| 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 wifefamily 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 œ50,000 and œ60,000 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 pre planned sales programme 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 centres. 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 programme 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 œ25 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 programme 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 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. 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 œ14, you would charge your customers œ18.50 for the lock, plus your installation charge. If a key blank costs you œ1, your price to the customer would be œ1.65 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 œ75 or œ80. 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 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 centres, 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 mpressioning, 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 pound 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 pound 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 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 œ1,000 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 centre 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 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 œ1,000 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 centre car parks, most have never charged more than a pittance for their work. In other words, they have been under pricing themselves. 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 œ500 or more per visit, compared with œ25 to œ50 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 œ500. 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 œ5,000 in equipment, perhaps even up to œ10,000, 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 œ50,000 or more. By shopping around you should be able to pick up a good, late model used van for about œ1,000. 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 workbench |
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