Edward Mascali, chiropractor in Marietta, Georgia, has been a member of Tradebank since 1997. He graciously agreed to let us interview him about his experience with Tradebank over the years offering his chiropractic services on trade.
“There are two worlds when it comes to using trade dollars. One is the business community and the other is personal life. The biggest impact I’ve had has been in my personal life, even though I’m a business owner.
“As far as the office goes, I’ve purchased office furniture, including desks, chairs and tables. My entire front office is basically Tradebank provided because of the barter network, which really helped me when I needed to move my office from one location to another. That’s probably the biggest business purchase I’ve made.”
“Otherwise, most of my focus is on the personal life. I’ve had experiences paying for portions of my daughter’s wedding, which was a location wedding on trade. Stays with reservations, vacations and trips and things of that nature with trade dollars have always been something we’ve looked to to supplement our spending,” says Dr. Mascali.
New Business and Referrals from Trade
“What I’ve found is that sometimes the Tradebank network will bring me a new client and sometimes there will be a second tier referral that comes to me that may or may not be a trade purchase. Sometimes the trade dollar spins itself into a cash dollar.
“My thought is that if you have any capacity for adding business to your bottom line, then Tradebank is working for you to do the advertising and bring people in that you would never otherwise have seen.”
How Tradebank Stands Out
Dr. Mascali has used other barter networks, but he says, “I’ve found Tradebank to be very helpful and organized. Every organization goes through periods of growth, change and difficulty… I presently have brokers for my territory who are just fantastic. I primarily deal with Wendy Roberson. She really goes the extra mile. She does whatever she can do to help us. She’ll contact us completely proactively. If there’s something we need, she’s right there to help us. So it’s been a good experience … especially with Wendy.”
Why Dr. Mascali Loves Barter
“I love to connect people. So this is a whole new opportunity to connect people … I personally enjoy giving people the quality of service that I can give and knowing that they can probably more easily afford this because they’re doing this through their barter account. They can preserve their cash dollars for times when they may need them for other expenses they cannot barter.”
“I enjoy being a part of a barter network, providing a really good quality service, and knowing that the person is able to save money while they’re seeing me. I think it’s a really good system.
It’s Not Hard Finding Ways to Spend Trade Dollars
“I’ve always found that it’s not that difficult to find a way to spend your trade dollars. If you’re patient and if you understand the cash dollar is not the same as the barter dollar, you use the barter dollar in a way in which you’re supplementing your cash dollar. There’s always a way.”
“So if we can’t spend [our trade dollars] on repairs of our automobiles for some reason at that time, then we’ll use it for a vacation. If we can’t use it for a vacation, we’ll use it for some home furnishing. If we can’t use it for that, we’ll use it for some professional service. We’ve had our animals taken care of by veterinarians that have been on trade with Tradebank. I really can’t even list how many different things there are. There really are many different things you can do.”
How a Smart Merchant Does Barter
“I like to represent Tradebank in a way that people will be happy to be a Tradebank member. So what I have endeavored to do, and I have managed to succeed, I feel, is I try to make the experience for a Tradebank member seamless. That would mean there’s no sliding scale. There’s no difference between one patient and another. If a barter patient comes to see me from Tradebank, they get the same treatment; they get the same prioritizing; they get the same length of visit. In my office, I schedule our patients one hour apart.
“A Tradebank patient gets nothing any different than a regular cash patient or an insurance patient would get. There’s no difference. Everyone feels they are being treated properly. I always respect that when I go somewhere to do business, when I’m on the spending side of the equation. So when I’m on the professional, providing side of the equation, I like to do the same thing for people. “
To create different rates for trade versus cash customers is “short sighted. On the backside, you’re going to cut yourself on the potential for future referrals of business.”
Who Is Barter Good For?
“Everybody knows in business you have a margin. If you are able to calculate your margin, you know what you can afford to do. You really shouldn’t be doing trade unless you have the capacity to do it. If a business is suffering in the arena of cash, it’s going to be a strain for them to offer themselves on a barter arrangement. If they are healthy as a business, and they still have some capacity, and they want to enhance their business, barter is perfect for that because it brings in new business they never would have otherwise had.”
“It’s not intended to take a cash client and turn them into a barter client. It’s intended to bring new business that they never would have had as barter, with the extra capacity that they are wasting anyway. They’re paying for the doors to be open. They’re paying for their overhead expenses. They’re paying for their insurances. The business is open for business, and if they have capacity that is unused, it’s a perfect opportunity for barter to step in and not only use the capacity in a way in which they can benefit later, but at the same time open up opportunities for new cash business to come to them through a new vehicle that they never would have had. That’s what I’ve experienced. To me it’s been a win-win all along. Tradebank is something that I’ve been doing since early on and I don’t have any regrets.”
About Dr. Edward Mascali and His Philosophy of Chiropractic Care
Dr. Edward Mascali has been a chiropractor since 1986 and he has a great love for helping people.
“I love what I do. I think it’s the best thing since sliced bread. That has a lot to do with the fact that the body is an amazing thing. When you give it a little attention, a little help, it’s amazing what it will do for itself without the use of drugs or surgery or anything of that nature.
“What I try to do to be different and offer a value to the service I provide is we schedule our patients one hour apart so that I have adequate time to do everything for the entire structure. Meaning, a problem in the lower back that a person might experience, may actually be fed by a problem in a knee, an ankle or a hip. That may be completely unrecognized if someone is receiving a chiropractic visit that is very fast and not really involved or in depth. So if they were to investigate a little deeper, they might find other supplemental areas that are causing the problems to be made worse.
“So what I like to do is offer people adequate time to work on muscles, to work on extremities (ankles, knees, wrists, etc). By doing this, I feel it’s a more complete way to take care of somebody. It is definitely what I feel like is a great first line approach for most conditions. If that, for some reason, doesn’t work or doesn’t fix the problem the person needs to resolve, they can also go to get some medicine or get some surgery or whatever they need to do. But doing the least invasive thing, the safest thing first, makes the greatest amount of sense to me. So that’s my approach. “
Be sure to visit Dr. Edward Mascali at www.DrMascali.com .
