We recently had the chance to connect with Jen Clark and have shared our conversation below.
Jen, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Before we jump into your intro and the heart of the interview, let’s start with a bit of an ice breaker: Would YOU hire you? Why or why not?
Yes, I would hire myself. I look for some of my qualities in the staff that I do hire as I have passion, empathy, honesty, gumption, ethic and a huge heart. I believe that if a smart person is following their heart, acting in the best interest of the customer and the children, they should stand their ground and I would never fault them for that. If you hold these qualities you’d fit in well with our Playhouse family.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Prosper Playhouse is a safe, fun and clean indoor play place for your children. We built the playhouse as a community business, to positively add to the Prosper community and surrounding towns. The fact that we kept Prosper in the name shows our goal when Proser was ONE and we participated in all community events. Since then Prosper has grown but we still try to support th entirety of the community by giving back at every chance. Business has been slower these past few years with the growth of the community, but all small bus eases are suffering, it’s not just us yet we continue to thrive and help the community with events and toy drives and local angel trees and more. We still support our schools the best we can and run a safe, clean and fun play place for you and your children for OpenPlay, birthdays and camps! We serve to the best of our abilities…it makes us feel good about our investments!
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
When I was young, and we didn’t have much as a family….my mom took my sister and I shopping before Christmas but not for us. She took us to select an angel tree tag for some person in the community that needed help for the holidays, more than us. I felt like I was truly able to help someone out of the kindness of my heart and at just the right time for them. It was a powerful feeling to help someone else. This is what led to Prosper Playhouse’s annual angel tree where we strive to help as many local community members in need as possible. It bring the community together and helps those that otherwise wouldn’t hav a great and happy Christmas for their families. We don’t discriminate even on age, we just provide and watch their faces light up! It feels good, it does feel powerful and we help even our staff see the outcome and value and worth!
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
To suffer is to learn and to learn is to succeed. You must experience everything at least once to truly be defined.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is truly me! I wear my feelings on my sleeve but try to remain professional when overwhelmed! When someone gets to know me, they’ll honestly say ‘what you see is what you get and she’s not hard to talk to at all’! I am an open book a believe we can all learn from a help one another!
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
Running a business isn’t the American dream and isn’t going make you rich. It will however, make you humble and realize how much blood, sweat, tears, and money actually goes into it. You pour yourself into it and the community and get some happiness from it but you have to be happy with that outcome as it’s not meant to be your end all! People that have not experienced running their own business with their own hard earned money will never understand the struggles. It’s proved time and time again when they come in and offer opinions and advice or complain about their investment while there! We just smile and continue doing it day in and day out! It’s for our own pride and joy!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.prosperplayhouse.com
- Instagram: Prosperplayhouse
- Facebook: Prosperplayhouse
- Youtube: @prosperplayhouse1852
Image Credits
These are our photos!
