Author: Shaun West
ISBN No: 978-1-919166001
Review date: 09/06/2026
No of pages: 160
Publisher:
Publisher URL:
https://shaunwest.co/meet-shaun-west/
Year of publication: 19/09/2025
Brief:
Tactical Advantage
price
£6.99 Kindle edition
You can go to any bookshop for a shelf of books about how to do well in business. Not so readily available on high street bookshop shelves, but plentiful enough, are books about how to provide security services. Shaun West pulls off a relative rarity by doing both in his book Tactical Advantage. Sub-titled: ‘A Field Manual for Security Business Owners Who Want to Lead, Grow, and Take Control’.
After he left the Army in 2005, he went into close protection in London. In 2011, he had a second go at running his own security business; more successful than the first, it expanded in scope and geographically. As he relates, โwhen jobs go well, referrals followโ, and he offered protection for โsome of the worldโs most recognised individualsโ and consultancy, training and mentoring for private security firms and corporate clients. Heโs now a business coach and consultant, and a director of the industry body the British Bodyguard Association (BBA), besides a supporter of veterans in the business world. Early on he explains the title. Tactics get the job done, while โadvantageโ is a matter of managing staff, figuring out the next step (a process that never stops, daily), besides (for the security firm) protecting a client. He has lots to offer, not only about what we might call the nuts and bolts (invoicing, staying on top of cash flow) but the intangibles (staying curious, about your fellow men, and what tech is around that can help you to offer services, and stay in business despite the competition). One piece of advice seldom offered in print is that the โline between personal and professional success is more blurred than we often admitโ (page 9). If business goes poorly, relationships with loved ones may suffer.
Leap
The author is speaking from experience, about the โleapโ from being a one-person operation to โa proper businessโ, โa leap you can make with the right supportโ. You canโt rest on your laurels; or at least not for long. You wonโt succeed by offering the lowest hourly rate; you have to invest, not only in kit that clients will appreciate (and why not offer it to them before they know they want it?!) but in training of people and taking time to learn, including about the foreseeable future of your field (as far away as five years).
Scaling
As editor of Professional Security Magazine, over its 35-year history a small business, Iโve found it particularly intriguing to hear from guarding company chiefs who wrestle with whether, not only how, to grow. If the founder and owner of a guard firm tries to become too big, or grow too soon, will that one in charge be able to keep hold of all the strings? Will it simply become a case of not enough hours in the day, to identify let alone solve the operational bottlenecks, so that the service gets worse. The author has some wise words; โgrowth can kill a business as quickly as it can save itโ, because saying yes to everything can be dangerous. The principles that got you started and flourishing enough to seek to grow โ offering a reliable service, having attention to detail โ donโt change. But how to set up processes, to respond to job and contract opportunities? Not for the first time, the author shows that itโs not all about hiring the right people, and having systems, but what goes on inside the business ownerโs head. In the case of keeping standards of service, the owner has to make himself dispensable, by delegating to trustworthy staff, while โstaying involved in the right things โ strategy, client relationships, growing the businessโ (page 149).
Marketing
To sum up, a security or indeed any business owner can read this book with profit for the advice that West offers. Some advice is practical (including, read trade publications!). Some, psychological, such as learning from failures (including your own). To take only one strand, marketing. While you can hire a specialist, you (the owner) can usefully carry out a โbrand auditโ; not only searching for yourself on an internet search engine, but asking yourself whether proposals match the tone and content of your website. If you say youโre 24-7, what happens if someone rings the number on the website, at 10pm?! On his website, Shaun West says heโll get back to you within 24 hours. Branding, as West adds, isnโt only a logo and website, but a โprofessional hand-over packโ for a new customer. Branding, among other things, has to be up to date; if you say you are alert to present threats, what does it look like if your public online profile is years old?! For as the author points out, security clients โbuy trust before they buy servicesโ. My only, slight quibble with the book, precisely because it covers such a lot, from debriefing to finance to recruiting to workplace culture, is that it could do with an index.
About the author
Shaun West as a ‘lad from the North East’ joined the Parachute Regiment and did tours of Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. He left the Paras in 2005; and went into close protection work, abroad and based in London. He provided close protection and related security consultancy services; and now is a business coach and consultant. Visit https://shaunwest.co/meet-shaun-west/.
