, going digital and so on. The directory is now online. [00:03:00] But, so here's the thing. The majority of people who claim they can't spend their trade dollars, uh, have got a number of different reasons because every story has got two sites. Number one, did you download the latest app?
Because if, unless you haven't got the app or you logged onto your account, you actually can't. So this could be just a technical count. Then we have got people, I spoke to a member actually not too long ago, and he said, oh, I can't spend my trade dollars. And I said, um, so how much have you got? And he goes, uh, I probably accumulated, uh, $3,000 or so.
I said, Hey, how much you spend on accounting each year? Now he goes around about three, $4,000, you know. I said, well, we've got a brand new accountant that actually joined the program to deal with businesses like yours. Oh, I, I wouldn't wanna change my accountant. I said, okay. So it's not that you can't spend, but you won't [00:04:00] spend on this?
Yes. Oh, okay. Then we had, um, other people who said, I can't spend my tri dollars because I wanna spend it on this. And for example, say business expenses. I say to them, okay, uh, last year you went to Fiji on holiday. You know, why don't you use Barta car to go on holiday to Fiji because we've got a few resorts there that you could do, and it was in the area that they normally go to.
And he said, no. I was told by my accountant and I shouldn't spend personally. And I said, well, obviously your accountant doesn't really know a lot. Let me look through the technical part. When you pay for a personal expense out of your business, then that's classed as wages. Wages are tax deductible to the business, and you have to pay tax on your personal income in the cash economy.
Full stop. So [00:05:00] what would stop you from taking some barter dollars as part of your wages pay for your Fijian holiday and the cash that you normally would take out of your business? To go to Fiji would actually stay in the business. Oh, I have to ask my accountant. Well, that's just basic mathematics.
Jen: Maybe he should go and check out one of our accountants who actually understands barter car a hundred
Andrew: percent
Jen: and can help him learn more of that sort of thing.
So what valuable tips, what else would you say?
Andrew: Well, I would say take a second opinion because. Even. Yeah. So many people listen to their accountant who's supposed to be a resource in the business, like help you do your taxes, minimize the amount of tax you pay by claiming all your legal expenses and so on.
But those guys traditionally don't think outside the box. Mm-hmm. And not that bar cut is like a [00:06:00] wild concept. We've been around, you know, 34 years. We've had hundreds of accountants in the network and still have. Who do understand how to operate with two currencies and, um, you know, only because you've got an old school guy that doesn't understand your business, he's gonna give you some advice that you're paying for, you know, so, I don't know.
I mean, have a second opinion, have a look. Use your own brain cells to. You not judge a situation. I mean, you got into business, you build a brand, you're selling products, you're looking after customers. I mean, all of that is without being baby set by an accountant because that's not traditional, traditionally their strength.
So you then ask them, because there's now a second currency involved for an opinion, which in most cases for people that are not part of the network. [00:07:00] Instead of saying, I don't know, people said I wouldn't do it, and they wouldn't do it because they don't know. And then the business owner that was looking for advice goes back and says, oh, my accountant told me not to.
Jen: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: But the accountant really needs to have the head examined. You know, I, I had, or skill upskill themselves.
Jen: I had someone say, oh, I need to speak to just this week actually, I need to speak to my bookkeeper. It's just like when I'm implementing something in my own business, I don't check with my bookkeeper.
Oh, I just go, this is what I'm doing.
Andrew: You might talk to a business coach or someone that helped you build the business, but not someone who just records numbers.
Jen: Yeah.
Andrew: So when did entrepreneurs start listening to highly conservative people or naysayers? In, in a lot of cases. Let's just do my head in.
Jen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because [00:08:00] to be in business and to have a thriving business, you've gotta be thriving. Your mindset has gotta be thriving. And we had the conversation this morning, I love our chats. Mm-hmm. About, um, like the, the people that you spend your time with really influences your results, doesn't it?
Andrew: Yes. So if, I don't know how many people will do this after listening to this.
If you take stock of the conversations that you have got with your friends, your neighbors, your business associates, your family, and you really think about it consciously, not just engaging in conversation. If you really think about it consciously, you could be standing around the barbecue. What is going to be the topic?
Is it how good something was, how successful someone has been, how someone created. A great marketing program, how someone inspired people, or is it the bloody so and so from [00:09:00] so and so. Um, he's done this. She's done that. Have you heard the latest? This is all negative. Well, who
Jen: does she think she is? You get that and females often will tear other business females down.
Andrew: Well, I don't get that often.
Jen: No, you wouldn't. Speaking about communication, some of, uh, people have said, I haven't heard from anyone in a long time.
Andrew: I mean this week, sorry, last week we had this guy and you know, he was standing on his own little soapbox. Um, and it was like a group of people communicating.
I think it was on socials or whatever, and some guy was unloading that. He hasn't heard from anybody. His account manager doesn't care about him. Barca doesn't care about him. We just took his money. Now, this client has been a member for some [00:10:00] 20 years, has traded hundreds of thousands of dollars, so we bought him hundreds of thousands dollars worth of business.
He's spent hundreds of thousands. He's got a few grand left in his account, so he's got major value out of the program already. Um, and when at some stage his Bartercard communication started ending up in the spam box. I don't know if he changed profiles or a new email address or some, I, I don't really know exactly how that happened.
So sometimes I like calling people out. Unfortunately, I can't always divulge all the information that we've got, you know? For example, there was another one just sidetracking. Someone was complaining he couldn't spend his barter dollars and I could have stripped him down to his bonds because not only was he in debit [00:11:00] and didn't have any trade dollars left, he actually overdrew his overdraft by entering into some traits that had to be specially authorized because he was way over his limit already.
And he was complaining to other people that he couldn't spend. The reason why he couldn't spend is he was way over his limit. It's like having a credit card with a $20,000 limit and you are already at 25 grand. The bank is not gonna let you spend anymore. Is he running around saying, oh, I can't spend my cash because I haven't got any?
No, but he's gonna run around to tell people he can't spend his barter even though he's got none.
Jen: Wow. And. One of the big differences with having a line of credit with Bartercard compared to a bank,
Andrew: it's interest free.
Jen: It's interest free. So he essentially got a $25,000 loan
Andrew: free of charges
Jen: with,
Andrew: and he's biting the hands that's feeding him.
Jen: [00:12:00] Wow. That is incredible. It really does come back to mindset, doesn't it?
Andrew: So going back to this. Email, uh, sorry. This social story that was developing some guy saying he's being ignored. Of course, not only do we record every communication we've got with people in writing, so our CRM actually stores all the communication, but our phone system also does that.
So we went back and had a look at the communication, and of course he gets his statements and other, other, other things. He had received, I don't know how many emails, written correspondence from us, his account manager and so on, giving him opportunities to trade with if that was new customers or if that was spending his trade dollars.
Um, so that was one. Then we pulled the phone logs of our number, like his account manager [00:13:00] to his number, which is easy to do nowadays. Plus the account manager used. Their mobile phone also to play some calls and send text messages. So instead of stripping him on the social platform, I just went to him and I said, listen, call him Bob.
I said, listen, Bob, here, we've got your last 20 or so emails, correspondence, and so on that your account manager did. Um, 10 messages left on your voicemail. So many attempted calls, da, da, da, da, da. Do you want me to go to the forum and answer your little
Jen: comment
Andrew: tantrum?
Jen: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: And all of a sudden he started backpedaling.
Oh, you know, I just realized this sort of happened into the, um, got him into my, um, spam box and, you know, da, do you want to go online now and say sorry to about a card? Actually, [00:14:00] all the accusations weren't really true. The communication was lost otherwise, or do you want me to do that? Hmm. You know, no one, and this is the mindset.
No one in business, very few people do blame themselves for what they're, where they're at. Mm-hmm. Everybody always blames somebody else. You know, I've been dealing with business people for 34 years in the Bartercard game. I've seen some incredible operators. Mm-hmm. And I've seen some people that were, yeah, not really good in business.
They were good at their trade maybe, but not really that good at business. And almost without fail. If a business goes out of business, they always blame someone else. It's the banks that you know, charge too much. Took them outta business. It's [00:15:00] Bartercard because they couldn't either get enough customers or they didn't know where to spend their trade dollars.
It's their supplier that was not doing the right thing up. It's, you name it, it's the neighbor, it's the competitor. It's colds, it's Woolies, it's Aldi. Uh, they pushed us out of business. It's Bunnings. They have got cheaper prices, all that kind of stuff. Very few people have a look in the mirror and assess why they are where they're at, and that's what we were talking about earlier.
It's the mindset thing. It's a blame justify culture. Mm-hmm. The people though that make the difference that are running thriving businesses, you look at them and the majority of them are. Open-minded, friendly, communicative, um, positive mindset.
Jen: The people that you wanna be around.
Andrew: A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
And because the people that you [00:16:00] surround yourself with rubs off on you. You need to make choices. Do I want to hang out with these people? The naysayers, the the negative people, the blame justify culture, or do I want to go and listen to some people who actually. Got their shit together and started. I don't know if I can say that on the mic, but obviously I just did.
Jen: You're the CEOI reckon you can probably do anything. That's right. That's right. I've heard worse.
Andrew: Um, you know, or do you listen to those people? There's people writing books about how to build a successful business and you go to someone that's struggling and say, have you read any of these books? And they go, oh no, it's for free.
This information is if, if you don't wanna buy the book, go on the internet, it's free. You know, so, um, I'll give you an example. Two restaurants, both in Broad Beach, one of the owners, so they're next to each other. One of the owners had, [00:17:00] had actually four restaurants with us, and he was trading probably around about a hundred thousand dollars a month between these four restaurants.
That's a lot of business to us. That's like a Gold Bar client. Fantastic. And to do a hundred thousand dollars a month, you need to know where to spend. And the guy built a beak business. He also invested into property. He spoke to his suppliers and he said, look, I'm part of the bar cart network to lock me in and keep buying from you.
You gotta take some bar cart. And he set up his own supply chain because he knew if he could pay a hundred dollars bill with a meal rather than pulling a hundred dollars out of his till. You know, cold, hard cash that he's earned, it was going to cost him a lot less. If he puts a hundred dollars meal on the table, that only cost him 35 bucks to make, if he takes a hundred dollars bill out of the till, that is out of existing business and it [00:18:00] costs him a hundred bucks.
Jen: It's like paid with one meal or pay with two and a half meals or three meals.
Andrew: Correct. And the one meal that we send him is. We do this as part of being a part of the buy cart network, the three meals he has to sell, he has to engage his own marketing to sell to the general marketplace to get the cash revenue in, right?
So US would be extra business. He normally wouldn't have to pay for a bill. He normally pays cash for save the cash. So the guy that was trading a hundred grand a month, he had a black belt in barter cart. The guy that was next door to him. Bought the business and also joined Powder Cart and he was doing roundabout 1500 bucks a month.
In fact, I would say that that restaurant arguably was the better restaurant to no disrespect to the other guy. This, [00:19:00] this was a bit. Almost like, not bistro food, but uh, it was sort of a trendy kind of thing. It was nothing fancy. Whereas the other restaurant was a little bit more fancy, but he did $1,500 a month.
After two months, he started complaining because he didn't know what to do, blah, blah, blah. His restaurant was empty. Whereas the guy next door, you know. Customers bring customers. So here you've got a restaurant, two restaurants next to each other, one is half full and the other one is empty. So where do you go?
Jen: You always go to a busy restaurant because a busy re must restaurant must be good. That's
Andrew: right. So
even though the other restaurant was better, it eventually fired. Now. He didn't blame bar the [00:20:00] cart for, for change. Which was, which was probably refreshing, but, so here you've got two restaurants. Even if the food was the same, they're both selling the same thing on a strip where dining out is the thing.
It's just, you know, that's what Broad Beach is, is all about. They're competing for the same client. They have roughly the same food. One is better than the other, so that should actually do better. They both have the same opportunities and avail themselves to the same tools. Is that advertising, marketing and then of course, barter cart one.
Highly successful and one failing. Who is the problem? Barter cart. The banks, uh, the neighbor's dog? No, it's always the person in charge and too many people. Not having a good look in the mirror and going, saying, should [00:21:00] I really go around spreading dumb negative comments about something that I haven't got a clue about to justify that I just had to bite the bullet and close my business down, you know?
Or do I preserve some dignity? Because the people that are listened to, these negative people, we all know,
we all know. Some, some people they basically need to change friends or surroundings, people they spend time with because negative people can nag you out.
Jen: Yeah. You know, it's exhausting as well, isn't it? Totally. So would, do you have any tips on business owners starting to look in the mirror and take more responsibility?
Like what's, 'cause you are very focused. Always solution driven. Okay, so you've presented me with a problem. What are we gonna do about it? Mm-hmm. And [00:22:00] like it's not blameful or shameful or anything like that. It's like, okay, what can we learn? So have you got any tips for business owners becoming more responsible for their results?
Andrew: Thousands really. But, um, you know, we deal with a number of business coaches, for example. Mm-hmm. And I've always believed in coaches because every sports team that wants to win, they've got coaches, everyone in business that wants to win should engage a coach in some kind of shape, in some shape or form.
Now business, unless you're a one main band, is a, is a team event. And. In a team event, you can't be good at everything. I mean, the one thing that I learned very early on is I'm not good at everything. If I was the financial controller in our business when we first kicked off, we'd probably be broke. If I was the legal person responsible, I'd [00:23:00] probably be in jail.
Um, if I was the IT guy, then we wouldn't have a computer. You know, it's like the thing is you just gotta leave. These things in business that we all need to the experts. And sometimes leading a business is its own thing. It's just because you print a business card that says boss man or boss woman doesn't make you an expert.
So when I talk to some of these business coaches, having these conversations with them, and as I said, we've always employed business coaches. Sometimes it's mindset, sometimes. You know, it's all about the person. It's not really coaching them how to do their job. If they don't know how to do their job, then they wouldn't have the job.
But it's expanding their mind, having their mindset examined, um, you know, reflect on things. How do you react to, to staff and bringing their unconsciousness sometimes into conscious people don't [00:24:00] realize how negative they are. Mm. Until someone tells them. So I'm talking to these business coaches. And one of the things they get when they're pitching for business, especially with the smaller business, they go and say, I don't need a coach.
Yeah. And all the people who use that kind of wording, they probably need them the most. All the successful companies have got coaches in their business.
Jen: You always have to get outside counsel. And it's the new trend to do it through chat GPT now and train them up. And I'm like, that's never gonna work.
That's never gonna work. Um, but you need that outside's perspective to open your way of thinking. And I see Bartercard as one of those tools as well because it opens people's. Ways of thinking around business now, Andrew, we do only have a few minutes left. Gee, already. I know the time always goes so quickly.
Can you please share with us a great trading tip [00:25:00] that people may not have, um, thought of?
Andrew: Well, lots of people get really surprised when it's all of a sudden, you know, when, when they're here you can use Bartercard to buy property. It just blows them away. And, um, talking about business coaches, I'm, I'm talking about one now.
Um, very good business coach, very respected. Um, came in, joined our program some, some time ago. Um, has gained new clients that they wouldn't have had otherwise have taken the whole family off to New Zealand. Something they couldn't probably. I don't know, fought or normally do if it wasn't
Jen: justify,
Andrew: justify if it wasn't on Bartercard, you know, taking the whole family, kids, brothers, sisters, and so on for a big event all to New Zealand, you know, besides the airfares, accommodation, meals and so on.
That would've been, you know, $30,000 or whatever. [00:26:00] Um, but if you pay for it with some of your time rather than some of your money. Then it becomes more affordable. And so this particular coach took the whole family raved on about it, uh, on social media as well. Fantastic. And just last week, we are now working on a deal where they're going to buy a property through barter cart.
So it's not all on barter cart, but if you just, and I don't want to sort of. Divulge the numbers, but if you bought a million dollar house, for example, and you borrow max, say 90%, you gotta pay interest. A, you've gotta find a hundred thousand dollars that has to be sitting around somewhere available because you have to have some equity in the deal or, or 50,000, and then you pay interest.
On the rest. So if you borrowed a million dollars, [00:27:00] even at 5%, it's easy numbers. There's 50,000 that goes alone in interest. Now again, half the Einstein's out there in the, in the marketplace, you know, claim that can't be done, isn't, isn't working, da da da, whatever. But the one thing that is true is that every Australian wants to own their own home.
Jen: Hmm.
Andrew: Coming from Europe, originally it's different, but in Australia, everybody wants to buy their own home. And you know, the ads that Suncorp brought out some years ago, you know, own your home sooner with Suncorp, da da da, this and this. Well, it's really, you can own your home much, much sooner with barter cart.
So if you get a $300,000 line of credit, or if you've got some of the data saved up, it's interest free. So now you're only paying interest on say, six or 700. Thousand, which means now it's only at the same interest rate, 30, 35,000. So there's already 15,000 [00:28:00] cash back in your pocket. Now, if you pay that in principle repayments, that will accelerate your mortgage at no time.
Jen: Yeah. It just, when, when I hear these things, uh, my, I, I literally have steam coming out of my head. I love it because. Like that is life changing for a family. Getting even that just 15,000 back into their family. Yeah. Makes a huge difference. Like that's your next holiday and you got your house
Andrew: and what if you don't even qualify for a million dollar loan line of credit with the bank.
Jen: Yeah. But
Andrew: you qualify for maybe 700 or 800,000. So I wasn't at an event last night and there was a. High Flying mortgage broker. They've got three offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane. Uh, the event was up in Brisbane and he got, he did some numbers on the screen at current interest rates. If you borrow a million dollars, normal term, you pay [00:29:00] back over right about 2.1 million.
Jen: Wow.
Andrew: So double at the moment, depending when you enter the market with the interest rates up and down, but at the moment. It was around about 1.1, 1.2 million in interest of the term for $1 million loan. And then when he was sitting down, he was sitting next to me because I was one of the guest speakers as well, and he was talking to someone about how you, how to own your home sooner.
I just said to him, uh, or you could shave 10 years off your mortgage by using Bartercard. He went, how does that work? I said, part of your. Financing would be interest free. Where from? I'm a broker. I know where to get the best rates. I said, do you get zero? He goes, no. I said, well, we do.
Jen: Wow.
Andrew: And he went. He went, do you have a cut?
I need to talk to you. I don't understand this.
Jen: That's incredible. Andrew, [00:30:00] I'm so sorry. We need to wrap this up out, out of time. We are out of time. Thank you for coming in. What a way to finish the season. Um, and I can't wait, uh, to start season two in the future
Andrew: and maybe you have me back and we finish off some good stories.
Jen: Sounds great. Thanks Andrew. Awesome.
Andrew: Thank you. Thanks everybody.
Jen: Thank you for being with us today and sharing your. Stories and expertise. If you wanna find out how Bartercard can help your business, or if you wanna be a guest on our future podcast, contact our team at hello@bartercard.com. Make sure you tune in for our next episode of the Barter Edge.