Campaign planning p1 - Military Transition - Military Times EDGE

Years before he got out of the Army, Dracey Davis was already working on his plan and planning what would be his new line of work.

The counterintelligence agent knew he wanted three things: To live in Seattle, to be his own boss, and to leverage his military training into a career as a private investigator. And like any good sleuth, he also knew success would begin with solid groundwork.

Phase One was to finagle an assignment to Fort Lewis, Wash., just outside of the coffee capital, providing a few years to scope things out. Next steps: Study the market, build a network of contacts and crack the legion of state and federal codes for his credentials to pack heat, carry a badge and spy legally as a civilian.

Dream job

By the time Davis left the Army in February 2007 after 12 years in uniform, he set out in his new career at a full sprint as the owner of a private investigations company.

With a wink to his buds back in the spook business and a nod to old-school linguists, Davis dubbed his newborn agency “Umbra” — a code word for certain top secret documents and Latin for “shadow.”

“I had been building my business plan since 1999, and I was ready to go,” Davis said. “When I opened shop, I had a quick influx of cases.” He credits his early success with all that planning.

Market recon

“The key to starting any business is market research,” says Davis. “You’ve got to do your SWOT analysis.” That may sound like military shorthand, but it’s actually a business school acronym for assessing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

“Size up yourself and your competition. Where are your biggest opportunities to make money, and where are the biggest pitfalls?”

Strategic thinking

A business plan is a must-have for anyone looking for a small-business loan. Although Davis didn’t need to borrow any money — he saved up enough cash while he was still in uniform — he says building a formal business plan was still indispensable.

“The business plan process helped me outline my startup costs, what services I needed to provide, who I would need to market them to, equipment I’d need, plus all the things that I would need to have just to start a business — Federal Tax ID Number, licenses, permits — all that.”

Shifting fire

But, like in combat, plans often don’t survive long beyond first contact. “Early on, a lot of the work was domestic cases — cheating spouses, abuse — pretty ugly stuff.” And while it paid the bills, it didn’t bring the job satisfaction he was hoping for.

Shifting gears, he reoriented his marketing more toward corporate clients, everything from undercover security work and VIP bodyguard gigs to full industrial extortion investigations.

Enough work has rolled in that Davis hired his first employee last year, another former counterintelligence agent just out of the Army.

Adapt, improvise and overcome

With the economic meltdown, Davis has had to do some more adapting.

“I’ve reengineered my product I don’t know how many times over the past two years, but now I’ve got something that I’m really proud of,” Davis said.

That’s meant remaining very sensitive to trends in the market. “I’m finding I have to learn new things,” he said. These days, for example, he’s doing more work from collection agencies, which has meant honing his skip-tracing chops, among other skills.

Capturing success

Taking a page from his Army days, Davis created Umbra’s “Standard Operating Procedures” playbook. “It’s my own manual on how to do surveillance and everything else.” With plans to grow the company more, he wants to build a clear picture for new employees. Building an SOP also proved a valuable tool in capturing success. “Every time I did a job that was through the roof with positive results, I made special notes of what the client liked and didn’t like.”