Energy

How do you sell a product that you do not manufacture, do not distribute, do not own, never touch, see or can describe, the quality of which you can never improve and for which if it goes wrong you are not responsible? Answer?…… if there is such a product you sell it on price. It’s the only way you can sell it. The cost must be less than your customers’ present supplier, it can’t be better because it’s the same product they have been using for years…. electricity.
 
Nonsense? I would have thought so until this week. I now know it isn’t because I had a call from representatives of Southern Electric a couple of days ago. They informed me that their company was expanding into Hertfordshire and would be able to supply my electricity cheaper than my current (No pun intended) supplier. Quite a bit cheaper in fact. Several of my neighbours had, they told me, already accepted their offer and signed up. It all sounded so plausible that I felt I should take their approach seriously. 
 
I suddenly realised how little I knew about the supply of energy, one of the basic needs of modern life. I understand a lot more now. The actual generation and distribution of the electricity I use is created by EDF, Electricité de France, I wondered for a brief moment what would happen if we fall out with France over something or other. The measurement of the amount I use and the billing for it can come from any one of a number of companies. They all compete for the business…on price. So if a new contractor could reduce my costs why couldn’t my present supplier? I rang and asked them. Ah yes…they were just about to announce a new ‘product’ that would make my bills quite a bit less; to the same level as Southern in fact. A curious coincidence! I accepted the new ‘product’ from them and declined the Southern offer. The service I received in the past was satisfactory so why change? In any case who is to know if another company will expand into Hertfordshire soon and offer even lower tariffs. What ever happened to Loyalty?
 
Door to door selling isn’t new, of course, it’s been around since I was a boy and Great Britain was ruled from Westminster. In those far off days it was not at all uncommon for door to door salesmen to call, selling all sorts of things: The milkman called every day before we were up and about and called every Saturday for settlement of his bill. I still remember The Man from The Pru, Mr Tom Winkleman, he called every Friday to collect the pennies the premiums cost in those days. As we grew older he sold us life policies too, he was almost part of the family. Jehovah’s Witnesses often called selling their particular brand of religion. On Sundays there was a man with a horse and cart who sold cockles, winkles, whelks and other shell fish, fresh from Southend-on-Sea that morning and some vegetables too like celery, cucumbers, and tomatoes. All for Sunday Tea. The Kleen-Eezee man called from time to time he sold brushes and suchlike items. An old man with a wheelbarrow wandered about the streets calling out “Anyoldragsorlumber” he would take anything you wanted to get rid of, I often wondered what he did with the stuff he collected.
 
Long after these came the ladies selling from catalogues, they were followed by the Tally man who called to collect the instalments on what had been bought and was about as welcome as the rent collector. Then came the ladies who sold cosmetics, underwear, and eventually the Tupperware parties, about which I can make no comment since I never attended any of them.
 
There were less welcome people who called. The friendly looking man who would lend you money and the hard faced men who called to collect the repayments. I hear that there are still some of those around.
 
So door to door selling isn’t new and seems to making a comeback, I must say that I would never have guessed that energy would be a product sold in such a way.
 
On the subject of energy…….I read that the “Collider” in Switzerland has been repaired and is now ready for use. Imagine the scene on the day. There they all are with their masterpiece, the greatest brains in the world from every branch of science. The machine is now ready at unimaginable cost, to uncover the secrets of the ages. How did the world begin? What really happened immediately after the Original Big-Bang? They have hopes, expectations even, of replicating that monumental explosion, though hopefully on a much smaller scale, and finding out. Final checks prove positive, tension mounts. Who will be the genius permitted to start the machine? Will it be a politician, anxious to be associated with this modern miracle? No…it might just fail again….Up steps the person chosen to create, or re-create, history. Press cameras flashing, TV pundits breathless with excitement. How will it be done? Obviously by flicking a switch to provide the energy to give the monster life……..  Which makes me wonder. Who flicked what to create the first Big-Bang?