What do you think it means to be an expert in “hard-to-get elicitation”? It means people tell you things. A competitive intelligence consultant discusses things that can help a business–at the expense of another.

When I strolled into a Talbots near closing time on a Wednesday night, I wasn’t expecting Phipps Plaza in Atlanta’s ritzy Buckhead neighborhood to be so dead. Perfect for me. Less so for the store manager. I entered keenly aware of how completely out of place I must have seemed–a heavyset thirtysomething black guy in Walmart dress slacks, trying to look casual while fondling Hil­lary Clinton-esque blouses. If I were on staff, I might have briefly considered the possibility that I had come in only to knock over the place while things were quiet.

And I would have been about right.

I’m a competitive-intelligence researcher. A spy, of sorts. I don’t break the law. But I always feel like I’m right on the edge of it, never mind my rigid ethical standards. The information I secure is given freely and obtained legally, and I don’t lie to get it, but in the back of my mind I’m always thinking, You probably don’t want me to know this.

I found myself on this perverse shopping trip for a smart green pleated skirt because a company had hired me to learn the sales targets and promotional activity from Talbots store managers. I had been recruited to attempt face-to-face social engineering–basically wheedling out the information in person.

At the time, I had only just launched my practice. I had left a decade-long career as a journalist a few years earlier to earn an M.B.A. With typically perfect timing, I entered the job market just as the financial services industry self-destructed. I had long wanted to start my own business; losing my marketing job at a Web start-up in a restructuring in 2010 simply accelerated things. Competitive intelligence seemed a good fit.