HOW TO START YOUR OWN MOBILE LOCKSMITHING SERVICE
The locks on the doors of most homes keep the skilled burglar out
for about 30 seconds!
This is especially true if the only thing slowing him down is a
standard key in the knob lock.
Statistically, there's about one residential burglary every 30
seconds in this country.
Traditionally, as the economy falters and times get harder, the
number tends to rise.
Quite naturally, people are concerned and frightened.
As a result, locksmithing is not only one of the new "demand"
businesses, it's rapidly becoming one of the more profitable
businesses for entrepreneurs with not too much capital to invest.
Today's locksmiths are usually well versed in mathematics and
basic electronics.
They almost have to be, what with the new types of locks being
introduced.
Today's locksmith is more likely to be known as a "Security
Specialist", than as just ordinary locksmith, as in the past.
Even so, most locksmithing businesses are still one-man
operations.
In many instances, it's a husband and wife family affair, with the
husband handling the mechanical end and the wife the books and
financial end of the business.
Most of these small operations tend to concentrate on the repair
side of the business, and deliberately choose to remain small in
size.
As we will discuss later, however, this need not be the case;
these small businesses can "grow up".
According to the area in which he is located, an established, well
organised and trained locksmith may gross between $100,000 and
$120,000 per year, using a van as a mobile "workshop", and space in
his home as an office.
Remember: As the economy turns towards recession, burglaries
increase, and people become aware of the need for better locks to
protect what they own; thus the locksmith enjoys an increased
income during hard time.
You'll need a preplanned sales program along with good
breakdown on your costs versus expected income.
Direct mail campaigns can be as simple as making up advertising
circulars or flyers and hiring students to deliver them, or hand
them out to shoppers in busy shopping centers.
The best angle here is to offer a free check of their locks.
Show them how easily a burglar could open their doors; and then
propose new locks for all their doors at a special price.
You should feel no reservation about putting a little fear into
the prospect; remember burglary is real, and frightening!
Local newspaper advertising can be as simple as a regularly run
advertisement announcement your business location and phone
number.
However, it's best used to "splash" a special offer such as the
replacement of all key in the knob front door locks with deadbolt
locks for half the regular price.
Whenever you spend money to advertise, really go after new
business.
Once you've installed or replaced the lock on one door, it's only
natural to check the adequacy of the locks on the other doors, and
thus you should be able to realise some real profits from your
advertised special offer.
Promoting and selling your services via Home Protection Seminars
could work like this: You rent meeting space in a church, school
or even the meeting room of a popular hotel.
Run lots of flamboyant advertising in your local papers announcing
your seminar.
Have brochures made up describing your services.
Have your materials arranged so that you will get the name,
address, and telephone number of everyone who attends.
Put on a short half-hour to 45-minute presentation first about the
increase in the number of burglaries and the losses sustained, and
then follow through with a presentation describing the proper ways
to ensure the security of a home or business.
Contact your suppliers, and through them you may be able to come
up with a slide presentation of a complete program detailing how
their line of locks, alarms and other security devices will
burglar proof a home or business.
Make sure that everyone in attendance gets one of your brochures,
and then have sales people follow up on all who attended.
Via telephone, your sales people can sell homeowners and business
owners on a free survey.
Commission sales people to make the survey appointments.
Outfitting yourself and your help in smart using uniforms will
help.
Making your calls in a clean, well organised van will also pay an
important part in the image your customers have of your business.
You want your customers to have confidence in your business, and
in the quality of work you do for them.
When they do, you'll find they are more likely to pay their bills
with fewer reminders.
Think of it like this:
A large invoice presented by a man in a clean uniform who drives
up in a good looking van and does quality work is going to be paid
more readily than one for $50 presented by a guy in grubby jeans
who drove up in a 10 year old decrepit transit van.
With so many technological changes occurring within this field, on
an almost monthly basis, it's to your advantage to stay on top of
what's happening within the locksmithing field.
This means subscribing to some of the better trade publications.
You should be attending the various Locksmithing Associations
promoted seminars and workshops that offer on-going help in both
the technical and financial side of this business.
In other words, you should plan to keep yourself up to date with a
program of continuous learning.
There are several ways to get started in this business.
You can buy an existing operation from a retiring craftsman.
Ask him to help you with the technical side of the operation,
while you spend most of your time actively promoting and managing
the business.
Or, you can hire the technical help you need, and the sales force
to build the business while you do the managing.
You can enrol in one of the popular correspondence courses, become
involved in the business as you learn from the various trade
publications, and progress at your own speed.
Our recommendation is that you learn the fiscal and management
side of the business, and hire others to handle the mechanical or
technical side.
Thus the purpose of this article is to indoctrinate you on the
business side.
To examine the technical details of this business would take
volumes, and probably much of the information contained would be
out-dated by the time it came off the press.
However, we will provide you with an outline of the most common
types of jobs a locksmith should be able to handle.
LOCKOUTS
Frequently, a person finds himself locked out of his home, office,
warehouse, etc.
Invariably, this happens at odd hours of the day or night.
So opening locks at odd hours of the day and night will be a role
you'll definitely play in the lives of your customers.
A typical pin tumbler can generally be picked open in about 30
seconds, using either picks or a single piece of spring steel and
good wrist work.
All locks have tolerance and variations in manufacture which allow
you to push the cylinder pins up out of the way while exerting a
turning pressure on the cylinder itself.
CAR LOCKOUTS
This problem occurs frequently and will require a different
procedure.
A tool called a "Slim Shim" is often used here, and works on most
domestic and many foreign cars.
This is pushed down between the glass and the weather stripping on
the door far enough to reach the back of the lock cylinder on the
door.
You simply push down or pull up.
A "button popper" is also used, worked through the weather
stripping on vent windows in the older cars, and angled back to
the latch button.
A "button popper" is also used, worked through the weather
stripping on vent windows in the older cars, and angled back to
the latch button.
LOCK INSTALLATION
Much of your time will be spent installing new locks and door
hardware.
In many cases, homeowners and business people will want to upgrade
their security with the latest model hardware for older homes,
offices and other buildings.
Many locksmiths get involved in new construction of new houses,
shopping centers, and the like.
Often you'll be adding more security to an existing door, such as
installing a deadbolt lock.
PANIC BARS AND DOOR CLOSERS
Many locksmiths working the commercial or industrial market get
involved in the repair and installation of panic bars in public
access areas.
Panic bars are those large metal bars you push on to open the
outside doors of many public buildings.
Door closers are those hydraulic devices mounted at the top of
these doors which return the door to the closed position after it
has been opened.
In addition to these major areas of activity, locksmiths the world
over do key duplicating and impressioning, which is the replacing
of lost keys with custom made copies, and a wide variety of other
types of sales, repairs and service work.
In order to achieve maximum profitability as a locksmith, you must
be able to offer these services to your customers, as well as
installing alarms, safes, and vaults, high security work, such as
electronic push-button locks with combination numbers,
recombination locks, and masterkeying.
Just because locksmithing is a "personal" kind of business, and
can be started on a shoestring, and operated out of the home,
that's not to say that a locksmithing service cannot be developed
into a million dollar business.
On the contrary, there are a number of operations in some of the
larger areas that have several mobile locksmith vans on the road,
in addition to retail store locations.
These operations are grossing well into the million dollar figures
every year.
It's a matter of desire, determination and personal fulfilment and
satisfaction.
Attitude, marketing skills and general business knowledge are also
positive attributes necessary for real success.
Very definitely, the sharp businessman with determined ambition
can dominate any market with a modern locksmithing service.
The key ingredient to this business is the utilisation of proper
marketing and selling skills.
It goes without saying: You can know all there is about the
mechanical functioning of a business, but without innovative
marketing and selling skills, your business will surely flounder.
However, given the marketing knowhow, plus persistent sales
efforts, you can succeed in this business with the knowledge you
can acquire of the technical side.
The success of any business is built upon the marketing and sales
expertise of its founder, because after all, "mechanics" can
always be hired, if you decide to go that route rather than learn
the trade and the business.
Your marketing efforts should stress the theme that your services
will allay the fears of your buyers.
You want to get across to your prospective customers the sense of
security your service will provide.
You can make them safe in their own homes; no longer will they
have to worry about being rudely awakened in the middle of the
night by a burglar rustling around in their house; no longer will
they have to worry about coming back to a home that's been cleaned
out or ransacked.
Once you understand that fear is a basic human instinct, it's easy
to see that virtually everyone can be a prospect for your services
as a locksmith.
Your potential market includes everyone in your area, because
everyone has possessions.
So every homeowner, every apartment dweller, every business owner,
all the schools, churches, government institutions, and a wide
variety of other commercial and industrial accounts can be yours.
In this day and age, new homeowners and apartment dwellers want
the locks changed the day they move in, so that former occupants
and other key holders will not have access to their place.
In addition, there will probably be the need for additional keys
for each member of the new family, now that new, safer locks have
been installed.
Commercial and industrial accounts present an even more lucrative
market.
Larger companies tend to want their keys 'departmentalised', so
that office workers can get into the building on weekends, but not
into the factory or shipping areas, and vice versa.
Banks and savings institutions frequently need the safe deposit
locks changed.
Generally speaking, newcomers to this field should focus their
efforts on the commercial and industrial area as soon as possible.
The commercial market is vast, and often up for grabs in many
areas. In addition, the profit margins in these areas are
excellent!
With one of these accounts you'll have work paying about $1000 or
more per visit, compared with $50 to $100 per visit for a
residential job.
With commercial and industrial accounts, there's also the
possibility of ongoing service and maintenance.
Definitely, the commercial and industrial business is well worth
going after, and can put your business in the black very rapidly.
However, it does take aggressiveness, and the determination to
sell these accounts.
Start small.
Consider working out of your home in the beginning.
Most of today's successful locksmiths began by working out of
their homes, with the family car or van fitted out with the tools
and equipment needed.
Such an approach will enable you to get started for as little as
$1000.
You should be aware however, that this is just a beginning, and
not all it's going to take to really establish your business.
With this level of investment, you're more or less limited in the
business you can handle and the money you can make.
Locksmiths who want to make the really big money should be
investing all their early profits into more equipment and
inventory up to a level where they can offer complete full service
locksmithing.
Such a business would require at least $10,000 in equipment,
perhaps even up to $20,000, depending on how many different
services you want to offer.
This estimate for start up costs does not include your van or
inventory of spare parts and new locks.
Perhaps a quick word of caution is in order here.
You've no doubt seen or heard some of the advertisement promising
all kinds of big money to be made with your own locksmithing
service.
"Just send for the learn at home correspondence course, and you'll
be home free".
It's true that you can earn big money in this business, but as
we've noted earlier, without a lot of sharp marketing and selling
expertise, plus at least the essential equipment to handle the
kind of work these courses teach, enrolling in one of these
courses will put you no further ahead than you are right now.
This business requires equipment and knowledge.
You can make excellent money as a locksmith, so long as you
operate your business capably and in a professional manner.
But without a full line of the equipment required to handle a wide
variety of jobs, you will be limiting your total income potential.
The more you invest in quality equipment, the more different kinds
of jobs you can handle, and thus the more money you'll be capable
of making.
It is of utmost importance that you build and maintain a
professional image as a quality locksmithing operation from the
start.
You should endeavour to handle all jobs as quickly and efficiently
as possible.
Locks and security are of prime concern to your customers, and it
follows that when a customer wants help in this area, he wants it
taken care of immediately.
Thus, you must position yourself to handle his job immediately, or
loose him to a locksmith who can take care of his needs on the
spot.
Do some market research.
Analyse your local market area before you embark upon this
business. This can be done via letters to the local locksmithing
association, Chamber of Commerce, or even by checking through the
yellow pages.
As important as everything else, you'll want to know how many
locksmiths are already operating in your area, and how much of the
market you can expect to attract with your business.
Most industry experts agree that any more than one locksmith for
every 30,000 people tends to saturate the market.
However, you should study the operations of the existing
locksmiths to determine if you can capture a good portion of the
existing market by offering more and better service, especially
with a well planned effort towards the commercial and industrial
accounts.
In many areas, the established locksmiths have been in business
for 20 years or more, and are not interested in expanding their
businesses to include the newer and more intricate types of
protection available.
Look your market over.
Determine if there's been any real effort made to "sell" the
market on upgraded protection.
Door to door sales efforts; direct mail advertising campaigns;
local "hard sell" newspaper advertising; home protection and
business security seminars, are angles that can be used to launch
your business.
These approaches should prove to be especially profitable if the
existing locksmiths have been sitting back and letting the people
come to them when they have a problem.
Get to know the building contractors and start bidding on the
installation of locks on their building projects.
You will get your share of the business, even though at first you
may get contracts only from the new builders, who have not had
experience with other locksmiths.
For a fast start in this business, I suggest that you set yourself
up with a van, and take your business to your customers.
It isn't necessary to buy a van off the showroom floor, and outfit
it with all the equipment you'll ultimately need for a full
service locksmithing business.
That would be nice, but it would probably run you close to $100,000
or more.
By shopping around, you should be able to pick up a good, late
model used van for about $2,000.
You might be able to work an even better deal by leasing a new
van, and writing off your payments as a business tax deduction.
One thing you'll definitely want to consider is a van that has a
raised roof in order for you to stand upright in it.
After all, you'll be doing most of your work in it, and to have to
stoop all the time would soon become quite tiring.
Generally, you can run a workbench down either or both sides of
your van, building in adequate storage shelves and drawers under
the workbenches.
Above the workbenches, and on the sides of the van, peg board
works very well for hanging your tools and key blanks.
You'll need 240 as well as 12 volt outlets for power.
This is accomplished with either a power converter or ready line
generator.
Whether you do or don't start out with a van, you'll need a
variety of equipment.
Your first basic investment should be a key duplicating machine.
This is the machine you'll be using to take one key and make
copies.
You'll also need a key coding machine which will allow you to turn
keys out to new codes. This machine will be essential for the
combinating work you'll be doing.
These two machines will be the workhorses of your business - the
basic machines you'll need to call yourself a locksmith.
So shop around and be sure to get good quality, dependable
machines to do the work for you.
You'll also need a wide variety of hand tools such as files, jigs,
drills, screwdrivers, micrometers and mortising tools.
You nay also want to check out the additional profit potential of
your owning a hand key coding machine.
You should also have a pin-kit, plus key blanks, locks, and
padlocks.
Depending on how aggressively you intend to pursue the different
areas of the locksmithing business, you should plan to invest at
least $2,000 for a beginning operating inventory of spare parts,
locks and key blanks.
Before ordering your inventory, work with your area distributors
or suppliers to determine the most frequently needed locks and
By creating a professional image, turning out quality work, and
having a van that enables you to take your business to the
customer, you'll be able to charge accordingly.
It's that simple.
Because traditionally, locksmiths have located themselves in "hole
in the wall" storefront shops, or more recently in shopping center
car parks, most have never charged more than a pittance for their
work.
In other words, they have been under pricing themselves.
The great advantage of being mobile is that you can take your
services to the upper income areas, because they not only have
more to protect, but are more likely to appreciate the value of
your services, and pay promptly.
When pricing the locks you sell, always mark your procurement cost
up by at least 30 per cent.
Thus, if you were to buy locks at a wholesale price of 314, you
would charge your customers $36.50 for the lock, plus your
installation charge.
If a key blank costs you $2, your price to the customer would be
$2.65 plus whatever portion of an hour you figure it takes you to
turn it out or duplicate it.
What I'm saying here is to always consider the base cost of your
supplies, plus a profit margin for yourself, and then the
installation charge.
Thus, a two-hour job to install a couple of deadbolt locks, with
keys, might cost the customer $150 or $160.
The best quality work, and the lowest prices in town, are of no
value whatsoever if you have no customers, so you must
aggressively seek out customers.
Don't wait for them to come to you.
Knowledge and concerted efforts in advertising, promotion and
personal sales will bring you customers.
As mentioned earlier in this report, you can and should use door
to door circularising, direct mail, local newspaper, and seminar
type sales efforts.
And don't forget the tremendous advantage of using the telephone.
Run an ad in your local games calling for commission sales people.
Hire them to call on homeowners door to door and to sell the idea
of upgrading their locks.
Then have a commission sales person call on these prospects and
make a quick survey, then sit down with them and make
recommendations on how they can improve the security of their home
or business.
From there, it's a natural lead-in to "we can do the job" for
(whatever) amount of money.
The seminar and telemarketing angles can be very profitable for
you, and if promoted properly, will build your business faster
than all other plans put together.
The important thing to keep in mind is that you must be aggressive
and go out after customers.
By all means, take advantage of the direct mail opportunities.
Have a flyer or circular made up elaborating on your services,
specifically the upgrading of current security and
burglar-proofing of a home or business.
Hire students to deliver these door to door, and commission sales
people to contact and follow up via telephone.
Once you've got your sales efforts to homeowners and local
businesses organised, hire a couple of sharp commission sales
people to call on the government agencies and institutions, such
as hospitals and schools.
By all means, buy a good sized display ad in the yellow pages, and
if possible, display advertising on buses.
Use your knowledge of how easy it is to burglar most homes and
businesses to come up with angles to get your name, and the name
of your business, written up in local newspapers and other
publications.
Make yourself available for interviews by local radio and
television talk shows, civic clubs and other organisations.
Innovation and persistence in marketing will be the keys to your
immediate success.
As I've stated earlier, most locksmiths are craftsmen who do good
work, but just don't understand the merchandising and selling
opportunities.
With the business and marketing skills we've touched upon, plus
quality workmanship (which you can hire others to perform for
you), you should be able to quickly establish a profitable
business that will continue to grow and prosper.
