Notes

Should I Ever Barter Away My Stained Glass Art Or Should 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 a chance 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 seemed to go sour.

Most began with each party getting 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 section of the trade following the fact. Due to this fact, the folks we traded with were always sure of what these were getting, but we never appeared to know exactly what we'd get, so we finished up getting disappointed most times.

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

Rule 1 : WHAT THINGS TO Trade For

We've learned that if we're not careful, we could find yourself trading away all the work we could possibly do and leave ourselves without more materials to make more glass pieces. So this first rule helps us to avoid trading away more than we are able to afford. As stained glass artists, we realize that 10 to 20% of the retail price of a window is the cost of the materials that go into the window and all of those other price reflects the expense of our labor plus some profit for the company. So we've adopted the policy that we never trade away the expense of the window. We shall make a trade, but not at our own expense. When we make a deal, we agree that at the very least 10 or 20% of the trade maintain cash, to cover the price of materials. And we put the cash back into the business enterprise for the purpose of purchasing replacement goods. This keeps us from losing on the offer, when what we trade for eventually ends up with little or no value to us.

When we first started doing windows, we'd a friend who wanted a specific design. She drew a sketch of a very nice pattern which was an amalgam of three different designs she had seen. We agreed that the panel will be about a thousand dollars (that was low for the amount of work) and we started building the panel. Now, up to this aspect, the window was going to be considered a cash deal, very straight forward, very clean. But once I had half the window cut out, her husband decided to enter the act and turned the offer right 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 agreed to that change still confuses me, but then he took the cash away from the offer and managed to get a trade for construction parts he had lying around. The offer went from bad to worse! I had been focused on the window since the glass was cut, therefore i allowed the offer to go downhill. I finished up spending $300 on solder for the window (solder had temporarily jumped in price) and I got what the husband valued as $300 worth of construction parts. They really were virtually worthless. However the deal taught me several valuable lessons. The most important was rule one: KNOW VERY WELL WHAT To Trade For. read more had learned to spell out what the trade was to be, the amount of money would be involved, and to get a deposit or the entire balance of the money the main deal before cutting any glass.

Another instance vividly illustrates what Never to trade for. We've learned that whenever someone comes to us for classes or even to get yourself a stained glass window built and they start whining about cost, or acting "poor mouth" and they advance the thought of a trade, we ALWAYS lose on the deal.

April was among this kind of bad deal. She came and began to take classes. But she immediately began wondering if she will make payments instead of spending money on class up-front. We agreed and the next week, she advanced the theory that maybe she could trade for 1 / 2 of the cost of tuition. We asked what she had in mind and she told us about these beautiful candles she made. So we decided to permit the trade. She traded us two candles which she felt were worth the $40 of class she was trading for. I'd have valued them at $10 total, but we'd already entered in to the trade and felt committed. So we allowed to let the trade stand. get more info , while overvalued on her part, also had another problem. They stunk! We couldn't be in the same room using them and we gave them away to a person who missed them offensive. That deal started out badly and we allowed it to continue, not putting an end to it whenever we began to feel rooked. We've since found that all those kind of deals have been harmful to us, both in the trade itself and also in the bad feelings it creates in us. It damages our faith and trust in others when we get cheated. A footnote to this instance, when April quit coming to class, she left owing us almost just as much money as she had covered her classes.

Rule 2: Get Your End First

It's human nature to be quite excited while you're going to get something, but to reduce interest once you have gotten your side of the offer. The donkey who follows the carrot on a stick is a superb example. As long as that carrot hangs out there nearly within reach, the donkey could keep moving, but when the carrot is fully gone, the donkey stops. We even lose some of our enthusiasm for completing a project when we've been paid, but we will often have plans and patterns which have been set in advance, so our part of a trade or perhaps a business transaction continues on whether there exists a promise or perhaps a reward.

This isn't the case with folks we've traded with. So we're fighting two negatives if we do not get our section of the trade up front. First we're coping with something (an item or service) which is sight unseen and we're fighting the other persons natural loss of enthusiasm for the trade because they've already gotten what they wanted.

Among a confident barter was whenever we traded for some gas diffusers for Christmas presents with litigant. We got about $400 worth of product in trade for some work we did for them. During the period of the year, we were able to complete their design and obtain their windows installed for them. Then at The holiday season the next year we traded for some essential oils for the balance of what they owed us. This is a good trade since it allowed us to save lots of on the costs of Christmas presents for just 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 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 this instance, the deal went in the same way it should have, but we were just trading for something sight unseen.

Rule 3: Give A LOT MORE THAN Expected, Lower Your Own Expectations

To really get yourself a deal to work in the favor of both parties, you've got to give more than another guy expects, always attempting to make the deal better for them. And you will be less disappointed once you lower your own expectations. When I dealt with the husband who traded construction parts to me, I learned that many times, the other guy doesn't care in the event that you get a great deal. This man was only thinking about getting a good 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. When we made a trade having an artist friend, some large windows for a painting, the deal changed many times. They agreed to pay for the materials and we would get two paintings, using the period 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 decided to get one plus some design time on glass projects. When it turned out that the completed painting couldn't be published in the magazine we'd thought it might be put into, we felt that the best 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 have enjoyed many hours doing art projects together.

We've another friend, whom we build pieces for on a fairly regular basis. check here go well for all of us, she forgets that people have credit with her and she wants more glass, we shall never get "even" but we've lowered our expectations. We realize her, know she "needs" the pieces we trade with her and figure that the task we do on her behalf is more something special 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 need to probably avoid trading your art and stick to cash deals. Even they will occasionally go south on you.

Trading stained glass for products and services has very often been a means for others to get the glass they want, when they really wouldn't have already been able to afford it for cash. It has seldom been a great way for all of us to fill our bank account, but it has often been a way for us to develop relationships with others which have become dear to us and has become a way for our art to be seen by others. It frequently 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 will return to you ten fold. An excellent trade is similar to that. It returns to us rewards we never could have imagined.

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back in 1983 and has become a specialist at many areas 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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