Corporate Investigators | Commercial Detectives | Enquiry Agents

Private Investigator Mentoring

I often get emails and ‘phone calls from people wanting to become Private Investigators but not having any idea of where or how to start. As a consequence, I accidentally stumbled into ‘mentoring’ and have assisted a number of people who have since gone on to be somewhat successful within the Private Investigator Industry.

Company, Agency or Freelance?

One of the issues that raises itself when people start out in the PI industry is whether to start an agency as a sole trader or partnership under a trading name, form a Limited Company or to remain self-employed and therefore be known as a freelance private investigator. Each has its pros and cons as I am sure you will appreciate. Firstly, you must decide whether you want to build and grow a business and subsequently enjoy increasing profits from that business or whether you simply wish to earn a living. Deciding this can be the biggest indicator of which way to go i.e. the way of the business/agency/company or whether to be happy working freelance.

An Agency/Company

Most private investigation agencies or companies are small; consisting of one or two investigators. It is rare that a private investigation agency will employ investigators as work can be sporadic and a small company can ill afford to have employees sitting around getting paid when there is no work to do. For those of us that took the ‘business’ route there is no need to remind you how difficult it can be. Setting up, with offices and equipment and having a website built can be time-taking and often frustrating tasks, couple that with the costs and logistics of advertising and marketing and you have a potential nightmare situation which can be emotionally and financially draining. Many people starting up believe that all they have to do is send out some marketing brochures or letters, place a couple of adverts and the work will come flooding in. NOT true! The reality is that there is a lot of quality competition out there and it is not until after many years of hard work and a significant emotional and financial investment (as well as good old fashioned luck) that you could be reaping the rewards of having a successful business, but it is by no means guaranteed. The Yellow Pages is full of Private Investigation Agencies that are paying thousands of pounds for big adverts and struggling to meet their overheads because of the competition.

Freelancing

If you enjoy investigation work and are only interested in life-style based self-employment and in making a living then maybe freelance investigation work is for you. You get to be your own boss, decide which work you want to do and weed-out the work you don’t want to do (in theory). In practice the freelance investigator cannot afford to turn work down after all he/she is trying to make a living and the more work you do, the more money you make. The freelance investigator doesn’t have the overheads that the agency has, there is no need for offices, all you need is your mobile phone, your investigator ‘equipment’ and YOU and you are good to go. But where does the freelancers work come from? Generally freelancers, because they don’t advertise and market a business, will work for private investigation agencies carrying out ‘over-spill’ work i.e. when some agencies get too much work and cannot cope then they retain freelancers to assist.

Basics Needed Before Setting Up

As I mentioned earlier there is lots of quality competition in the private investigation industry. The industry has traditionally been dominated by individuals with previous and lengthy investigation experience such as former police investigators, ex armed forces investigation specialists, government investigators and very experienced investigators from the commercial sector. Having said that, quality professional training and development is now readily available making it possible for potential investigators who do not possess the benefits of previous employment or experience as an investigator to project themselves into the industry with a recognised qualification.

Have you thought about becoming a private investigator?

Are you already a PI and have some information or advice to pass on?

I would be interested in any comments or opinions or if you are thinking of becoming a private investigator drop me a line if you have any questions.

Police To Have Cutting Edge Fingerprint Recognition Equipment

I saw this piece of news on the BBC news website yesterday, thought it was interesting so I tweeted it and posted it to the Facebook Fan Page. It got a lot of people talking, discussing there fears and hopes etc.

Some People Are Worried

Some of the feed back I got was suggesting that the police would take the fingerprints of everyone they stop and the machine would somehow store the information or transmit the fingerprints to the central database where they would be stored forever. These fears are totally unfounded.

What is This Equipment?

The mobile fingerprint machine is a piece of equipment that scans your fingerprints and then scans the fingerprints already held in the Automated Fingerprint Database. The Automated Fingerprint System may also have a database of latent fingerprints found at crime scenes so it may be used to check your prints against that database too. If your fingerprints are not in the criminal record system or the crime scene latent print database then the equipment won’t find them. Also, when a person was fingerprinted in the past you would do a set of official fingerprint forms which are set out in a recognised format i.e. you take an inked impression of each finger, then each palm, then an impression of your two thumbs held together. Now a similar function is performed with Automated Fingerprint Systems.  I don’t imagine that everyone will be subjected to having their fingerprints checked on the street. Like everything in law there has to be reasonable suspicion or some legal justification for carrying out such a procedure.

I envisage that the equipment will be used for two broad reasons:

• When the police stop someone in the street and there is reasonable suspicion that the person is not telling the truth about his/her identity.
• When the police recover a dead body and need information as to the victims identity as soon as possible.

This equipment won’t store your prints because (a) you are assured legally that it won’t and (b) the Police would be breaking the law if they did store your fingerprints without good reason. Bear in mind that fingerprints have to be appended to either a crime scene database or a criminal conviction database, they are not just stored on the off chance that you may break the law and therefore anyone who has not been charged with a criminal offence or has not left their fingerprints at a crime scene will not have their fingerprints ‘in the system’.

• Do you think the Police having this equipment is a good thing?
• Do you have any concerns over use or abuse of the equipment?

Read the full article on the BBC News Web Site

The Best Form of Advertising

I am convinced that one of the best ways to market a business is by word of mouth in the form of referrals, recommendations and testimonials. It is more effective and obviously less costly.

Also, potential customers tend to have more confidence in any service-provider that has been openly recommended. It is a sort of ‘seal of approval’.

Confidentiality

However, in respect of the Private and Commercial Investigator, the very nature of the work we do, limits the occasions when it is desirable or appropriate for a client to want to make a public recommendation. Much of what we do in the private and commercial investigation world is extremely confidential as well as personally or commercially sensitive to our clientele.

After carrying out work for a client and being complimented on the quality of my work, I do on occasions, ask if the client if they will provide a written testimonial for my web site. Whether I ask or whether I don’t ask the client depends upon the type of case I have been working on for a client.

Many clients do not wish to shout about the fact that they have retained a private investigator. For example, very few private clients want to make people aware that their spouse has been unfaithful. In addition, very few employers wish to have it openly known that they have had their staff investigated.

With that in mind how can we get around that difficulty and balance the essential client confidentiality with effective marketing efforts?

Would you feel comfortable giving a recommendation/testimonial to a Private Investigator you had retained?

On which occasions would you feel it appropriate to give a recommendation?

On which occasions would you feel it inappropriate to give a recommendation?

I would love to hear your opinions.