In your private investigation business you need to know if you’re selling vitamins, pain killers or a combination of both.

“Vitamins” are products or services that you sell a little bit at a time (over a long period of time) to your clients to prevent problems. These are things like pre-employment screening background checks.

“Pain killers” are products or services you sell when a client is “in pain” and needs an immediate solution. Pain killers for us P.I.’s may be surveillance on a cheating husband or a skip trace on a witness that’s needed for a court case.

It’s nice to sell vitamins because they provide a more steady, predictable income. But many people won’t spend money on vitamins so they’re a harder sell than pain killers.

Compare that to when people are in pain. When they have pain, they will pay a lot more to stop the pain and they want to buy the pain killers right now!

Think of it like this… preventing lung cancer is (usually – but not always!) super cheap. Just quit smoking! But people don’t do it. Curing lung cancer is a hard, painful and expensive, but people willingly give everything they have to cure it.

In our business (and a lot of businesses) and in life, it’s harder to sell the vitamins… but it’s worth it! Not just for us to get a more steady income, but also for our clients because it saves them money and prevents a lot of future pain. Win/Win!

Just something to think about as you build and grow your detective agency.

If you like that helpful tip, then don’t miss out on my free special report If You Want To be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. You can get it right here…

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.

If you do surveillance in the real-world you may find yourself in a high drug activity neighborhood and this week I’m sharing with you a behavior you’ll see just before a drug deal goes down during the cold winter months.

If your near a drug corner in the cold of winter, the drug buyer will almost always take off one glove before making the purchases and the dealer will frequently take of one glove as well.

If you’ve ever watched a crack rocks or pills being sold, you know when handling or counting these small things, both the buyer and dealer need a glove-free hand to count out and separate the dope. Even if the deal is for weed, frequently a little corner of a baggy needs to be twisted and torn off and that’s much easier without a glove on.

So if you see the gloves come off adjust your camera as necessary to get excellent surveillance video of the deal!

WARNING: There are two common reasons a glove will come off when it’s NOT a drug deal and if you’re not prepared, it will look a lot like a drug deal so don’t confuse these two things for a dope deal!

1. A person bumming change.

This will look a lot like a drug deal if you don’t now what you’re looking at. Don’t confuse panhandling for a drug purchase.

2. A person bumming a cigarette.

Same thing although, with a clear view, you are much more likely to see the cigarette so this should be more obvious to you. Also, many times (but not always!) you’ll see the person light up after bumming a smoke and you don’t see that with most drug deals.

Obviously, there is a third thing the gloves come off for that’s not a drug deal and that’s to use a cell phone, but I like to think you can readily tell the difference between cell phone usage and a dope deal!

If you like this helpful tip, then don’t miss out on my free special report If You Want To be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. If not, you can get it right here…

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.

The most expensive private investigator advice you can get is free advice.

Sure, there are a ton of things you can learn for free online, but you need to be very careful about the sources you trust.

Consider…

1. how long have they been doing what they are teaching?

2. How long have they been teaching?

3. Do they seem reasonable?

4. What’s their motivation for teaching for “free” online?

WARNING: It may not be an absolute “deal breaker”, but watch-out anytime someone online says, “It’s perfectly legal to _____________.” How do they know that?!? Are they an attorney? Are they really giving legal advice?

Bonus Tip: Here’s a guy I personally find trustworthy. He’s a P.I. named Andrew and you can find him here.

And this leads me to the next question I have for you…

What will you be in the news for?

If you are in the news because you followed “free” online advice, well… Ouch!

Try to be in the news for “the basics”. Showing integrity, honesty, good customer service and doing the right thing even when it’s the hard thing.

Do you know of a piece of “free” private investigator or process server advice people are “teaching” online that you know is wrong? Drop it in the comments!

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.

I would argue public records are the back bone of skip tracing, background checks and many other investigations for any real-world private detective, but if you are denied access, then you need to know what options you have to shake loose these valuable government records!

The paid databases have their place in our industry, but if you don’t have access, you need to be a public records ninja!

Also, the paid, online databases only have a fraction (a fraction!) of what’s available when you get the source document themselves!

Know these three things…

1. Know your state law.

Find your state law, read it and learn it. I have gotten access to MANY public records after receiving a “no” from a government employee simply by knowing the law! The employee may simply tell everyone who seems to be an “outsider”, “No.” I’ve seen it happen! But, when you know the law, things tend to go your way!

Pro Tip: Read the law directly and don’t rely solely on a summary prepared by a well-meaning organization or person – even a reliable organization. Understand the law itself and not just a summary of the law.

2. Know what is “exempt” under your state law.

You can make a big fuss and spend a lot of time trying to get access to something that is spelled out in law as exempt from disclosure.

“Exempt” means it does not have to be released by the government. These are typically records like juvenile arrest records or medical records.

3. Know the process set-up in state law to challenge a denied public records request.

This usually includes the “enforcement mechanism”. For example, it might spell out that challenges to a denial of public records can be submitted to your states Attorney General or similar office.

If you like this helpful tip, then don’t miss out on my free special report If You Want To be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. If not, you can get it right here…

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.

No parking sign reminding private investigators about this simple but important surveillance rule.

I don’t care if your working a surveillance, a “cheaters” case, worker’s compensation fraud or “just” a witness interview… don’t park directly in front of the address you are interested in!

Simple advice? Yes.

But, is it easy to get lazy after a while? Well… maybe it is a little too easy to get lazy. Fight it!

If you like this helpful tip, then don’t miss out on my free special report If You Want To be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. If not, you can get it right here…

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.