What are we worth and how do we get it?
Warren Mallard is managing director of Lyonswood Group in Sydney and we always appreciate his opinion on issues of investigation, investigators, trainers and the joke by the name "NSW licensing of private investigators". Warren writes:
I am often surprised and sometimes appalled at what different people in different professions and occupations are paid. When compared to what hangs in the balance, we tend to elevate lawyers and doctors to the top of the heap. It could be argued that this is because they hold our lives in their hands, but don't private investigators also hold the lives and the futures of their clients in their hands? I am not arguing that we should be paid the same as doctors and lawyers, but I am arguing that we are paid far less than our worth.
There is no argument that a doctor or a lawyer has to study hard, have a high I.Q., be prepared to struggle and go without for longer whilst achieving their academic qualifications and all of these sacrifices and qualities ought to be rewarded remuneratively, but what about a private investigator? What should they be paid?
For the last 28 years I have continuously held a license to practice as a private investigator and over the very same period I have come to learn more about the values people place upon different skill sets. Consumers are quite prepared to have a mechanic charge at $120.00 hour because their cars are important and without them, they themselves may not be able to earn a living. Plumbers also charge at comparative rates to mechanics probably because their work is not always in places where most of us would wish to be working. Carpet cleaners charge $100.00 hour, computer technicians bill out at $150.00 hour, psychologists, $80.00 to $150.00 hour, photographers, anywhere between $150.00 and $330.00 an hour. Are you getting my drift?
The determination of market forces doesn't always equate to logic. What logic is there between the wages of a Psychologist who attends university and obtains a degree and receives $80.00 an hour and a person who buys a small commercial van and a carpet cleaning machine and who attends tech for a few months and receives $100.00 plus an hour? Not a great deal.
So then, can we argue that qualifications really have nothing to do with what people are paid? I believe we can. Society places a monetary value upon what it perceives is most important. Is having a carpet cleaned or a car serviced/repaired more important than having an investigator find the reason a company is bleeding to death from stock losses, track down a vital witness, find out who is making love to their partner or piece together the circumstances of an important incident? I don't believe so, however most people will not pay an investigator what they are prepared to pay these other professions, professions that certainly don't have the same impact upon a consumers well being or their financial security.
Why is it then that investigators are paid less per hour than these other professions? It's easy; we have not collectively sent the right messages to the consumer. We have allowed authors and scriptwriters to determine our destinies and income. We have allowed insurance companies and ultimately their instructed lawyers to dictate our worth. Coupled with this and exacerbating the same problem is the uncontrolled hell bent rush by major investigation companies to appease these insurers and in the process be prepared to jump as high as they want to get the work, often by
accepting their every unreasonable demand, usually driven by shareholder greed and profits. Why is it then that others in the investigation industry have survived without this traditional insurance related work? They have survived because they have been able to market their worth through promotion of their product and placing a commensurate value upon it.
A am reminded of an event that occurred in the early 80's when I had purchased three revolutionary 64K read only word processors and I had so much work coming in that I had three typists working three shifts 24 hrs a day seven days a week to get through it. As it does sometimes happen, one of the word processors had a myocardial infarct and thus my productivity was cut by a third. This was a crisis that I had to have rectified immediately no matter the cost. There weren't the proliferation of computer shops and technicians in these days and thus just locating someone to look at the computer was a task in itself.
I eventually located a fellow who took one look at my NEC 64K dream machine equipped with state of the art 8 inch floppy disc drive and he exclaimed" Yep, I can fix it. It will take a few moments." I asked how much it would cost and he said, "$330.00" What could I do, yes it was expensive but hey, I need to get back to productivity. A few minutes later he emerged with my dream machine and exclaimed, "Its working" I handed over the money and as I did he placed a small plastic press seal envelope on the counter with this minute component inside and said, "This is the part I replaced". I took one look at this part and taking into account my dream machine was half the weight of a Mac truck and in terms of the size of the component when compared to the size of my machine and doing some quick math reckoned that on this basis my machine must be worth a half a million dollars. I challenged the cost and asked, "How much was this small component?" He retorted, "$30.00" " Wow!" I said, " Do you mean to say that something that took you a few minutes was charged at $300.00?" (And this is where I learned about marketing and worth), he said, "Yep, but its not just time mate, my experience taught me to know exactly what the problem was and were to look for it and I have saved you a fortune in lost productivity". He was right of course. His years of skill was factored into the price, he calculated just how bad I needed this problem fixed and what I was prepared to pay for it in an instant and achieved his worth .
So, next time you have a client that you are afraid to raise your hourly rate for fear you will not get the job, remember this lesson, remember your skill, your cunning, your savvy. Remind yourself that because you know how to solve the problem and it's easy for you, doesn't necessarily mean that it will be easy for the client. Sell the sizzle and not the sausage. Remember that what you have learned may have taken you anywhere between 10 and 40 years and although you didn't attend Sydney University, you attended the University Of Life. This is a university that most academics never experience; nonetheless its tutors and professors are just as valuable as those who taught a lawyer or a doctor to a consumer who has a problem. In a way we are surgeons, we mend broken hearts, we are mechanics, we get the engines of businesses running again. We are cleaners; we clean up the mess in the lives of others. We are psychologists, we listen, counsel and advise. When as an industry we begin to realise our own worth, its then that the public will also realise it.
Warren Mallard
Managing Director
Certificate IV Investigative Practice & Procedure
Advanced Diploma Security Risk Management
Canberra Institute Of Technology
Master Security License No:408273284
Lyonswood Investigations&Forensic Group
204 Lyons Road, Drummoyne NSW 2047
http://www.investigators.net.au
+61 (0) 2 9819-6833 F +61 (0) 2 9819-6300
DX 21007 Drummoyne