I’m Hiring 1099 Reps And Testing AI To Grow Metro Trade

A water main break turns into a real-time stress test for local small businesses and a reminder that community awareness can reveal trade opportunities. I also share how I’m changing my sales approach with 1099 reps and AI tools so Metro Trading Association can grow without relying on endless cold calling. 
• local state of emergency and how outages hit revenue, staff income, and inventory loss 
• why a barter network can act as a backup plan when cash flow and operations get disrupted 
• shifting from W-2 history to testing 1099 outside sales reps 
• using AI agents for prospecting, emails, and social posting while keeping a human cadence 
• lessons from a small networking meetup and a multi-agent AI tool suggestion 
• fuel prices, fewer trips, and the ROI logic for joining a barter exchange 
• sponsor support that helps cover a $400 application fee for businesses that need it 
If you're not already connected to me on alignable, do that and follow along and come to my event over at the Susie Q's kids over at there on Mound Road. 
So, what I'm doing is for three or to ten dollars, if you click on the link, you can sponsor the show anywhere between three and ten bucks. 

Transcript

Welcome To The Trading Post

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Trading Post Podcast, where we unlock the secrets of business-to-business trade, dive into powerful networking strategies, and share my exciting journey of using a podcast to market my business instead of relying on SEO. I'm your host, Trader Stew. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Trading Post. I am your host, of course, Trader Stu. And a couple of things I wanted to hit up real quick

Water Main Break And Business Fallout

SPEAKER_00 0:32

today. One, let's check what's happening around us. So if you're on the news, I'm not sure if this is nation, national news. I think it is. It's a it's a state of emergency, I guess. We were wondering if we're coming to come into the office on Monday because the water main breaks. So that is hitting all the local businesses in Lake Orion, Auburn Hills, I guess part of Rochester, Rochester Hills. Uh luckily not our office, but you know, when you're part of a barter network like Metro Trading Association, you stay aware of what's happening in the community and it helps you spot opportunities and keep your businesses moving because it's kind of like a backup. So, you know, it's not much, I guess, uh in a way of bartering and uh and specifically with the trend of the or the trend, the the news of the waterman break could have helped some of the businesses there. But, you know, maybe because now that I think about it, I wonder. So one of the businesses over there was on the news and they were saying how they have a bunch of fresh food and it's all gonna go to waste. And that might have been something that he could have called us for and asked him to help offload it. I'm not sure how that works legally. Like if one of our businesses was was to buy their food from them on trade, you know what I mean? Like he had to shut his doors on Mother's Day because of the water main break. He couldn't open because of obviously there's nothing no water in in the kitchens, let alone the bathrooms. So and all the waitresses and waiters and bartenders and everything like that, it couldn't work, so they all lost money. Not that you know, bartering would have helped them, but he said he lost $10,000 in revenue that day, you know, just in a few hours for brunch or whatever, Mother's Day. And now he's gonna end that loss because of all the food that's just gonna rot there in his freezers or refrigerator. I'm not sure what he's gonna do with all that. So it's too late now. I mean, that was over the weekend, but it just kind of makes you think initially I was like, ah, it doesn't really have nothing to do about it, but maybe, maybe it does, maybe, maybe it could have. So there's a 42-inch water main break if you didn't know that in the uh in the area. And Lake Orion has a huge hole in the ground right now, and it runs through Auburn Hills. I'm not sure if the mall is even closed. You know what? No, I think about that. We have a huge mall in Auburn Hills. I wonder if they're open. But like I said, it's a state of emergency. Schools are closed. I know this because one of the brokers in our office has kids in the in the area, and their school is shut down for at least two days at minimum. So there's that. There's a boil water advisory going on. They've been urged not to even run the water if they can, because if there's an emergency, there'll be no water at the hydrants for putting out fires. I'm surprised actually there's no fire because then you know I'm I'm kind of a bit of a I'm a I guess a conspiracy theorist. It's hard to say conspiracy theorists when everything is coming true. So is it theory or is it just like being pessimistically aware of things that are about to go wrong? So it's the perfect disaster. We got winds coming in, there's no water to fight fires at the hydrants, and I mean that the Everglades can be on fire. Why can't Lake Orion? I don't know. I don't know how the Everglades are on fire. It's tropical freaking rainforest down there. I know it's been hot and little water, but I'm pretty sure everything is still green. It's really weird. I used to live in Florida and it rained every day at like one o'clock or like 11 to 1 or something like that. Uh, it was like every day I had lightning within 10 nautical miles in the flight line. We all had to leave because somebody got hit by, or I guess a bunch of crew got hit by lightning uh working on the tail of a C-130. And of course, the tail sticking up in the air in the middle of the flight line, and bam. You know, I'm not sure how many guys died or if they got hurt. I know they got hurt, but uh you know, anyway. So they were pretty big about lightning within five and ten nautical miles when there's a storm coming in. And I used to work the flight line, and I got to go inside every day and hang out for a minute until the clouds cleared. Anyway, I digress. What else we got going? Oh, yeah, I already said high wind warning. So uh, and that's not even just Michigan, that's nationwide. That's according to Google Trends, 10,000 people looking it up uh lately. The storm impacts, power outage risks, and travel delays are going on. Uh, can throw off deliveries, appointments, and service calls. And that's where, you know, I guess barter networks can shine in that area too, because they always call our brokers up and say, hey, I'm in it stuck. You know, can you help me send this notification out that I need to help, you know, get some stuff off my off my kitchen or or off my plate because either my place is closed, like Lake Orion, they're shut down for two weeks. I mean, I know insurance covers a lot of that, I'm sure it does, but you still got you know the overhead, you still got employees. So I know one of the employees was on, I know the owner, I think it was a salon. You don't think about this, but one of the salons in Lake Orion was saying, hey, you know, we're doing dry cuts, but we can't do colors because you're 20 minutes at the wash station if you get a color, so you can't, you know, there's no sink there for water running and things of that nature. But you know, we could try, if they were members, you know, call our brokers up and say, hey, could you send out an email or text saying that we need to get some people in here uh to do, you know, some dry cuts or whatever like that, or maybe I don't know if they can if they're they can travel, you know, go to people's houses. I'm not sure what the legality is on that, but you gotta do what you gotta do. You know, you got bills to pay, right? So I don't see why not. At least take some trade is better than nothing. That is for sure.

Hiring 1099 Reps For Growth

SPEAKER_00 6:23

All right, now on to something I'm excited about. The trading post family is growing. I should say Metro Trading Association's family is growing because well, I guess not even a family. We're getting cousins. Like distant cousins, I guess, because we're hiring 1099 employees, so it's not really part of the you're far part of the family, but a distant relative because you know you're not W-2, let's be honest. But I'm trying something different. So historically, since 1978, Metro Trading Association has never hired outside sales reps and on a 1099 basis. They've always been W-2. So that's what that means is salary plus commission. That's just something that Michael, the owner, has always just tried to, you know, I believed in that you should always be paid some kind of commission or some kind of salary plus a commission, which is awesome. I'm no stranger to commission only. When he quote unquote headhunted me when I met Mike at the Chamber of Commerce in Flint, Michigan, I was commission only working for the small business development team of the ADT small business alarms and and cameras. I did was doing really quite well until I told my manager, I said, Hey, well, this ain't fun for me no more. I'm leaving. And what they were doing was my area was never capable of supporting a small business threat for more than a few months. It just, I mean, it's sales, you know, people get burned out. But for some reason, I just kind of like I was I was rocking it out, man. So then they started, well, you know, you get your, I think, 10 sales or 10, 11 sales a month. If you get, you know, that many, you get a huge bonus. I forgot what it was. It was attractive though. And then your each sale above and beyond that was also very attractive. And I was hitting my bonuses every month, they didn't like that. So they put another rep in my area. Then I had to work double hard and share my leads with the rep and make you know, try and make the same amount of sales. And then they put another rep in my area, and then another rep in my area. I'm like, all right, dude, that this that's not it's not fun no more. Like I was ticked off at the first one anyway. So what I'm getting at is I'm gonna start on the innovation side of things as well and experiment with the AI employees. So I'm gonna do 1099 employees as well as AI employees. I'm kind of double doing a double tap here and just seeing how things go because I don't want to say people are jealous, but they're definitely making it known and that they're well waiting for more reps to join the area, or not reps, but members in the area of where they are, because you know, they want more folks to trade with. And I gotta be honest, I'm I'm just gonna say it. I'm in Southeast Michigan, man. I'm in Metro Detroit. I don't really have to drive anywhere to bring in members. There, if you ever drive around here in Metro Detroit, there are tens of thousands of businesses, of small businesses, in a very short amount of time. I've it's crazy because I'm from Frankenmouth, Michigan, and you know, we have our town, and then you got fields all around us, you know, cornfields or whatever, you know. And so I'm not, it's you just drive and it's just like non-stop businesses back to back. And I don't have to go to Genesee County up in Flint an hour and 15 minutes away to go and try and find people. I mean, I know it's kind of selfish, but also, you know, gas is five bucks a gallon, man. So I want to go drive, you know, and spend 20 bucks or whatever there and back, and plus driving all around up there, and then to try and find, you know, a restaurant or somebody to sign up with me and join Metro Trading Association, I can try and do a phone call or email or whatever. So so what I'm gonna do now is just try and find folks that want to work up there. And this is great because a lot of people want the flexibility, but they and they don't want a full-time commitment, but they want some sidecomb money. This is perfect because if you're already kind of in the B2B area, you're doing some kind of sale or what have you, then you could say, hey man, you should sign up for Metro Trade. And then you know, you get some commission on the side, right? You're gonna get half of the application fee, and then as well as some trade bonuses, and it's just perfect for someone like that, or even like I was kind of thinking of a hit-up handshake, so intern style, right? So summers here, college students need some money. Maybe they don't want to work full-time or whatever at a place, and they if they know some business owners in the family or whatever, I mean, or if they were if they're entrepreneurs, a small business want to get into it, what a great opportunity to go around, network, have a reason that you're networking. Not I've had people just say, Hey, I'm in college, I just I'm just here to to like I guess learn. It's kind of awkward. But if you're there for representing a kind of Metro Trading Association, and then you're just gathering business cards as well, now

AI Employees And Podcast Marketing

SPEAKER_00 11:07

you got a Rolodex, right, of business cards for the business you're about to open. It's perfect. So it's kind of and then I'm gonna try the AI employee thing. I've already had perplexity run for me. I've I've I've done the agent thing for it, and it's worked pretty well. There's some tweaking because it doesn't sound like me when I post when or when it posts for me on alignable LinkedIn, but it's good enough. I don't think anybody really notices the difference, but I do. So part of the benefit utilizing a podcast for your marketing efforts is that in the advent of AI, unless you're also blogging, I do know that it can read your emails and follow your cadence as long as you're not copying, pasting whatever AI has already written for you. I mean, I know like I haven't had original thought in 14 months almost, it seems like, because I can just have AI write all my emails for me, right? So, and and it gives me all my ideas. I tell it what I want to do and it and it helps me out. So huge time saver. If you ever like get overwhelmed and overtasked in your head, you're like, man, I wish we could do this. It the AI, just get an AI, and uh it's like your next companion, man. It's kind of creepy, but I I'm into it, I'm here for it. So, you know, try that. I'm gonna see what happens.

Networking Learnings And AI Agents

SPEAKER_00 12:25

I was at a networking event. What my networking event actually on alignable. If you're not already connected to me on alignable, do that and follow along and come to my event over at the Susie Q's kids over at there on Mound Road. We meet on their second Monday of every month. And it's funny because you it was a small gathering. I think there was four of us total for this networking event. So it wasn't, it was very nice and niche, I guess you want to say, and quaint. Generally, it's more than that. It's maybe, I don't know, I want to say more, six or ten. 10's pretty good, 20 is even better, but uh anyway, there was only me, a financial or HR guy, and a fitness girl, and and I forgot the other guy's name. He does something with engineering anyway. And I learned a lot. I learned that she uses the fitness girl, uses it's called Marbly or Marbleism AI, and you get six agents for the price of like 40 bucks a month, man. And it does her phone calls, like it takes phone calls, her emails, outbound, SEO, things of that nature. So I might be looking into something like that because the big part of my job is prospecting, and prospecting is exhausting. If you've ever cold called and done cold emails and picking up the phone and all that stuff, it's it's exhausting. It wears on you after a while. You're first, you know, for the first few months, you're pumped and you're cranking them out. But you know, I've been at this already for two years, and I'm just like, okay, I'm I'm good with the cold calling thing. Like, so that's why I'm hiring now. Like, I'm I'm kind of like burned out with doing that same repetitive, monotonous thing every day. I'd rather train staff. Back when I was doing this 10, 12 years ago, I had a I was a manager back then for the same company, and it was so much fun. We had six, seven reps, and I loved it. I I love leading like a Monday morning meeting, pumping everybody up, listening to music, get some donuts and coffee, and then crank it. You know, it's just uh good energy. I'm hoping I can do the same thing and replicate it post-COVID area or era. We'll see how it goes. It'll probably be more Zoom, which wasn't a thing back then. But you know, whatever. Maybe we'll see. Maybe I'll get a mobile RV and like a party bus, and I don't know, get one of those that are like a toy hauler and turn the part where the toy hauler is into like little office where we can just like meet up and I just travel around to different zip codes and just have our you know meetings in that. I don't know. It's an idea. But where else can we do here? Oh,

Five Dollar Gas And Barter ROI

SPEAKER_00 14:55

I want to talk about this trade of hormous real quick. So with everything's on the you know, attentions are there, blah blah blah, right? Fuel prices, like I said, uh in Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, right now. I paid five bucks a gallon. I've seen it as high as five five nineteen, I think it was. We're not as high as Biden area, which was in 2022 was 522, actually, which is kind of funny. In 2022, the the the record was 522, and diesel is over way over six bucks a gallon, uh, as well as premium, of course. But so with those prices, I like I said, I'm not gonna be driving around. So I'd like to have my AI do that for me and my 1099 employees, my my uh college students or folks that are looking for some sidecomb money, right? So so one of the also one of the smartest ways you can do to soften the the $5 a gallon right now is by joining a barter group like MTA, because barter lets you trade goods and services without the cash, which means fewer unnecessary trips, less money spent on gas, and more value staying inside the business. So if you don't want to drive around looking for leads or whatever like that, if that's kind of your gig, then you know what, look into joining us because at five bucks a gallon, a four hundred dollar application fee doesn't take long to recoup at five bucks a gallon, you know what I'm saying? So if you want to just do that REO or REO, REO speed wagon or ROI on, you know, if that's your thing. I am, I like math, so you know I'm kind of I'm I'm a mathy guy when it when it's necessary. Uh I wasn't back in the day, but once I started flying jets, I learned to enjoy math anyway.

Renaissance Tickets And Sponsor Support

SPEAKER_00 16:23

And did I already mention the Renaissance Festival is going to be who is sponsoring the show again this year? I'll be giving away tickets. They have given me like 50 decades to uh talk about them on the podcast. So be sure to hit them up. The tickets are for specific dates. I haven't got them in hand yet. It's still a little early, but I think they open in August. I want to say August, end of August. Anyway, we'll find out. And so, anyway, we'll be talking about them. I gotta do my intro for that. And uh oh, and before we wrap up, I wanted to thank everyone and all the sponsors of the show because your contributions will help sponsor the folks that can't afford the $400 application fee. So, what I'm doing is for three or to ten dollars, if you click on the link, you can sponsor the show anywhere between three and ten bucks. And I I save up four hundred dollars worth of the application fee, and then that will get you, you know, well, not you, but it'll help bring in a small business that can't afford the application fee of $400. So $10 adds up quick. When I get, you know, 40 people, it's $400 right there. And then boom, I can get I can waive my commission, is what I'm trying to say, and get them in, you know, to Metro Trade. So it pays for everything the first year minus the 12% or whatever they sell. So I can't really waive that, but I can waive the $400 application fee and I can weigh the $19 a month cash and trade. So your contribution does help for the first year for $400 to $19 a month. So all they pay if they get any business is the transaction fee. That's it. So anyway, that's it for now. Whatever you do out there, be good or be good at it. Uh till next time. See ya.