Tradia Franchise Information

October 17, 2007

A Tradia Franchise is currently available for US and Canadian markets.  We are building the largest, most effective Barter Exchange System available in the world.   Currently we have 24 Franchise contracts and many more individuals applying for Tradia Broker / Franchise opportunities.  Unlike common restaurant franchises with thousands of locations, Tradia anticipates a full market penetration with approximately 500 North American Franchises within the next 5-7 years.

We offer a turnkey business opportunity that can begin as a home-based office with extremely low monthly costs to run the Tradia Business.  As your local Tradia Membership grows between 250-350 local members, you begin to search for a small, inexpensive location to support your Franchise office and staff.  You add support staff as you grow your local clientele.  Tradia has a system to find, acquire and train new and existing Tradia Members and support staff.

Much of the local customer service is provided by “Local Trade Directors” (LTD’s).  LTD’s act as Independent Agents working at their pace from their own offices keeping your overhead costs to a minimum.  They are paid a portion of collected cash fees paid by the Tradia Members assigned to them.  LTD’s enroll new Tradia Members and help service them under your direction as the Broker / Franchise.

The Tradia Broker / Franchise System is supported by a live-interactive web site.  Each Broker has access to all the Tradia Member information necessary to support their growing database of clients and LTD’s.  We never stop improving our database and the information we provide Brokers, LTD’s and Members.  Find it, buy it, sell it and trade it, all on the Tradia.Net web site.  Complete training is provided to operate our on-line system.

All training is provided by Tradia Corporate to operate your Tradia Broker / Franchise.  There are 3 separate trainings with each new Tradia Broker / Franchise.  The first training occurs at our corporate facility in Portland Oregon.  The second training occurs within weeks of the initial training in your city.  The third training also occurs in your city within 2-3 months after the second training.

Aside from Weekly calls & emails with Tradia Corporate, teleconference calls with other Tradia offices and regional training sessions, our Broker / Franchise Operations Manual will guide you on the day-to-day issues you will be faced with as you grow the Tradia Franchise in your city.  We never stop learning or training.

We’re looking for a natural networking personality.  You have to like talking with people at events and meeting new people on a daily basis.  As this type of personality you will find and train your staff and LTD group to do the same.  We never stop looking for new members or new ideas to help the members we already have.  It requires this kind of personality to build our business.

If you creatively think out of the box and have a passion to build your own business; join our family and build a Tradia Franchise.  To date, no barter company has captured the marketplace with this concept.  We have the software, training, support materials, infrastructure and innovation to lead this charge.  If you fit this profile, please contact us to begin the process.  Keep in mind that only about 500 Tradia Franchise offers exist for the US and Canada.  If you blink, you'll miss it.   Be on this ship before it sets sail or miss the journey…

Please email to request more information on a Tradia Franchise or call (503) 656-7900.  This is NOT an offer to purchase a Tradia Franchise or an offer by Tradia to sell a franchise.  An offer can only be completed after you have filled out our Franchise Business Application & Net Worth Form and then receive a Uniform Franchise Offering Circular or Federal Disclosure Document depending on the state you live in.

The Life of a Tradia Broker

(For this presentation we make certain assumptions to establish a starting point.  This Broker already has 50-100 enrolled members that are willing to trade and has developed the habit of collecting business cards and phone numbers off construction trucks as well as referrals from most of the members.  There’s a growing list of people to talk to that might open a Tradia Account.  The Broker works from a home-based office.)

Any given morning – Broker starts dialing certain members to follow-up on deals in progress, referrals they have promised to give, ideas to help grow the members’ business or to propose a trade with another member.  We never stop finding ways to improve each member’s business and life.

We call every member and talk with them at least 2 times every month.

For every call that is made to or from a member a log is made for that call.  Tradia keeps track of all member communication.  This serves 2 purposes:

1)      The member can’t make things up that we did or did not say.  It protects us.

2)      Any new Trade Director can read the call logs & member trade history and know how to talk with the member with some knowledge.

Sometimes our outgoing calls are interrupted with incoming calls and that’s always fine as we welcome member calls.  When the time comes that a Broker can’t handle all the incoming or outgoing calls and Broker activities, it’s time to add a Trade Director to assist with customer calls and service.

Another daily routine is to make marketing calls to our referral lists and ask 5 people each day to open a Tradia Account.  This actively guarantees that every Tradia Franchise will grow in membership every month and year.  A Tradia Franchise requires a direct marketing effort to grow and become profitable.  We knock on doors and invite people to open new member accounts, we don’t wait for the phone to ring.  At times, we make direct calls without referrals especially when we first get started as Brokers.

Networking for new member referrals is part of a Broker’s daily habits.  Referrals are much more likely to open a Tradia Account as they are introduced to us which, makes them more receptive to the idea of Tradia.  Networking groups can be helpful but are not as effective as networking in general once we develop the habit.

Sometimes we make personal visits to our members as well as live presentations to restaurants, car dealers, retail stores and any other business where a face-to-face meeting makes good business sense.  Referrals are more likely to open a Tradia Account over the phone than a cold call.

Frequently, we use 3-way or conference calls to introduce members to one another.  This helps eliminate some confusion or forgetfulness by both parties about the details of the proposed transaction, knowing that the Broker is well aware of the deal in progress.

Some of the members we have in Tradia work better on a gift certificate or “scrip” basis.  For example, a restaurant may want to control the amount of barter sales they make during a month.  Selling gift certificates or “scrip” to the local Broker to resell to the members is a common practice in Tradia and a small part of the Broker’s duties.  This may require a trip to the post office each day as “scrip” sales occur regularly for restaurants, bed & breakfasts, massage therapists, ball games & events, golf and other businesses where scrip / gift certificates make good sense to those types of clients.

Each month, an event of some type is generally a good idea from a breakfast or lunch gathering with a guest speaker to a networking meeting for the members, to a special Tradia “sale” hosted by a specific member or a Trade Show hosted by the Broker designed to showcase several members as vendors who sell their merchandise for Tradia Dollars to other Tradia members.  Events bring members together and create more trade volume and better trade relationships for all concerned.

Days are easy to fill will phone calls, meetings, referrals, special member sales events and new member enrollments.  If you possess the right personality to make this happen, you will build a great business starting out of your home-based office.  The time may come when it will be better to open an inexpensive office.

All the software, marketing materials, administrative and back-office support you need to build your Tradia Franchise is available every business day by our live-interactive web database and corporate staff.  You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to build this business.  We do a lot of the work for you so you can open new member accounts and create trade volumes.  This is one of those times when sharing the workload makes more financial sense than trying to do it all on your own.

You can do this on your own but it’s nearly impossible to do it correctly and profitably.  We provide the Operations Manual to support every aspect of the Tradia Franchise and we add additional support with our corporate staff for all your training and growth.  We hold your hand every step of the way.  We also train you in your town.  We want you to know how to do everything automatically and this takes time, patience and training.

As a final thought, Tradia Corporate offers a Travel Division that allows the Franchisee’s to get the new travel members and not have to book the travel, which requires a great deal of time.  We do it for you at no extra cost to you.

This concludes the basics of a new Tradia Broker’s life and duties.