The Good, The Bad, The Nuanced

If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve been taking steps to optimize my business backend, mostly via tech tools. I’ve also been wanting to invest in my business via like-minded service providers—the people who know how to actually leverage these tools.

So, I’ve done a few service swaps recently.

Swaps can be great when you’re cash-strapped, just starting out, wanting to beta test an offer, or just have full confidence in your swap partner and want to grow each other’s businesses without exchanging money.

But they can also go awry quickly because it’s *really* hard to have an “equal” offer—in terms of value-add, cost to deliver, and time needed.

Doing Your Own Swaps

If you’re wanting to do any swaps, here are a few things to look out for:

  1. Go into the swap with a really specific goal. For me, it was getting my Dubsado* set up, getting Quickbooks set up, and having an operations pro look at my systems. But even knowing these general needs, I could have been more specific in my expectations and more aware of my starting point and my bandwidth to move forward. For example, in order to properly set up workflows, you need to know how you’d like your client experience to look, write all the emails that go into the workflow, have all the questionnaires and forms needed, etc. It’s not as simple as “create workflow.”
  2. Vet your swap partner thoroughly. Do they have a track record with your specific problem and business type? If they’re not experienced or haven’t tested this particular offer, that’s fine (that might be part of the reason they’re offering a swap to begin with), but pay attention to the types of questions they’re asking you and the types of results they’re aiming for. You should have full confidence in them before agreeing to swap. (I met all 3 of my swap partners via the Done In A Day community*, so they were sort of pre-qualified in that way. But 1 ended up ghosting me, so clearly I didn’t do enough vetting from the get-go.)
  3. Obviously, a swap is providing value to your business via services rendered, but you also need revenue. Don’t swap your way through the month without focusing on making actual sales too.
  4. Swaps are a great way to examine client experience. Consider what you loved and want to implement for your own clients. And reflect on what made you feel confused, unheard, or disappointed so that you can avoid those missteps in your own offering.
  5. Bringing in someone external can be a great fire under your butt, but it’s not a cure-all for your business ailments. Anytime you outsource (whether you pay or swap), you still have to figure out what you want and need to begin with, do the pre-work, and handle the follow-up implementation or maintenance. Especially with intensives, you’re signing up for the overarching strategy or support with A-C (or however far), but there’s always a next step—a gap that you’ll need to fill or outsource again.

 

So, I’d love to know: have you ever done a services swap? How did it turn out? 

 

Toward purpose and progress,

Ashlee

 

This is an excerpt from Toward Purpose & Progress, my newsletter where I share business tips, good news, shoutouts to Founder Friends, and other juicy snippets. Subscribe here for more rants, reflections, and resources.

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