Boosting Productivity and Profitability with Used Cell Phones: A Business Perspective from David Rippner

In this episode of 'The Wireless Way,' host Chris Whitaker interviews David Ripner, who has spent 30 years in the wireless industry. Ripner recounts starting his career with humble beginnings conducting surveys in malls, which eventually led him to sales and into the wireless sector. 

He details his progression from working on pagers in 1994 to playing a significant role in establishing the Dallas market for a paging company, and later transitioning into cellular sales as the industry evolved. Ripner also discusses founding the mobility marketplace, aimed at helping businesses and government customers manage their cell phone accounts more efficiently through device management solutions. The conversation covers the challenges of data wiping, the importance of securing decommissioned devices, and how the industry's approach to device lifecycle management and business operations has changed over the years. 

Ripner emphasizes the value of listening to customers' needs to evolve services and solutions in the fast-paced wireless industry.

00:00 Welcome to The Wireless Way: Meet David Ripner

01:00 David's Unique Journey into the Wireless Industry

03:29 The Evolution from Pagers to Cell Phones

06:45 The Birth and Mission of The Mobility Marketplace

08:01 The Intricacies of Device Lifecycle Management

18:13 Securing Devices: The Overlooked Aspect of Cybersecurity

19:27 Reflecting on Changes in the Wireless Industry

26:53 David's Passion for Problem-Solving and Customer Feedback

28:45 Wrapping Up: The Importance of Security and Customer Feedback

Transcript

Chris: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the episode of the wireless way. I'm your host, Chris Whitaker. And I am very grateful that you're here today. I know there's a lot you can be doing, and I'm also very grateful for my guest, David Ripner. He's my guest today and he is from Frisco, Texas, or he lives in Frisco, Texas. Texas, I should say, which is the suburb of Dallas originally hailing from Queens, New York. I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit. He's been in the wireless industry for 30 years, working for multiple wireless carriers in business cells. Before starting the mobility marketplace 15 years ago. So it's got a great track record there. We're going to dig into that. He started the mobility marketplace to help businesses and government customers manage their cell phone accounts more effectively related to cell phone device management solutions. And we're going to unpack that as well. David thanks for making time today. I know we. Went back and forth on the schedule on this. We're here today. So thanks for being here.

David: 0:57

for having me. Excellent.

Chris: 1:00

As I warned you my first question I love is the most interesting one, probably the whole show is what's not in the bio. How did you get here?

David: 1:09

Actually it's funny. I started at, 16 years old. I have a job and most people are flipping hamburgers or. Working in a department store, I was one of those obnoxious people who actually held a clipboard in the ball and would do those surveys. And I would, I had a marketing degree. I was, or I was going to be studying marketing in college. It was about market research. You weren't selling anything, but approaching people in a mall. I can still tell you to this day, it was the most difficult job I ever had. Even owning my own company and being in sales and working for all the wireless carriers that you alluded to before standing in a mall. Having to approach people with a clipboard was by far the most brutal and the most rejection I have ever experienced in my life. And then everyone said, wow, you should go into sales eventually. And that kind of got me on the sales track from doing that. Anyone who thinks that cold calling in sales is difficult, grab a clipboard and go into a mall and try to approach people and ask them a few questions and see how well that goes for you.

Chris: 2:17

That's right. Everybody's in a hurry. No one wants to talk to you. Uh, what was your success rate? I did 50 people. What was your ratio? How many people do you have to get a good survey?

David: 2:28

If I could get 10%, I'd be happy. Most people would go around a plant or something, and I would have to like safety in the NFL, cut off the angle so I can approach them. It was really comical, but it was fun. And I knew I was going to be studying marketing, so I enjoyed new product development. But also in dealing with people, it took me on a track that once I graduated I decided marketing and sales actually can go more hand in hand and it started my career. And then when I graduated, I sold jewelry and I was a jewelry salesman. I traveled four or five days a week. The first four years I was married, my wife and I decided we wanted to start a family and traveling was not part of the plan. And that got me into telecommunications.

Chris: 3:19

When you say telecommunications, was it wireless? What was your first technical job? Was it yeah. How did you get into the wireless business? What was the transition to get into wireless?

David: 3:29

Pagers. 1994, I got into paging before cellular really became so prevalent and yeah I was a sales manager for a company out of Louisiana. And we, along with the regional manager created the whole Dallas market, opened up retail stores, hired salespeople. And then eventually I got promoted to a regional manager position. And that's when cellular became more prevalent. And there were only two carriers back in that day, 96, 97. And all of the top performers that AT& T and Southwestern Bell Wireless were bringing in were people that I mentored and trained in sales. So all of a sudden I'm getting directors from both companies, contacting me saying, who is this guy that trains you and you're doing well. And I guess after a while having young kids, I wanted to start making more money. So I said, you know what, I'll go work for the carriers. And I, that's where it really got started. And I started really going out on my own and selling and meeting customers and starting the 15 year run working for the different carriers in the Dallas area.

Chris: 4:38

As you were talking, made me think, what was it like? Okay. So your first, foray into wireless was pagers. And I imagine at some point you were just, pagers were the thing. That was the rage. If you had a pager, you were important, man. You were a lawyer. You're a doctor. Was there a time a drug dealer? Yeah. Was there a time where you go, yeah, that's true. That's true. Was there a time you're like, Oh my God, these cell phones, they're going to cut into my pager business. Or did you look at cell phones as, Hey, This is good for us. We're going to, did you know you're going to pivot into cell phones or did you see cell phones as a threat to your pager business at first?

David: 5:18

It really wasn't because the rate plan charged the cost per minute at that time, when I first got in with 69 cents a minute, when I finally left, cause we were a reseller for AT& T while I was running the paging division soon after the rate plan started, changing and then the big plan, as soon as sprint and voice training, which became a T Mobile. Before it became prevalent, then that big 1500 minute plan came out for 75 and people were went wild over that. Now there's a reason why paging really doesn't exist anymore because you can get airtime. If you're using your plan with unlimited, you're paying one cent a minute or less per se. So paging went away. But when I got into it, now it was a complimentary piece because you're paying five dollars a month. Is there

Chris: 6:08

anywhere a pagers are still even a thing? Are pager businesses like gone kaput or is there still, is there anybody out there still using pagers anywhere in the world?

David: 6:19

But I do work with hospitals with what I do presently and some still have pagers for the nurses. But not a whole lot anymore. Yeah, I've seen pretty much gone.

Chris: 6:31

Yeah,

David: 6:31

for a cell phone is so inexpensive the rate plans now that why pay five or six dollars if you could just get two way Communication for 25 or 35 dollars a month.

Chris: 6:42

That's right. That's right the

David: 6:43

value Yeah,

Chris: 6:45

You know pre show we were talking about your business and and you said something that You know how you define life cycle management is different than how others probably Would define life cycle management. So I got to ask you, how do you define life cycle management and how do you feel like it's different than others? Possibly.

David: 7:04

I'm in the cell phone business. I buy and sell smartphones and tablets. So when I see someone say life max cycle management on LinkedIn, I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn as a business owner and they're saying, Oh yeah, life cycle management. They may mean in respect to managing desktop computers or something like that. For me, my core solution is providing reliable use devices for customers that break phones, whether it's consumers or businesses, and they need a replacement and they don't want to pay full cost through the wireless provider. So for me, lifecycling account and helping them with devices that we get, that we acquire through our buyback program. Recycling buyback program. We're helping customers from a buying and selling capacity and putting those devices back out in the market after they're decommissioned by a company.

Chris: 7:57

Interesting. So tell me a little bit more about that. Where's the opportunity in this business? Why did you start this company and what was the trigger? You said, Hey, I'm on to something here. And what did that look like?

David: 8:09

When I was a wireless salesperson you really weren't doing buybacks. It really wasn't prevalent in the industry. I found an outside resource who would come into the accounts that I would Bring over a lot of cases. I was switching customers from Nextel. I sold a lot of construction accounts that were moving their phones over from Nextel, and they were like, What do I do with these devices now? They have no value. And I found somebody who said, You know what? I'll give your customers free accessories if I could just take those old devices back. So I was able to barter a situation and bring value for something that had no value. And it really led to a lot of success. I had, I was able to utilize that outside resource to help me take care of and so called life cycle. My account, when they broke a phone, they needed a replacement and it eliminated the need for them to pay full cost buying a phone through the employer that I had at the time. So they were able to get used phones for a fraction of the cost. It helped me manage my accounts effectively. And eventually after 15 years of doing that, working with four different carriers, I started my own company to be that outside resource to help customers and these wireless sales people or telecom expense management companies more effectively manage their accounts on an ongoing basis

Chris: 9:27

Interesting and you know going back to how you define it versus others You're right. I think especially on linkedin when you see someone talking about life cycle management They're talking about the first half of the life And you're talking about the second half of the life. Is that a fair? You there's

David: 9:42

a lot of companies out there doing one half or the others. There's buyback companies, there's wholesalers out there reselling phones. But is there somebody who's actually doing both? I work with a customer and when I introduce myself, they know everything I do. So in most cases, I'm introduced to a customer for the buyback opportunity where they want me to buy their old decommissioned devices. But once they know that, I can also help them When they break a phone during their contract and maybe they don't have insurance or they don't want to pay that expensive monthly recurring someone has a thousand phones who could be spending 15 a month for insurance. Do the math there. You're spending, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for insurance, and maybe they don't have a high propensity to break phones, but when they need it. They could buy a used phone for a fraction of the cost that's fully functional. It makes a big difference. And they can buy it proactively. So those phones are stored on the customer's shelf ahead of time. It's more of a proactive approach to account management rather than reactive, where that end user now doesn't have to wait to get a replacement. There's no end user downtime issues. There's no lost productivity in the field. Just a different approach, more strategic way to speak to a customer and find out what their specific needs are to try to help them from really from a financial bottom line, but also to improve their operational efficiencies.

Chris: 11:08

Interesting. It's funny. I mentioned, corporate America, a lot of, employees that are eligible to get a corporate owned device issued to them. Their expectation is I'm getting a brand new latest and greatest whatever phone, iPhone, Android, Samsung, whatever. So knowing that seems to be, the status quo is what people expect, but clearly that's not always the case. What are some typical use cases for clients buying used phones and tablets? What are you seeing? What do they look like and how do they use them?

David: 11:41

And that's a great question. From a business perspective, it could be seed stock, which I alluded to before. So it's that proactive approach where they may want to put them on their shelf. In some cases, the wireless carriers offer better rate plans. If you bring your own equipment. So some companies, instead of having to pay a monthly installment payment for that device, they may say, I'd rather have the cash outlay. I'm getting the phone for half the price of paying that full cost that they would pay off over a three year time period. So they may buy them up front and then save on a better rate plan per month. So there's a whole bunch of different strategies as the industry's changed from a consumer standpoint, we have a lot of consumers who buy our phones and they may buy it for a simple reason of, hey, I bought my kid an iPhone 14 or an iPhone 15, the kid didn't put any value on it and lost the device. I'm going to teach, junior a lesson here and get them an iPhone 11 or a 12 or whatever. Could be an iPhone eight for, 75 and say, you know what, I'm going to teach my kid a lesson, but I can also still be in contact with them. God forbid there's an emergency. So I've heard so many situations over the 30 years I've been in the industry, but more specifically over the 15 that I've owned my own company. It's completely different. The answers and they vary and that's what makes it fun is you never know what someone's what's really important to that person or what situation comes up, but there's definitely different scenarios and different adventures I get to experience daily and that's fun.

Chris: 13:14

Yeah, I bet. That's an interesting example there. Is there been any that really stood out? Is there any like really interesting kind of bizarre? Scenarios for use cases or, anything stand out from the last 15 years?

David: 13:29

There's some doozies. Yeah, there's definitely I don't know how much detail I could go into but I've literally had a hospital before Asked me do I have 200 old discontinued flip phones? Like phones that weren't in the market for 10 years because they were doing a survey With drug dealers, they were bringing into their facility, doing tests on them or whatnot. And as part of the incentive to get drug dealers and people who had drug addiction to participate in their survey, they offered them a phone with a certain amount of airtime. So that's one that has always stood out going, someone's a junk is someone else's, jewelry, I guess the term might be. I've had different scenarios like that still to this day, every once in a while, and we will get a phone call from someone saying, I know this is strange, but do you have any blackberries? And we might have gotten one in, did all the data wiping, but we're not going to resell a blackberry, put that on our website for resale, but you never know when someone may want that. And if not, then it's just part of our museum of blackberries. Old collectors items like the old StarTAC that was the popular phone back, that was the status quo phone back in the nineties.

Chris: 14:45

For sure. Gosh. So when you these used devices and you sell to a client, how are they received? Are they packaged in a way that someone would expect me as a nice box again? Or is it, what do people expect when they receive your shipments?

David: 15:01

Yeah, we put it in a nice box. Nothing fancy. We try to keep our costs down. It's in just a nice white box. But more specifically, it's the steps that we take. People think it's real easy. You just grab your phone, you do a hard reset, and then you put it on Amazon and sell it. And people don't realize how susceptible they are that Doing a hard reset on a device does not remove all the sense of information. We spent a lot of money to do what we call a level three encryption to make sure that when we data wipe the phone and hook it up to the machine that is reset back to the original specs of when it came out of the box brand new and the next person who owns that device will have no idea who owned it previously. But there's specials on the news all the time, especially here in Dallas. I always see Fox. news channel always does some type of broadcasting of how they show somebody and they, cloud out the person's face and say, Oh yeah, I bought this phone from someone on Amazon. Look, here's all their credit card information because these people have no idea of what's involved in fully data wiping the phones and not being susceptible to having your proprietary sensitive information being exposed. What kind of information,

Chris: 16:16

what kind of information do you think is still on the phones? I have my own thoughts, but what are you seeing? And when you receive phones, in fact, do you guys track that? If you receive a batch of, used phones from someone and you go through your process, does your systems tell you, Hey, yeah, this one still has all the iCloud information. It's got their wallet, their Apple wallet information, their credit card information what other kind of risk is there by not being aware of the proper, way to, to wipe these devices for end of life.

David: 16:45

I always tell customers, especially when I'm working with large business customers and doing a large deployment and they're packing up 200, 300, sometimes thousands of phones and sending it back to us, I always tell them, don't waste your time inventory in the phones. Don't waste your time doing a hard reset on the device because it doesn't do anything. Spend more time to package the phones so when you send it to us, it doesn't get banged up in transit. Because if you send me a phone that's in mint condition. UPS is not going to handle that package with care, and if it comes in has scratches, I'm going to grade that phone cosmetically by how we receive it, not how it's sent. Every report that we send to a customer has a certificate showing that we fully data wiped that phone. Regarding the information on it, no. I'm running a legitimate business. I am a credible person. I'm not going into finding their credit card information, but I promise you if they did a hard reset, we could pull it out if we wanted to. There's people who can do that. It's just, it's such a security breach. And I see it and I cringe for people cause they have no idea that they just think a hard reset, it resets the phone back. It does. And that's why a lot of businesses and government agencies work with me because No, first and foremost, it's about security. And then we want to try to give them as much money as we can based on the resale value of that particular device. And that's my business.

Chris: 18:12

It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, we talked a lot about cybersecurity and securing the network. Not enough people are thinking about securing the devices and it's not even the network connectivity. It's the actual data on the devices. Um, Chris, you bring up

David: 18:27

a great point there, if you don't mind me interjecting. I see it on LinkedIn all the time. You see all the conversations about cyber security, mobile device management Apple Business Manager, Samsung Knox, and customers, whether business or government customers, will spend, a lot of money and attention to make sure that device is protected while it's being used. But sometimes it gets missed when it's decommissioned. You need to work with a company that's going to put a lot of money into making sure that device is secure and you will not have any issues down the line and it gets missed sometimes. I see it all the time and throw my hands up and go, what about the decommissioned devices? You followed all these steps, but if you don't on the last one, then someone may get all that information and everything you did while the phone was in use was for naught.

Chris: 19:15

I tell you, I hope if you're listening and you're in a company environment, are you have the responsibility for inventory or security? Are your customer customers have these concerns? You know who to call to get help with that. Pivoting just a little bit, 30 years in the industry, 15 years being your own business owner in this wireless business. You're in a great position to answer this question. How has the industry changed over that time?

David: 19:41

Wow. How much time do I have? Yeah.

Chris: 19:42

Good, bad, and ugly. You give us a cliff note.

David: 19:46

They always told me when I first started in there, if you don't like change, you're in the wrong industry. It changes constantly, but. More from my standpoint, from a device perspective, one, whether you're a consumer or most businesses now, you're basically now signing a three year contract with most of the carriers. Some are still doing two. But you used to just get a handset, they would just give it to you. You sign a two year contract. Now everything's changed where you're signing a contract and you're paying a monthly installment fee that I alluded to before over a three year contract. So one, you might not be getting as great of a deal as you used to because the subsidies aren't as aggressive. Some cases they are, sometimes they're not. But the contracts now used to be on the rate plan. It was tied to the mobile number that you had. Now your contract's tied to your device. So if you leave beforehand, whatever you owe on that installment payment on that device, you have to pay. So they offer great deals, the carriers, they don't charge you interest. Most of the times they don't. I'm sure. I'm not sure on that. That would probably be something I'd have to validate, but if it's a 700 phone over 36 months, you might be paying, 20 a month or so whatnot over those three years. If you decide to leave after six months guess what? You still have. 30 more months that you're going to pay 40 and you're going to have to pay 600 to leave. Things have changed a lot from that standpoint from a device perspective, the rate plans are way more aggressive, but now the device is a little bit different. And I suspect the European model. In most situations, the carriers over there, they don't provide phones. You go and buy the phone, you bring it to them, you get a good rate plan. And I knew it was going to come over here and in the United States it's similar to that.

Chris: 21:39

So when people, like you said that carriers, sometimes would give you a better deal if you bring your own device. So when people come to you and say, I want to buy a thousand iPhones, do you have funding or financing for that, or do they mostly just buy them? Upfront kind of a capex cost.

David: 21:56

Yeah, we'll do a, we'll do terms or a 30 day term on that. But most times I have an e commerce site, customers go to my website online and they view everything in real time and make purchases. So do I get that request for a thousand phones? Sometimes not more than one time. As

Chris: 22:14

I need them.

David: 22:16

Yeah, absolutely. We do more of a run rate type of, like I was mentioning earlier, I had construction accounts I work with. So when I was working for the wireless carriers, we, I'm noticing your bot, you're breaking five phones a month. Let me bring in that outside resource. Maybe you want to get a three month supply and buy 15 phones, you're good for three months, and we could do it more on a proactive basis. So I like programs like that when I speak to a customer, because remember, all the phones that I get come from my buyback program, so consider me like a grocery store during the pandemic. If the grocer didn't buy the groceries, there was nothing on the shelf. The more phones I buy back. Address all the security concerns and bring them in data, test them. Then those go on to my website for resale. So if you went to my website right now and then went in an hour, it'll look different, what's available and

Chris: 23:09

so that you have a constant recurring challenge, the more you sell, the more you need to bring in, right? You have to keep that inventory flow going. Is that have you cracked that code or is that sometimes it's just, it is what it is. Yeah. One of

David: 23:23

the biggest headaches I go through and it changed over the 15 years at one time, it was more like when the before the really the market changed as much from a device perspective, we buy more phones than we had a resale model. Now it's a complete 180. The need for my devices. If I could buy back through companies and acquire 3 to 5000 more devices that would help me meet the demand that I have. Interesting. Cause I put my devices through a lot of testing. It's, we have a warranty on them and we stand behind our product and that's very important to have out there that people get nervous. You buy on Amazon and I'm sure a lot of their devices are great, but then if there's a problem with one, you go through a little more of a step on there to get it resolved. And I can tell you, cause I, we resell on Amazon too. So I know the experiences people have

Chris: 24:15

so when you get in a batch of devices you said you grade them I mean, do you ever have devices that are like just not usable?

David: 24:22

Absolutely. We have a buyback list we it's all about setting expectations So when we have a buyback list we publish every month of the phones that have a value And how we grade them. There's a criteria and then what we pay for each grading criteria. So someone can look and go, Oh, these phones have scratches. We can expect this. We provide quotes and then we bring them in. And really, we're bringing in the most popular devices. Phones like a iPhone 6 and an iPhone 7. Yes, we'll cover all the security concerns for a customer and a lot of, Large companies send them in and say, we got to get them out of here. We just need to address the security, but we know there's no resale value and they don't expect anything for it. Will I take 10, 000 iPhone sevens? No, it's got to be blended with other phones that have value. I'm going to lose money. It costs me a lot of money to ship these in and pay to data wipe them. And if there's no resale map model there's no profit. I'm losing money. But no, every order that I get for the most part has a blended deal of we have some old iPhone sevens. We have blackberries that have no value. Would you take those devices and securely data wipe them for us to help them? And the answer is yes. Because to me, a good partnership is, it's got to be mutually beneficial for all parties. And for me to say no and just take the good and not take the bad, it's not right. That's not. Is there

Chris: 25:45

typically a fee associated with wiping devices you can't resell? Is there like a per device fee for the security aspect, or is it just bundled in? You're hoping it flushes out in the wash with the devices you can resell.

David: 25:58

I have a fixed cost for what each device costs, whether it has a value or not. It goes through the system. And I have to pay per click to data wipe that device, run it through a 33 point inspection check that checks functionality. So when we resell a device, it's a good, reliable device. So we put a lot of money into that front end and we have very little quality control issues from that standpoint. We get very few returns because we spend more money up front rather than money on the back end. Do a return, label to send a phone back because it didn't work properly. So spend the money up front and less cost on the backend.

Chris: 26:37

Yeah as always is the case, time flies. We've covered a lot. Check the show notes. I'll have some links for David and his organization. You can learn more about him and how to reach out to him. But now that we're landing the plane, David, any last words anything we did cover, anything you want to share with us?

David: 26:53

It's really, just had a passion for this. The industry to me has always been about account management, managing an account. The network's important. You got to have coverage, but you really have to have good people out there to manage your account and make sure you're operationally efficient and your financial bottom line is being achieved maximized to its fullest. So for me, it's just having fun. Someone reaches out to me. I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to try to help them. And my program, a lot of the success of my program is the fact that my customers told me what said, we wish you would do this. And you know what? It made sense to do it. Why would I not do it? I can maybe make a little extra money. I don't gouge anyone and make a little bit of profit. I do a lot of volume, but when customers out there, there's so many challenges out there. And for me, if it makes sense, I like to speak to a lot of people because they come up with good ideas that help me make my program evolve further. And so a lot of success and where my program has evolved over 15 years is due to my customer's feedback and listening to them. So

Chris: 27:58

that's right. How was it? Who was it? It wasn't Steve jobs. One of those tech giants said, you learn more from that upset customer than a happy customer. Now you learn more. You want the feedback, Hey, what's making you upset. Let me fix that. Cause I don't want you to be upset. Um, David, man, thanks a lot for the, for this time. A lot of information laid out there. I appreciate you making time for us,

David: 28:21

Chris. I enjoyed it. Thank you for the invite. And if anyone sees this and wants to speak, I love speaking to people and trying to resolve problems. I like to put that S on my chest and try to be super I can.

Chris: 28:33

I love it. And it is a rewarding feeling to solve business problems or even life problems with technology. And of course, addressing that security need that's I'm glad you called that out. That is often overlooked. So there you go, folks, another episode of the wireless way. Thanks for checking it out. If you like what you heard are you thinking of someone in your network that could benefit? Please share this episode with them and we'll see you next time on the wireless way