“Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.”

—Sam Walton, founder Wal-Mart stores

Sam Walton’s relentless drive to slash costs led Wal-Mart from a single store in Arkansas, to over 8,000 stores today. As explained in his auto-biography, Sam Walton: Made In America, he did it by understanding that you find your niche by ignoring conventional wisdom. .

In his book he emphasized that “you can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.” Like Walton, an incredible number of today’s entrepreneurs start out underfinanced and undercapitalized.

In fact, a recent statistic from the U.S. Census and Federal Reserve Survey shows that “almost half of all new businesses begin with less than $10,000 in total capital.” Using your trade exchange to make needed business purchases will enable you to gain that all-important competitive advantage Walton referred to.

Moreover, your barter sales are all new sales — from an entirely different source. They provide a young company with a valuable stabilizer, enabling the time to grow into, and become, a stronger company.