10 Ways to Overcome Tight Cash-Flow using IMS now!

We know cash-flow is tight right now. Here are 10 ideas to help you survive the cash-flow crunch and make the best use of the IMS barter system.

1. We are open so stay in touch with your IMS broker regularly. Spend time learning what’s now available as well as letting your broker know your particular product/service needs, both personal and for your business.
   
   
2. List your company’s disaster recovery plans and include IMS’ many services in those plans. Consider necessary improvements, selected renovations, needed merchandise, sanitation needs, and advertising to announce your grand reopening.
   
   
3. Don’t forget what business you are really in - the business of customer development. IMS provides a valuable network of potential customers for you to tap into. Make increasing your customer base a top priority.
   
   
4. Call your IMS broker as soon as possible to ascertain the up-to-date strengths of the IMS Marketplace and possible trades. Together, you can look for additional ways to substitute barter purchases for your business expenditures now being paid in cash.
   
   
5. Spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day, or at least an hour and a half a week “thinking barter,” i.e., looking at ways barter can be substituted for cash. Such a minimal expenditure of time will pay you big dividends.
   
   
6. Begin a notebook or even an Excel spreadsheet titled, “Management of Greater Cash Flow,” to plan your barter sales and purchases. Keep track of your barter and cash transactions using one column for expenditures paid with cash, the second column for those acquired on trade.
   
   
7. Analyze your company's marginal cost of doing business. Determine your trade dollar cost by knowing what your “extra barter business” really costs you, on a marginal basis. Keep in mind that fixed day-to-day overhead is already covered by your regular cash business and shouldn’t be used to determine your cost of barter. Your broker can help you with this!
   
   
8. Be ready when Industry comes back to strength. Remember, your company’s sales success revolved around your frequency of advertising, as a $400,000 study by the Advertising Research Foundation proved. Their finding: it’s not what is advertised but how often it’s advertised. Look upon advertising as an investment and employ advertising and promotional help from IMS whenever possible. Even if now might now seem like a good time to advertise, you can help your customers know you are still there for them in certain capacities.
   
   
9. Make it a goal to use the IMS community more to build new contracts and enlarge your customer base. With business contacts being more important now more than ever, networking through IMS is a way to get the edge on your competition.
   
   
10. Treat every customer as an “A” list customer because they make a significant, very profitable contribution to your bottom line.

If you are worried about your cash flow or how to keep your business floating during these trying times, give IMS a call. We will help you find cash-saving solutions.