We locate information on behalf of our advisors using Web search secrets that we teach in our "Put the Relate Into Client Relationships" Training Program. You can learn more about the program and download free power search tools at the CI site. We have thousands of users of our program, and I receive quite a few notes from advisors on how valuable the tools are, and the sites that we recommend. So I thought I would start posting some of our favorite resources in the ActiFi/Advisor Products Blog so more advisors can take advantage of helpful online business information sources.

Today's ActiFi CI Featured Site:

www.pipl.com

Pipl is a people search meta-search engine, meaning it's searching other "people search sites" to deliver results. Just enter in a person's first and last name, and usually the state where the person lives is all that is needed (you can also search by email address, phone number, or username/screen name). The search results include pictures of the person, public record information, social networks the person may have, blogs where the person is featured, Web sites where the person is mentioned, and even documents like PDF files where the person's name is found. It's frankly a bit scary.

The results can be overwhelming, especially if the name is a more common one. And you'll need to have some knowledge about your person so you can scan the results and know which results are about your selected person, versus results that may be about someone else with the same name. My only wish is that you could add additional phrases or words during your search, e.g. a company name, job title, etc. so your results would be more limited and more relevant. Even with that shortcoming, however, I find Pipl to be one of the best free people search engines available.

The only other negative you'll find is that it can be a bit addicting, so make sure you have some time available before you first give it a try.