(4) I am a Christian Church minister

You can have serious impact quickly with the Private Trade Dollar System. Many in your church have valuable resources that are not being utilized, inventories of time and space that are lost at the end of every day. It doesn't have to continue. With their own trade dollars members can do business with other members in a way that can never happen in the cash economy. Organizations whose principal purpose is helping and improving the welfare of its members, such as churches, temples and mosques will find the The System a natural and helpful system to preserve the cash resources of members. A church, forming its own trading club, will have a new and effective program to help members be more productive, to enjoy more products and services and to have a new way of conserving their available cash and to better interact with one another. Through such a club, a church, for example, could involve many or most of its members with the result that large amounts of cash being spent outside the congregation could be kept inside. Barter also can be easily adapted as a fund-raiser, with members making donations of products and services. Any compatible group that can "mesh" likely will be able to have a thriving trade club and enjoy every moment of it. Reverend Johns saw immediately what the The System could do for his church and his congregation, composed mostly of working men and women and small businesses owners. A sizable number in his church were struggling to make ends meet. In barter he saw a way for his members to hold on to more of the cash they earned, and for the businessmen and women to increase their business. It was easy for him to identify those needing help. He began by making a list of 10 members in financial difficulty. This list included:

• A widow finding it hard to make ends meet but could not work away from home due to health reasons. But she was a good piano player who occasionally substituted for the regular organist at church
• A home-bound mother with two school-age children.
• A man who installed aluminum gutters but who only occasionally had work.
• Another man who had a small home remodeling business but too few jobs.
• A brick mason who struggled and was often without work.
• A man who had once driven a route for a dry cleaning company but had no job or income beyond a small disability pension.
• A man who owned a small job printing company.
• A retired bookkeeper.
• A substitute school teacher.
• An independent taxi driver

He brought them together one evening for the purpose of forming a trading club. Using a chalk board he listed what each did or could offer in the way of products and services. For example, the taxi driver only grossed about $25,000 a year but could do three times that amount, thus giving the cab driver a potential $75,000 in his vanishing inventory. The substitute school teacher could do tutoring of students at her home. (If she were paid $12 per hour for 25 hours a week she could earn about $15,000 per year.) She therefore had a potential to earn $15,000 per year from her unused time. Going through all 10 this way the minister compiled a combined vanishing inventory of $300,000. They were all stunned to think that they had so much in real potential that was being lost. Here we have 10 people, struggling to make ends meet, yet failing to get $300,000 every year that is absolutely available to them through barter. This is an average of $30,000 per person, or about $600 per week more than the average one is now doing. But where is all this new business coming from? The minister passed out a copy of the list of the 100 items most commonly available for trade (from the Portfolio for Using the Private Trade Dollar System) and asked each person to make a list of those products and services they likely would be buying (with cash) during the upcoming year, and to estimate a cost for each one. For example: "Car repair - $700." When they totaled up what they would be buying and the amount was less than their figure for vanishing inventory, they should then pick enough things from the list that they would like to buy. The list each person compiled should balance off with their vanishing inventory figure. When every one had finished, the minister said confidently: "I believe we can have a trading club that will get each of you much of the new business necessary to make the purchases you have outlined and enable you to save the cash you would otherwise spend for these products and services. He knew that membership of his congregation spent millions of dollars each year in goods and services, most of which were purchases from businesses outside his church. Could some of this business be rerouted into new business that would benefit all parties? He understood that with trade it could be done. What happened astonished the minister. With all this buying power, the minister found it easy to satisfy the needs of the 10 Club members with whom he began the Club. After that beginning, the Club quickly expanded and had 30 active participants within the congregation. Members had no annual fees and no trading fees. The Portfolio makes it easy for any group to work together in buying and selling to conserve cash while having more in goods and services than would otherwise be possible. Never forget that trading a product or service to someone is much, much easier than selling the same product to them for cash. People everywhere jump at the opportunity to trade and save their cash. Once we fully understand that the Private Trade Dollar System trading is entirely new business for both parties and not a substitute for a cash sale by anyone, we will know its power.

<< BACK