Originally Posted by Henry Ford (1863-1947), Founder of Ford Motor Company

When business is good, it pays to advertise; when business is bad, you’ve got to advertise.

And business is very very bad! Ask anyone that doesn't have an interest in lying to you such as a competitor! Most investigators will tell you they are very very busy and we know to treat that statement with a very large pinch of salt. Even our customers (Solicitors) are going out of business at an alarming rate. I know three actual clients of mine that have gone under in recent times.

Originally Posted by BigLaw

The legal profession is undergoing change that could see 3,000 of the UK’s 11,000 law firms going under, according Sarah Goulbourne, the founder of Manchester law firm Gunnercooke and the Law Society’s Legal Businesswoman of the Year.

Goulbourne delivered her warning in an address to K-Club members at Salford City Stadium last week, pointing out that "The passage of the Legal Services Act in 2007 meant that any entrepreneur can set up a law firm in the UK and that has upset lots of lawyers”.


"The multi million pound global legal practices will not be challenged initially, but the High Street law firms at the M&S end of the spectrum will be," added Mrs Goulbourne. "Some 3,000 of them may go under in the next two to three years."

So what can we do about it?

Most likely it has never been more important to think about the Henry Ford quote (above) than now, a time where companies try to put all their expenditures to the test. And since advertising is still seen as pure expenditure of money and often not as an investment into the market, in many private detective agencies, cost cutting for advertising budgets is taking place. That is if they even have budgets for advertising.

Originally Posted by Henry Ford

The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time”.

I recommend, instead of investing less money into advertising, to improve the advertising itself.

If you don't have a budget, get a budget!

Fact is you may have thought, get a website, install a phone and they will come...That phone isn't ringing, is it? But it doesn't work that way. You need to tell them where to find you. So a website on its own is not going to do that.

You need to start to discover where your customers look when they look for private detectives or process servers. Back in the days when dinosaurs walked the earth (there's still a few tottering round) the place to advertise was the Yellow Pages (do you remember them?), now often used to prop open doors or to heighten the level of your PC monitor.

These days few potential buyers (Solicitors & Corporate clients) of your services will even take a meeting unless you've found a way to tell them who you are before you walk in the door. Which means something has to open that door for you. Then and only then can your professionalism, empathy, experience and ability to demonstrate a clear value proposition come into play.

In my view, Google is king when it comes to reaching your audience. Do some research and ask your existing clients how they find a professional? They will respond "I searched on the internet" and by the internet they mean Google or one of the other search engines whose names escapes me. They might say "recommended by a friend or colleague" (don't underestimate the power of personal recommendation in our business but also don't rely on it).

So your website has to do well on the search engines and that means it has to be well designed, have unique content and be search engine optimised (SEO'd). But it takes time to get to the top of Google.

Adwords is therefore next on the list. Don't do a scatter-gun approach though as that could cost you dearly. You must strictly control the spend and the times those Adwords are running. Attention to the detail of your campaign is essential.

The Varsity Directory of Investigators & Process Servers is probably the only paper directory I would advertise in although as time goes on they are becoming less relevant as is most paper advertising.

Social Media is becoming more and more important with some putting it as 50% of your advertising. I don't know if its that high but it is important. I have had a few clients through twitter for example so it does work.

Finally networking is very important to all agencies whether you just need assignments covered in areas where you are not physically present or are looking for assignments in your area.

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If you look on the App store on the iphone you will see the number one downloaded app for over 12 months now has been the Whatsapp instant messaging app.

This is a great app that allows people to exchange messages, videos and audio across the world at no charge. What's more, it can be used on any smartphone so an Iphone user can use it to communicate with a Blackberry user or Samsung etc. It really is a cool app and one I have been using for two years now.

The app shows you when your messages have been received and read and also when the person was last on line. This is where we are finding our clients are getting clever. We are seeing an increase when we are called of cases where the client suspects the partner is cheating and sometimes they will have an idea who the other person is. So how does Whatsapp come into all this? Well there are many people using whatsapp to carry out their conversations when setting up liaisons and general chatty flirty texts. What our clients are doing is simply adding the phone number of the suspected lover into their phones as well as their partners and whatsapp will automatically add the contact to it's contact list. The client is then logging into whatsapp and as already mentioned it will show when the other person is on line or last on line. This information is then cross referenced the times that their partner and the suspected lover are on line and piecing the conversations together!

So Whatsappers if you are carrying out an affair beware!

This is a little true story about how I have found as a private investigator the amount of times I find myself in amazing situations that leave me thinking what a small world. I live and work in a city of over 350,000 inhabitants so it's not like everyone knows everyone or constantly bumping into one another.

About 2 years ago a female contacted my office and informed me she believed her partner was having an affair. After some lengthy discussion we decided to place a tracking device on the husbands car a silver VW Passat index XXXX XXX and see if it gave us any sort of pattern prior to carrying out a surveillance in Coventry.

To cut a long story short it was proved that he was having an affair from the tracker logs alone, wife confronted him, he admitted and they went their separate ways. She stayed alone and he moved in with his floosie. We never actually got to see him.

Fast forward two years and I receive a call from a man in some distress that he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him and he wished to meet me. We went through various options that were open to him, a plan of action was agreed. We shook hands and he went on his merry way getting into his car a....Yes you guessed it a silver VW Passat index XXXX XXX!

For 2 years now I have been using twitter. I stepped into it with some trepidation. Most people I spoke to said it's a load of old Bol*****! Some prat twittering on about what he is doing at any given time "Just made a cup of tea." "Going for a walk" So frikkin what???? Did I really want to be a part of this load of crock? Erm, no!

But hang on a very respected colleague of mine was regularly using it and I just had to take some notice because this man is a down to earth no nonsense man that speaks a lot of sense, so maybe I was missing a point. So I set up my twitter account. I started to post my antics about what I get up to daily in my role as a Private Investigator . No boring tweets like "Just woke up" or any of that boloney but if I was going to go on a surveillance then I would post something along the lines of "Charging all camera equipment ahead of tomorrows surveillance in Coventry." Or "Off to deploy a GPS tracker in Leamington Spa" . This for me as a reader would make for entertaining reading for any of my followers.

Some people swear that they have received work from twitter and I have no reason to disbelieve them, think about it, people follow you and if they require a Private investigator somewhere down the line who will come into their heads? You of course. I have to be honest and say I don't know of getting any work in this way. I may have and not known but I don't think I have. So how is it any good for SEO or business? Well doing some searches on google from time to time I see some of my tweets pop up with the relevant posts that match the search string I put into google. Now add a url on your posts and now you are getting good SEO.

You could also make a facebook page link your tweets to that and all your URL's will be on that page too, and when google spider comes crawling along it can only be good SEO.

Originally Posted by ALLIED DETECTIVES

So you want to be a private investigator but you don’t know where to start?You’ve googled “private investigator training” and found a multitude of training courses!

Read the full article here

As many of you know by now, I sold the ELG forum to WAPI. There are a couple of reasons for this and I will explain below why I did it.

When I co-founded ELG with Neil Sheppard in August 2007, we had a vision that the forum would be a community where those of us in the trade could hang out, teach and learn from each other. Four years on, our community grew from nothing to nearly 600 members, most of which are practicing private investigators. All the other eGroups looked on with concern that we would take their members away from them. We did acquire some members from them but it wasn't a case of them having to choose between ELG or those eGroups. A member could be part of them and enjoy our radically different community here.

One of the main reasons that our members liked ELG so much was that it is not an old fashioned yahoo email group but rather an interactive online forum where members can ask questions that they did not know the answer to in an helpful supportive environment. Here we don't get unsubscribed for asking questions or for "advertising"!

Four years after I was interviewed by The Register in an article entitled "UK private eyes invite public into forum" where I stated, "The world of the PI has always been a shadowy world and the fact is a lot of investigators preferred it that way. However, it's time to drop the secrecy and step out of the shadows. e-LEGAL | Gathering will help bring the industry into the 21st Century by demonstrating our commitment to each other, ensuring respectability, trust and confidence in our standards.", little did I know that the industry would be entering a perfect storm of controversy and economic disaster!

As we all know now, the industry is severely depressed with many of the big players barely keeping their heads above the water financially speaking. The smaller players are quietly looking for run of the mill jobs in any industry that will have them and the one man bands are dead in the water, either insolvent or their businesses parked until better times come round. I have spoken with many of the bigger players over the last few months and they are telling me that their UK operations are barely turning over.

I have recently started a small business (publishing) separate from anything to do with the PI industry. I also have an office in my country of origin in Chile and I plan on staying in Chile during the UK winter months.

In order to do this, I needed an injection of cash. For this reason, I decided to sell ELG. Almost immediately I received an expression of interest from a Solicitor and from WAPI. After a few weeks of considering their offers, I went with WAPI as together ELG and WAPI suddenly became larger than any other Association in Europe.

WAPI will be making some changes but overall those changes will be for the best. I know that in the long term, the industry will make a comeback. In the meantime, i suggest that you all try and have as many strings to your bows as possible.

It is widely known that clients prefer fixed fee agreements for instructions but, in general, Private Investigators still prefer an hourly rate on the basis of charging a fair day’s fee for a fair days work. Moreover, there is always the question of mileage costs (bearing in mind the cost of fuel these days) and out of pocket expenses (which on most occasions are not easy to estimate in an on-going assignment). With these considerations in mind can PIs address their client’s demands and offer fixed fees for work carried out and still remain in profit?

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Before the advent of web 2.0 many businesses didn’t have a website. In those days building a website was no easy task. It was an expensive undertaking and was the sole domain of the professional web designer. Things have moved on since then and now there aren’t many businesses in the market place that don’t have a web site. Many private investigation agencies have produced their own web sites using the many WYSIWYG web design software packages on the market.

Nowadays things have progressed even further with blogging becoming.................

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What is Asset Stealth?

Asset stealth, asset protection or ‘hiding your money’ is nothing new. Taking steps to preserve your wealth is something that is probably older than the concept of money itself. It was common practice for sharecroppers during the ‘dark ages’ to hide a significant portion of their harvest to avoid some of the levy placed on them by the wealthy land owners. These days asset stealth has taken on new meaning and has developed into a multi-billion pound industry with the advent of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) and International Business Corporations (IBCs).

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Generally, corruption consists of bribery, kickbacks, extortion and conflicts of interest. These types of activities involve some kind of inducement in return for some sort of advantage (usually financial) or perhaps preferential treatment, a relationship that has not been disclosed can literally net someone a financial, operational or strategic advantage.

There is little doubt that corruption can deprive businesses and companies, their owners and employees of honest services. It can also make it impossible for companies to compete on a level playing field in the bidding process or to earn all the profits to which they are entitled. When an employee or associate is ‘skimming’ money off the top of a business transaction, the harm can unquestionably be more wide-spread than the employee realises.

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We now live in a society where acts of fraud are common-place and the effects of fraud can be felt by many people in many different situations. Where fraud is concerned, businesses and the work-place can be a very vulnerable place and therefore measures to protect a business or corporation against fraud has never been so important. Where fraud counter-measures fall short; in order to limit loss, or recover assets, the investigative process must then take over.

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What is Process Serving?
Process serving is the procedure employed to give legal notice to a person of a court or Administrative body’s exercise of its legal authority over that person so as to enable that person to respond to the proceeding before the court, body or other tribunal. Usually, notice is furnished by delivering a set of court documents (called “process”) to the person to be served.

Can I Avoid A Process Server?
I hear this question time and time again usually from people desperately trying to avoid court proceedings of some description.

A straight forward answer is, yes you can avoid a process server if you try hard enough, but a more important and accurate question to ask is; can you avoid the legal process being served upon you?

That is not so straight forward.

Nowadays the courts understand that some people will try always to avoid court action and those people believe that avoiding service of legal process is the way to do it. I urge those people to think again.

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An investigation is the collection and analysis of factual information that assists in answering questions or solving problems.

It is really more of an art than a science.

Although a person carrying out an investigation is ostensibly a fact-finder, he or she must develop theories and hypotheses and arrive at conclusions based on information that is available. In short, the investigative process is a wide-ranging activity involving the collection of information, the application of logic, and the implementation of sound reasoning.

The investigative process isn’t restricted to the remit of the criminal justice and security fields. It is an activity found, in virtually all areas of human activity. There are too many spheres of activity to mention however, below are some of the people that can call themselves investigators.

• Medical doctors can be investigators
• Academics can be investigators
• Supervisors in corporate positions can be investigators
• People involved in the appraisal of antiques can be investigators

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As a legal professional, you may find yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to instruct a new London process server for a variety of reasons. It could be you've been dissatisfied with the service you received from your old server, or that server may have retired or gone out of business. Perhaps you're simply tired of paying too much for too narrow a range of services, and your local London process server simply doesn't provide the nationwide service you need.

Whatever the reason you now need to find a new server, consider this an opportunity rather than a headache. Take the time to instruct a quality service of process server agency you'll be able to rely on for a full range of services at affordable rates long term.

The following are signs you're hiring a professional London process server you can rely on today and in the future:

Staff members are trained, experienced professionals.

The difference between hiring a process server with genuine expertise versus someone with little to no experience in the industry is obvious when you ask about training. Don't trust your firm's reputation and your clients' needs by relying on any server who lacks training and experience.

Related services are available.

Today you may only need to rely on your London process server to deliver legal documents in your local area. What will happen when you need to serve an individual located across the UK, or in another country altogether?

What about those individuals who deliberately evade being served? Choose a server who can handle your local, day-to-day needs as well as those occasions where additional, specialized people tracing services are required.

Utilizes the latest technology available today.

A London process server who relies only on a mobile phone and a vehicle in terms of technology isn't going to provide the most efficient service possible. Today, you can choose a London process server who relies on electronic databases to locate hard to find individuals. You can have a professional who utilizes computer equipment and the Internet to find people they need to serve fast.

A process serving firm that keeps up with today's technology may literally have a team of experts at hand, each with their own mobile offices, ready to serve your needs. Before you hire a server in the london area, find out if they're up to date with the technology that equates to timely, cost effective service processing.

Legal firms have many, many important decisions to make every day. The choice of who you will rely on as a Croydon Process Server may seem like a small detail to be handled quickly and forgotten about, but it's something that can have very serious ramifications.

Unless you know you're relying on an experienced professional, you should think carefully about who you choose as a Croydon Process Server. Choosing the wrong person could cost you in time and money.

First, consider that allowing a non-professional to serve process could result in violation of current Civil procedure Rules of Service CPR which amendments came into force in October 2010. It's unrealistic and foolish to expect anyone but a professional to understand how current laws regarding process service actually work in practical settings. If process serving regulations are violated, the service could be declared invalid. You could lose your case or at the very least, be forced to start the entire process all over again.

If you lose a case due to something as basic as process service, your reputation as a professional will be seriously compromised. More than anything, clients despise losing cases due to "technicalities." You'll almost certainly lose income for every case you lose due to process server mistakes. You'll also lose your ability to gain future clients' trust in your expertise.

Consider that even if your inexperienced, non-professional server manages to deliver your legal documents in accordance with the law, they may not know how to complete a proper proof of service. For example does the serve require a Statement of Service, a sworn affidavit of Service or a certificate of Service?*This may prove just as detrimental as an obvious illegal act during service. Once again, the service may be declared invalid. You may lose your case or have to start at the beginning once again.

It isn't impossible to overcome complications that arise during process serving due to violations of regulations or incorrect procedures. However, it will involve delays and costs you most certainly want to avoid. Consider, too that once an individual is aware of your need to serve them, evasive tactics can hinder the process even further. This will equate to another unnecessary delay and costly complication you could avoid by simply hiring a professional Croydon process server in the first place.

Once you've found a reliable professional, your legal firm will no longer need to wonder or worry about how process serving will be managed on a regular basis. You'll have an expert you trust completely at your fingertips, and you can focus on the many other important decisions you must make on a daily basis as a legal professional.

AlliedDetectives.co.uk provides a professional and confidential*Croydon process service to all legal, corporate and private clients. Allied Detectives Process Services is committed to providing reliable*London process service*within Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and throughout the United Kingdom.