Three of Ten - I'm a Believer
The Easy One
A dare is a dare. It’s an especially busy week with various commitments both client and non bugging me. Yet, I decided this week I should say, hey if Brian Willingham is calling you out, you should meet the challenge. Ten posts in ten day. So, without much time to think nor plan out a significant post, I’m going to go straight to my creed, the very essence of my practice, a speech I can give with one hand tied behind my back and no notes. The easiest post I can do. Why I believe in the power of public records.
The saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. They never met my dad. In his tool box was this stubby, pointy thing, an oft-crossword clued thing, an awl. For some reason, I still do not understand, this was my dad’s tool of choice. Everything was done with it. For me, the tool I have been given, has been public records. Thirty years ago, I started searching background information on individuals and companies. I had a phone, a modem, and 40 megabytes of hard drive. I learned how to find articles, legal decisions, phone books online; what I could not dial into, back then, I’d call into one of our two services. They would send back litigation records. In the years since, almost all of it comes from online sources, and man are the computers faster. What made it good then makes it great now. I learned the meaning and value of what I was finding, and I learned what to do with it. It became my baby, my tool. I became a believer.
I believe in the power of public records. I believe in the power of public records for five reasons:
Cheap
Discretion
Reliable/legitimate
Bias apparent
Useful
In all the how to be consultant handboooks, they say, don’t lead with price. Screw that. The best thing about public record research is that it’s cheap. I do not mean cheap as in not valuable. As you will see, it is highly valuable. Yet, within a few days of online research, we can pull together amazing dossiers covering business affiliations, social media profiles, news, litigation and related records. It may be the path to deeper research or it may be enough.
One of the best reasons to rely on public record research is that you can be discreet. In a lot of my research, the subjects are well aware of what I am doing. Often, they are sending me their basic identifying information so I can search on them. Yet, there are many cases where the searches are being done without the subject knowing. It may be in anticipation of a meeting, where one party wants to be prepared; an offer may be sprung on a company; it may be in the context of litigation or an investigation where the other party is not cooperating. Often, we are complying information to assist someone conduct an interview. We can comb through all our public record sources without a peep. We believe in public records because they are discreet.
We deal with big problems. Companies making multi-million investments. Hiring key executives. Bet the company lawsuits. When we send results, we do not want you to waver. It’s real. It’s not what some super secret source told us. We want you to literally have a piece of paper you can rely on; the article, the lawsuit complaint, a deed. It’s not our word. And it’s not a bank record, a cell phone records, utility statements. There is no wink-wink-pretext-wink-wink brown unmarked envelope nature to what we find. A huge reason to use public records is that you can use them. We believe in public records because they are legitimate and reliable.
There is no such thing as a neutral source. Everyone has a slant, a beef. When you talk to someone, why are they telling you. Understanding the agenda and point of view shades greatly what you do with the information. The problem, it is hard, often, to know. When you get public record information, the slants don’t disappear, but the bias are readily apparent. I’ve blogged about this before, but with news articles, it is possible to parse to understand their bias and perspective. Also, with media sources, you generally have some idea from the publication, what the slant or perspective is. You know MSNBC vs. Fox. When you get information from lawsuits, as we chatted about yesterday, you know the angle based on if the filing is coming from the plaintiff or the defendant. I’m not saying you can always figure out the bias in public record research. I’m just saying I believe in public record research because usually the bias is more apparent.
The biggest and best reason I believe in the power of public record research is that it is useful. Like I say, we deal with big things. We mostly try to make sure your big deals, the investments, hires, new clients, go smoothly, but when big problems pop up unexpectedly, we make sure you can handle them well and efficiently. It takes finding the right records, and as we say a lot, the right record is often one of many not one bit hiding. More important, it takes putting the records in context, knowing what a name means or where there is a potential issue. I say all the time that public record research is like doing tax returns. 90% of it, is stuff you could do but you want someone else to do. For instance, reading a bunch of articles. The 10% is the secret sauce, the tricks, the things to look for, the things others might miss, whether it’s a CPA or me, it;s worth it. We know that the information that we can generate using public record sources can help you manage risks and react to unforeseen circumstances. We especially believe in public records because they are useful.