Marine Investigations

Establishing a Business

The marine surveyor student and beginner, of course, is constantly plagued with the problem of how to obtain that training or experience.

The beginning surveyor inevitably finds himself in the unenviable position of not being able to get work because he is inexperienced, and can’t get experience because he can’t get work.

One of the most common questions I am asked is that of how to establish a business. As with most professions, that is not an easy proposition and there are no easy answers.

To hold oneself out as an expert, it is first necessary to establish a marine surveying business of some type.

There is really no other way to gain the needed knowledge, expertise and experience. Marine investigation businesses usually evolve out of surveying businesses since that is a logical extension. 

However, in terms of mixing different types of surveying work with investigations, this does not always work out well. Pre-purchase survey work does not mix well with either claims work or investigations due to the inevitable scheduling conflicts.

By far, the best mix is general insurance claims work and investigations because these are mutually supporting

A surveyor will achieve the highest degree of universal expertise when has the opportunity to perform all types of work. Should he later wish to go for expert witness work, this will best prepare him for the wide variety of subjects that expert witnesses are hired for.

Some people are naturally good at being rain-makers or getting clients, while others are predisposed toward being technocrats.

The sole proprietor has to wear both hats equally well to survive. Business generation is a never-ending task that anyone who becomes good at it is going to regard as a trade secret.

In reality, there doesn’t seem to be any common denominator for success other than persistence and determination.

While the daily bread of a survey business may be the repeat client, the difference between surviving and real success is referrals, which are often the largest and best paying jobs that push us over the top of mere business survival.

Referrals mean that the quality of one’s work has been noticed, or that one has attained sufficient contact with those people who are in a position to make referrals, that word is getting around, however that may be achieved.

It can happen through attendance at business and social functions, or simply diligent effort to meet people during the course of daily work.

Over the years I have found that direct efforts to sell one’s services has been spectacularly unsuccessful; people do not hire professionals based on sales calls.

That said, it does not mean that there is not a time and place for sales calls, either cold or appointed, for there is. But sales calls must be low-key efforts mainly to make the prospect aware of your existence and availability; it is merely an effort to “show face”.

The best place to show face is at business or industry functions, and most particularly taking any opportunity to be a speaker or participate in a forum where attention is directed to you.

Mere frequent attendance at such functions will eventually lead to getting to know prospective clients, but obviously takes time, as does the whole process of marketing your service.

So who are the people that are most often in the position of making referrals?

This is a tough question to pin down, but there are a few obvious choices that include insurance agents, boat yard or marina owners and managers, boat captains, former clients, and other marine industry businessmen.

If there is a local marine trade association, so much the better. Even a local Chamber of Commerce can be helpful when other marine trades are represented.

One of the best books directed at the small businessman is Jay Conrad Levine’s Guerilla Marketing. I highly recommend it.

Licensing

To the best of my knowledge there is no state that requires the licensing of marine surveyors, but most surveyors don’t do investigations.

Marine investigations may be confined strictly to boats, or may become more wide ranging, involving the investigations of people and their activities. Because of this the question of licensing has been at issue in the laws of the various states, an issue which I have been following for decades.

While I certainly don’t know the laws of all 50 states, I have followed those of three major states, Florida, California and New York.

The basic intent of the legislatures of these three large states is that those who handle and settle insurance claims should be licensed adjusters, while those engaged in certain specialties should not.

Over a period of 30 years, the laws of these states have liberalized considerably. New York specifically excludes marine surveyors from licensing. Florida is silent on the subject and California is vague.

The intent seems to be that these states do not want to get involved in licensing specialists, nor to include them in broader licensing requirements.

However, none of these states seems to take cognizance of the surveyor as a more wide ranging investigator and thus the laws seem to default on the subject.

Every investigator should make a point of studying those parts of their state insurance laws to determine whether licensing seems to be mandated.

I started out by making calls to all three states to see if I could get an answer to this question, but could find no one in any state insurance office that had the slightest idea. That’s why I recommend that you study the law yourself.

Some surveyors obtain insurance adjuster’s licenses and there is a good reason for this.

The state all-lines adjusters license permits the holder to engage in a broad range of investigation, including the taking of statements as well as obtaining financial records.

This license is nearly as broad as that of the private investigator. Holding such a license leaves little doubt as to what the investigator is permitted to do.

That is reassuring when one is testifying in court because there is no possibility of being attacked for being unlicensed. This license has proved invaluable to me as it can open many doors that otherwise remain closed.

Ordinarily there would be no way for someone without an insurance education to obtain this license.

Fortunately, in nearly every large state there are private tutors that offer reasonably priced tutoring designed to help one pass the state exam one has to take.

Typically these tutors rotate around major cities with their six week courses of three nights per week.

Advertising

The question about advertising is not whether it works, but how to make it work and can it be afforded?

One shot, one-time ad placement definitely does not work. Advertising is something that has to be done over the long term. To understand this, all one has to do is examine how you react to ads.

If you ever purchased any service based on an ad, chances are that it is an ad that you have been seeing for a long time, or have knowledge of the company and so on.

The universal rule of advertising is that the less the cost, the less likely it will produce results even with a well-planned program. The best sources charge more. Naturally.

One of the most successful ads I know of by a marine surveyor involved ads on the Junior Chamber of Commerce’s bus bench project with benches situated near marinas.

Anyone who wishes to become a marine expert has an advantage over most marine surveyors in the field today.

That is because most surveyors merely seek to earn a living without making much of an effort to acquire knowledge.

Anyone who wishes to enter this field should do so with the idea of constantly working to improve one’s knowledge. This is not difficult because the surveyor is immersed in an ocean of facts and details on a daily basis; he has only to train himself to be inquisitive and observant.

Among the most important skills that any investigator possesses, excepting strictly forensic investigators, are people skills and linguistic skills.

An investigator who lacks good people skills is severely crippled in his abilities, for most evidence is obtained by the power of persuasion, the ability to motivate others to cooperate with the investigator.

Some people just seem to have a natural talent toward working with others while others have to work at it and acquire that talent by force of habit.

No matter, if you don’t truly enjoy this work you’re not going to be very good at it. The remainder of this book leans heavily on the need for good people skills.

People skills and linguistic skills go hand-in-hand. The linguistic skill is the ability to use language to its best effect; this does not mean to become a good liar. Rather, it means the recognition that a question asked one way is unlikely to produce results, while asked another way will.

These are much the same as leadership skills, which includes the ability to motivate another person to cooperate.

The good investigator becomes a good teacher because his role is one of constantly explaining things. Unless he learns the art of making difficult subjects understandable to ordinary people, he is unlikely to do well.