Show Notes:

Davy Keith (00:00):

Full sprint and had his taser out and he said, if you move, I'm tasing you. So I just stood there. So he grabbed me and threw me on my car, the hood of my car, hard enough to dent my car, the hood, and put me in cuffs and told me to sit down on the hood of my car side.

Mighty Intro/Outro (00:20):

Welcome to the Mighty Process Server podcast where the stakes are high and the stories are real. Do you have what it takes on this podcast? You'll hear from the process servers on the front line serving American justice one door at a time. Buckle in and turn it up because it's time to roll.

Mighty Mike Reid (00:57):

Take a minute to fill in the gaps and tell us a little bit about your personal life.

Davy Keith (01:01):

Well, I'm over the hill just turning 44 I think this year, if I remember correctly. And I've been involved in the process industry since probably around 97 and started out as a private investigator in private work and did that for about three years or so, and then started doing process serving and kind of like that a lot better. But as far as personal life do have quantum process, that is what keeps me busy Monday through Friday and then weekends I'm usually doing other things, but fortunately I've gotten to the point where I have a lot of people that serve for me. So I'm more or less just manage my company now. That's

Mighty Mike Reid (01:50):

Excellent. When you can get to a point where you're able to just kind of control your business and spend your time in the office making sure that everything is good, do you ever get out there and show 'em how it's done?

Davy Keith (02:01):

Well, fortunately I have a team of really good servers and I like to offer as I review the serves, offer suggestions and just experience. Some of the servers have been doing it longer than I have. Oh, wow. I consider going out. I do go out when I can. Just some local serves. It works better for me to kind of control and I still enjoy. I really, it's ironic because I said that I would never get to that point and it just kind of happened.

Mighty Mike Reid (02:32):

Yeah, and it does happen. So Dave, before we move on too far into your business, because I know you're doing a lot of awesome things and you got some cool stories to tell today, how many kids do you have? Sure.

Davy Keith (02:42):

I have three that I know of. And let's see,

Mighty Mike Reid (02:45):

I have

Davy Keith (02:46):

No, seriously, I have three Kayden. He's turning 14 next month and Josh just turned 12 this month. And McKayla, she's nine. Great wife. We've been married 16 years. Things going real well there.

Mighty Mike Reid (03:02):

That's awesome. That's awesome. Family is most important. Absolutely. As process servers, we go out there and sometimes we come home. I mean to me it's what makes the job worth it. You come back and you see your kids and you're like, okay, I'm going out and sacrificing all this time. It's for something. So that's why I like to start the podcast with the family. Some people don't want to really linger on it, they don't want everyone to know their personal life, but

Davy Keith (03:25):

That's pretty easy to find these days with Facebook. If you're on Facebook, there's hardly any secrets anymore.

Mighty Mike Reid (03:31):

That's true, that's true. So how did you get started? You said you were a private investigator, but tell me the story. Who gave you your start? Who did you meet or how'd that happen? Well,

Davy Keith (03:39):

Ever since I was walking and kept far back as I can remember, I wanted to be in law enforcement. It was just something about that field that really appealed to me. I went to college, got a four year degree in criminal justice, and that was what I had my heart set on because I really enjoyed everything there was about law enforcement. So I got involved in that, worked at a small police department, had a bad motorcycle wreck. I used to ride motorcycles quite a bit and while I was in the hospital recovering from that a job that I'd really wanted in law enforcement, they said that I was going to be able to go to that particular academy. But in the meantime, as I was recovering, I had decided to start kind of on my own. I'm fourth generation and started doing some PI work and it just kind of hit the ground running.

(04:22):

I remember back before I did any of this, a friend of mine had told me, you know what you really need to do? You need to try to serve papers. And I said, what is that? I said, well, you go out and you cervical paper. And I said, okay, well that might be something. So it was integrated into my, Keith Investigations was the name of my business, but it really didn't take off until I kind of got burnt out in the PI field and let the law enforcement job go. And I started doing that and eventually shifted over to doing process, serving full time. I can't really remember who gave me my first serve, but all of this just happened. It never really was planned. That was really what's kind of awesome about it. I'm a strong believer in faith in God. This was not, if you would've told me in college or growing up, this is what you're going to be, you're going to have a process serving company. I would've been

Mighty Mike Reid (05:13):

Disappointed

Davy Keith (05:14):

Because it didn't sound very exciting and I wanted a life full of excitement, but it just kind of happened and that's the weird part about it. But it's built on itself and continues to do that. And today we do very little advertising because you don't have to really. So it just worked out.

Mighty Mike Reid (05:31):

That's great. So you started your business and as private investigation and do you still do private investigation?

Davy Keith (05:37):

No. I tell people when I still get calls for something that I haven't been doing for 16 years and I tell 'em, if you offer me $50,000 to do a case, I don't think I would take it. Really. It's one of those things that it's really good that it happened because actually that's how I met my wife. I was hired by my future mother-in-Law the time and the more I got to know her, the more I really felt like she was a very upstanding, really good person. And at the time I was kind of looking for a wife, and so I asked her, I said, do you happen to have a daughter? She said, yes, I do. And so that's how I met my wife and I had to meet her dad after everything kind of came out. That was kind of awkward, but he's a really good guy and everything worked out.

Mighty Mike Reid (06:20):

Davy, you got a lot going on and there's a reason why you're on my show. I heard you tell an awesome story and I wanted to get into the different stories and that's what makes the podcast process server daily such a cool podcast and why we are getting more listeners every day. You're full of experiences and let's get to your worst experience working in the field.

Davy Keith (06:43):

Sure. My worst experience has probably been one of my greatest lessons. I am a hard charger. I don't give up when someone doesn't want to be served. That made me more determined to get it done. I've learned over the years that not only is it not a good idea to keep going when there is potentially it's potentially dangerous serve, but when someone just doesn't want to be served. I know that sounds counterintuitive to what we do, but there's serves that you should back off from and the experience that I'll tell you about is one that has helped me understand how to do that and if a situation is going bad, how to hire, get another server in there, just get a fresh face or look at it from a different angle. But this happened probably around 6, 7, 8 years ago, but I had just a regular subpoena for deposition.

Davy Keith (07:38):

It was in a domestic matter and the person I was trying to serve was a teacher who happened to be a counselor as well. For a child that was caught up in the divorce, you have the child custody. For whatever reason, the plaintiff needed to subpoena this teacher to have a deposition. So I'm thinking this can't be any big deal. First mistake, any kind of domestic service, you have to really do yourself a favor and read the complaint, kind of get a background, talk to the attorney to make sure there's nothing in there. I went to the house or either I called the lady, I can't remember which one I did first this week. I've done that before. Just, Hey, my name's Davey Keith, have a subpoena I need to give you and diffuse the situation if there's any kind of get a feel for the situation.

(08:23):

And again, that sounds like, well, why would you want to do that? Then they're not going to come to the door. It's just different strategies. So I made contact or I left a voicemail. Her husband called me back and he was very, very upset, very belligerent, very just very rude. And I said, look, you're former law enforce enforcement. I'm former law enforcement. I said, this is nothing personal. I said, even I tell people to this day, if I give you the subpoena and you don't want to go, you do what you want to. It's up to you. This is still free country. After that conversation, it was a clue that especially some of the things he said, it probably wasn't the best idea to proceed with the service. But nonetheless, I did. Went out to the house, knocked on the door, nobody would answer the door.

(09:03):

Her car was there. So I kind of backed off for a minute and sat and thought, and I had this strategy. I no longer use it, but squeaky wheel gets the wall no matter who you're dealing with. And I knocked on the door for probably a couple minutes, not just beating down the door or just knocking the door, hoping that she'd get tired and come to the door and answer it, or either the police would get called. That was the strategy because I had called the sheriff's department, said, Hey, if you get a call, I'm at this address trying to serve this paper. Okay, that's fine. And I checked with a neighbor. Neighbor, said she's home. So after knocking on the door for four or five minutes, I did another little strategy, which was to leave, get in the car, drive around to stay, make the block or go a mile or two in return.

(09:47):

And I can't tell you how many people I've caught outside looking around, seeing if anything's been disturbed. When I came back, she was leaving the house walking out of the house and a sheriff was pulling in and I said, well, this is good. I'm going to get this served. Well, I saw who the deputy was and that was the first major sign that I needed to just drive on because I'd had problems with this deputy before interfering with service. I had talked to the sheriff about him and he said, if you ever have a problem with him, just let me know. Well, I made the decision to go ahead and get out and I didn't park behind him because tactically speaking, they don't like when you block them in or whatever. So I pulled into the neighbor's house, walked out, he still didn't see me.

(10:25):

So as I got closer, I said, Hey, sheriff his name. And I said, how are you doing? He said, who are you? And I said, well, I'm Davey Keith. I'm the one that I called you guys about this service. And so he shouted to me to stay at my car. And when he said that, I said, you know what? This is not going to go well. So I stayed at my car and he walked over to the lady and they proceeded to have a conversation. And this was I guess another bad decision on my part. I should have been patient, just stood there without saying a word. But after what seemed to me like several minutes, I said, ma'am, I'm just here to serve you a paper. So I laid it on the ground and went to get back in my car and he ran up to me full sprint and had his taser out and he said, if you move, I'm tasing you.

(11:04):

So I just stood there. So he grabbed me and threw me on my car, the hood of my car, hard enough to dent my car, the hood, and put me in cuffs and told me to sit down on the hood of my car. So I did. And he went back over to the lady, and at the time I was wearing Bluetooth, that was the thing back then. But I was able to inch my shoulder over and double click the button and it called somebody and I said, Hey, I need you to call this attorney. Tell him to call the sheriff and tell him what's going on. So anyway, the word got back to the client who called the sheriff. Well, I stayed in cuffs and he saw me talking on that. So he ran over, ripped it off my head and said, do you have any other phones?

(11:44):

He was kind of screaming at me. I said, no, I don't. So he took me and put me in his patrol car and I sat there for about at least an hour while they talked and talked and talked. So he gets in the car, doesn't say a word, we drive to the jail. Mind you, I've taken people to jail, but I've never been in jail incarcerated, so I'm not feeling very good about this situation. And when we get to the jail, he made some comments to me about Welcome to my county, and this is what you get when you act stupid or something. And I didn't say anything. So they strip searched me and put me in an orange jumpsuit, put me in leg irons. And then also hand irons actually had me stand on the wall for about 30 minutes and I didn't complain. I just stood there, throw me in the drunk tank with another guy and made good friends with him. And so I'm thinking, this is really, I don't know what's going to happen here because hours and hours and hours are going by

Mighty Mike Reid (12:38):

Here. You are serving legal process, right? It's all about perception. Here you are a process server who's been in law enforcement before, been in the situ. I was just in a situation like this the other day where I got out of the car and walked up when they told me to stay in the car and I said, listen, I'm already serving her. And I served her and walked away. They listened to me. But in this case, this was a guy you've had a problem with before. So you're already at this point, I just want to emphasize you're in an orange jumpsuit as a process server in jail sitting next to someone potentially you could have arrested before in the past, probably not, right? But now you're friends with a guy or you at least acquaintances with a guy. Where does it go from there?

Davy Keith (13:24):

Well, anytime I would have a confrontational serve back then, I would call my wife before. And then as soon as I got through, I'd call her and say, everything's fine. Well, I had called her and told her the situation and she never hears back from me. I didn't think about telling the attorney to call her. So after an hour or so, or she's wondering what happened, is he dead? And so I'm sitting there in jail and it is a very bad feeling, even though you know that it's going to turn out okay and what possibly. But see, at this point, I didn't know what he was going to charge me with. I didn't know. See, I carry a gun. I'm concealed carry permit, strong second Amendment supporter. Obviously I have a firearms business and I don't believe in, I never, ever, ever want to shoot anyone.

(14:06):

I have pulled my gun. That was the other bad service I was going to tell you about. So I'm thinking, okay, is he going to charge me say something that I tried to use this gun? What story did they concoct while this timeframe went on? They would never tell me what I was charged with, which was another problem. But I'm in jail and it goes for eight hours. And finally they tell me, someone's here to see you, and it's my wife. So I get out and they let me bond out, and if it turns out they had five charges on me, they impounded my car. I mean, it's just blown me away. What can you possibly be charging me with? Well, I'll tell you, trespassing, criminal trespass, family disturbance, fair to obey, a lawful order. And I think the other one was impersonating a police officer.

(14:49):

I had a badge at the time, and this is another thing, story we can talk about. It clearly said process server. I don't promote badges. I can go on and on and on about that and not just this one experience, but anyway. And I had made it clear to her and her husband that I was a process server. I was not law enforcement, but they charged me with it. Anyway, so we get out, we go get my car, and this is about $2,000. By the time I pay the bond and getting the car back, I'm glad he didn't charge me with say that I had used the firearm in this, charged me with some really bad, it was all misdemeanors. Well, the next day she finds out that I'm going to charge her with interference with process because in the state of Mississippi, Mississippi Code 9 7 9 75, any person who interferes or avoids process can be charged with a criminal offense.

(15:38):

So at this time, we've got attorneys. So her attorney calls my attorney and says, oh, wait a minute, going to, if you won't charge her with that, she's going to drop all her charges. And at the time I was like, that's fine, because I don't have any problem with her. My problem is with that deputy because he's the one who trumped this up, and there was going to be that one charge with him, which was disorderly conduct. So that went away. I had to sign that I wouldn't sue her, and I was fine with that because she didn't want to be served and whatever. That's fine. But the way the deputy handled this, my bond was with him of contention. That took about two, well, it took about a year to finally go to court on this, and we're standing in court. He gets up in court and says that he told me to stay at my car.

(16:18):

And he told me that five times, and I kept charging him or breaking away from my car. I got on the stand, I said, your Honor, that's a complete lie. I said, prior law enforcement, he told me to stay at my car. I stayed at my car. I said, that's not the truth. And he found me guilty. Anyway, went on the officer's testimony, which conveniently, they don't have cameras or audio at the time, and the statement he had made to me in jail conveniently disappeared. Something lightning had hit the jail is what they said and destroyed the recording. So I'm convicted of criminal disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor, but I wasn't going to let that lie. So I sued him for false arrest. I hired three different attorneys because the first one turned out to be a drunk. The second one just wasn't aggressive enough.

(17:08):

Then the third one was the right one. We started doing depositions with her and the deputy. All of a sudden, her testimony was not lining up with what he said I did. They're beginning to think, uhoh, we got a problem. She's saying that I stayed in my car, which was what I did. So they start talking, okay, we want to settle. And I told the attorney, this is not about money. This is about what he did. And I did an investigation into him, and it was multiple reports all throughout the county of people he had done wrong. Many deputies that worked there did not like him. So anyway, long story short, they offered a settlement, went ahead and took the settlement, which was only about cost me 10, all the attorneys and everything. It was a $13,000 settlement or whatever. I made 3000, but it was not worth, it was worth the learning experience.

(17:56):

And ultimately what happened was he got let go. I got the settlement and I got that charge dropped. So it took me two years and $10,000 and a lot of mental anguish. But out of this, I have learned one important lesson. Never ever, ever assume that just because you're acting as an arm of the law and that you're doing, even if you're not doing anything wrong, that you can't get in trouble or be charged with something. And when there is a, what I didn't know at the time was that he was friends with, her husband used to work on the force together. So this was kind of a brother deal. When I encounter confrontation, severe confrontation or when people are absolutely adverse to getting served to back off the serve, and it's not worth me getting into a physical confrontation, getting sued, getting arrested, and sometimes I just send a different server more often Now I send the sheriff's department and we have a really good server here locally, which it wasn't in my county anyway, but that was a really big learning experience.

Mighty Mike Reid (18:58):

So Davey, that's an awesome thing to take from your story. I enjoyed that story. Tell me about, and there's a lot of them I'm sure in your life, but tell me about your greatest experience working in the field.

Davy Keith (19:09):

I think that perhaps it is a culmination of people that I've been able to meet. I can't tell you on the number of occasions that I've been invited for dinner, I've been invited back to people's houses in the south. People are very hospitality oriented. And when I go out to serve and I've seen some of your videos, I don't come up there and say, I'm looking for so-and-So I get up there and say, Hey, do y'all believe we got that six inches of snow this year? Or isn't a beautiful day and whatever I need to do to break the ice because I'm there to get this job served, but I'm also there because you're dealing with people. And I tell people all the time, just because you're getting served with papers doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. That's why I'm actually doing you a favor by being here.

(19:54):

And I know you don't think that, but if I wasn't here to notify you of what's going on, you'd never know. People could railroad you in a court action. But the greatest experiences I've had have been able to meet with people and actually get very, very personal information of a situation and perhaps even share my faith. I have prayed with people on a number of occasions, and I'm not saying that to toot my horn, it's just because you get to meet people in probably some of the, I know when this happened to me, or anytime you've got a lawsuit hanging over your head, it's a very bad experience. And when you can actually offer comfort to someone in the smallest way, whatever that may be, that's been probably the greatest reward or best experience I've had, being able to help people hang on when they're, this could be the straw that backs the camel's back.

(20:43):

And I've seen, we all know people who've committed suicide, and this may be the very last thing that pushes someone over the edge. And I've had situations where people admitted to me, I was contemplating that and I said, look, this is why you need to live. This is why you need to keep going. All this stuff is going to go away this time next year. This is not even going to be an issue. So being able to meet the people. We have some people we've served so many times and I've made really good friends, and I take all the server jokes in stride about, if I'd have saw you coming, I'd have ran the other way. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people say that. So it's hard to nail down one exact one, but I do have one. I just can't really say. I just can't go into details. But she was basically being sued and had no money and was trying to raise some kids, and we were able to help her in a small way, and that was probably one of the most rewarding things.

Mighty Mike Reid (21:38):

That's awesome. So there's a couple things I got from your story. So first of all, you're human. We're all human. We get out there, we're out there serving. Yeah, we don't want the feeling of rejection, the feeling of somebody yelling at us. We don't want that. But the truth is, when you get out there, you do have a job to do. Okay, you get the job done, but it doesn't mean you can't be professional. It doesn't mean you can't be human. I don't know. You said you saw some live videos and I don't know if it's for them or for me, but I feel like when I'm like, Hey, I love this porch. Did you build this deck? And they're like, yeah, who are you? I'm a processor and that's the part that I don't really want. We don't have to talk about that too much. Here's that. But seriously, what did you use to varnish this deck? I've had long conversations with guys that are just really cool,

Davy Keith (22:22):

And that's why I'd like to iterate just quickly that we don't employ gimmicks for the most part. We don't employ deceitful tactics. I mean, there's going to be some people that you absolutely know. Without a doubt, you're going to have to use some kind of, you may choose to use some kind of tactic that makes them think you're there for another reason, but it just makes me feel icky. The longer I do this, the more I like to knock on the door, tell 'em my name, and I'm trying to get in touch with So-and-So, and well, he's not here. Okay, well here's my phone number. Can you tell 'em to give me a call? I don't have to go into what it's, if they ask, I'll say, sure, it's court papers. Not a big deal. I do a lot of straightforward serving. That's kind of where I've come to and

Mighty Mike Reid (23:07):

I appreciate that you've mentioned Davey. I appreciate you mentioned faith. Faith is a big part of my life too. I know that I'm a Second Amendment supporter. I'm conservative. But the thing is, I know there are so many people out there that have different views and I don't want them to think that I judge them differently. So I don't go into it a lot. But I got to tell you, there's a lot to that when it comes to serving, getting out of the car, it's pit dark outside. There's a dog somewhere. You're out in the middle of nowhere in the country. If you don't have faith that somebody's looking out for you, then you must be the baddest MA pajama out there. You know what I mean? Well

Davy Keith (23:41):

Add another situation. Won't make this one very long at all. But there was several people, I had to serve some adoption papers on a guy. There was three ex-cons. I didn't know they were ex-con. One of 'em actually killed someone. So I got out to serve him and it turned into a scuffle. He pushed me, and when he did, I had my pepper spray in my hand, so I sprayed him. Well, that kept the other two guys from jumping me, which would've been a deadly force situation. Three guys against me, got back to my car, got out of there. So intermediate level of force is also good caring type of spray, big proponent of that. But that intermediate level of force actually saved either my life or their life. I have no doubt they wanted to jump me. When I got back to my car, they started beating on my car.

Mighty Mike Reid (24:24):

Wow. Mississippi process servers, man, watch out.

Davy Keith (24:29):

A lot of this has to do with how you approach people and knowing when not to approach people. If they're out there drinking or using, don't walk up there and try to serve 'em a favor. Bad timing.

Mighty Mike Reid (24:39):

Yeah, timing and place. I call it prime time. I don't want to go. So if somebody tells me just one little tip, if someone tells me that there's a guy they need to have served and he's an alcoholic, I'm not going at nighttime, I'm not going at 6:00 PM I know he's going to be drunk. I'm going at 9:00 AM 8:00 AM something like that because he is going to be hungry. He might be a little cranky, but it'll be a little bit more clearheaded. And every time I've done that, it's worked out. I mean, I had to serve a guy in his underwear on his front lawn at six 30 in the morning one time because they said he starts drinking as soon as he wakes up. So I was there at six 30.

Davy Keith (25:14):

I was going to say, without alcoholic, you really never know when he's going to be the best or worst time.

Mighty Mike Reid (25:19):

Yeah, exactly. So you got a lot going on. I feel like Server Nation is going to be able to learn a lot as far as defense from this podcast, so I'm really excited about that. But what kind of advice do you want to give to the struggling server out there right now that's trying to build this business?

Davy Keith (25:35):

Okay, so just a few short really good tips that I've learned over the years. First of all, every opportunity you have, speak with that attorney in the courthouse. Promote yourself. Join as many process serving directories as you can. Go the extra mile for your client, your client's paying you $50, whatever to serve. Go to that second address, do a skip trace. Go the extra mile as often as you can to get your foot in the door and to prove yourself. We're to the point where we don't guarantee service. We guarantee to make X number of attempts, but go the extra mile when you're responding to naps request or whatever that you may get. Have a signature line because I can't tell you the number of people, I don't even respond to 'em if they respond back from their iPhone. There's no signature line, $50, and that's it.

(26:24):

And be specific when they ask you how much for how many attempts to attempt to serve, read what they're asking and respond to their questions briefly, because I look for people who have an attention to detail because if they're responding back with an attention to detail and they have a signature line that shows me that they're on of their game, but at every opportunity you have and also have another business, don't depend. Don't get a big business loan trying to get into the industry, have a source of income and let your business build itself on its own. Don't go out and get a $20,000 loan. Think you'd need that. All of my businesses were built from the ground up. Didn't start with a huge buy-in. You don't have to have costly process server software. You can start just a simple spreadsheet or something. So those are some of the few things that I found that I encourage.

Mighty Mike Reid (27:14):

That's awesome. That's golden nuggets raining down on Server Nation right now. That is awesome. So what are you working on right now that has you most excited, most fired up?

Davy Keith (27:25):

Oh, well, in life, I'm actually bought a Humvee, a military Humvee, and that's awesome. Just playing with that. I thought the Jeep was the ultimate Lego vehicle, but I found out that this military vehicle, there's so many things you can do. I wouldn't say that I'm a prepper per se, but I like to read a lot about in time apocalyptic type scenarios. So I'm working on my Humvee, I think I was painting it. You could spray paint it and it looks cool. Even you could just sit there with a spray can. And so I'm doing that and I see my daughter kicking the soccer ball, and I think to myself, I probably should go over there and kick the ball with her. Well, I got back focused on what I was doing and looked up, she's kicking the ball. I should go kick the ball with her.

(28:15):

So the third time I say, okay, so I put the pan can down, I go over there and we kick the ball for 30 minutes. That probably was the most important thing I did that day, because no matter what I have on my agenda, it's so easy as a workaholic, I guess you would say, or as a very focused person to forget some of the most important things. And that's making sure that you spend time with your children and your wife. Because I can tell you when I was out serving from dawn to dusk, that it affected my family life. And sometimes, unfortunately early on, you may have to do that, but once you can get to where you can when you have time, for me, the most important thing is trying to remember. It's not all about me. I've got other people in my life I want to do things with that I need to do things with so that it will build that good relationships,

Mighty Mike Reid (29:04):

Prior proper planning prevents problems, has always been my five Ps that I remember whenever I start planning and I want bring that up only because I have this similar situation. I call it promptings, if you will. I get prompted like, okay, a good example is similar is to your painting. Example. I'm on the couch playing with my iPad. I'm always creating new graphics for the podcast or something using Canva. And my daughter's like, daddy, you said you were going to play Barbies with me, and she's got this little dollhouse and she's this perfect little girl and she's only five. And so I'll go play with her. But sometimes I'm like, okay, you set the Barbies up on the table for tea time and then I'll come, then I'll come. Once you got that ready, I'll come. It's just me putting it up.

Davy Keith (29:53):

One of the things that I've found out is you don't have to necessarily spend vast amounts of time doing these things. It can be simple as five minutes doing something. And to them, I don't know, they're on a different time scale. Little things can really make a big difference. And that's why I go back to when you're out serving and you say a kind word to someone while you're serving or you actually make a friend out of a person than an enemy. Words make a difference. And little words can make a huge difference in people's lives. And that prompting that you're talking about may be something that you need to say to that person that could actually alter the course of their entire life.

Mighty Mike Reid (30:30):

That's so true. That's so true. I had a friend that called me, he wasn't my friend. I wasn't sure I was kind of mean to him in high school. And one time, and I really liked him actually, when we were adults, I didn't understand why I treated him the way I did in high school. But he told me, he called me pal. He goes, Hey, pal, I'll see you tomorrow. And just him saying pal was like, wait, are we cool? I think we're cool now. And it was just like that one word. So it's so powerful what one word can do. And so what is your favorite skip trace tip or trick?

Davy Keith (30:59):

Don't overlook the obvious. Take that person's phone number, plug it into Facebook, and if they listed that number with Facebook, it'll pull 'em up. It's so easy. I mean, a lot of people know that, but some people don't. No,

Mighty Mike Reid (31:10):

That's a good one. I can't tell you how often I go on Facebook and I'll type into someone's name and I'm like, I can't find 'em. And I'm like, oh yeah, I have their phone number. And it

Davy Keith (31:19):

Works. Exactly. And there's multiple easy skip tracing tools to use, which of course, we all know the credit headers, which is a base. And that's the thing I tell, especially New Service Corps, anyone for that matter, a Skip T trace is not just a report you run and then you give them an address. It's getting for us, we get a verbal verification from a friend, neighbor, relative or other person. But I don't want to get too far into that. Without answering your question,

Mighty Mike Reid (31:44):

What is your favorite tool for defense? I'm

Davy Keith (31:47):

Going to go with my firearm. It's not just to protect me. It may be to protect my family or someone else, or everyone in Mississippi. Nearly everyone in the south has a dog, and those dogs can be quite dangerous at times. But I don't carry the weapon for intimidation or any kind of anything like that. It's concealed. But my gun is only 99.999% of the time. And it's not that I'm afraid. I'm not afraid at all. Mainly I have a gun and I have God, I depend on him. But yeah, I'm not going to give up my gun. I'm not going to give it up very easily based on any past experiences of never having to be in a deadly force or deadly situation, does not in any way change any statistic that you could be. So a lot of people use their past experiences to make, I keep it in my car, I keep it by my bed when I'm in the living room. Home invasion could take as little as three seconds before they're in. So I always warn people to never use your past experiences as a template to try to figure out what could happen in the future.

Mighty Mike Reid (32:56):

What book would you recommend?

Davy Keith (32:59):

Okay, this is where it gets weird. I like to read post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction.

Mighty Mike Reid (33:06):

That's a mouthful. I'll have to put that in the show notes so we can read it.

Davy Keith (33:09):

Yeah, well, it's about what would you do if basically the world, your life ended as you know it, an EMP multiple, any kind of disaster. And I don't really like to get into the zombies. I like real world stuff. I love military history. I have a book about one of the most prolific snipers in the War of Northern Aggression, civil war. That is really good. But right now I'm reading a CG Cooper book. I can't even remember the name of it, but the one I would recommend is the Survivalist. It's a very good series, very well written. And the only thing I'll tell you, if you start reading it at night and you get into this kind of stuff, I'll look over at the clock and it'll be three in the morning and I'm like, oh man. Got to get to

Mighty Mike Reid (33:55):

Bed. Okay. What's the greatest advice you've ever received?

Davy Keith (33:58):

Greatest advice. My grandfather, before he died, he would tell me about the depression, the Great Depression, and coming up through that. And I wouldn't say this is, I don't know if this is the greatest advice because that's such a profound statement, but that's just what comes to my mind. Some of the things he told me, and he told me this, get out of debt and stay out of debt. Because if you're in debt and things go bad, you'll lose everything. But if you're out of debt and what you have will remain yours. And I've taken that and applied that.

Mighty Mike Reid (34:27):

That's good. What would you do if you woke up today, had all of the same skills and knowledge, had no clients, a smartphone, a car, and only $100? What would you do in the next seven days to grow your business?

Davy Keith (34:40):

Well, I'd burn that smartphone up with, I go to the Mississippi bar.org and I get email addresses and I start sending out emails, and I make it enticive for them to want to use me. Your first service is free. I want to get your business anywhere. I could find where potential clients would be in selling myself as far as selling my product, not myself selling my product or what I can do the a hundred dollars, I'm probably going to have to spend that on gas to figure out which areas I'm going to go to, getting my name out there any way I can and not really doing it in a cost effective way. People, you give them a business card, they put it in their pocket. They probably never look at it again. Everybody does everything by email, electronic talking to a client, I might need you for a service coming up.

(35:26):

Okay, can I send you an email so you'll have my contact information? Sure. I give you an email, boom, you send an email right away. So use that smartphone to communicate. We funnel all as much communication as we can through email because it saves time trying to get out there and solicit whomever I could possibly work for and doing a hundred dollars job for $10 to get my foot in the door to prove myself. And eventually you have to draw a line there. What you're going to do. You don't want to run yourself in the ground.

Mighty Mike Reid (35:56):

No, I love that feedback. I love the Bar association that's really outside the box. I love the email. In the legal industry, we live and die by our email, same as they used to live and die by their fax machine before. Right now it's the email. So I love what you shared about the email about getting people's email people live and die by the email. This is one thing I want to add to what you said, and then we'll wrap it up. If you could send one extra email a day, just one, think about it. That's 365 emails that you didn't send that you haven't been sending now. And maybe it's not an email, maybe it's a phone call. Go this step further, right? To get their email. Maybe you don't have their email address. I think that so many people though, they have a block, a mental block that says, there's nothing I can do as a person. I'm not lucky enough. And these are stories that we tell ourselves inside, and you got to conquer those. Okay? You got to conquer those. So David, I love what you've shared so far about everything has been awesome. We've dropping major value bombs on us today. I know we could probably talk for another two hours. You're full of stories, Mr. Keith, this has been fun. What is the best way that we can connect with you and then we'll say goodbye.

Davy Keith (37:06):

Sure. As previously mentioned, email's great, keith@quantumprocess.com. My wife told me, I was complaining about someone's email address being complicated, and she's like, you have a complicated, and I was like, I came out with a business name being in bed one night and the next day decided to call myself. I read it out of a book, but email, K-E-I-T-H at quantum, Q-U-A-N-T-U-M process.com. And of course, my phone number is cell phone number. I'm not afraid to give that out. So many people are afraid to give their cell phone out. Anyway, (601) 319-2675. I'm on Facebook. You can actually Google Davey Keith, and all of my website will come up. I'm real easy to find. I don't really have many secrets when it comes to how do you find Davey Keith?

Mighty Mike Reid (37:54):

So Davey, I want to personally thank you for coming on the show. I know Server Nation appreciates all of the value bonds that you draw today. I've been impressed with your story, and I'm excited to share it with the world. Until next time, serve a nation. You've been served up some awesomeness by Davey, the Black Belt and mighty Mike, the podcast server.



Mighty Intro/Outro (38:13):

And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Mighty Process Server podcast. But before we go, a huge shout out to our sponsor, mighty website builder.com. In the fast-paced world of legal support services, your online presence is crucial. Mighty website builder.com empowers legal support professionals with high performing sleek websites that make a lasting impression and land you more clients. Visit mighty website builder.com to elevate your digital footprint. Until next time, stay safe out there and live mighty.