Notes

MUST I Ever Barter Away My Stained Glass Art Or MUST I Hold Out For Cash?
In days gone by, we've, of course, had many occasions to create cash deals on our stained glass art and occasionally we've had to be able to barter our stained glass art for goods and services. During the period of years, we've had some barters and trades that exercised well, but many trades appeared to go sour.

Most started out with each party having the best of intentions to accomplish right by the other, but our experience's were that every time the trade or barter was made, our stained glass went right out at the start of the trade and we usually got our part of the trade following the fact. As a result, the people we traded with were always sure of what these were getting, but we never appeared to know exactly what we'd get, so we ended up getting disappointed most times.

As we've entered into these non-cash deals, we've developed three simple rules or guidelines to greatly help us steer clear of the bad deals, while leaving the entranceway open for the nice ones.

Rule 1 : What To Trade For

We've learned that if we're not careful, we're able to end up trading away all of the work we could possibly do and leave ourselves without more materials to create more glass pieces. So this first rule helps us in order to avoid trading away a lot more than we can afford. As stained glass artists, we know that 10 to 20% of the retail price of a window may be the cost of the materials that go in to the window and the rest of the price reflects the price of our labor plus some profit for the company. So we've adopted the policy that people never trade away the cost of the window. We will make a trade, however, not at our own expense. So when we make a deal, we agree that at the very least 10 or 20% of the trade be in cash, to cover the price of materials. And get more info put the cash back into the business for the intended purpose of purchasing replacement goods. This keeps us from losing on the deal, when what we trade for eventually ends up with little if any value to us.

When we first started doing windows, we'd a friend who wanted a specific design. She drew a sketch of an extremely nice pattern that was an amalgam of three different designs she had seen. We agreed that the panel would be in regards to a thousand dollars (which was low for the quantity of work) and we started building the panel. Now, up to this point, the window would be a cash deal, very self-explanatory, very clean. But once I had half the window cut right out, her husband made a decision to enter the act and turned the deal into a trade. He was very aggressive in his negotiating skills and I was a wimp. He beat me down on price from $1000 to $300. Why I ever decided to that change still confuses me, but then he took the cash away from the deal and made it a trade for construction parts he had lying around. The deal went from bad to worse! I was already focused on the window since the glass was cut, so I allowed the deal to go downhill. more info ended up spending $300 on solder for the window (solder had temporarily jumped in price) and I acquired what the husband valued as $300 worth of construction parts. They really were just about worthless. However the deal taught me several valuable lessons. The most important was rule one: Know What To Trade For. I had learned to explain what the trade was to be, how much cash would be involved, also to get a deposit or the complete balance of the cash portion of the deal before cutting any glass.

Another instance vividly illustrates what NOT to trade for. We've learned that whenever someone involves us for classes or even to get a stained glass window built plus they start whining about cost, or acting "poor mouth" and they advance the idea of a trade, we ALWAYS lose on the offer.

April was a good example of this kind of bad deal. She came and started to take classes. But she immediately began wondering if she could make payments instead of spending money on class up-front. We agreed and another week, she advanced the idea that maybe she could trade for half of the cost of tuition. We asked what she had at heart and she told us about these beautiful candles she made. So we made a decision to permit the trade. She traded us two candles which she felt were worth the $40 of class she was trading for. I would have valued them at $10 total, but we'd already entered in to the trade and felt committed. So we permitted to let the trade stand. The candles, while overvalued on her behalf part, also had another problem. They stunk! We couldn't maintain the same room with them and we gave them away to somebody who missed them offensive. That deal began badly and we allowed it to keep, not putting an end to it whenever we began to feel taken advantage of. We've since discovered that all those kind of deals have been harmful to us, both in the trade itself and in addition in the bad feelings it generates in us. It damages our faith and trust in others whenever we get cheated. A footnote to the instance, when April quit arriving at class, she left owing us almost just as much money as she had paid for her classes.

Rule 2: Get Your End First

It's human nature to be quite excited as long as you're about to get something, but to lose interest once you have gotten your side of the deal. The donkey who follows the carrot on a stick is an excellent example. So long as that carrot hangs out there nearly at your fingertips, the donkey could keep moving, but as soon as the carrot is fully gone, the donkey stops. We even lose a few of our enthusiasm for completing a project when we have been paid, but we usually have plans and patterns which were occur advance, so our part of a trade or perhaps a business transaction continues on whether there exists a promise or perhaps a reward.

This is not the case with folks we've traded with. So we're fighting two negatives if we do not get our area of the trade in advance. First we're coping with something (something or service) that is sight unseen and we're fighting another persons natural loss of enthusiasm for the trade because they've already gotten what they wanted.

Among a positive barter was whenever we traded for some essential oil diffusers for Christmas presents with a client. We got about $400 worth of product in trade for some work we did for them. Over the course of the year, we were able to complete their design and obtain their windows installed for them. Then at Christmas time the next year we traded for a few essential oils for the balance of what they owed us. This is a good trade because it allowed us to save lots of on the expenses of Christmas presents for two years also it got them a beautiful entryway which will provide them with years of enjoyment.

A trade which didn't go so well involved a custom rocking chair built by way of a friends brother. The trade went fairly smoothly except, we didn't like the custom rocking chair once it had been completed. It was too much, and didn't rock right. It was beautiful and we gave it to my sister and her husband. They loved it, he was taller and the rock of the chair was just right for him. In cases like this, the deal went just as it will have, but we were just trading for something sight unseen.

Rule 3: Give More Than Expected, Lower Your Own Expectations

To really get a deal to work in the favor of both parties, you've got to give more than the other guy expects, always trying to make the offer better for them. And you will be less disappointed once you lower your own expectations. When I handled the husband who traded construction parts to me, I learned that many times, the other guy doesn't care if you get a good deal. This man was only thinking about getting a great deal for himself, and he did. But I never traded stained glass with him again!

A good barter arrangement is one where both parties are concerned with the others feelings. Whenever we made a trade having an artist friend, some large windows for a painting, the deal changed many times. They agreed to purchase the materials and we would get two paintings, in line with the amount of time that it would take to build both of the art projects. She later decided that two paintings was an excessive amount of so we agreed to get one plus some design time on glass projects. When it proved that the completed painting couldn't be published in the magazine we had thought it will be put into, we felt that the ultimate value of the painting was greatly diminished. So the deal did continue steadily to go downhill, to become less valuable to us, through no one's fault, just circumstances. But we'd already lowered our expectations and our friend had become a greater friend and we've enjoyed several hours doing art projects together.

We have another friend, whom we build pieces for on a reasonably regular basis. The trades never go well for all of us, she forgets that people have credit with her and she wants more glass, we will never get "even" but we've lowered our expectations. We know her, know she "needs" the pieces we trade with her and figure that the task we do on her behalf is more a gift than a trade.

If you can get to this point, where you expect little in a trade, where it's more about opportunity, art and building beauty, bartering my work out for you. When you are feeling ripped off, you should probably avoid trading your art and stick to cash deals. Even they'll occasionally go south you.

Trading stained glass for products and services has frequently been a means for others to get the glass that they want, when they really wouldn't have been in a position to afford it for cash. It has seldom been a great way for all of us to fill our bank-account, nonetheless it has often been a means for us to develop relationships with others which have become dear to us and contains become a way for our art to be seen by others. It very often results in other deals we would never have imagined, providing us with sales in probably the most unlikely places. It's like this scripture about casting thy bread upon the waters and it'll go back to you ten fold. An excellent trade is like that. It returns to us rewards we never could have imagined.

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back 1983 and contains become an expert at many aspects of stained glass building, design and repair. He writes a monthly newsletter at [http://www.betterstainedglass.com].

He also has a website with a great many other articles
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