Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Dan and I run Anderson & Co Surveillance & Private Investigators Ltd, based in the heart of Birmingham and established in the summer of 2019.

Some of you will know me, but most of you won’t. Some of you reading this may be ex-colleagues, some ex-clients, some new clients, some potential clients, and some of you may have just stumbled across this by pure chance.

Writing blogs is really not my forte, so I apologise in advance. Blog writing however, is now a huge part of the running of any business with a large online presence, in this day and age. I believe it is also important for us to share a little bit of who we are and what we do. In turn, I hope it creates an element of trust and transparency, within an industry that quite frankly lacks it. We don't just hide behind a well-made, glossy website. I hope it also demonstrates a little bit of industry knowledge too.

I started Anderson & Co Surveillance & Private Investigators Ltd back in the late summertime of 2019 after several years working as a surveillance agent throughout the UK, and abroad. I had worked for the better known and larger Private Investigation companies on a self-employed basis. A large part of the investigations carried out throughout those years were insurance fraud and corporate investigations, along with matrimonial type investigations too.

After a couple of years, I found myself in a situation where I simply needed more in the professional sense. I was tired of waiting for the phone to go, or for a job to pop up on a Sunday evening for six hours, and that job be a two-hour drive away from home, or the likes of.

At the time there was a huge influx of new surveillance operatives coming into the industry and I noticed work via the online sourcing groups, and direct connections I had, was starting to dry up. I was also aware of several guys and girls who had been in the industry for many years having to leave because of the lack of consistent work they were getting. It was a real problem.

It was a tad concerning at the time, but then I had a stroke of luck....It may have been right place, right time....

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So, I had been asked to cover a couple of days surveillance over the course of a weekend and happily took the job. On the Sunday morning and prior to starting the second days surveillance, I received a message from a clearly irritated client, saying that she had been given my details by the company I was working for, and I was to correspond with her throughout the day, as the company she had booked the surveillance with were not in the office on Sundays, and therefore there was no way to correspond and report back to the client with updates. They hadn't informed me at all, so I was quite surprised.

Anyway, I thought nothing of it and got on with the day. I conducted the surveillance throughout the afternoon and early evening, and advised the client that I would have the surveillance report done within a few hours of getting home on that particular evening. I told the client I’d have to send it to the company I was working for, and they would then forward it on to her. She understood, and nothing more was said.

The client was extremely thankful for the two days surveillance. She mentioned that she had surveillance carried out over previous weeks and it was all a bit of a mess, adding to the distress she was already experiencing. She was not happy with the lack of communication and was left feeling very disappointed and let down by the company. She asked me if I would be conducting the following weeks surveillance too, but I was not able to do so as I was committed elsewhere.

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Anyway, a few days later the client contacted me again and asked me if I would be able to assist her directly, and of course at this point I advised her to finish her contracted hours with the company she had hired, and if she still required assistance following that, she could contact me directly at a later date and I would see what I could do. I thought that was fair and reasonable.

Several weeks passed by, and out of the blue the client contacted me again. She was keen for me to take on the investigation as she had now finished all her hours with the previous company. She asked me for a quote for a large chunk of hours of surveillance over the coming weeks. I quoted her an industry standard for the hours she required, to which she was quite surprised. It was a large chunk of money cheaper than what she had previously been paying. I was also quite surprised to hear what she had paid for, and what she had actually been provided with and received. It was way over the industry standard and guidelines.

So, I took on the investigation over the course of the following weeks and was able to continue obtaining evidence for the client. The client was in a very sad situation. She had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was now stuck in a wheelchair with an abusive husband of whom was having an affair. Not only was he having an affair, but it was with one of the client’s long-term carers.

The client also had evidence of serious domestic abuse she was receiving at home but wanted to now prove his infidelity too. She was an older woman, who was financially stable, and now wanted to make sure that when she passed away, he would not receive a penny. She would even joke about what a shock he’d get once she had passed. She tried to remain jovial and upbeat with her dark sense of humour, despite her unfortunate and desperate circumstances.

Background Checks | People Tracing

We finished the investigation and for many months afterwards she would send me brief messages and voice notes, updating me regarding any progress with her case.  As mentioned, always with a touch of dark humour.

Anyway, throughout those previous weeks that I was conducting surveillance for my client, I registered Anderson & Co as a Limited company. I had a website designed and put together, and decided to take that giant leap of faith into the unknown, along with a very small team of trusted operatives who have gone on to work alongside and for me throughout the last five years.

How did we find new clients?

How does one go about finding clients with zero online presence and a website ranking somewhere on page 45 of Google?

It was all a tad daunting; the website had gone live and we were now a limited company. I needed to find clients, and I needed to find them quickly.

So, I then discovered Google Ads and Bark. We all know what Google Ads is. Bark, however, for those that aren’t aware is an online platform where potential clients make an enquiry and companies can then reply to those leads. The catch is, we must buy credits to reply to those leads. Now, I’d heard nothing but negative comments about Bark from others within the Private Investigation industry. For the most part it was described as a waste of time and money. I had no choice though and hoped through throwing large amounts at it, I would hopefully be able to land some job’s and investigations and start to build the company from there on. I mean, at this point I had no other choice.

Thankfully, again, I hit a stroke of luck and landed some reasonably decent sized job's that required large scale investigations. One of those clients even went on to become a good friend of mine and my accountant. Throughout the following months we were able to expand rapidly via using Google Ads and Bark, but then the pandemic arrived, and everything came to an abrupt halt.

I couldn’t believe it. I had finally taken that giant leap of faith, invested every penny I had into the business, got it up and running, and now gathered some momentum, and then the world just came to a complete stop.

Maybe It Just Wasn’t Meant To Be After All…..

Maybe I should of downed tools, and got another job for the foreseeable future, at least until the the pandemic was no more?

I noticed that a lot of the guys and girls within the industry went off and did other things, or furloughed themselves. For me, that was not an option though and I saw this as an opportunity to try and expand the business further….

As I'm sure you will remember, for several months we simply could not travel. I remember there being roadblocks on every main route out of town. Surveillance was an absolute no go, and to be honest, people weren’t really going anywhere anyway, other than to their neighbours back garden for wine, cheese and Tequila.

Throughout this time though we noticed a huge increase in the need for people traces and background checks. There was a huge increase in people using online dating apps, and generally engaging online, while stuck at home and in the garden throughout those spring and summer months. That had a really positive effect on us, and we were inundated with background checks that were usually orientated around some sort of catfishing or romance scam. It bizarrely was one of the busiest times we’ve had to date! Every cloud and silver lining and all that....

So, we rode the storm that was the pandemic, and continued doing the above for the first two years or so, and it worked out well, despite the obstacles we had faced. It could often be very stressful and time consuming, especially replying to the tens of leads a day that came in via platforms such as Bark and the hours on the phone trying to get jobs over the line. Often it would be early hours of the morning, no joke! It was tough, and tiring, but it worked, and it was worth it!

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2022 Onwards. The World Returning To Normal....

As the world returned to some sort of relative normality, I started to notice more and more companies starting up from nowhere. I was having more and more conversations with potential clients that ended in nothing. More and more conversations that ended with ‘I’ve been quoted cheaper by so and so”, with that “so and so” being a company I’d never heard of a lot of the time. I am all for fair competition, but this was not. It became ridiculous. The Private Investigation sector is still unregulated and therefore anyone can have a well made website put together and claim to be a Private Investigator with absolutely zero experience in surveillance and investigations. Sadly there are many that do. I have spoken about this in some of our other blogs.

This was of course disheartening as we have always stuck to industry standards and guidelines that make it fair for everyone. I simply couldn’t match or even come close to a lot of the quotes that were being thrown our way via leads we had gone for on Bark or calls via Google Ads.

It had now sadly become a race to the bottom with Google Ads and Bark, and yet again I was left with a new obstacle to overcome, but by this point we had built a reasonable sized client base of returning and ongoing clients, so we always had that to fall back on if things became worryingly quiet.

I knew moving forward the only way to expand was to engage with an SEO company. Again, I had heard all of these horror stories from Private Investigation companies that had hired them, and spent a small fortune only to be in the same position on Google twelve months later.

In all honesty the first company I tried came as a recommendation from someone within our industry, and six months later, despite adding lots of content to the website, we were still down on page 30 something. We were nowhere to be seen. I was then given another recommendation, and within days, bingo, we were all of a sudden appearing on page one of Google for Birmingham and all the main keywords related to what we do and offer!

This had a massive impact on the business almost instantly and I was now able to start coming away from Google Ads and Bark and now rely on organic positioning via Google, where, to be honest, for the most part the clients had already done a little research, knew exactly what they wanted and had a rough idea of the cost too. Dealing with such clients was all very new and refreshing. It was a breath of fresh air!

It was a totally new way of doing business. Gone were the days of sending tens of messages a day to leads (many dead leads) and then having to spend hours trying to justify and explain who we are, to then have potential clients try and haggle the price down to nothing to compete with everyone else racing to the bottom through desperation. That simply didn’t work anymore!

Thankfully, here we are now in 2024 and approaching our five-year anniversary. We are now recognised as one of a handful of leading and established Private Investigation companies here in the UK, but based centrally in Birmingham.

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Where Have We Carried Out Investigations?

Over recent years we have conducted investigations in just about every corner of the UK, and further afield in places such as Thailand, Portugal, Malta and Ireland too.

We have also carried out background checks, people traces and family tree type investigations for clients from North America, Australia, The Maldives, Sweden and South Africa too, to name a few. We have a large, international client base, which for me is really interesting. I find it fascinating dealing with people from such varied backgrounds from all four corners of the globe! We had a client recently from The Maldives. Who knew that it wasn't just 7 star resorts and sand bars. I now have the equivalent of a masters degree in Maldivian politics as a result of many lengthy conversations with my client....Joking about the degree, of course!

In the early days a large chunk of what we did was matrimonial based, driving the length and breadth of the country through the night, in all weathers, staying in hotels, and living off Shell meal deals and Costa coffees. We would be out at all times of the day, seven days a week, bank holidays and Christmas included. It’s not a glamorous way of life, like many may think. Although despite that, it is a job that carries a huge amount of privilege, satisfaction and reward.

We have also now expanded massively into the people tracing and background check side of the industry. This now forms a much larger part of what we do alongside all the different types of surveillance that we conduct too. Surveillance investigations vary from matrimonial surveillance to fake employee sickness, insurance fraud and corporate investigations too. As mentioned though, a large chunk of our day to day workload is orientated around mainly background checks and traces, for varying reasons!

Who knows what the next five years will bring? Who knows where it will take us? Currently, however, I am immensely proud of what we have achieved despite the odds being against us, especially in the early days. It' s a very niche industry and is ultra competitive. It can also be ruthless. Nothing is a given, nothing is guaranteed, but I feel incredibly grateful, proud and privileged to have got this far, with the reputation we now have. Thank you to each and every client that trusts us with their cases, often with their lives and livelihoods on the line too. Again, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Whatever happens, I guess I’ll have a few more grey hairs (if any hair at all), an increasing number of frown lines, and I’ve no doubt an extra few inches around the waist, which is fine. As long as we continue in the same positive direction, with the same amazing team around me, and continuing with lot's of positive results, great feedback and happy clients to go with!

Long May It Continue!

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