Trading for lessons insulting?

[secondhandgallop]

This is directed to barn owners/trainers.

I’m currently in a situation where I’m aggressively paying off student loan debt, which means necessary expenses are paid for and anything extra is tackling debt. We plan to be in debt for about five years, so disposable income for horses is a no-go right now.

I’m also a professional graphic and web designer. I’m in my twenties, but have worked in ad agencies for years and am good at what I do. I’m formally educated, have won professional industry awards and have a track record of success with my clients. I’ve ridden for years, but had to stop in college and want to get back into it.

There’s a local barn that I’m very interested in. Solid program with a trainer who I think knows her stuff.

Would it be insulting, strange or not valuable to you as a trainer/barn owner to have a professional offer their services in exchange for lessons? Is this something you would jump on? How would you want someone like this to approach you?

My thought is I could also produce sales videos, take professional photography and manage social media on top of maintaining/improving her website. We’d have to have a sit-down and line out a contract of some kind, but I also don’t know this woman from Adam.

I want to avoid anyone possibly feeling disrespected, but wonder if I can use my skills now instead of waiting five years sitting on my hands.

[Scribbler]

Horse folk barter a lot. The most common one is cleaning stalls for lessons!

There are a couple of points though.

First, you should scrape up the cash to do some trial lessons with her to make sure it’s a good fit and she has suitable horses. You don’t want to get part way through and find out it’s a bad match.

Second, once you decide to approach her on this you need to listen and see if she needs the enhanced social media. And if she is able to support creating content. Many barns are doing a great business with modest social media platforms. She may not need videos to sell horses, etc.

Third, how are you valuing your services and her services? What’s your hourly rate and her hourly rate?

Some barns would jump on this, some would like the idea but not actually have time to commit to the clients end of web development and some might not care.

[secondhandgallop]

I think your first point is an excellent one. Duly noted.

Your second point is one I navigate often - the line between pointing out areas to improve vs putting down what already exists (which is sometimes a person’s proudest achievement). A lot of that would have to be understood just through talking about her business goals. It’s normally only a conversation I have with people who approach me or my agency, so this would be a backwards way of doing that. I think your first point could facilitate this better though.

The third point ties in with second in that we’d have to negotiate and line-item everything. I know my rates and can show her equine businesses I’ve worked with before and get to a point where hopefully everyone’s comfortable and happy.

Thanks for taking the time to reply - so appreciate you!

[furlong47]

I have bartered with multiple people in the past in exchange for riding or lessons - but almost always traded manual labor/barn work (or occasionally pet sitting). Whether this particular exchange will fly will depend first on whether she needs or wants the services you are offering and second on whether you can reach a deal on a fair exchange. Many barns are doing just fine with the do-it-yourself level of website and social media and may not see the value in an ongoing professional arrangement. It certainly can’t hurt to ask, though.

[Foxglove]

As a small barn owner and sometime instructor of over 50 years, barter has not worked for me. That could be because I am not very good at it, or the people who had something to barter were not very good at it.

At first it was young people who wanted to work for riding lessons or riding time. For me, that never worked out. Either I felt the work wasn’t enough or done well enough or the young person wasn’t reliable (after all, he or she wasn’t being paid) --or the young person felt the riding time/lessons were not long enough or often enough to compensate for their work. Example was a young woman who wanted to trade board and trailering to a local show over a couple of weeks (she had no trailer, thought if she kept her horse at my place, it would be easier to work with him and I could trailer her in). Sounded reasonable as she was about my kiddos age and I was attending the same show and had room in the trailer. The two weeks became 6 as she really liked our barn (remember, she was supposed to be working for her board/trailering). She used the dressage rings and the jump courses. But she spent way too much time chatting with my barn help and playing “helpless person” role to get out of what she was supposed to be doing —I found my barn boy cleaning her stall ON MY TIME and asked why he was doing it --he said, “She had to go to the retirement center and play the piano for the elderly.” Ok --nice gesture --but that meant I was paying him to do her work! She would leave muck buckets in the aisle “because it was so heavy,” --well, as you can see --barter did not work out for me. And she was just one in a series when I first owned my place --eventually I wised up and said, “Tell you what, I’ll hire you to work for X amount per hour, and you pay me for lessons for X amount per hour.” Much cleaner arrangement and no hard feelings.

I paint --mostly for myself, but sell a few every year. One lady commissioned a painting of her horse --barter was fresh veggies from her garden for a year (well, growing season). I got three baskets of rather poor looking tomatoes, turnups, and some deformed carrots. I could have bought the same stuff at the grocery for less than $20. It takes me 10-15 hours to paint a oil of a horse in a 24x18.

Final example --and I could go on --I also sew. One of the barn help showed Arabs. She asked that I make her a showmanship shirt. Did so. She put in two weeks of solid work for the shirt (lots of crystals and applique). I felt we had an even trade. About a year after she moved on (college) she asked me to make her a side saddle apron (she showed Arabs). I said sure – it was February --made it in about a week (she had a deadline). All good. The barter was she’d help me with my garden (hostas) in the spring. Still waiting for her to show up --been 5 years. Don’t think that’s happening. I did call and ask her a couple of times, but she was “busy.”

So barter is a no-go for me. I’ll pay you; then you pay me. Everyone is happy.

[ghst13]

Instead of bartering with the trainer, could you pick up some freelance work for pay and then use the extra income for lessons?

[soloudinhere]

I don’t think it’s insulting. I do think you have to assess what you’re envisioning for content. I don’t think you are going to be able to support riding for the next five years on one marketing campaign; I don’t think many barns are looking for a multi-thousand dollar campaign unless they themselves are very high end. They may have a barn teenager doing the socials, and may not even be able to support increased business if it did come their way.

You can always approach. My personal trainer approached me about some help with his Excel spreadsheets. We came to a deal where we traded off training for the work. However, the reason he was approaching me was because he did not want to/could not pay someone $100/hr to do the work, so a straight trade of “here’s my hourly rate I want $1500 of free training” wouldn’t have worked. Not having to come up with the cash isn’t the only value consideration when someone is making a decision like this - it’s also if they needed something of that value in the first place.

[Ajierene]

Bartering can definitely work and it’s what I do for board, lessons, use of trailer. It can also definitely not work on both sides - barn owner can get annoyed at person not holding up their end. We had someone who was supposed to ride 2 per day to pay board (or part board) and ended up to tired/to busy, etc. Her horse was there for rehab and eventually she moved him back home and did pay some board - couldn’t have been to bad because my trainer was annoyed but not overly so.

Others just stop showing up .

The other end is barn owner does not understand how much the work is worth and I’ve seen that as well - especially professionals annoyed because barn owner thinks $100/hour is worth $50/hour (or some equivalent) and take advantage of the exchange.

For me, I know I am “underpaid” but I like where my horse is (though right now it’s a bit stressful with all the constructiong going on) and generally like the people and barn help.

All that to say - come up with a fee schedule and be clear about it. I concur that taking a few lessons first to make sure the place really is a good fit is best. It also gives you a chance to see if there is a need for your services. If you decide to come up with a fee schedule that is less than you usually charge, then you need to be OK with that. Do not get resentful of the barn for what you agreed to - I see that happen as well but is isn’t the barn’s fault if they are holding up their end of the bargain.

[trubandloki]

This might be an easier sell if you were actually a client of this barn and were trying to find a way to stay a client at a tough time.

It is hard for me to imagine the average upper end (not a big time trainer upper end) lesson barn needing the services of a graphic designer to the point of it leading to unpaid lessons long term.

[Abbie.S]

Agreed w/ @trubandloki.

I barter professional services on occasion - but TBH, it rarely works out with someone I don’t already know well, and thus have a good understanding of the value of their skills. I also haven’t experienced it working long term unless the professionals are in the same industry and thus their skills are easily comparable. For example, I trade lessons with another horsemanship teacher. We provide each other those ever-important “eyes on the ground” and have similar enough perspectives that our styles mesh but have enough differences in how we work that we can broaden each other’s views of a given scenario. I’m always going to be in need of guidance from a good horse person. I may not always be in need of other types of services.

While I don’t ever think offering professional services in exchange for other services is insulting in and of itself, if you don’t have a repore with that person it’s easy to have your offer taken as a suggestion that you don’t want to outright pay for their services. That sort of thing happens enough in the industry that it’s an easy assumption to make.

[secondhandgallop]

Thank you all for offering your perspectives. I so appreciate it! I think everyone’s bringing up fantastic points.

To answer the question about picking up freelance, I normally always have a freelance client going, but it’s hard to reconcile having money come in that wouldn’t go into debt. It’s a conversation I’ve had with my husband which resulted in him encouraging me to do what I wanted with my extra money vs. our salary money. It’s just hard for me to look at the math and reconcile not putting money into tackling the debt, hence why I thought about the service trading. I’m leaning towards taking just a small percentage out of the post-taxes remainder into my personal account.

I really appreciate everyone’s insight and think it’s valuable. I think I need to reframe “sitting on my hands” into “patience”.

[quietann]

Honestly – I think you could set aside some of your extra money for riding lessons once a week. Your DH is on board, which is probably the first battle you’ve already won.

How much would it slow down your debt repayment to put a few hundred dollars per month into weekly lessons? (I say “a few hundred” because I don’t know where you live, nor what kind of lessons you plan to take, and that greatly affects the cost of lessons. Could be $150/month, could be $400. In my area, the lower number would get you a weekly group lesson at a basic barn, and the latter would get you a weekly solo dressage lesson with a good, but not very well known or high end trainer. Actually in my area, school horses are hardly available, so a lot of people do a part lease in order to have access to lessons – so the price would be much higher.)

Right now, horses and horse services are a sellers market, and if a business is doing great with what you might consider to be a less than professional grade internet presence, they may see no need to upgrade it – especially if such services are offered by someone they don’t know.

[secondhandgallop]

Great question and thank you for your insight! If we went on the low end at once a week, it would hold us back about half a year on the principle alone. It’s a little hard to judge without the interest playing a part right now, so it’s most likely longer.

[TheDBYC]

You will also need to dig down & find out what the trainer’s online media pain points actually are. Because while you may well be correct about what needs improvement, they won’t go for your ideas unless they address that perceived pain point for them. Once you do that, it is more likely they will be open to being shown the value of your ideas for them.

A little reconnaissance work: How many platforms does the trainer maintain a presence on? How active are they on each? Is the tone of their posts tailored appropriately to that media? Are they attempting to eCommerce? (Using their website, social media to sell horses or otherwise funnel business to their farm.) Are you inspired by their digital presence?

Then, things you would want to find out organically through conversations with them. I’m thinking the most natural opening would be commenting that you enjoyed the xyz they posted, for xyz reasons. Then branch off: First, do they even care about their social media engagement & conversion rates? If so, are they happy with their #'s relative to the amount of time they’re spending on making posts, etc? Are they already convinced of the value of online engagement but struggling to keep up? (Perfect opening for you to discuss social media marketing automation: templates, calendars, management/metrics tools like Buffer, etc.) Are they into the idea of adding a client payment portal on their website?

One huge mistake I see constantly with yoga professionals online is – if you’ll excuse my bluntness – what I call the “skinny white woman in skimpy outfit contorted into a reverse double scorpion stinging a lotus flower on the beach with trite quote about how challenging their life is & how sad they were back when they were only flexible enough to do a single scorpion stinging a lotus, but their mat time made it all better” phenomenon. They’ll get maybe 4-digit Likes, & a few dozen comments. But 99% of those comments will be a) compliments from friends & other, similar pros, b) people saying “Beautiful! I could never do that. I’m not flexible enough to do yoga.” C) gross comments from thirsty men. The problem? While the post got attention, it got attention from people who aren’t going to buy yoga instruction.

Otoh, there’s Patrick Beach. Very easy on the eyes & famous in the community for his absolutely mesmerizing, seemingly superhuman handstand/body weight asana. His IG posts regularly rack up 60k+ Likes & hundreds of comments. How? By simply not making it about what he can do, but what he can help YOU do. One of the best was a minute long snippet from a recording of a live, mixed level class where he demonstrated how moving your hands back to your hips while leaning forward is the secret to an L-pickup. Ridiculously simple, obviously attainable for the average human – he had 30 mixed level students in the frame suddenly lifting off into L-pickups, looking surprised & excited – and made you want to sign up for his online classes to learn more. Judging from the hundreds of comments asking for his class schedule, he gets a good conversion rate. He also answers most of the questions in the comments & seemingly checks other people’s profiles to personalize his replies.

I see some equine pros use this technique to great advantage. They offer up a little tip or trick on FB or IG tv that inspires people to want to rush off to try it, but also makes them feel like the pro is interested in their success with their horse. I love to marvel at a still shot of that Olympic showjumper in midair or video clip of GP dressage test tempi changes as much as the next person. But it’s the little demo videos that make me go “Here, take my money!!” Lol. Another suggestion you could make if the trainer is personable on camera & isn’t already making this kind of post.

[McGurk]

But you can’t put your entire life on hold until the debt is repaid. That will make you miserable and unhappy and the debt even more of a burden.

So you need to figure out a way to have some discretionary income and some pleasure in your off time WHILE aggressively working to pay down the date.

I do agree with most of the advice you’ve been given here. The two biggest obstacles I see to your plan are 1.) you do need an existing relationship with the barn before proposing this idea and 2.) the amount of your services that the barn needs may be much smaller and/or shorter term than the amount of lessons you’d like.

So, find a barn that’s a good fit for you for lessons, and then work on the rest.

PS. I can echo the sentiments above; a lot of the barter arrangements I entered into weren’t satisfactory because the perceived value of services was skewed or the difference in the value of services was too great. Barn kid mucking for lessons is a classic example. Parents and kids were always shocked that I actually expected 7 - 8 hours of work for a lesson; IF the kid could work like an adult.

I currently barter some of my lease fees with body clipping, trimming, mane pulling and teaching some lessons. This works well, because I’m experienced and competent, the BO is thrilled to have help with all these chores and these are relatively high value services. It’s not like I’m bartering for a service she didn’t know she wanted or needed. (Which may be some BO’s impression of your work.) Also, if push came to shove, I can just pay the full fee. It’s just nice to work some of it off.

[secondhandgallop]

If we had a smaller amount of debt, I’d be inclined to agree with you more. DH used only loans to get through undergrad and a doctorate, so we’re up against six figures. We make good money so I’m not worried it won’t be paid, but I want it gone ASAP to start building wealth like I did before marriage.

I think you sum everything up nicely!

[Scribbler]

As far as the money question: if you are good enough that you can charge professional rates freelance, then it makes more sense to take on one extra client as your Horse Money account.

Because in that case, spending time on your barter project is indeed taking time away from earning money. If you can’t afford to do a few hours freelance and put $200 a month into lessons, then you can’t afford to take all this extra time to do a website for free.

I guess that barter allows both of you to play with pre-tax calculations, but actually where I live you are supposed to declare bartered income (doubt anyone does).

But usually barter works when one or both sides are short of cash or else their skills or products are good but don’t have current market value.

[secondhandgallop]

@Scribbler

But usually barter works when one or both sides are short of cash or else their skills or products are good but don’t have current market value.

Great point!

[Luseride]

I trade for some lessons but unless there is clear communication there are problems. Usually I find it best to just pay the person and then if they want lessons they can pay for them. Just swapping money of course but it keeps things a little more honest.

[Southernboy]

Odds are you are not going to be offering enough to get lessons. If this trainer has many horses and you ride well enough, maybe you could also offer to exercise horses. You would probably get a few riding tips along the way.