any ideas?

[ausworld]

I have a dilemma. My business has been operating for 6 years now and it has had its fair share of up and downs, more downs then up’s. Cash-flow has always been a problem, going up and down like a yoyo. Yet I have a good business with a lot of potential and I believe in my business and myself to achieve a level of growth where cash-flow will no longer be a problem.



My business provides private investigative services and debt collection, BUT, we are not just debt collectors, we do provide a service to both creditors and debtors. I have also introduced an accounts receivable/ collection support services that cost less per hour then a bookkeeper.



I have, due to cash-flow problems, been concentrating on growing the debt collection side of the business as I believe that’s where the growth is.
I have looked at my options such as a business angel or keep struggling until such time someone will give me a fair go.


I have gone through all the marketing motions including restructuring and rebranding the business, even got a new web site. I have looked at the services we provided and cut out of lot of services which were financially not worth keeping, I even looked at taking on an associate but finding the right person is like playing Russian roulette. One option I am looking at is to purchase other small debt collection businesses with owner finance.
For those who are familiar or have been following the Daniel Morcombe case I am the private investigator who has been working on the case and will (I hope) in the next few weeks solve his disappearance. I know once I solve this case my problems will be over just from the media exposure.
Has any one got any suggestions on how I can grow my business?



Thanks

Daniel

Ausworld Group | Home (http://www.ausworldgroup.com.au)

[rowan]

Hi Daniel,
As an ex private investitagor, I can see where you are coming from, it is so hard to get ahead. It is really hard being a sole operator competing with all the 'big guns'. Have you tried putting in for governement tenders? independant operators sometimes get those jobs if they put in good tenders.

Maybe you could offer your services as an independant contractor to one of the bigger PI companies.

I think you are wise concentrating on the collection side of the business, I eventually got out because of all the 'weird' customers and their strange requests.

Cheers,
Rowan

[allanuber]

Daniel,

It sounds like you've been trying a lot of things, all of which might be lucrative, but when all thrown into a mixed bag have varying yield and varying success at paying your bills.

Maybe focus on the one area that you are *sure* is profitable and get in the black. It sounds like you're starting to do that with the PI work, but it's inconclusive from your post whether this alone will be profitable.

The case you're working on is interesting, but don't assume media exposure will fundamentally change your business. Just having more clients may *increase* your cashflow issues as you try to scale up to meet the demand - unless you get the fundamentals right it's really unlikely there will be one silver bullet that makes it all work as you've hoped.

[ausworld]

Hi Rowen

Thanks for the words of support i guess having a background in PI work gives you a better understanding of the difficulties i am faced with. I have in my early days offered my services to the big guns in the industry but found that getting paid on time was some time a problem and the money they paid did not, in some cases, covered your expenses as such i decided why work for someone else when you can work for your self and instead of working for $30.00 an hour i could do it for $115.00 an hour.

as for the debt collection yes i am convinced this is the area i need to concentrate on and slowly build the business back to what it once was.

I fully understand where you are coming from with the weird and strange request some customer make....

Once again thanks for the encouraging words.


Hi Daniel,
As an ex private investitagor, I can see where you are coming from, it is so hard to get ahead. It is really hard being a sole operator competing with all the 'big guns'. Have you tried putting in for governement tenders? independant operators sometimes get those jobs if they put in good tenders.

Maybe you could offer your services as an independant contractor to one of the bigger PI companies.

I think you are wise concentrating on the collection side of the business, I eventually got out because of all the 'weird' customers and their strange requests.

Cheers,
Rowan

[ausworld]

Thank you to all who have taken the time to provide some interesting advice and opinions on my situation including some criticism which was well received and appreciated.
So here is an up date. I have taken a step back (well a few steps actually :) ) and had a good look at what I was doing, what I really wanted to achieve and where I wanted to be….. in other words I took a good long hard look at my self, my ambitions and my goals.
I realised I had to slow down first of all to get a clear direction of what i wanted to do and sort out my ideas and goals in my head.
Then I needed to categorise all of my ideas and goals in such a way that they are like steps going up a ladder and concentrate on one idea at a time but needed to sort out which idea will get me back on track first.
Once I done that I admitted to my self that I needed to rely on others who had the expertise in putting together those ideas. So I contacted my marketing mentor and adviser and got him to work on a marketing campaign that will get the ball rolling and create some lead generations for me.

My second step on the ladder is simple, a good business friend of mine once said to me “the big fish get bigger and stronger by eating the little fish, but, they to were a small fish once and grow bigger by eating smaller fish” so now I’m in the process of buying a small debt collection company and the next step up the ladder is to buy another one and so on.

Taking a step back some times helps to clear the mind and all the clogged up ideas we have in our heads.

Thanks every one for you help, by the way I have produced a free e-book and simple ideas on how to increase your cash-flow click here to grab your FREE copy now (http://www.mycashflowmaster.com/)

Daniel Legrand
Ausworld Group Pty Ltd
Ausworld Group | Home (http://www.ausworldgroup.com.au)

[one]

I don't want to sound like a smart arse Daniel, but I can't help but point this out. In your first post you said "Cash-flow has always been a problem, going up and down like a yoyo", and now you're promoting an ebook you have written about increasing cash flow. Am I the only one who thinks that's a little odd?

[ausworld]

Not odd at all Shane, after posting my first post I realized what I was doing wrong and decided to share it with every via an E-book nothing wrong with that.



I don't want to sound like a smart arse Daniel, but I can't help but point this out. In your first post you said "Cash-flow has always been a problem, going up and down like a yoyo", and now you're promoting an ebook you have written about increasing cash flow. Am I the only one who thinks that's a little odd?

[Paul Baker]

Hi Daniel

Glad to see you have taken time for a business and personal review. I should also point out that I am also an experienced investigator and people finder, but shifted to become a business coach.

By buying the smaller debt collection agency it seems that you are focused on debt collecting services instead of PI; is that correct?

I would have thought buying another business would actually cause further drain to your cash flow and put even more pressure on managing it.

Am I correct in saying that when you say cash flow problems, you meant 'lack of consistent sales?' Because this is a different thing. lack of sales means that your advertising/promotion message is not working for you or you are trying to sell a product most dont want. Try having a look at your sales systems to see where your missing the opportunities.

How are you going with finding that missing person? My experience is that every day you arent working on the case is a day colder to no result, and these cases can rack up huge bills the client wont pay.

[ausworld]

Hi Paul
First of all my sincere apologies for been rude and not responding to your message. I got side tracked with work and the acquisition of the new business.
I’m glad to be able to talk with a fellow PI, been in the industry your self you would be very familiar with the difficulties we experience in acquiring clients and the inconsistencies with work flow. I have to say moving from PI to business coach is quite a side step but then again it can a good thing if you can also coach investigation companies. Maybe I should engage your services…..:rolleyes:
The reason for buying a small debt collection agency is to complement my current (small) debt collection division. By buying a small debt Collection Company will allow me to grow my client base and increase my cash-flow, this will in turn allow me to stabilise my company.
You are correct in saying that when I say cash flow problems, I meant 'lack of consistent sales?' thus the reason for my present concentration on debt collection.
As you would know debt collection does not offer big dollar income but it is constant and client base are always increasing especially these days, as such the cash-flow is constant so is the growth, compare to investigation work where the dollar income is fare great per job but is inconsistent as such by having the two I can have a balance.
The idea is to gain stability and then look at growth and increase cash-flow and profits as my strength and passion is in PI work particularly in missing persons.
The important issue for me I guess is that I was able to buy the other company as“owner finance” with the current owner staying on to help manage the company. This gave me several advantages, one, I did not have any up front financial out lay, therefore not affecting my cash, The second been the owner has an understanding of the industry as such it will not put any pressure on me to manage it, what it will do however is give me more time to look at our marketing strategies with the help of our marketing adviser, it will also allow me to concentrate some of my efforts on growing the investigation side of the business.
As for locating missing persons I must agree with you it can be time consuming and therefore costly, but when I work a missing person file I normally ask for upfront payment or at list 50% of what I think it is going to cost, once I have used those funds I go back to the client and let them know where we at with out giving them any written report and ask them for there instructions, if they say continue then they have to pay up front, if the say stop then I provide them with a report and detailed invoice.
I have for the past two years been working on the Daniel Morcombe case free of charge so I know about racking up huge bills… :confused:

[Paul Baker]

Hi Daniel

Thats one of the reasons that I am not like the usual business coaches out there. Because of my advanced training in intelligence and investigation techniques I found that i was helping provide answers to business owners about their industry and competitors. At this point I started learning more about change management and decided to leave the 16 hour stakeouts and 20 cups of coffee behind me.

And yes, i do get asked to help security and investigation business owners often because I understand the industry from having worked in it. This knowledge combined with my business skills transforms their business.

In the area of missing persons I worked as a 'geographical and behaviourist profiler' which meant I assessed the scene locations and subjects info to build likely travel paths and high priority surveillance taskings to quickly locate people based on pattern analysis. I was trained in human behaviour for 5 years which enabled me to also understand customers behaviour for business.

If you need some pointers with running your PI business let me know and I will see if i can at least give some direction for you. I dont have any PI business clients in Queensland so this wouldnt be a conflict of interest for me.