36 - Eric and Amy Luthy | Mighty Process Server

Full Transcript
0:01Intro:You're listening to Process Server Daily, the show where hustle meets strategy in the high stakes world of process serving. From elite pros to the new servers taking massive action, these are the voices of a rising industry.

0:17Mighty Mike:Hosted by the founder of 1, 2,

0:19Eric and Amy Luthy:3 Legal Support, Mighty Mike Reed.

0:23Mighty Mike:This is your backstage path to building

0:25Intro:a profitable process serving empire. Let's get into it.

0:33Mighty Mike:Welcome back to another episode of Process Server Daily. Today I am joined by Eric and Amy Luthi, owners of Samurai Investigations LLC located in Michigan. How are you doing, guys?

0:46Eric and Amy Luthy:We're good. Good.

0:48Mighty Mike:Well, welcome to the show. I know you guys are part of the community, the mighty process server community, and I love to extend invitations for professionals like yourselves. That fact that you guys are private investigators, I'm excited to dive in to your business and everything. But to get us started, just get us started with a little bit about who you guys are and what made you choose process serving and investigations.

1:14Eric and Amy Luthy:Okay, well, we have about combined 35, 37 years of law enforcement experience. Got my PI license about two years ago. And about a year and a half ago, other friends that had their license that I knew through the law enforcement community had said, have you looked into process serving? And so we just said, let's try it. We knew very little of it other than what I did through the course, you know, of our jobs. We, we knew that from the criminal side of it, but ask some questions of a few people, and one guy that did it and sat down with them for like three hours, took notes, and we just took a shot in the dark. And we are where we are now, and we've grown 1200% since January.

2:04Mighty Mike:Wow. Wow, that is so. So you were like, let me just digest some info. Like, ask you qu. Like, did you look on YouTube? Did you look on.

2:13Eric and Amy Luthy:I sat down and talked with him, this other guy who's on the other side of the state. But we had a. A job we were doing together and something not related with process serving. And he's like, I do process serving. And he sat down, got out his laptop. We spent three hours. I wrote three, four pages of notes and a notepad about what he did. And, you know, I started working on that and then got on naps and all of a sudden jobs started calling.

2:49Mighty Mike:And it was crazy.

2:50Eric and Amy Luthy:I started doing more research and trying to get better at it. But I grew up in a family that owned supermarkets, and they were very customer oriented and won some national awards in the grocery business and stuff, all based off a customer orientation. So I grew up with, with customer service. As a main focus. And we're finding, at least in our area in Michigan, that when we're talking to lawyers and, and legal assistance firms and stuff, they're, they're, they're finding customer service in the process serving lacking. And we're, because we're just doing what I think would be a normal thing to help our clients. And they're like, you would actually do

3:34Mighty Mike:this or you're answering your phone.

3:38Eric and Amy Luthy:That's exactly it. Because we've had so many people call us and go, wow, you're the only person that's answered your phone and they've just listened. Whole list of five people. And I'm like, well, why wouldn't you answer your phone? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? You know, answer your phone and talk to people? But, but it's just, you know, common sense. Be polite to people, treat them like they're human, you know, and you, even when you go out and serve, you know, even from our law enforcement side, you know, everybody that's hiding from the law, they're all, you know, nobody has this great personality. Nobody's really nice to you. But, you know, we've always learned that if you're, if you're nice to them, no matter what they did or who they are, they're going to respect you a lot more and they're going to be way more helpful and accept their papers. You know, we've had, I've had a lot of issues lately in a certain county, but, you know, I just think really, that's, I mean, you know, people are like, they love us because of our customer service. We get on things. You know, when they give us a job, we don't sit on it for a week. I mean, we do our first serve, 24 to 48 hours, and we're like, boom, get it done. And here we go. Here's your affidavit and let's move on, you know.

4:45Mighty Mike:Yeah, so I'm a big cheerleader for process serving. Obviously. I, you know, but, but you guys did law enforcement, right? You were in law enforcement. How long, how long were. Eric, how long were you an officer?

4:58Eric and Amy Luthy:Oh, I just put it. I retired, came back and I've been doing both working. She works about 80 hours a week. I work the full time job and this on every single day off, 10 hours a day. But I put in my papers again. Re. Retired from another department at the end of November because we're just, we, we have four employees, we have five, but one had some medical issues and Had a, had a resign.

5:29Mighty Mike:Right.

5:30Eric and Amy Luthy:So it just was a natural time. And I'm like, if we hit certain goals and then we blow past those goals. And I'm like, well, it's time. And we don't see each other right now because of that. And so. But to answer, get back to your question. I. I'm still doing it, but I started in 94 in law enforcement. 94, yeah.

5:50Mighty Mike:And, and, and how about you, Amy?

5:53Eric and Amy Luthy:I did nine and a half years on the road.

5:57Mighty Mike:So, so, so you think about that like what you guys did before and then you started doing this. Is this like. And then you did a little bit at the same time. Do you think that like, why this, like, you guys seem like smart, individual. Why not start a your own grocery store? You know, like what made you choose this?

6:15Eric and Amy Luthy:Just our skill sets. And when I got in the process serving, because I via the route of PI work, process serving is just dealing with people. You're dealing with people that you're serving, but you're also dealing, like I said, with the lawyers. You get really good at not just de escalating, but how to build relationships with people. Because it's all about communication skills. And I don't know what it is. We've just found this huge niche for us that was lacking. I'll give you one quick example. We got a new client that's using us a ton of. And she called about six weeks ago. She's the paralegal for a small one or two lawyer law firm. And. But they do a lot of stuff. And she called and she said, can you do this town or this town? And she asked. Or there was no. And it's can you do this one or this one? One was to the west, 30 miles, the other one's to the east. To give you an idea, we cover about 20 counties and if you want us to go outside of that county, those 20 counties for a job and you can't find anybody, we'll make it work and we'll make it reasonable. Because my whole thing is I just want yeses. I want to build that relationship. I'm not looking for jobs, I'm looking for relationships. And so when I said, I'll do them both, you should have heard her expression on the phone. She's like, you are the fifth one I've called. The other four, no one would do. And we're in Kalamazoo, which is. The county's about a quarter of a million people. And so there's other process servers here and going 30 minutes one way into the next county and 30 minutes the other way into the next county. That's not a big deal. And after we said yes to that, the next day she sent us like 12 other jobs. We got 14 jobs out of that totaling, you know, a pretty decent paycheck. Yeah. And four other people said, I'm not interested. Like, why, why would you say no?

8:18Mighty Mike:Well, you know, yeah, it's the, the,

8:21Eric and Amy Luthy:the purse, the personal relationships and building those. That's what we enjoy.

8:26Mighty Mike:Yeah. And that's, that's, those are the, those are the clients that, that keep coming back and pay you. Someone asked in the mastermind today we have Masterminds on Tuesdays, 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time and for our Mighty Premium members. And one of them asked, you know, I got a couple jobs from some, but then they call me back, I'm like, did you serve it right away? Did you get a proof of service back within a couple days at the very most, you know, or the next day? And he's just like, yeah. And I said, well, did you tell them you don't just serve this out of town area that you live in, you actually serve other areas too? Because what they do is they do tend to, to pigeonhole you of like, oh, I have a great person in that area.

9:06Eric and Amy Luthy:Why?

9:06Mighty Mike:Because they have other people in all these other areas. So you're just one of them. But if you let them know I'm a company, that's why I always tell people like, like I don't want to be dishonest. I'm like, you're not being dishonest. You're, you own a business and your website should represent that. You own a business that you want to own, which is one that serves the whole state maybe, or, or those 20 counties or whatever. And so I love that you mentioned that, that, that you, you know, you obviously correct her and was like, I'll serve both and. Yeah, and she jumped on it.

9:37Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah.

9:38Mighty Mike:So when you, when you solve a problem like that for anybody, but especially for attorneys in this case, paralegals, they, they, they'll bend over backwards. They're like, oh, I don't have to worry about it. Once I give it to, to them over a samurai, they just, you know, man, like ninjas, they just take care of it. They just get it done right. And then they don't have to think about it. If you take that, don't have to think about it out of the equation, then there's, there's no resistance. So very good. I'm sorry, go ahead no, go ahead.

10:08Eric and Amy Luthy:Another law firm that we do business with, that came out of the blue, but this is also came from calling people when you, when you mentioned, you know, calling law firms and trying to get your name out there and your, you know, your price sheet and everything. So out of that, we got a law firm and they have different offices on the Lakeshore. And we'll get phone calls from them and go, hey, so and so from our other office told us we could only use you or, you know, someone from this office. So there she's like getting the word out with all their offices going, you can only use samurai. Well, that's because we take the job. We're reasonable. We go out there, we get the job done. If we don't really, we're not. I don't know how to say it. I mean, we just go get it done. We're, we're not annoying. We're not, you know, we don't come back with all these issues. We do extremely good notes. And that's very important for process servers because when you're, when you're giving these lawyers and you want all these, you know, judges to read what you're doing and the effort. You went out, I see some people go, oh, knocked, left him, you know, left a notice or whatever. No, I go out of my way. I will annoy you. I will knock on that door, I will ring your doorbell, talk to you on your ring doorbell, you know, or whatever. Because you want to make sure that these people know you went above and beyond, you know, and did what you had to do to get that served. And, you know, if you just stayed two more minutes, you might have had someone answer the door. You can't just go and then, oh, sorry, you didn't answer. No. People take time to get to the door. I hate ring doorbells, by the way. But yes, I do.

11:41Mighty Mike:So you guys, so you guys, you guys dove into some of the content to be the backup stuff?

11:45Eric and Amy Luthy:Yes. Oh, yeah, we did. We did. Yeah. And what's funny is we've gotten so busy. Me leaving is going to get us back to making phone calls. We have a total of 45 minutes of phone calls in. We got two clients out of that. Just 45 minutes.

12:04Mighty Mike:That's powerful.

12:06Eric and Amy Luthy:And I'm talking not like a one time use. They are recurring clients all the time. And where does it. So we're going to get more time. We're like, if we both sit here and just dedicate a half hour each a week, we sit there next to each other you know, her in the next room, I mean, and we just spend 30 minutes each. That's an hour of calling. And we do that every week. Because in West Michigan, there's got to be three to 5,000 law firms. You know, a lot of them are one or two lawyers, but those, like I said, we got one now. It's a one, two man show, and they send us jobs every week. It's important for people to do that. I know some people are like, oh, my God, you really want me to sit down and make phone calls? I made six pages, front and back of, like, hundreds and hundreds of firms, and I literally called the first two pages. And that's what's happened, you know?

12:55Mighty Mike:Yeah. Wow, that's so cool to hear. Because, you know, when I first did the challenge, I was like, I don't know if this is. Anybody's gonna find any use. It. It's just cool to see that. That, you know, but it's the effort. You know, everything works if you work. You know, we had a couple people leave the community, and one of them was like, oh, he teaches stuff that doesn't work and tries to take credit for stuff he did. And I'm like, I just give you the tools. If you use them and you implement them and you work hard, you're going to benefit. You're going to get. You're going to get the results from this.

13:27Eric and Amy Luthy:And it's finding how that tool, Mike, works for you too. Like, taking maybe a tool you'll give and putting a little spin on it, but going, I didn't think of trying that, but maybe if I put this little angle on it, like. Like, we. We do our own little script, but it's probably 80% your script. But we put our little flare of what our personalities are.

13:49Mighty Mike:Yeah.

13:50Eric and Amy Luthy:When we talk to people and, you know, it's. You got to find the hurt in the community and the legal community and solve that hurt. And what we're finding is that the quality of process servers in West Michigan are. Is lacking.


14:07Eric and Amy Luthy:Lacking or restrained. They're really good. But they won't leave their county. We've heard that a few times. Yeah. Which is flabbergasting to me.

14:14Mighty Mike:But, Wes, I'll tell you guys, it's great to hear of your success, and if you keep growing with it and you keep spending that time, it'll be cool to see, you know, in the next five, 10 years, you just keep hiring if you have to hire higher, because you're going to keep getting the work from them. I mean, one thing, even during a recession, people are getting served, you know, you know, even more so unfortunately. But, you know, it's a recession proof. Maybe not a pandemic proof, but definitely recession proof. I mean.

14:43Eric and Amy Luthy:Right?

14:44Mighty Mike:We'll see. So let's transition. That's great. That's. That's a really great intro, especially from you guys having a couple. I've had couples on other podcasts, but this one, this is the first. So it's pretty cool to see you guys are doing it together. There's nothing powerful, more powerful than two people gathered together in the same purpose with the same goals. And it's, it's obvious you could see it in your guys business and similar backgrounds. So. But I want to transition into a couple stories. We always go over the negative story. Like this is. It feels negative, but it's actually where we learn the most a lot of times. What is that worst experience you've had working in this industry, in this field?

15:26Eric and Amy Luthy:Worst experience? I don't know. All the people that want to kill me. Yeah, seriously, we've had. I'm just not, I'm not kidding. Well, I've had two really bad instances where I've had to deal with law enforcement and they did nothing for me because, you know, these young kids out there don't know the laws. So in Michigan, I know it's different everywhere and I've seen everybody make comments about who can trespass and who can. In Michigan, we aren't trespassing. We're actually exempt from that. It's just finding the people that know you're exempt from that. So yeah, it's an obscure section of the trespass law. It's actually in the trespass law. There's a section for process servers saying that process servers, while in the process of serving, are exempt from the trespass statue. And she had an incident and there were some young officers probably a year or two out of the academy that they had no, they, they didn't know that. They never heard of it with you. It was bad. So they basically. Yeah, yeah. And she had another woman come out with a big German shepherd saying she was going to release it. And I had to threaten to shoot it. Shoot it. But yeah, so that, so there's a couple of those. But I mean, as far as the actual. It's been mostly positive. I would say that once in a while it's surprising because we have so many great clients we will occasionally get. We've been burned on a couple firms that just don't pay. They get very Nasty. And they were so nice at the beginning. And then I call back to the guy that got me in. Kind of like I'll call him a mentor, and he's like, oh, yeah, he's on my whiteboard. Don't ever use that company. I'm like, I should have. You should have sent me a picture of your whiteboard beforehand. And I would have known not to, you know, do work for this company.

17:26Mighty Mike:Well, he gave me three hours, remember?

17:28Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, that's really the nugget of. I mean, the fact that some people just. They take advantage of your niceness and you're. You're willing to help them, and they really abuse it. You know, I think that's the worst. Really the worst thing. Most of our stuff's so positive, people probably wouldn't believe us. But I mean, we just get so much done. I mean, for being a woman, more people will open their door for me than they will for him.

17:55Mighty Mike:Just seriously, when we go up together,

17:57Eric and Amy Luthy:I look too much like a cop. And. And if I'm not a cop, I'm going to be somebody knocking on their door to sell them. Right? You know, some version of religion or product or insurance or mugging them or something.

18:11Mighty Mike:Yeah, yeah.

18:12Eric and Amy Luthy:So she goes up to the door. I. I work the app in the car and start putting in the next address, you know, in the Google Maps.

18:19Mighty Mike:Well, you guys serve together all the time?

18:22Eric and Amy Luthy:No, no, just on days we can go off. Sometimes we have to be separate to get them all done, because I'm going one direction, she's going the other. Right. But if we can manage to go out in one day and knock out 20 or 30, we can get a lot. We. We had a client that asked us to take on a bunch over in Detroit because another server dropped the ball and she dumped 40 of us on us. And the problem with Detroit in the summer is it was all construction and nobody's nice over there. And so on the map, you're like, that's an hour and 10 minutes apart. They are. Yeah, but it would take two hours, you know, and. But yeah, we knocked out all 44. Took a couple weeks because we drive over, that's a.2 hours to get in. Into the area and almost just got

19:14Mighty Mike:to stay at a hotel and then

19:15Eric and Amy Luthy:start a couple nights. We stayed in hotels, but she needed a favor and needed. She actually had a couple hundred files, but she was giving them out to different people. She. She knew that could handle it. Right. And we said, we'll go over there and take A stack. And so we knocked out and beyond for our clients, to be honest with you, because it really brings you more business. So, honestly, there's not a lot of negative when it comes to us and where we're located, because we do have a lot of competition, you know, and some people won't call us back when we give a quote or something. But honestly, really, eight out of 10. And then they just keep going and going and going. And then, you know, we have one company that used us just to serve a business, the same business all the time. And I'm like, did you know that we service, like, all these counties? And they're like, well, no. So I sent them a whole list of the counties, and now they're starting to divvy out the work, you know, and that's the thing. You just got to be willing to go above and beyond, and if you have that personality, you can make it work. So there's really not a whole lot of negative for us. You know, it's just a few. Yeah, it's. We just have too much positive. But I think that's just our personalities, and it's just easier for us. Like, for me, like, I can talk to anybody you could think. I mean, I will go up to these. Anyway, I just went up to these two ladies and Coles one day, and I just jumped in their conversation, and we were laughing so hard, I almost had them in stitches. And that's just what I do when I go serve people. I just pick something out, and then I have a discussion about it, and then people forget that I'm serving them documents. So she even had one that by the end. And he took the documents and everything, and as she was ready to leave, he goes, wait, did I just get served?


20:58Eric and Amy Luthy:Because of that conversation, she'll spend five minutes, just, you know, sometimes too much time. But anyway, there's just. There's a lot more positive for us, Mike. Thank you.

21:06Mighty Mike:You guys know the. You guys know the movie Frozen?

21:11Eric and Amy Luthy:No. Yeah, I haven't seen it.


21:13Eric and Amy Luthy:Oh, the kids movie. Yeah.

21:15Mighty Mike:I have a daughter, and she's. We've watched it like, a million times. Well, there's a get. There's a guy in there that welcomes people to his stories, like this iceman. And he. He always goes, we welcome to the store. You know, he's like, I don't know, Swedish or something, but. But the way he talks. I took that on as a process server. When I would go knock on doors, I would, hello.

21:35Eric and Amy Luthy:Hello.

21:36Mighty Mike:You know, it's like, Non threatening. I'm here, I have a delivery. I would say I have a delivery, you know, and then anytime I would see someone kind of come in, you know, this, like, you know who's knocking at my door, you know, they would. I could see the change in their face from like, I'm gonna tell someone it's 8:30 and. And because it's a winter time, it's dark outside and I'm like, it's 8:30. It's not actually that late. It's kind of late, but not that late. But 8:30 for some people is like they're bringing a gun to the door with them, you know. And you know, hearing me say hello, they kind of like cheer up. That's kind of what it reminds me of. If you have a cheery personality, most of, most of the time you're going to get back what you're giving. But I always tell people, one in a thousand, you know, they just their weight and they got, they just, you know, they just. Well, it makes sense too statistically that you're going to have mentally ill, right? You just got to pray that you're, you know, hope, pray whatever, that you don't run across them while they're armed, you know, this kind of thing. And if you do, you're prepared, you know, Those are the two. Oh, yes, two things to go. So that's what I learned from your stories. It's kind of what I've always adopted. I hope if you guys are watching, those of you guys that are watching, if you ever have these experiences, you gotta be positive if you're gonna be a processor. I don't know if you saw video 1. I switched it around, but my start video in the course was before. This may not be for you. It may not be. Did you guys see that one? That was like the first one.

23:11Eric and Amy Luthy:I watched all of them. Yes, in the very beginning. Yes. It's. It isn't for a lot of people, but it's just funny. Like I call everybody honey. Hey, honey, how's it going? You know, hey, so and so here. And they're like, yeah, hang on, you know, and they'll come and get them. I'm like, hey, sweetie, are you so and so? Yeah. Okay. Here you go, sweetie. There you go. I have no idea, honey. I don't read your stuff because it's personal. It's your business. I. Oh yeah, okay, no worries, you know, or whatever. Or like what does this mean? And then you kind of got to explain it or whatever.

23:39Mighty Mike:But in California they, you're required to notify them of the general nature of the documents. And actually, fun fact, in California, you are able to trespass as well. But if they tell you to leave, that's when it kind of gets removed. I don't know if that's different. It sounds.

23:57Eric and Amy Luthy:No, there's. Because if they tell you to leave, that would fonder the trespass statue. And as long as we're trying to do a direct route, so, like, if you see a guy fitting the description out in like the back 40, you can walk out in their back 40 because you can articulate why you're there. Yeah, you just have to articulate where on their property you are and why you're at that location. Like, I heard voices in the backyard. I went to the back gate to try to make contact. Or the front door is a sign saying use side door. You know.

24:28Mighty Mike:Yeah. The most common one, though, is you go. The most common troublesome one is when you go and you kind of had to drive through, you know, past their open gate and you drove up into the mountain and then you get to their house and it's the husband, but you're there for the wife.


24:44Mighty Mike:You know, and they're like, get off my property. And you're like, okay, I gotta leave now. But I would just sub serve it, even though I didn't have diligence and hope they were okay with that. If not, I'm coming back. I'm coming. You know, don't ever come back here again. And I'll have.

24:58Eric and Amy Luthy:We can't subserve in mission again unless it's an out of state and that state allows it. We can file that state's laws. But m, a lot of our Michigan files you can't subserve unless you get a judge's order specifically for alternative service, which could be either a posting or a subserve. But most files. So we do get a client out of state occasionally. You're like, you'd hit subserve nowhere in your paperwork. Doesn't say, we can subserve. We can't in Michigan. Unless you tell me I can. Okay, never mind. Go subserve. Oh, that would be a lot easier a lot of times.

25:32Mighty Mike:Yeah, they should. Like California ones, a lot of them you can subserve. You know, subpoenas, you know, you got to be personal, but summons, you got to get diligence before subserving. You know, getting three attempts different times and days. But yeah, yeah. Okay, well, let's transition. That's a great story. Great feedback. You Know, the dog stuff is always a thing, you know, always trying to not get bit. You know, surprisingly, my. My absolute greatest defense. I thought it was a Taser because I would. And that would scare him a little. But when I actually had ones that didn't care about the taser noise, the clipboard, you know, I'll never forget, I. He was just about to bite me. And, you know, you hold your clipboard on top or whatever and. And you. I hold it against myself and I'm like riding or whatever. Well, when I'm walking up, I'm holding it going, is this. Got a delivery for, you know, you know, Amy. And then they'd be like. And then they just come off the porch with dogs and everything, you know, and I'm just like, okay. And I had one that was about to bite me and I just popped this on top of the. On top of its head as it came up, you know, like this, like, ready to bite me. And it. It just confused it. It was like, what the heck? And it ran away. It just literally ran away. And I was like, huh. And that happened. After that happened, I started holding that clipboard ready to go and even just putting it in front of their face like this, like, you're not going to get to me, you know, because I'm not. I'm non violent at that point. Right.

26:56Eric and Amy Luthy:I'm just like nipped twice by somebody's dog. Yeah, that was not good.

27:03Mighty Mike:But clipboards would have been good if

27:05Eric and Amy Luthy:I'd had my clipboard with me.

27:07Mighty Mike:Yeah. And the metal ones are tough because they're so heavy. I have one right here for my dumpster business. They're just like, heavy. So like, trying to flick it around would be kind of. You'd more be like assaulting them with it. But. But yeah. So. All right, let's transition because, you know, that. That experience, it's a part of the business. You got to talk about it. You gotta make people aware of it. We have a lot of new people in our community that are learning. Some of them maybe not so physical, more, you know, even older people, you know, you gotta be aware that these are things that could happen and prepare yourself. You know, clipboard, taser, pepper spray, bear spray, you know, have multiple levels. You guys are in law enforcement, so, you know, having multiple levels of. What do they call it, escalation, where it's like you're gonna. The gun isn't. Doesn't have to be the first thing that comes out. And also, maybe you shouldn't even ever have it because you may not be the type of person that can be that responsible to carry it and go through the training and retraining and repractic of it. So, yeah, we don't got to go on that. I think we've hit that. So on a positive note, what has been your greatest experience, where you, maybe you, you learn the most. But it's like, this is something we are going to keep doing for, for the foreseeable future.

28:27Eric and Amy Luthy:Building relationships. That is what I would rather have, you know, 20, 30 really strong clients. You know, I won't turn down any job and I'm always looking to build that next relationship. But if you looked at the end of our career, could I have 8,000 different clients, I did two jobs each or 20, 30 clients that I did thousands of jobs, you know.


28:52Eric and Amy Luthy:And it's, it's those relationships that I didn't know. I thought it would be more impersonal. And we were finding that there was this, like I mentioned before, this open niche there, building actual relations where, where we have one company that's like, well, we had somebody in the area, but we actually like you better, so we're giving you that area.


29:16Eric and Amy Luthy:And there's nothing wrong with them. We just like the way that you guys do the business better. We like your personalities. We get along with you. You guys make us laugh when we call you make. We sent them, we sent them coffee cards for a company here in Michigan, like a Starbucks, but we sent them coffee cards. We sent them our pens and stuff. They sent them back their swag of their company, you know, and then we, when we were up in that area, we actually visited their offices and went in and got to meet them and you know, just working on the. That inner person. So there's that, that stronger bond there. So they know when they're in a jam. For example, they had that company I'm talking about, they had a issue with a process, a rush job that they needed on the far side. If you, if you imagine Michigan is like that mitten in the lower peninsula, it would have been up by your forefinger. By your forefinger. We're down in the lower left corner of the, of the county. So it was three, three and a half hours one way. And they called and said, we desperately need. We screwed up. We hired a process server up there. He didn't disclose that he was actually related to the person getting served. He did a fake serve. This is a guy that was also, I believe, on naps, and I don't believe he is anymore. But he did a fake serve that he went and did an attempt. They weren't there. They found out by somebody else that he sent texts there saying, hey, there's papers. They're trying to serve you. And it was on a personal protection order, I believe that was a huge. No, no. They called us, they said, can you drive there? You only need to go there once. Please try to get them served, but we need it tonight. And she drove all the way to that city, three and a half hours away and got them served. And we made some good money, but we didn't charge them an arm and a leg. We just like, just charge us for our time and our driving. You guys are in a jam. They send us multiple, multiple jobs every single week. And so we just got them out of this jam that they were in because that lawyer was pissed. Like, why would you hire. And they're like, the guy didn't disclose that he was in a way a party to the case being related to the person. And he called me and said, hey, you know, we've got papers coming at you. Like, who does that go? Hi. You know. But they sent me a picture of them, a nice lovely color picture of them. You know, I drive up, knock on the door, no lights, run trucks in the driveway, answers the door. Obviously I have a picture of him. I go, whatever is Zach or whatever his name is. Hey, Zach, here's some papers for you. Thanks for answering the door. Bye. And I left.

31:57Mighty Mike:He's like, okay.

31:59Eric and Amy Luthy:But it's just that, you know, doing those things. Yeah. To. To building, you know, like I said earlier. And we mean it. I. I don't care about getting a job from you. I care about getting a relationship from you.


32:12Eric and Amy Luthy:And that's the attitude that we go into. Not to. Obviously we want bottom line, but it's really the bottom line will happen if you go out there and you build the relationships. And we now have lawyers telling other lawyers about us. Right. And that's. And we haven't even pushed this. So when I leave here in a month, and we actually are going to start dedicated time each week to marketing and pushing this because we're hitting the numbers that you say, try to hit these numbers in six months, we've like over double that. Yeah. We're two and a that.

32:48Mighty Mike:So you're talking. You're talking about when I say, you know, 10K is like the bottom of the barrel.

32:53Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah. We're like two and a half times that a month.

32:56Mighty Mike:Okay.

32:56Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah. Oh, no. So that was really worth. And we were 2,000amonth in January. Yeah.

33:01Mighty Mike:Wow.


33:02Mighty Mike:So it's really scaling up pretty quick. You, you know, the biggest thing is communication, right? Like communicating status and getting back. The thing I love that you guys have, that you've, I guess, learned through your own experiences is something that I had to go into real estate to learn. Like, I, I, when I built my biz, first built my business, I dated the paralegals to get the work from that, from the attorneys. And then I, you know, and then eventually I had gotten married and stuff, and. But, but the process serving stuff, it was just going in and trying to talk to people. And I, I'm sure I built some relationships along the way for sure, but I didn't. It wasn't something I fostered. And when I got into real estate, that's when I learned, like, if you don't have relationships, you don't make any money because you're basically taking a piece of their equity. You're calling strangers, trying to make friends with them so that one day when they do decide to sell, maybe they'll think of you. And when I got, when I did that 10k challenge that you said you watched, I, that was the whole idea. I was like, I'm gonna make friends with everybody in this local area and see if I could do it a different. And I got all of them. And I don't remember which episode it is but. Or which video it is, what day it is, but one of the days I actually talked to the guy who hires process servers, and he went on for about five minutes about all the things he hates about his current server. And, and he go. And I was like, how, how educational is that for someone who's just getting started? Like, give me the proof back. You know, communicate that there's no answer. If there's been three no answers, Communicate that to me so that I know it's at least being worked. Worked on. You know, it's the worst thing is like, someone comes to build a porch for you and they drop off some lumber and you don't see them for a week, and you're like, are we gonna get started? Like, when, when is this happening?

34:57Eric and Amy Luthy:Right?

34:58Mighty Mike:And so you got to communicate status. I love that you guys got that relationship thing down because one day they say you're. This is a law of process serving, is it? Probably, Probably a business is that you're only as good as your last serve. And so for one of those relationships you have, you're going to have a serve at some point, maybe you won't that it doesn't work out first, for whatever reason, the. The. The court date passed and you didn't know, and now the paralegal, somehow, usually they'll, okay, pass us. We got to reissue the papers. Please cancel the serve. We're going to send you new papers, whatever. But something could happen where the ball's in your court. You know, it's only a matter of time with volume, right? When that day comes, if you have a relationship with that paralegal, they're going to call. And instead of going, instead of never calling you again and hiring someone else like they did with the other people that they were using, they're going to call you and go, eric, what happened here, bud? Like, you know, we thought you had us, and now you have an opportunity to save that relationship and save that client. And I think that's what you're saying. You get all these people coming back not because what I just explained, but just because they're like, you're. You're coming through for them. Coming through for them. But the contractor is the same thing. You hire a general contractor, he's amazing, but he's only amazing while he's not so busy.

36:26Eric and Amy Luthy:Right.

36:27Mighty Mike:So being able to get busy, but at the same time, being able to fulfill the same level by hiring employees or doing, you know, because that was my thing. I would serve 20, 30 paper or attempt 20 or 30 papers a day, but the next day I had to drive south, so I wasn't going to be on the north side to do another attempt, you see. So if I got a same day up there and I had lots of servers that were trying to do what I was doing, and they would say they were making daily attempts when I know for sure they were not. And so, yeah, yeah, it's just the growing pains. But I'm excited to see what you guys do with it. I'm curious to know what you guys think about or what advice you would give to someone who's just getting started.

37:09Eric and Amy Luthy:Listen to the people that call. Some are just going to be the straight out. You get an email or you get a phone call, and they're just going to say, do this job. And you do, you know, and you got to wait for your opportunities. But you're going to hear a lot of these paralegals and complain about prior experiences or, like I said, I called four others, and then she told me her issue.


37:34Eric and Amy Luthy:And then that opened a door to what my competition's not doing. And so over time, listening to different, you know, clients tell little Pieces to that puzzle and putting that puzzle together on what is, what is the need that's not being serviced in my area in this industry? Because what I found surprisingly, is that the quality is not what I would have thought it would be. It's. And then we brought on somebody that only got through training and we had to let them go, unfortunately, that supposedly had all this experience with a competitor on the. They had some issues, they got back on track, they came to us. We're like, everything lined up. The resume looked great and we started training and what, you know, she gave an exam, one up, knocked once, came back to the. Well, they didn't come to the door. Had problems with the apps, all this stuff. So. And very short one sentence notes in there. You know, that would be. The other thing is we have experience in law enforcement, so I've testified in murder trials. I've written detailed reports. She's written detailed reports. We don't write a book. But we know that in that paragraph, I'm going to tell you everything. This car was there, it had moved. I, I checked, you know, the packages on the door. We talked to a neighbor. We do all this extra stuff. So they get a. I paint a picture to them. I just don't say, I knocked on the door. Nobody came to the door. You know, were the curtains open or closed? Were there lights on or not? I saw no lights. There were no cars here. There were no there. I paint the picture, they get more information. They understand it's like writing a book or a report. And really that's how you have to look at it. Because when I type out my, my books is what I would call it. You know, I want, I want the lawyer or the prosecutor, I want them to read that and go, oh, I can picture exactly what you did. You know what I mean? When I got here, there were three cars in the driveway, one up, lights on, music, no lights on. You want them to know everything that was there so that they can, they can read it and go, I know what you did. Like, it was like, they're there. You know what I mean? Some people are like, well, I don't have time for that. Okay, well then you don't want to communicate.

39:52Mighty Mike:You know, there's nothing worse than no answer.

39:58Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah, well, how did you get to the no answer? Like, are you sure you even knocked? I mean, yeah, but we have serve manager and so we have that app. So. So every time we do an attempt, the photos and the notes we take instantly get emailed to the client. So they can read exactly what we just did.


40:14Eric and Amy Luthy:You want to know?

40:16Mighty Mike:Yeah, the automation is really important. Having automation set up, whether you use server manager, pst, you got to have something set up so that you can communicate to the customer that communication and then. And then actually getting the job done. I've told the story many times, but one of the collection clients I got, he goes, he was complaining about his previous server. He's like, you got one freaking job. He's like, just serve the paper. So when I show up to court, when someone contests it and they show up to court, that there's a proof on file, I know it was served because the person's in court, they know about it. But you didn't file a proof of service. So this is like, okay, well, we'll, we'll increase our price 10, 15, and then we'll file all the proofs. Is that fair? Yes, of course.

41:00Eric and Amy Luthy:Course.

41:01Mighty Mike:Just get it done. And I'm like, you know, a thousand jobs every quarter, that's an extra, you know, you know, $1500 in proof filing fees. So, yeah, I think if you look at it like a business, like you said, and you treat. And you treat people like humans, you give them good customer service, and you're gonna out. You're gonna outshine 90% of the other people because they're doing it as honestly, they're doing it. You're doing it part time in some sense, Eric.

41:28Eric and Amy Luthy:Yes, yes.

41:29Mighty Mike:But, but, but you're. But if you, if it was just you and you only did it part time, it'd be hard. It'd be hard to compete with someone who's doing it full time. And the fact that you guys are a team too, it's just powerful. So, yeah, definitely listen to people who call. That's one of the reasons why I say when you're brand new, you may not put your rates on the website. Maybe think about it because you want them to call and so you can get feedback on your rates, get feedback on the areas and how much you charge in the different areas and, and stuff, but just kind of wrapping things up. Like, what, what's your. What's your parting piece of advice for those who, who maybe they're thinking about getting started and they hear your story and they're inspired. What would you say to them?

42:18Eric and Amy Luthy:The first is, don't say no to any job. Even if it's like, I can only charge a certain amount. It's. And then you're factoring in your drive time and you're all that stuff, and you're like, I, I'm not going to make any money on this job. It's not about that job. It's seeing where that job leads to that could be the next client that is giving you 10 jobs a week, a month from now. And so I do some what in the grocery business they call it loss leaders, you know, which is when you go in, you see Pepsi's two for a buck, two liters. You know, the store's not making money on that, but they're trying to get you in the door to buy all the other stuff. And so I don't worry about individual jobs in the pricing and trying to get my right price on things. I just say yes to everything I can. And that's going to lead to more jobs, more yeses, and the money will be there. I don't do anything for free, obviously, but you know, it's just don't say no. Think outside the box and try to solve people's problems.

43:24Mighty Mike:That's really good. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on and I appreciate all the, even just in such a short time you guys have, you could tell you have. I know some people have been in the business for 50 years, you know, combined experience, maybe say 20 years get married and they, a couple people I'm thinking about and they're, you kind of remind me of them. So you guys should be proud of where you're at so far. And I can only imagine in the next, you know, five years what you're going to build. I mean, you know, there's people out there paying millions of dollars for process serving companies.

43:58Eric and Amy Luthy:Right, Right.

44:00Mighty Mike:So.

44:01Eric and Amy Luthy:And there's nothing wrong with asking other people who are six who are succeeding quickly or you know, like us who started out and we're just like almost tripled our monthly income. You know, reach out to people like don't be afraid, like, you know, like Eric has reached out to his friend or you know, we've, you know, we've talked to you off, you know, off the grid or whatever, just asking questions and stuff. It's just what you learn from people. You might be from a different state with a little bit of different rules, but overall, you know, how you treat people is the same across the board.


44:34Eric and Amy Luthy:You know, if you're afraid of people like by all means don't do this because there's some really nasty people out there because people who stop paying their bills aren't super nice people. It's just how you treat them.


44:45Eric and Amy Luthy:You know, yeah.

44:46Mighty Mike:And, and, and you know, you get people are down and out. But you get people, the sweetest people in the world and then you get some people, like you said, that are just, you know, they're, they're sad about their situation and they just. Some people are just straight up criminals. They're career criminals and you're gonna have to serve them.

45:02Eric and Amy Luthy:So.

45:02Mighty Mike:Yeah, I definitely think you have to have a little bit of a thick skin, you know?

45:06Eric and Amy Luthy:Right.

45:07Mighty Mike:I always think.

45:08Eric and Amy Luthy:No, sorry, go ahead.

45:09Mighty Mike:No, I, I always think of the, the, the first time I ever got fired, I think I was like 17, I got fired from Denny's. And the way that she fired me was so funny because I was, I was working two full time jobs and I remember we're gonna have to let you go. And she was just like this big old smile and like. And I was like, really? I was like, oh, thank God, I'll go home and go to sleep. Because I was working two full time jobs. I had already had a kid at 17 and I was trying to make it, but I remember I just wanted to sleep. But anyway, she was so tough because she would tell you, like, I'm gonna need you to clean that better. And the way that she did is like, I feel like that's a perfect processor, right? You kept like, hey, I got some papers for you. And when they want to become violent, like you're not going to want to do that actually. Right. And you can back it up because you're ready, you're prepared, you've trained, you thought about this situation, you park close to the house, whatever. However, you have to keep yourself safe. We don't have a lot of those types of training in the community. I, I've thought about doing that where, where we just, you know, actually just do a mock situation. So because people need to know you got to be safe out there. It's, it's super important. But how can everybody keep up with everything you guys having going, going on there in Michigan, in cold Michigan?

46:27Eric and Amy Luthy:I know it stinks and I'm not a cold weather person and I hate the state. You know, I complain about it all the time, but I don't know, there you have to sell your papers. And we've talked about this recently. You know, people are like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm being sued. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind that I would love to say to them, I don't know, which credit card or mortgage did you stop paying?

46:54Mighty Mike:Do you really want me to have this conversation with you people?

46:58Eric and Amy Luthy:People are so shocked, like oh, my God, I'm getting sued. Well, geez, where do we begin? You know, it's just. You sell it, you know, whoever answers the door, if it's not the person you want, and just go, you know what? This so and so, you know, Joe, he really is going to need these documents. This is so important for him to get these. How can we get him to get these documents? You know what I mean, the urgency that. It's very important. Well, it is. I mean, you're not lying. It is important because they should be able to give their half the story to somebody. But I mean, it's just if you can sell it to them, you go a long way. Yeah, I mean, I just tell people, because in essence, if you think about it, people just from TV shows or movies being served as a bad thing, These documents are actually protecting you because the lawsuit is going to go on no matter what. It's not going to stop. Right. You know, so it's going on. These documents actually protect you because they tell you what you can do to respond. Right. You know, if you had a lawyer and you knew you needed one and you had one for this, he would want these documents. Right. So, you know, I'm giving you documents you really want. You don't know you want them right now. You really want them. So I just tell people he, you know, oh, your husband's not here. He's going to want these documents. Sense I can't tell you what they are. He's gonna want them. Yeah. And I'm just, okay, we'll come back after five, you know, or whatever.

48:19Mighty Mike:Yeah, well, people want, if people want to reach out to you, is there a phone number or even a website? You want to share that?

48:26Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah, we, You, you, you set up our website, so we appreciate that. Great website. We love it. Yeah. And that's at Samurai Investigations llc. Dot com. Yeah.

48:39Mighty Mike:Okay. Yeah, well, I'm sorry I didn't mention that earlier. No, that's all right.

48:44Eric and Amy Luthy:No, we got. No, we have all that through you. We're. We're happy with it. No complaints. You know, we desi. We. If we have something that we need, we just send her an email and she's like beyond amazing. So just fixes it, whatever it is, adds to her ex, whatever.

49:00Mighty Mike:But yeah, yeah, that's, that's the idea is like full service website support. I think people like hosting fee, you know, 97, you know, is our. It's the one that has online ordering and it's like. Well, it's not just that I Mean, it's full service. You can call, you can email, you can. And we'll take care of you. So. But yeah, go. So samurai investigations llc.com or you can

49:24Eric and Amy Luthy:call us or text us. Yeah, I think our numbers are on the website, aren't they? Numbers are on the website, but the main number and if I don't pick up it, go it forwards to her is 269-330-3218. That's a business main number.

49:40Mighty Mike:And I'll put that information below in the description as well on the Michigan state page. Would you guys be okay if I put this video at the top of our directory on the Michigan? Yeah. And then if you guys want to, we're rebuilding the directory, the Michigan area of the directory. I'd love to have maybe have your guys's input on the. The forms that we have. We're automating a lot of the forms for proofs and stuff, so getting your feedback on those would be great.

50:08Eric and Amy Luthy:Yeah, no problem. We will look at that. Yep. Don't be afraid to talk and ask people because otherwise you're never gonna know. You know what I mean?


50:16Eric and Amy Luthy:You don't ask. How would you know?

50:18Mighty Mike:If you don't ask, you don't know. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on the show. Be safe out there. Feel free as always to message me directly in the community or, or send an email if you have any questions. And you know, on the marketing side, the website's just the beginning. Being able to send out your email blast and you're using the automation tools that we have as well are super powerful. So just let me know if you need any help.

50:44Eric and Amy Luthy:All right, thank you. Thank you so much.

50:46Mighty Mike:We appreciate it. Appreciate you.

50:48Eric and Amy Luthy:All right, you have a great day.

50:49Mighty Mike:Yeah, we'll talk to you guys soon.

50:51Eric and Amy Luthy:All right, thanks. All right, thank you.

50:53Mighty Mike:You guys heard it here. Eric and Amy are crushing it in their business. You can crush it too. This is, this is the thing I try to tell people and I didn't even know the full story. But after talking to them and seeing how engaged they are and how awesome they are at what they're doing, like, I just, I hope it encourages you and I hope it causes you to take some action. Some mighty action. All right, we'll see you guys on the next episode. Be safe out there live. Mighty.

51:22Outro:That's a wrap on another episode of Process Server Daily where the legal support industry levels up. Want to grow your process serving business

51:31Mighty Mike:with the best marketing tools, the most

51:33Outro:engaged community, and the highest ranking directory online. Visit mightyprocessserver.com claim your listing Join our free community. Surround yourself with process servers who get it and build something real.

51:48Outro:From the field to the courtroom.

51:51Eric and Amy Luthy:This is Process Server Daily.

51:53Outro:Until next time.

51:54Outro:Stay safe out there and live Mighty.

36 - Eric and Amy Luthy | Mighty Process Server

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