People often fail to consider the realities of private investigation when choosing this career path. Realities which include the costs associated with any startup, irregular business hours, licensing requirements, etc.
Take the state of Oregon. Licensing expenses alone come to $620.75. Add to that hefty fees to gain access to professional search sites, often including inspection charges. That’s right, many professional sites require that you have a secure, lockable space, like an office, that must past inspection, before they will sell you their services. With all of this, one can easily reach a thousand dollars in startup costs. And then there’s organization membership fees, often a must for anyone trying to break into the business.
So with that in mind, here are three things you need to consider when deciding to become a P.I.
1: Be prepared to network with other private investigators.
What does a private investigator’s license mean? It allows one to legally offer their services as an investigator. That’s all well and good, but you can offer your services for lots of jobs without a license already. Does that mean you’ll get hired for them? Being licensed is a necessity, but it is not the means by which you’ll succeed. Knowing people that will give you opportunities is. The way to meet these people is by networking, joining organizations such as the Oregon Association of Licensed Investigators Inc. Still, there are membership fees for joining, in the case of OALI, it’s $75 to become an active member. Then you’ll have to pay to go to the seminars where the actual networking can happen. These seminars can cost hundreds of dollars. Which brings me to my next point.
2: Have a sum of money saved up.
The expenses of being a P.I. fluctuate depending on your specialty. Want to run surveillance for a big insurance company? Often times you’ll be expected to provide your own surveillance vehicle outfitted with tinted windows. These things aren’t cheap. Even to do basic skip tracing or background checks requires at least a professional search site subscription or two. These costs vary but can add up quickly, especially if you purchase the pay per search options.
3: Find a mentor to show you the ropes.
So you have your license, you have enough money to join those exclusive organizations we were talking about. Maybe someone has even asked you to investigate something for them. Great. So how do you begin? What are your legal and ethical boundaries? What hours are you allowed to bill? How do you properly write a report? This is why you need a mentor, someone to tell you that the elections office terminals can be as valuable to you as a courthouse public records search when trying to locate someone. In the meantime, mentors don’t have to be people you know. There are a variety of books teaching trade secrets, one very good one is “The Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigation.”In the end, there is no success without survival, and following these three tips will help your business survive long enough to get off the ground so it can become self-sustaining and profitable.