We were lucky to catch up with Jenny West recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jenny, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
I have had my own business practicing Medical Massage for several years. Once my husband retired from the military in 2016, he started up a brand new business, and asked me to join him. It was a completely different industry, a completely different mindset, brand new people, places and experiences. I took the risk and decided to join him. In the security industry, there are several hard skills that are common among all of the practitioners: shooting, fighting, driving, protecting, exploring, all while providing top notch customer service. The security industry is still a customer service industry, and there are many ways to gain a customer, and many ways to lose a customer. That is a principle i learned very early on with my own business. I had to carve out my own place among this new industry and see how i would best fit in. Meanwhile, I volunteer to facilitate an active local community support group with approximately 2600 members within my community. We network and market our own businesses, we commit to supporting local small businesses, and we donate our time, services and substance to those within our community that are in need. I’ve facilitated that group since 2013, so i have several years of holding networking events; planning different large and small group events meant to bring community together to create and strengthen friendships, support small businesses with our hard earned dollars, and get to know what is in our own rural community. Our group has proven that there is no need to go outside of our community for much…we have every kind of service and product right here in our own backyard!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I own Jenny West, Board Certified Massage Therapist. This is an award winning business since 2009, which I’m very proud of! I specialize in medical massage for the cervical spine (headaches fear me!!). I’m nationally board certified. Ive been practicing massage since 2006 and I love helping my clients feel better. I mainly see those that have had surgeries, injuries or accidents leading to neck and lower back pain. However…ive learned over the last couple of years (since covid has been around), that there is a great need for proper Swedish Massage. Ive not practiced Swedish Massage for a few years, as ive been concentrating on educating myself and practicing medical massage. Ive recently added Swedish Massage back to my menu. I know how to do it properly, with focus and intent, in order to help decrease stress and anxiety. I use a heated and padded table, which is extremely comfortable and eases my clients into la la land while I work out muscular and structural pain and issues. I just love helping my clients! Within the business that I own with my husband, Seven Spears Security International, i teach customer service skills and The Basics of Human Sifting and Interdiction, as well as operational movement with a high net worth client. I also teach with my husband, how to write a threat assessment and threat management plan. We teach together at a great school in Grand Junction, CO called Executive Security International. When we aren’t teaching, we have a few different clients that we provide services for. We work government contracts, we provide protective intelligence for different clients, we augment different security teams by providing advance work: both in the united states and overseas, and we conduct risk assessments and business impact analysis to different manufacturing companies. We LOVE working together!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One lesson that I had to unlearn is that i do not have to discount my services to get/keep new clients! This was a very new concept for me. When i started out with my massage business, i was providing free chair massage at different networking events, I was selling gift certificates for one hour massages for $30, I was selling myself out because i thought that was what started up a business. The reality is that i was only gaining customers that wanted discounts, not clients that needed my focused, intentional and educated body work. I was using all of the best products and including moist hot packs, hot stones, aromatherapy, myofascial cupping, etc with every appointment, and not charging more for any of these “extras”. I honestly feel like its the right thing to provide all of these extras without an extra cost, but i was not making the cost effective for my business. Then, i decided to increase my prices to cover all of my costs, to cover my time, to cover my education and experience. THATS WHEN i started getting clients that wanted to heal instead of clients that wanted to save money. I’ve transferred this thought process to the business that i own with my husband. We are not the cheapest around, but i know we are the best. We are all inclusive when we provide our services, so we do not nickel and dime for any “extras” in that business either.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
My husband and I are business partners within our Seven Spears Security International business. We took a leap of faith by working together! There are so many people out there that told us “You should never, EVER work with your spouse”, “you’ll hate working together and living together and having no breaks from each other!”, “Those couples that work together usually end in divorce!”. We are resilient and we both have the strongest work ethic that you’ll ever find in two people. The job always comes first whenever we are working! We both have such different personalities and educational backgrounds, so its actually pretty easy to have my husband fill certain roles, and me fill the other roles. We both have a military background…in fact we both met while stationed at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. We’ve been married 31 years now, and we’ve worked our way through many different conflicts. Our marriage is filled with love, lots of laughs and “sticktoitiveness”. We are not only committed to each other, we are committed to providing the very best service available within our industry, and our clients know it!
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Candice Baker Photography, Colorado Photographer Jamie Rich Photography