Get on the barter bandwagon!

GROWING UP, it amazed me how, on any given weekend, my mother would not need to go to the market because she would give her neighbours breadfruit, limes, callaloo, and green bananas, and they would bring yams, ackees, sweet potatoes or peppers. During the summer time when ‘all fruits ripe’, it got even sweeter because we would exchange oranges, cherries, and Julie mango for naseberry, otaheite apples, June plums, and East Indian mangoes. It was the norm to barter food like this, and it seemed like such a seamless ‘good neighbour’ process.

When I started my first degree studies at The University of the West Indies, Mona, I remember the first year being one of sharing all the great concepts and new knowledge we were getting among our classmates or hall mates, but as my tenure ended after three years, I realised persons started to hold what they knew academically close to their chests, and if a sharing opportunity came along, it was more of a ‘show off ting.’

As I entered the work world, this trend of keeping our knowledge and talents as secrets to only benefit the goals we are trying to attain, seemed to be even more entrenched. Over the years of seeing this, especially among women, I wondered, who taught us this? I have seen communities come together and help a farmer to reap his crops, or lay blocks and mix cement to build a house. I wondered if there was some type of subliminal message we received culturally that said it was OK to barter physical labour, but not intellectual skills?

Well, I am here to tell you that entrepreneurs globally have been benefiting from skills bartering. And if you have not yet started doing so, this health pandemic that has already been yielding an economic downturn worldwide, has presented a prime opportunity to start doing so.

There is not one universal model, so if you choose to start skills bartering, you have a number of options. Within my group of entrepreneur friends, this is a common practice. My primary skills are based in brand communication, and I also own a fashion company. I have done marketing for my friends who own legal companies and medical offices in exchange for the services they provide, and I have gotten tax-filing assistance and editing services in exchange for the swimsuits my company produces.

It can even get more formalised, where a group of professionals with various skill sets decide that they are creating a skills bartering pool. They can agree on giving 50 hours (for argument’s sake) of their skill to the other professionals within the group at a value of ($100,000, for example) in exchange for the same value of another skill that benefits their business. So at no time is there the feeling that it is ‘free work’, because all members of the pool stand to benefit from the skills within the group.

KNOWLEDGE PROCESS OUTSOURCING

It can even go further to become a financially viable venture by using your pool of skills professional to embark on knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). KPOs are quite popular in India and East Asian countries, and they operate similar to the business process outsourcing model that has become popular in Jamaica. So businesses that need various skill sets that they do not have an interest in honing, can look to an established KPO entity to supply these services for cash. This ensures that the business that needs the service benefits and the professional skills pool earns.

I am a part of a group of marketing professionals, and one person suggested that we have ‘business showers’ here in Jamaica, where when a friend starts a business, we gather to celebrate them and bring a resource (which may be your skill) to assist them in the start-up phase.

Look around in your network to see what skills you may need to enhance your business, and reach out and offer your skills in exchange for the ones you need. It works to ensure we all keep our businesses operational during this period which has proven to us that the world, though a large physical space, is a very small social and economic sphere. There is no better time to change the way we operate and monetise our intellectual skills to benefit each other.

If you need help in starting your own professional skills pool; send me an email at daniabeckford@gmail.com, and thank me later!