My name is Jerry Frederick, my wife Debbie and I founded and operate Body Creations in Glendale, Arizona, a “body piercing only” studio. We started our body piercing business in an Indoor SwapMart ( not recommended) in Phoenix, and worked off of current earned monthly income to build the business using no borrowed money ( because no one would lend money on a body piercing business anyway).

Before moving to Phoenix, we lived in Dallas, TX where we operated a health insurance agency. We lived off of our health insurance renewals and put all of our body piercing income back into inventory to build our body piercing business.

We were embarrassed and ashamed to work out of an Indoor SwapMart, so we found a run down strip commercial space to lease in Glendale (no zoning restrictions in Glendale) where we could properly operate an OSHA compliant body piercing business, and afford the rent.

Like many of you, you are owner operators of your business. We are the main piercers in our business, and we pierce everyday. We have trained piercers over the years . . . but they always move on. This is the reason it is so hard for you to find apprenticeships . . . as a business owner, we spend our time and money training people and they go somewhere else or leave the business entirely, then you have to start over training a new piercer.

This is how we started. We found a body piercing company named Gauntlet. They were offering a 4 day body piercing training seminar in San Francisco. So we flew to San Francisco, rented a room in the hotel and attended their seminar.

They provided a manual on all the piercings with a short description of how to do the piercing, what jewelry to use, and they rated each piercing for its difficulty to perform (basic, intermediate, and advanced) – that was to inform you not to attempt the most difficult piercings first.

The most important lesson we learned during the 4 days was how NOT to CROSS-CONTAMINATE your work spaces and sterile areas. Debbie performed two piercing under their supervision and I performed one. That was it. We went back to Phoenix on Friday and started piercing on Saturday. We purchased a video cassette containing 6 piercings. They were staged piercings and each one was performed on a perfect candidate (body) for that particular piercing resulting in a successful conclusion.

We watched that video over, over, and over again trying to pick up details that were missing from the narrative of the piercing. That video was all the supervision we had. We know you can watch and learn because that is how we did it.

As we started, we were very conservative and did not take unnecessary chances. We made a lot of mistakes. My first labret piercing was a disaster. I pulled my needle out of the piercing without inserting the jewelry. It took me 45 minutes to get that jewelry inserted. Fortunately the client stayed with me and hung in there until I finally forced the jewelry into his lip. We became friends from that experience, and I pierced him many time afterwards. We had many laughs over the years when he would come in for other piercings or bring his many girlfriends for piercings . . . telling them and other clients and our beginnings in body piercing.

When I first started out Tongues just ate my lunch. I would go to work praying that I would not get a tongue piercing that day. It was horrible . . . I just didn’t get it. As I was forced to do more and more Tongues they became routine and I no longer hated doing them.

Oops, this is starting to get long. The point is you can learn by watching and doing. It takes time to become proficient at body piercing, so be patient. The training videos are live and not staged. You will see it just as it happens. To become good at body piercing you must do it over and over again, and learn from each piercing to do the next on just a little better.

If you have questions or want to discuss your body piercing business, you can contact me by clicking on the Contact tab at the top of this page. We are always there unless we are on a welcome, but very short 48 hour trip to Las Vegas, where Debbie and I can be found playing the poker machines at any of the bars in the RIO Casino . . . our favorite Harrah’s property. Just –