«Variety of fresh customers»
(advertising slogan of BDM)

Vika Nadezhdina never had problems with new customers. They came to her fitness center called “Deeper, Wider, Stronger” near Skhodnenskaya in crowds thanks to ads in the Internet and over the radio. But the best weapon was paid articles in glossy zines, “advertorials,” as their publicist Slavik called them. Cute dude, she thought to herself, rides a silver Cayenne, has a decent body, always flirts, a little impudent though. Besides the money for putting an article with her picture in ZQ, he asked a pair of year tickets for herself and her girlfriend. Whatever, the workload is anyway lousy, and all the costs of his bimonthly visits are to wash the towels and to mop the puddles. Besides, each time he spends at least 200 bucks with his girl in the bar, where the premium is 500%, like in any self-respecting restaurant.
The only thing that Vika always worried about was customer churn. Few were coming to her club for several years, everyone was looking for something cheaper, especially these days. How to make people keep paying longer (for three years, better five years) and coming less? A question worth “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, Vika pondered. She was fed up with “warming up” Slaving each time and give the money earned by the sweat of her brow for ads here and there.
The answer to the long-standing question came, as usually, came with a little bird, this time it was Reginka from the Eclipse beauty salon. What a bitch nice girl, though Vika to herself. Sits on her butt all day long, chats with her customers, that’s why she is the first one to get all the news and rumors. This time she told that she had joined the B2B.RU open barter system, now the customers are so much that she can hardly go out for lunch.
Without thinking for long, Vika dialed the number Reginka left her – and found the solution! The system has more than 1000 users (and counting), they pay each other B2B Money, and the deal is that no one goes away, because all the goods and services needed for the business are here, at no cash. Thus, Vika weighed, they will work out here for as long as they are within the open barter system. “Forever you will be mine”, she recalled the lyrics of an old Cliff Richards’ song.
A month later “Deeper, Wider, Stronger” was hard to recognize. The load was 85%, all customers are happy, and, which is the most awesome, the system members started attracting their friends for cash, which they did not for free, of course. For each new customer brought Vika started giving a gift certificate for $100, so that her apple-cheeked customers could refresh themselves paying with a 500% premium and thank her after this.
Now let’s calculate, how much Vika spends for attracting a new customer worth $2000 net a year? Correct, $25 for fresh juices, $50 as a membership fee, a small commission of the system, plus servicing the clients who came from it. And, as Vika says, the only service they need is what they get from themselves on the exercise machines.
And that’s not all! Using the B2B Money received from the customers who came from the open barter system, Vika has bought advertising from other members of the system (bad luck for Slavik), and the flow of cash customers increased by 12% more.
Vika breathed a sigh of relief. “Reginka, Reginka, cunning bitch dear buddy,” Vika thought driving up her cottage on the Novaya-Riga, “how can I thank you?” The next instant she had an inspiration: “tomorrow for the epilation I’ll pay her not the 120 bucks she’s been racking up from me “at a friends’ price” for the last two years, but the same value in B2B Money.” Friends are friends, right? .

(c) B2B.RU 2009