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Guest post by Laura Scholz, president of Scholz Communications.

When you first start your solo PR practice, bartering services can seem like a win-win. You get amazing experience, exposure, and valuable services; your “clients” get your professional expertise at virtually no cost.

During the past three years, I’ve traded for web design, haircuts, Pilates and yoga classes, personal training, head shots, nutrition advice, office space, and more than the occasional meal. Having started my business with zero savings and zero capital — in the middle of a divorce, no less — these types of relationships were crucial to helping me manage my budget AND move my business forward. And I would say the same was true for those on the other end of the barter.

But as my business continues to grow and my time becomes more limited, I’m starting to question the value of trade for all involved. I think everyone enters trade with the best of intentions, but with never-ending to-do lists and nonstop schedules, you have to set priorities. And that means paying clients come first – often to the detriment of good relationships with quality people who have nothing but the best intentions. So, how do you decide if trade is right for you? And if it is, how do you make it a truly mutually beneficial relationship? Following are five tips for business bartering.

1. Be selective. Choose your trades carefully. Go with businesses and people who represent your brand and reputation. Remember  you don’t have to accept every trade opportunity that comes your way. It’s okay to say no.
2. Be realistic. We’re all busy professionals, juggling client work with personal and professional obligations. It’s easy to take on too much, and unfortunately, unpaid work can fall to the bottom of the priority list. Be selective about your clients but also realistic about what you can accomplish for them given your other responsibilities. Over-promising is the easiest way to ensure a relationship goes south.
3. Sign a formal contract. In the early stages of my business, I did entirely too much business with nothing but a virtual handshake to seal the deal. Not any more. Every one of my clients signs a contract stipulating terms, duration, and deliverables. It may seem like a formality, but it gives both parties clear boundaries and expectations.
4. Establish boundaries. Every project and every contact needs a beginning and end point, with clear goals, deadlines, and outcomes. For example, my contract with my Pilates and yoga studio is for six months at a set amount of studio credit per month and outlines specific deliverables. This ensures  I complete the work for them in the allotted amount of time, but it also means we can renegotiate terms or choose to part ways at the end of the contract. Which brings me to my next point, which is…
5. Have an out. There’s nothing worse than an open-ended “I’ll help you if you’ll help me” agreement. While entered into with the best of intentions, it breeds laziness on both sides and sets you up for an unpleasant parting. Unfortunately, I’ve been there, and it’s really not the ideal way to end a friendship or a business partnership. Be clear about the terms of your relationship, but also give yourself and your “client” an out so you can end the contract if either party is unhappy – without permanently damaging your relationship.

What are your experiences with trade? Other lessons you’ve learned or tips you’d add? Any success stories you’d like to share?

Laura Scholz is the president of Scholz Communications, a boutique firm that helps creative sector entrepreneurs brand, promote and grow their businesses. When not busy working or writing for her own blog, she enjoys running marathons with the Georgia Chapter of Team in Training, consuming massive quantities of cheese dip, and virtually celebrating wine:thirty with the Arment Dietrich team.

In her post, her worries include: Positioning more broadly, employee turnover and cultural changes, divvying up the profits, employees who don’t like one another, and loss of clients. She and I bantered a little bit over Twitter and she asked me what I would add to the list.

It’s funny that Elizabeth’s worries are not my own; I don’t even worry about loss of clients (anymore). Each firm is unique, with its own culture and own set of challenges. Following is what keeps me up at night:

1. It was October 13, 2008 and I got the dreaded phone call from the bank. Our line of credit had been cut off. Payroll was due in two days and none of our clients had paid their invoices for September. I remember handling that phone call extremely unprofessionally. I even cried. I did manage to talk them into covering payroll for us, until clients paid their invoices.  So began 15 months of worrying every single month whether or not we were going to make the payroll that was due on the 15th. April 2010 (yes, just a few months ago) was the first month we were cash flow positive and I’m happy to report I no longer lie in bed, awake in the middle of the night, wondering if we are going to make payroll. But I still worry that it’s going to happen again and that is not a position I ever want to experience again.

2. Are we delivering above and beyond what our clients expect? I’ve always been a go the extra mile person, and it was great when I was executing myself. But now that I have a team of experts, who are all great at what they do, I only hear from clients when they’re upset or angry. Even though it’s not often, it’s not a fun job. I don’t like it much. In fact, I pretty much hate it. So I worry about how to create a culture where my team can read the red flags and they aren’t afraid to tell me there is a problem…before the client calls me.

3. Just a little more than a year ago, I took over this blog and began writing consistently. It started out as three days a week, then four, and now we’re up to five days (and multiple times  a day is coming)! But now I worry about whether or not I’m providing value not only to you, but whether or not it’s valuable enough to get prospective clients to call us. Now that Dan is here, we hope to provide an even higher level of value that is targeted directly to your specific needs and grants you exclusivity. But I sometimes lie awake at night and worry we won’t be able to pull it off.

4. This one is going to sound weird, but I worry whether or not our new business proposals are too much. We’re smart. We have a great team. We drive superior results that actually affect revenue. But I don’t think that comes across in our new business proposals. Get us in front of the prospect and we win nearly every time. But if we have to send an RFP, a PowerPoint document, or a description of what we do, we almost never win. We had a managing director who used to say, “To know us is to love us.” I worry about how to get prospects to know us without having met us.

5. And, last but not least, the one thing I spend a ton of time worrying about is my own coaching and leadership skills. I’m busy. Aren’t we all? But I travel quite a bit, I’m rarely in the office five days a week, and when I am, I spend most of my time on conference calls and with clients. My team gets me for an hour every Monday, but that’s the only scheduled time. I worry that I’m not available enough to coach them, to provide them advice that advances their careers, and that they have great ideas, but they flounder because I’m not around to give them the nod. I work with Randy Hall at least once a month on how to better myself in this arena, but I always worry it’s not enough.

What about you? Even if you don’t run a PR firm, what keeps you up at night? What are some of your own worries?

Photo credit: Libsyn

This past Friday, we did mock racing. Our coach put us in teams and I was on the team that was the rabbit…meaning the other teams had to try to catch us. Super cool and a little nerve wrecking. I’m competitive enough that there is no way anyone was going to catch me…I mean us. The idea is that you work as a team to stay ahead of the other teams, which my partner did very well. But when it was my turn to pace, I was out for blood. I could see a third head coming up in the shadow and I dropped my teammate like a hot potato trying to stay ahead. It was not good and Coach reprimanded me (but the third head didn’t catch me!).

And it made me wonder…if I’m so competitive, am I really not a good team player at work either?

This reminds me of a story involving my brother’s kids. When my niece was three or four, we were playing Apples to Apples and I was teaching her how to win. Not thinking anything more of it (after letting her win a few rounds), I flew home. A few days later my sister-in-law called and said, “I need you to hear something.” In the background, I hear my niece yelling to her sister, “I WIN! YOU LOSE!” My sister-in-law got back on the phone and said, “They are playing Apples to Apples. Where do you think she learned that?” Who? ME??

I told my mom about my velodrome racing and that I learned I’m not a team player. She said, “Does that surprise you?” So now I’m doubly curious. Am I not a good team player at work?

How can one be a good leader and not a good team player? How can one want to win at almost any cost and not be a good team player? Can you be type A, competitive, AND be a great team player?

Instead, however, I asked my Twitter friends what they would like me to write about and I got some great ideas!

* Brad Farris suggested how to feel like you’re in control of the business while traveling.

* From Bruce Smith: Trust.

* Scott Yurashek had an attention-grabbing idea: How the lack of public commentary has been lacking and how social media has made it interesting again.

* Troy Costlowhttp recommended how the intended message can’t be directly stated modestly.

* Several people suggested I write about how to get past writer’s block, which I guess I’m kind of doing by writing this blog post, even though I called them all smarty pants.

* And, God love her, Nancy tried to create a topic out of my wanting to veg out.

All of these are great ideas and you’ll see them as blog posts in the next few days. But this made me think…what would YOU like to see me write about?

* What kinds of conversations do you want to join?
* Is there someone you’d like me to interview?
* Is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask a CEO?
* Is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask a business owner?
* Is there anything you don’t understand about social media and need help?

The parameters are to stay within the PR industry, social media, or what it’s like to run a business.

If your idea is chosen as one of the blog posts, you’ll receive about 30 seconds of fame. And a fun surprise (which means I haven’t yet figured out what it is).

I read a ton of books.  I read every article I could find.  I brought it as an issue to my Vistage group.  I asked other entrepreneurs turned CEOs.  I kept a list of things I thought I should be doing as a CEO.

It turns out being the CEO of a company you founded means different things to different people.  What is important to me may not be important to other business leaders, which is probably why I couldn’t find the magic answer in all of my searching.

Following are some of the lessons I’m learning in my journey to the top:

* Cash truly is king

* Debt isn’t bad, unless there is a recession and you can’t get access to capital

* Big is not always better; profit is always best

* Leadership is not about being the first one in and the last one to leave, nor about working the most hours

* Employee communication should happen only in person; internal email sucks

* Just because you have three letters after your name does not mean you have to be all business all of the   time, if it doesn’t fit your personality

* If our clients aren’t happy and want me working on their accounts, it’s because I haven’t done my staff   coaching and mentoring job well enough

* My time is best spent on innovation, coaching and mentoring staff, landing the whales, and being the face of the company

* It’s okay to say no, if it’s for something not in the four areas listed above

* It’s good to shake things up every once in a while, in an effort to stay ahead of the trends

* It’s great to have friends who run competitive companies; if the relationship is set up correctly, we work very well together

* People like working for a company that stands for something and lives its values

* My gut is ALWAYS right

* Engagement, connection, and transparency are the most important communication tools – with employees, with clients, with prospects, with talent candidates, with vendors, with partners, and any other stakeholder

* Bad news does not go away and it does not get better with age; no matter how much I hate conflict, sometimes it’s worse in my head than it is in reality

* Having fun with my colleagues, and connecting with them as people, is what I truly love about getting up and going to work every day

What have you learned? What do you do that is not on this list?