Meaningful barriers to entry are a good thing

As we all know, historically there has not been a significant barrier to enter the information destruction industry. I used to glibly say that all it took was the price of business cards and a decent credit rating. And, while many a startup have benefited from this low barrier, more established service providers and the industry as a whole have suffered from it.

Anyone who watches the television show “Shark Tank” knows that when candidates looking for support can’t show a way to create such barriers, those panelists offering funding run the other way.

Of course, all businesses attempt to build basic barriers of their own, such as branding, personal relationships and strong contracts. I can’t stress enough how important those elements are, and I am amazed at how often they are neglected by companies. Unfortunately, however, even when branding, relationship building and strong contracts are used effectively, low barriers to enter the industry degrade profits over time; it’s inevitable.

There’s a continuum of services ranging from no or low barriers to entry on one end to those requiring clear and elaborate qualifications. Services such as carpet cleaning and lawn maintenance are examples of services on the no or low barrier end, while medicine and law are on the other end. It doesn’t take a genius to see which end of this spectrum is the more profitable.

Industry trade associations are capable of playing a key role in moving their industries toward the more profitable end of that spectrum by creating meaningful barriers to entry. NAID certification is one such step in that direction for the information destruction industry. So are Downstream Data Coverage, the Certified Secure Destruction Specialist accreditation and the Compliance Toolkit training.

There could be any number of reasons NAID members don’t rally to these association programs, but expense should not be one of them. Every successful secure destruction service has a strong vested interest in raising the stakes required to participate in our industry.

The NAID board of directors will convene in Portland, Oregon, in August to plan the association’s future. It’s a safe bet that those industry leaders will be focusing on enhancing NAID’s role in promoting the health and profitability of providing professional secure destruction services—a mission that any reputable, established information destruction service provider would be well-advised to support.

Bob Johnson is CEO of the National Association for Information Destruction. He can be reached at rjohnson@naidonline.org.