When I first started tossing around the idea of becoming a private investigator, I kept seeing the same advice over and over. Don’t be a jack of all trades. Choose a niche or a specialty.
After considering a few different avenues, I found myself continuously drawn to adoption searches. (If you want to know why, you can check out a few of my past blog posts - I Used a Private Investigator and Then I Became One, An Adoption Search: Part 1, An Adoption Search: Part 2, and Dear Birth Mom, and magazine articles - Adoption Searches: Why and How and Adoption Search Diplomacy: Why Some Birth Parents Don’t Want to be Found).
Upon spending more time in my car this week than normal, I’ve been listening to several different interviews with various private investigators. They’ve all had one common characteristic. They have each developed a niche market for themselves in the private investigation industry.
Since I think it could be useful for both private investigators and our potential clients to have a long list of niche markets available, I’ve decided to compile one right here in my blog.
Please understand this list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, if you have a niche or have knowledge of one that isn’t listed below, feel free to add it in the comments:
- Abductions
- Accident reconstruction
- Adoption searches
- Animal investigations
- Arson
- Asset checks
- Background checks
- Bounty hunting
- Bug sweeps and detection
- Civil investigations
- Cold cases
- Computer forensics
- Corporate
- Criminal defense
- Divorce and child custody
- Due diligence
- Elder abuse
- Electronic data discovery
- Executive protection
- Forensic accounting
- Fraud
- Fugitive recovery
- Human trafficking
- Identity theft
- Infidelity or cheating spouse
- Insurance
- Interview and interrogation
- Litigation support
- Malpractice suits
- Medical malpractice
- Missing heirs
- Missing persons
- Nursing home abuse
- Personal injury
- Polygraph expert
- Process service
- Public record retrieval
- Risk assessment
- Runaways
- Security
- Skip trace
- Social media
- Surveillance
- Suspicious suicides
- Terrorism
- Threat management
- Workers’ compensation
- Workplace violence