“If you don’t make money on the appliance, and you only make money when the appliance works, it’s a whole different game.”

I LOVE THAT!

You know those coffee pots, the ones that make one cup of coffee, where you put the little packet thingie in at the top and it makes you one cup of coffee?

Do you know how much that company makes on each machine they sell? The answer is nothing. It’s essentially a break-even thing for them. So, ya’ gotta’ ask…

How do they make their money? They make their money selling the little packs of coffee.

This means they must do a good job every time. They make their money by “replicating perfection”. Every cup of coffee has to be exactly as the same and has to be perfect.

And that’s a game changer because…“If you don’t make money on the appliance, and you only make money when the appliance works, it’s a whole different game.”

So make sure when you work a case you do it well. Give your client a good report and give it to them on time… every time. Replicate perfection.

That’s the ONLY way to run your detective agency (or any business for that matter)!

That’s the way I run my business. For example, look at my training materials… about one in ten people who get one of my things come back and get everything. And I love that because I know they recognize the value! They’re getting value out of it.

Admittedly it’s not cheap stuff. I mean, It’s worth it… but, it ain’t cheap. However, these people come back and they say, “Okay, I’m going to pay hundreds of dollars for this training but I know from experience it’s going to make me that money over and over again.”

So when you’re running your P.I. firm I highly recommend you have a good solid product or service to get that repeat business over and over again. That’s where all the real money is. It’s what we in business call “the back-end.” So get a piece of that back-end. Do a really good job and everybody wins. That’s exactly the way business should be!

Be sure to check out my complete DVD video training courses (Process Serving & Surveillance) where I teach you how to ethically conduct investigations, solve cases and make money!

Do you need a license to be a private investigator? And you may think you know the answer to this, but I’m going to explain in a little bit of detail here some things that may actually be a bit of a surprise to you.

The short answer is yes and no.

There’s two basic factors that you have to take into consideration when figuring this out.

First is location.

Some places require you to have a license; some places do not. If you’re in the US, look at your specific state and see if they have a licensing requirement.

Warning: Even if the state doesn’t have a licensing requirement… maybe the county has a licensing requirement. And in that case, you will need a P.I. license.

Secondly, who are you working for?

There are contract Private Investigators, these are the people who have a license, who run a business, who have a detective agency. They work for companies and individuals who contract with the detective agency to have them work a case. Then there are proprietary Investigators who are what you might call “in-house” Investigators. And these proprietary or in-house investigators frequently do not have to have a license!

Many, many businesses have a fraud division or an investigative division folded in to them somewhere. Those are the “in house” or proprietary investigators. And, for the most part, these men and women do not need to have a Private Investigator’s license.

This is great news for you because you can get experience working for one of these company’s in-house or proprietary investigative divisions!

You see, it’s the company’s sole discretion who they hire, what their background is, what their experience requirements are. Some companies are mostly looking for integrity.

That’s a key thing they want – honesty, integrity.

A company can train you if you have the slightest aptitude, the slightest interest. They can train you in what to do. They’re looking for people with integrity and if that’s you, if you’ve got the right moral fiber, if you’re clean and honest and on time, if you don’t lie to your employer, then that’s very good news if you want to get into this business because there are so many places that are looking to hire in-house investigators!

Of course, I have all kinds of training materials but, probably my favorite one, especially for people who are banging their heads against the wall, trying to get into the business, is The Investigators Ultimate Guide to Process Serving.

Serving Process straddles the fence between the contract and the proprietary work. And that’s good, good news for you because you can become a process server very quickly, very easily, and be doing investigative work right away!

That means you don’t necessarily need to get hired by a company and be an in-house investigator. As a Process Server you will be hired by law firms. So you approach law firms, and I teach you how in the guide – what to say, what to do – the whole nine yards and that’s where you get your start!

This gets you into the business quickly without having to have a private investigators license. And that’s very, very valuable.

Check it out (including the complete, satisfaction guarantee!) at ShadowAnyone.com/ps

So you have a person who claims they don’t speak English.

Maybe it’s a witness. Maybe it’s a victim. Maybe you caught this person committing a crime. (My followers in Loss Prevention can relate to this one.)

Let me make two suggestions to you…

First, many times a person truly wants to be helpful but they don’t want to look foolish with their language skills. If this is the case, simply ask them to write down the information you need. (Lo escriba por favor.)

Many people are way more comfortable writing in a foreign language than they are speaking it.

Second, if your person does speak English but is playing dumb, try asking out loud, maybe to the other Private Investigator with you, “What time is it?” without giving any visual indication as to what you just asked.

If the person does understand English, they can’t help but to look at their watch or a clock. And that’s the “tell” you’re looking for.

Watch the video for some more subtleties on this idea and how to use it if it’s only you and the bad guy in the room.

So you have an unlisted phone number and you need to turn it into an address.

You have a lot of choices. In fact…

It kinda’ cracks me up, but I have a booklet I used to sell that got banned from a large internet sales site. The booklet teaches legal and easy ways (without using any pretexts) to “crack” a phone number. I don’t really sell that little booklet any more, but this week I want to give you an idea for a pretext and, more importantly, a big picture idea on pretexts in general.

When you are using a pretext, if you can, try to pretend that you are far away from your skip. Call them acting as if you are out of town or even out of state.

The perceived distance makes the subject feel safer and they tend to drop their guard and give you the information you need.

In this pretext I say the subject has distant relatives in history who’s land was “improperly confiscated” and the subject / skip may be due some money or other benefit.

Remember: Always keep it legal!

I have an entire section in The Investigator’s Ultimate Guide to Process Serving on pretexting and what make a pretext work. Really good stuff. Check it out.