The Value of Everything and the Price of Nothing

Re-marketing is always the best option with electrical equipment. Environmentally I mean. 

All the damage is done during manufacture, so squeezing a bit longer out of things is good for everyone. Eventually it can be broken down and all the bits can be used again, but lifecycle extension is the way to go. So when you dispose of an old computer or laptop, you should be happy to see it cleaned up, tested and sold on to someone else.

However, it is entirely reasonable that you should benefit from any resale, if at all possible. No one is really arguing about that, least of all me. Just as long as you recognise that it is equally reasonable that you pay for all the other bits that have to be done to protect you. Regular readers will understand that I am talking about data erasure, logistics, boring old paperwork. It is all costs.

As I have said before, you have to be reasonable. If your old kit is conspicuously on its last legs and is over three years old, it is not going to earn you anything. It is waste. It is going to cost you to dispose of but you will do so safe in the knowledge that we have protected your data and done our bit for sustainability.

But today I want to look at good kit, or good kit at face value. Because you have to remember that we do not see it until we get it in the back of our van. Good laptops can get very good prices on the market, if you know where to look. I valued a job last week and the expected resale price was between £200 and £500, dependent on condition and actual specification. Because we rarely get an accurate asset list from our clients. We tend to get told there will be X number of laptops, and they might all be XXXXX and the specification might be XXXX. And then they want an estimate of value.

It is our habit to then give 3 prices; good, average and scrap. And the client then has to try and work what they will get out for themselves. But you can see how someone might get excited, because at £500 a pop we might have been handing back £50,000 after our revenue share. That is something to get quite excited about.

Until you find out they aren’t XXX after all, they are YYY. And half of them are broken beyond repair in any case. They certainly aren’t in mint condition. But that does not matter, because we will still do the best we can, but you can forget about the big number.

My take on this is to play it down. Very few people get big paydays from recycling their equipment and most of them know full well that they are getting rid of good gear. They normally have a reason to refresh early and they know the price of fish as it were. With everyone else, if the estimate suggests value we highlight it but emphasise that it is all down to reality.

But my advice would be give us a chance to see the value. When disposing of your assets, don’t just give us the highlights; give us the detailed specs if you can. It will get you a better deal, a fairer price and you will know exactly where you stand right from the get go.

It’s all too much hassle

Hassle. Life is full of it and we all need less of it. A peaceful existence. A steady routine with no nasty surprise. We all want a few nice surprises, but not nasty ones. We all want a work/life balance, a bit tilted towards the life side if we are honest, but we want to enjoy what we do without hassle. That is the important thing. Reduce the stress.

(Therefore I would not necessarily recommend you supporting Arsenal! I am not a happy bunny this morning!)

Except when it comes to paying for it, of course. Less hassle is a hard thing to price. Is it worth £50 to you? £100? £1000? I talk to people most days who have a small pile of kit to dispose of and they are horrified by the cost. One said to me the other day that I would sell his precious waste, as if that was a license to print gold! So why should he pay me to collect it? I was forced to point out a few facts of life.

Firstly, he could sell it himself if he wants to, no skin off my nose. Anyone can use eBay. But it would be a lot of hassle to earn £25, if his item sold. And what about the PAT test, or the software? Or his data? He soon went off that idea.

Secondly, if he wanted to avoid transport costs, he could drop it off to me. Maybe send it by courier at his risk? Cheaper but his data is still there. He is liable. And is he transporting waste then? So not legal really, if challenged. And he is a bit off the beaten track.

Thirdly, he could turn to one of the free collection services, couldn’t he? Well no, even those generous souls will not collect small quantities. Most insist on 30 items and the small stuff goes into boxes to be counted as one item, so his three items don’t really merit a free collection.

So his option is to pay a fair price and have all his boxes ticked, or sit on his pile until either it gets bigger and becomes more economical with economies of scale or some other miraculous solution presents itself.

This is why so many offices have a small pile of WEEE in a corner, on a shelf or in a storeroom. I call it the hassle/cost ratio, and until the hassle becomes greater than the sum involved, nothing ever gets done. It may very well say ‘we support sustainability’ on the company website, but when it comes to paying £99 to get rid of those two old PC’s, a knackered printer and a box of junk, sod the Ozone layer.

My old Gran used to love saying ‘look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.’ It is true with the family budget but not so true in business. Because you are not paying £99 for nothing in this regular little scenario. Let me tell you what you would be paying for with eReco, to emphasise my point:

Secure collection. Two men with the vehicle, both security checked. Vehicle never left unattended and your data always protected (and covered by our insurance).

Diesel, road tax, maintenance and rental for our vehicle.

Provision of Waste Transfer Notes, Consignment notes, asset lists and certificates of data destruction.

Data erasure. Our Ben’s time plus the license fee to use Infosec 5 level Tabernus software.

 

Asset tracking through our system. So that you can prove an audit trail.

PAT Testing, cleaning, repair, loading of software and marketing.

Recycling anything that cannot be remarketed. We never put anything into a landfill. We will store the constituent parts (sometimes for a very long time) until we have a load viable for sale.

Facility costs, staff wages and digestive biscuits. (No one at eReco does a stroke without the promise of a digestive biscuit).

I know that is teaching Granny to suck eggs stuff. But that is what £99 has to cover. 

Best case scenario in terms of resale of a job like that is £75, worst case scrap value is about £10, and we do not know what state the kit is in until we pick it up of course.

We need to remember what is important here. And that is managing the risk of data breaches and keeping electrical equipment out of landfill. The hassle of the former is off the clock stressful and the latter is our duty to future generations.

Does £99 still sound so expensive? And Arsenal, I love you, but if you don't learn to defend, I am considering a divorce!

Stop Hiding and Talk!

Modern sales techniques have to deal with modern technology. Mainly because we hide behind it most of the time, apparently afraid of saying no, not interested at the moment. It never ceases to amaze me that we are afraid of talking to each other.

I do not like blind cold-calling. Unless you are working a very good list and your product or service is an obvious fit, you are largely wasting your time. Especially in business to business. I like to identify a potential prospect, find out what they do and understand why they would want to talk to me. Then I try and find a contact.

You can find this in all sorts of places. LinkedIn is great for getting a name, as are some websites. It is much easier to research it than to talk to that most dreaded of demons, the gatekeeper. I hate unnecessary barriers. How do these ferocious guardians know that I will be wasting their precious minion’s time? Who made them the decision-maker?

Anywho, once I have a name, I can normally conjure up an email too. And there I set out my stall to entice, interest and intrigue my lucky contact. I do not just fire off a sales message. I lovingly craft it, personalise it and try and hit the buttons.

But the thing that interests me the most is the line where I say ‘and could you let me know when would be a convenient time to call?’ I like adding that, because as a buyer I like to arrange to talk to people, so that I am prepared and they are prepared, and I offer my victims...oops I mean lovely prospects...the same courtesy.

Of course, it is also a warning. It should tell the receiver that I intend to call them. 

It is a gentle encouragement to respond. If the prospect responds, they take control. They can decline my kind offer to empty their wallet, giving me a good reason, and telling me to leave them alone. Or they can send me back an order (this happens, my emails are that good! Really!). Or they can ask me some questions and say by all means call me after 4 on Thursday week.

One of these things happens about one out of five times. The rarest thing is a time to call, but in any case direct communication is achieved and let the games really begin. A soft approach has turned into a general love in and we shall be friends forevermore.

What worries me are the ones who do not respond. I am persistent. I will keep calling unless I get told not to, so the average contact will spend more time listening to voicemails from me than it would take to call or write to me to say sod off you annoying little man. No one is that busy.

There is an old cliché about people doing business with people. It is a cliché because it is largely true of course. You build rapport and then working together is so much easier all round. Therefore avoiding talking to people is crazily counter-productive. I mean, I am offering you ethical IT recycling not PPI for goodness sake!

The reality is that email, voice mail, receptionists and electronic answering systems are all great ways to stop business getting done. I cut my young sales teeth in a world before computers, when telephones got answered and people talked to each other. Really. In those days (the eighties) if a message was taken, the person would call you back. Really. No mobiles at the start, I did get a car phone in about 87 but that was largely for talking to my colleagues.

You may think that I am looking back through rose-coloured spectacles, and that may well be true. I just feel that we all spend far too much time hiding from ‘sales’ calls, when we should all be looking at them as an opportunity. If I take a call and someone starts reading a script at me, I stop them and ask exactly what they are selling. If it is not for me, I say no as politely as possible. If they then call me back, I will avoid them or be quite grumpy.

But I always try to remember something the late Peter Coyne told me. Peter was quite well known in Ireland because he was a master networker. He could work out a relationship to just about anyone through his network, and over a little glass of something in Dublin he reminded me that every single business relationship had to start somewhere. Ergo many have to start with a cold call, the first time company A has talked to company B.

So, especially if you receive a soft, polite, well tailored first approach, play nicely. It may be the start of a mutually beneficial thing. It may not, but you will have left another person in this world thinking well of you.

Another old cliché, treat others as you would be treated.

eReco – Your Get of Jail free card

Who is responsible for your data?

It’s a good question. Ultimately it is a business responsibility regulated by law under the data protection act and once the EU gets around to it the responsibility will sit firmly with the directors of the business. Even if they delegate it to someone else, they can be sued, fined, jailed or even decapitated if Genghis Khan gets his hands on them.

And that is in addition to fines levied against the business.

I think that focuses the mind quite nicely. Once this becomes law (and we are past the expected ratification date, so any day now Mr Farage!) apathy is going to get quite dangerous, and once the directors are firmly in the firing line things tend to get done.

But what things?

Obviously, here in eReco land, we are going to focus on disposing of redundant IT equipment because that is our wont. There are lots of other things to do but we aren’t directly involved in that so yah boo sucks, sort it out yourselves.

So, you have a computer to get rid of and it has a hard drive, what should you do?

In simple terms, you have two different legal responsibilities.

Firstly to dispose of the equipment according to WEEE regulations. Regardless of what you call it, or any residual value, this is waste and whatever you do, you need to think about waste transfer notes and how the item is going to get to a WEEE regulated recycling facility. If you do not get a WTN you are breaking the law and if your equipment does not go to a WEEE facility and ends up somewhere naughty, you have also broken the law. So, if you give it to someone to dispose of for you, make sure you get the right paperwork and be sure they are going to do things properly. If not, those directors are in the firing line.

Secondly, you are responsible for any data on any hard drive disposed of. There is no limit to that responsibility. You remain responsible. Even if eReco collect it from you, the data is still ultimately your responsibility. You would have to prove that you have engaged a data secure service provider and that their processes met your duty of care to protect your data.

If something went wrong and there was a data breach, you would still be in hot water, because the data remains yours, and you would need to prove to Genghis Khan, or our friendly neighbourhood ICO Chris Graham, that you acted responsibly.

Now all eReco customers will have no problem proving this. We provide Waste Transfer Notes, asset lists and certificates of data destruction, and if something goes wrong we have liability insurance up to £10,000,000. Our collections are secure, with security cleared personnel, and our facility down here in East Grinstead is also secure. This is certified and checked, without warning, by ADISA, and we are also approved by DIPCOG to work in the MoD/Government space.

All of which the truly responsible client will have checked out in advance. This is the important stuff you see...you need to show due diligence. And then do you know what actually keeps the MD out of choky? Yes that’s right, it’s the boring old paperwork!

Say your data ends up on eBay. This happens. A lot. So no pooh poohing me please. As General Melchet said in Blackadder 4, ‘did he pooh pooh you Blackadder?” I won’t have it. This is important stuff so no giggling at the back.

Once the data breach is crystal clear, you are in deep doggy doo’s. Genghis, however he finds out about it (and he will, because legally, if he doesn’t find out any other way, you have to tell him or face even graver consequences) will start asking some difficult questions. And the boring old paperwork which everyone takes for granted and does not give too much importance, becomes absolutely crucial.

First things first, Genghis would want to see what you asked us to collect. However you do it, by email or by filling in one of our forms, we keep a record of what you asked us to collect. This is important in a minute, so tuck it away at the back of your mind. Then we give you an estimate, and you accept this estimate, and we confirm a collection date.

On said date, we rock up and get the stuff. We bring with us a Waste Transfer note, which says we collected this sort of stuff from this address on said date.  Everyone signs and you get a copy. We also have consignment notes. This details the sort of materials being transported, whether they are hazardous or not, and gives full addresses and licenses for both parties. Not very interesting but all legal proof and approval for what we are doing.

Then we bring the stuff back here. We track it in, noting any serial numbers but also adding an identity number of our own, so that we always know where it is in our system. From this we produce an asset list. It should match the list you asked us to collect, of course. If you asked us to collect 10 PC’s we tell you that we have collected 10 PC’s and the serial numbers are XXXXXX. You now have a comprehensive audit trail of disposal from your request to us, through transportation by registered and licensed supplier to arrival at a registered, accredited and approved facility. In other words, you have proof of what you have done and Genghis loosens his grip on your throat, for the time being at any rate.

But before we move on, a reality check. I have said in previous blogs and always say to clients on the phone, tell us if you have more to collect than you have said. 

Partly this is because we want to charge you more. I am just like that, I like to get paid. Partly it is because I know what the vehicle can take in terms of weight and quantity of stuff, and we don’t want to overload it. But mostly because it is dangerous if you add something without telling us. Because the audit trail is potentially broken. In our case, we would pick it up when we compile our asset list, but legally PC XXX has magically left your care and arrived with us. You have not asked us to take it. What if you do not even know it is gone? Genghis might well slap you around a bit because of things like that.

However, let’s leave that side of things and get back to business. So we have your stuff and you have an audit trail which will be added to when we erase your hard drives and give you a certificate to prove we did it. At this point you are pretty much done. You can kneel before Genghis, carefully watching the scimitar in his hand and say ‘it was them, Guv’ if anything goes Pete Tong. We would end up in the dock together, because it’s still your data, but having employed a certified supplier and ticked all the paperwork boxes, it would take a very unreasonable Genghis to punish you, and our insurance would hopefully cough up.

Please note, this is all hypothetical, we have never had a problem and, touch wood, never will. We do things right. And going back to a well-worn theme of this blog, this is why we charge for our services. Even if we do agree a kit covers costs deal, which we do if you are recycling gold plated laptops, these costs are deducted before we share any revenue with anyone. Because we think this is the really important stuff. It’s the stuff that keeps your MD out of jail.

And you may think that is taking things a bit far. But take a look at the ICO’s hall of shame when you have a moment and imagine those breaches when director responsibility comes in. It is very tempting to look at IT equipment recycling as a cost, but I have always maintained that it is risk management.

Do it right, for your director’s sake.

Smoke and Mirrors

Websites are part of our lives now. I never buy anything major these days without visiting some sort of website, just to reassure myself about the details. In business, we marketers spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about our websites and driving traffic to them, because we recognise that this is our shop window.

And of course this is where the shadily unscrupulous always make the boldest unsubstantiated claims and deliberately muddy the waters in their own favour. In short, they lie. Advertising standards do not seem to apply to websites. I am sure there is some sort of legal redress if something is totally untrue but who do you sue

But people believe what they read. I spent an unhappy half hour this morning convincing a potential client that CESG baseline software was not totally secure. He had seen it on a competitor’s website and believed that baseline software would remove all his sensitive data, and he was getting this done for free.

Now the author of this little stretching of the truth was quite clever. CESG are the government committee (run by GCHQ) that ‘independently evaluates and certifies the level of trust that may be placed in IT security features.’ So by mentioning them they give themselves a veneer of authenticity I suppose. But CESG do not say baseline software is sufficient. Baseline software basically wipes any hard drive once. It’s like dusting a plate with one wipe in one direction. It is better than nothing and that is essentially what CESG says.

Anyone serious about data erasure uses Infosec 5, which CESG says removes data to the point where it is currently impossible to retrieve it. The wording of Infosec 5 mentions baseline but clearly states that it is inferior to a 3 wipe system, which is what we mean by Infosec 5. So the free service was using basic software and passing it off as sufficient.

And whilst we are on the subject of competitor claims, watch out for when free does not mean free.

I am finding lots of these people who say they will collect for free, but when you get into the details they mean only if you have a lot of stuff (and the right sort of stuff). And they will only do certain things for free. Your data may be dealt with using baseline software so that they do not need to pay any license fees for instance. They may be a bit parsimonious with the paperwork.

And many of the allegedly not for profit organisations offering these miraculous services for nothing but a smile and a handshake are linked to commercial operations standing in the shadows who may not be as green or as reputable as you think. None of which you can see from their websites.

IT Recycling is a mucky business at times. I can’t blame anyone who is only dipping into it long enough to get rid of 10 PC’s and a few old monitors for getting fooled, but we do need to start getting the message across. So for the avoidance of doubt, here is what we are actually trying to do here.

1. Make the manufacture of IT and electrical equipment sustainable by reusing or recycling all waste with 0% going to landfill.
2. Keep everyone 100% data secure.
3. Stop WEEE being exported out of regulated countries to end up in African landfill.

And that’s it. Simples.