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Trust Is Everything in Personal Security – Here’s How Jake M. Owens Wins His Clients’

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For some people, the need to hire a personal security company comes out of the blue. They could be living their best life, climbing the proverbial ladder in the business world, only to find themselves breathing the same rarefied air as other people with security details. It’s just the consequence of success in specific fields and comes naturally.

In his career as a security officer and owner of Phalanx Group US, a security company, Jake M. Owens had the opportunity to guard people whose status demanded they have security. He’s had other kinds of clients, though.

“For the first few years on the job, I specialized in working with high-threat clients,” he recalls. “Those are people in danger of being shot at or who had those kinds of experiences in the past. That’s different from doing other types of work, like with a pop artist or someone who doesn’t attract that kind of attention.”

Even though each client is different, the one thing Jake M. Owens has found to be the same is the trust that has to exist between the client and the security officer. When it comes to building that trust, he has a two-ingredient recipe. It’s all about doing good work and communicating with the client well.

“Every time you start with a new client, there’s a training period where you have to learn the client and see their expectations and how to do your thing around how they operate in their life,” Jake M. Owens explains. “That’s when it’s important to demonstrate to the client that a, you have the hard skills they expect security people to have and b, that you have the soft skills that will keep you from using the hard skills as much as possible.”

Most people who are attracted to work as security guards come from a military or police background. This works out great for the clients, as they can be sure that the people in charge of their security have had good training in the hard skills – weapons handling, close combat, and self-defence.

These skills, however, are only one piece of the puzzle. Knowing how to do crowd work, move correctly, and enter and exit vehicles is also essential. The success and effectiveness of these skills often depend on how well they’re communicated to the client.

“I think we sometimes forget that the client isn’t an expert, and they don’t know what we do,” says Jake M. Owens. “Things go along much easier if we communicate with the clients what we’re doing and why. They don’t necessarily train for that in the military, which is a shame because you can’t build trust without communication.”

In a profession where the goal is to make certain everyone comes home safe and sound at the end of the day, trust is more than just a bonus. It’s fundamental and a tool that Jake M. Owens learned how to use to ensure he always completes his mission.

Members of the editorial and news staff of the Daily Caller were not involved in the creation of this content.