Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi All,

I am pretty new here, but very happy to have located this "place".  It is inspiring and informative - and provides a great mind break at times.

So, my husband & I started a PI agency recently.  We are working out the kinks & starting to forge ahead w/ business, marketing ideas, etc.  I keep telling him we will look back & laugh when we are busy up to our eyeballs.

Here`s my thing.  I am a degreed accountant w/ 10 years experience in large corporate entities & small business start up (from a financial, management, and policy perspective).  If I can toot my own horn, I can kick some serious behind in this area.  So, I started slightly marketing my self a couple days ago & have picked up one new client & one more on the line for discussion.  Wow - is this easy or am I lucky??  Perhaps it is easy because I am passionate about this aspect of what I do - I love it!

I had another firm contact me on Friday to try to sign me up to send me prescreened leads as well.  I haven`t decided if I want to take that route, but may - cost is very low & the firm is new and in need of accountants & consultants to take the referrals.

I am not sure that I have a purpose for this post other than to see it - seeing is believing, right?  I am just so excited at the moment that I want to work 24/7 & grow, grow, grow. 

Anyone want to pop my bubble, as I may be in a state of euphoria now & need a reality check? 

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Denise Armstrong, President - Intelligence & Investigative Solutions, Inc.
www.iis-fl.com ~ darm@iis-fl.com

There`s a lot of blabber about that book, "The Secret." Coming from my perspective, as a philosopher, it`s a quick way to make a lot of money giving people a dream. But the book is a complete oversimplification of a much more sophisticated set of principles.

Among those principles is an analogy to swimming in a river. When you start a business or try to create anything, going out on your own, it`s much like swimming in a metaphorical river. The flow of currents, the condition of the water, the weather, and what happens up-stream, all relate to the conditions of the marketplace.

Suppose you want to cross the river---have a successful business. One option is to decide that you want to arrive on the other side of the river, exactly at the place you see from your side. If you jump into the river at your current location, you`ll expend a tremendous amount of energy, fighting the current of the river as you struggle toward your destination.

Another option is to measure the current, then walk upstream however far it would take to be carried downstream. You expend much less energy, mostly staying afloat and not drowning. You move forward as best you can, and allow the river to carry you downstream. When the two vectors converge, you presumably come out at your location.

A third option is to say only that you want to cross the river. It doesn`t matter where you end up on the other side, just that you cross. By crossing the river, you have started a business. It doesn`t matter *which* business....only that you started one.

So the question refers to the Life Plan people talk about, advocated by the Sloan brothers. Is your life plan to "Have a Business of my Own?" Or is your life plan, "I want to own a Private Investigation firm?"

Both - I want both darn it!  I have wanted my own business consulting firm for a long time.  I partner that w/ the PI Agency & here I am - 2 businesses, both "mine", and perhaps more to come in the future.

 

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Denise Armstrong, President - Intelligence & Investigative Solutions, Inc.
www.iis-fl.com ~ darm@iis-fl.com

Congrats on the new business Denise.  I wish you great success (or should I say, continued success)!!!!

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--
Mike Michalowicz
Author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

Then it sounds as if you`re in a situation where you have to do some calculatin`, and walk up the river. :-)

Frankly, I`m in a similar situation, helping Kathy with what began as her business and has now become a joint venture. (She ventures, I smoke joints. JUHHHST kidding.....LOL!)

I want to be a writer, have published some books, and now am learning how to do it again. In the mean time, money`s tight and things are very slow. Not a whole lot of easy times for writers (or maybe new investigators).

I could just sit around and write, stare at the walls, and worry about how to promote what I`m building. Instead, it`s a lot more interesting to get involved in figuring out how to make signal flags, build databases, and so forth.

Signal flags are selling NOW. Writing will sell LATER.

So in many respects, I know how much energy I have to "swim." I can gauge the speed of the river (market forces) and what obstructions are in my way. By working with the two, I can walk up-river as far as it takes so that when I start working on the writing more regularly, I`ll end up at my intended destination.

What`s wrong with contracting some accounting, but limiting yourself only to "part time?" You would have to make the assessment as to how many hours a week is part time, and what part of the day that would entail. Your primary interest would then be the PI business.

Another aspect is for your husband to handle the security side of the business, with you handling forensic accounting. There`s got to be some work perhaps more easiy to come by in divorce cases and due-dilligence for business purchases, right? That would blend the two into a more unified whole.

Either way, there`s no reason you can`t have both. But you DO have to be specific as to what hours and effort you`ll assign to which outcome. :-)

Denise,

As Craig stated, there are definitely some synergies between investigations and forensic accounting, particularly when you get into corporate investigations. In cases involving financial matters, you would certainly have an advantage over other PIs who were not as knowledgable of accounting. Some of the larger firms (such as Kroll) offer both types of services, but I don` t think that too many of the smaller firms do.

However, if your intent is to offer traditional accounting services and general business consulting, I feel that this would be another matter. My opinion is that you need to give 110% to a business, particularly when it is just starting out. I feel that it will be tough to do both businesses well if you spread yourself too thin.

I have been in a similar business (security consulting) for over 20 years, and as time has gone on, I have actually reduced the number of different types of services I offer so that I can better focus on the remaining ones.

Is it possible that you got started in the PI business because it was your husband`s idea, and have now discovered that your real passion is in the accounting/business consulting world?  If you hadn`t already started the PI business, would you do it again, or would you just focus on the accounting/business consulting practice?

I know that I am a little more "old-school" than some other people on these forums, but I really think that you need to pick one thing and run with it.....

  

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Michael A. Silva
Silva Consultants

www.silvaconsultants.com

Hi Michael :-)
Old school works for me..

I like that question---forgot that it`s such a good one: "If you were starting all over again, would you again do what you did back then?" Excellent test for direction, intent, desire, and commitment.

Here`s my passion - consulting & helping people.  I very much love to work w/ people that have no clue where to start & help them create a plan.  I do realize the residuals of ongoing services for clients as well.  Therefore, I want to see where this road goes to see if it is truely viable.

My husband does work the PI business, with me as the President for "woman -owned" purposes.  It was always our intent for me to asssit with the forensic accounting & financial investigations & him to run the "other stuff".  Again, in order to see what we like in the field & what is profitable, it will take some time.

I think we have a good link between the 2 & he is able to focus on the PI stuff where I am able to focus on the business end of the PI & consulting stuff.  Make sense?

I get that you have to make choices, but aren`t those choices forks in the road during development?  If I were to do it all over again, I would continue on as we have, for the path leads to learning what works & doesn`t.  Isn`t this where niches come from - trial & error and exploring your passion?

So, for Craig, flags are not equivalent to being a famous author, but it gets him by so he can work on it.  An Michael has developed his niche to a degree, but he didn`t start out where he is now.

I guess this is what I am trying to reconcile - if it makes sense.

 

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Denise Armstrong, President - Intelligence & Investigative Solutions, Inc.
www.iis-fl.com ~ darm@iis-fl.com

The choice isn`t that you must take one and sacrifice the other. There are plenty of those types of choices in life.

Instead, the choice people are recommending is a choice of "deliberate intent," to borrow from the Abraham-Hicks people.

Suppose you want to go to the beach. But you also want to go sailing. Right now, the boat is on a lake, but there`s water at the beach, right? So to join the two, look for similarities. You could move the boat and go sailing on the ocean.

But if you want to play in the sand, build castles, and catch snails, it`s going to be extra hard if you also want to be sailing.

Somewhere along the line you have to "bend," not sacrifice. If you open an accounting firm, that`ll take a whole lot of time. If it doesn`t at all relate to the PI business, then you`re going to wipe out...or burn out...or never devote the proper time to building anything.

The recommendation here is that if you like accounting, "bend" it so that at least you`re doing accounting that relates to private investigations.

Contrary to what most people believe, you cannot have it all. :-) You can have an abundance, but too many things in life contradict other things. So either be a Jack of all trades, master of none....or become an artist in a specific area.