£10,000 per annum, possible?

[RodCrosby]

Hi all,

I'm am considering becoming a part-time locksmith.
Could anyone hazard a guess as to the likelihood of being able to clear £10k per year. How long would it take to achieve this? How many jobs would I need on average to be certain of this income?

I am fortunate that I have another modest income and some money to invest in training. I live in a fairly wealthy suburb of an English city.
I would want to be as professional as possible, and build a very modest business.

I have to say that reading a lot of posts they seem very negative/realistic?, suggesting a possible income of zero for considerable outlay expended. Accordingly, I am trying to be realistic too, that is why if I could be nearly certain of £10k per annum, I would go for it with great enthusiasm.

[toomush2drink]

You have read how it is the market is swamped by people like yourself who wish to just do it part time. There isnt any real answer to your question because it all comes down to your local market (regardless of wealth) and how much time your prepared to spend marketing yourself so you get the work.Nobody can answer your question so unless you do the research for your area and formulate a business plan you wont find the answers on a forum. Sure you can go for it on a modest amount of money but i personally dont think you will last long as there are so many big players advertising and locksmith schools churning out 100s of "locksmiths" each weekend.To look proffesional means having the skills,image and front to make it work but it also means being able to say "yes i can do that" to the many tasks required of a locksmith.

[RodCrosby]

Er..Thanks. I guess it's Catch-22 then. Don't go for it big, or you'll go bust big time, but don't go for it small, 'cos you'll go bust as well, and put the established guys out of business at the same time...

My business plan would be two-fold, to offer locksmithing alongside another property service, e.g. free lock security check alongside this service, and any locksmithing jobs that come in I would make the customer aware of my other service. I am also a member of a local landlords association, and would be offering special members' deals on both services.

[Mark A]

It would cost you virtually the same amount to set up part time as it would to be a full time professional locksmith.

It is not something you would be able to do on the cheap or you would be in danger of being another part time "Locksmith" offering a sub standard service.

This is not meant to be offensive, just realistic.

Mark.

[RodCrosby]

I am a little confused over your distinction between part-time and full-time - surely that will depend on the amount of work you get, unless you are thinking of opening a shop, which I'm not!

If I thought I had an excellent chance of turning in a £10k annual profit, I would invest the £5-10k startup in the business - that is part of my business plan.

[Raccoon]

It all boils down to how often you can make that phone ring. Look in your phone book and plot the locations of all the locksmiths around you. Do you see any openings in your town and the towns around you? The program Google Earth can help you do this (and it's fun, too).

Next, how are you going to expose yourself? Besides listings and ads in your phone book, are you prepared to offer promotions and take ads out in the news papers or stuff flyers into mailboxes? Ad campaigns cost money, but sure can pay off.

Invest in some basic tools first and see how profecient you are. If anything, you may decided that you're not interested in locksmithing before you're waist deep in debt.

[RodCrosby]

Yes, I have done some of this research. In my town, pop 51,000 there is one in the yell.com/yellow pages. In the immediately adjacent towns pop (including mine) 190,000 there are 6, in the wider local authority area, pop 280,000 there are 10, and in the city conurbation, pop 1.5 million, there are about 70(although several of these are duplicate entries and adverts from border areas)

[Mark A]

5-10k is not enough to set up professionally

If you want to start getting work quickly then you will have to advertise big and offer something that the established companies dont.

The distinction I was making between Part time and full time is twofold, firstly a full time locksmith will offer a full service including UPVC/DG repairs,repossesions,lockouts,repairs,rekeying,lock fitting,door closers,ironmongery etc etc often working solidly for 10 or more hrs a day with reputation and other follow on work gained through fast resonse time and "going the extra mile to give a quality service" It would be very difficult to offer this type of service only working part time.

Secondly aside from the initial set up costs you will have numerous day to day running costs and you will have to charge very high prices if you are going to cover your overheads let alone make wages if you only work part time!

Mark

I

[RodCrosby]

OK, 2 questions...

1. How much can you earn "working solidly 10 hours a day" ?

2. How can you work 10 hours a day and still find time to post answers to silly questions from newbies like me?

[Mark A]

Earnings will be dependant on material content with no 2 days being the same. i.e. If I had a day opening and replacing UPVC mplocks the turnover would be high but so would material content,but on another day turnover would be far lower with no materials used.

The work follows no pattern what so ever and I do work 10hr+ days many days a month but on other days I may only get a couple of call outs, allowing me to catch up on paperwork/accounts/picking practice etc.

Telling you what I can turnover on a good day would be meaningless as I find it is better to work on a 3 monthly basis as some months will obviously be better than others.

You say you have a business plan,how many jobs do you expect to get a week?

What type of work are you looking to get?

Mark

[toomush2drink]

As said before how much you earn is about how much your prepared to put in, investment wise and time/commitment wise. Rather than worrying about how much you can earn how about worrying about how your going to get the phone to ring to earn anything.Where do you see your main earnings coming from ? By that i mean are you looking at lockouts as your main income or installing locks,upgrades,warrants,fire exit hardware,access control,rekeying,master systems,security grilles and gates ? The list goes on and on so until you know what area your going to get the best returns from its impossible to answer realistically. My main income doesnt come from openings, those are not that common due to the market saturation as everybody focuses on that side of it.I have my areas that do well but im not going to mention them here as my competition visits this site.
If you invest heavily you do start to reap the rewards over time, i get a lot of referral stuff now but only because ive worked my butt off and still am.
If your thinking theres not much competition so if i put an ad in the local paper i should get x amount of calls a week you are sure to fail
.The thing with this trade is that unless you have contract work the work comes in at irregular times. By that i mean you may not get a call for a couple of days then you get a stack all at once and they all want it done that day so if you dont have enough stock on the van you may lose a couple of them or waste time going to get parts etc and lose another its just how it is.Hence the reason we have been saying about investment levels.
Take euro cylinders for example ive just looked in an assec catalogue and there are 60 different types and sizes, i stock most carrying 2 or more of each so you can see how it adds up.Thats just a basic range so now think about mortice locks and rim latches and all the different finishes etc. Now step into the upvc area and think overnight locks and keeps etc.
To answer you original question sure you can earn 10k in a year you can even earn 1k a week most training courses will tell you this or you can wake up to the reality of the locksmith trade in its present state.
Oh and go and tackle an x5 yale as sold all the time in B&Q's up and down the country and work out how your going to overcome it, the new generation of locks coming out are getting a lot more trickier to defeat.

[CJM]

Anything that secures or controls a door ie. floor springs, panic bars and so on is something a locksmith must have a full understanding and experience of. The only part time locksmith should be a locksmith that has all the know how and years of working in the trade but for what ever reason only needs to work part time.

[Raccoon]

Anything that secures or controls a door ie. floor springs, panic bars and so on is something a locksmith must have a full understanding and experience of. The only part time locksmith should be a locksmith that has all the know how and years of working in the trade but for what ever reason only needs to work part time.

I don't agree with either of these statements. Being a locksmith does NOT mean being a master of all things mechanical security. You might as well tack on bank safes and deposit boxes. This sounds like a statement of frustration in order to scare away aspiring tradesmen.

A locksmith can be anything he wants to be. If he wants to specialize in auto-openings and never install a lock or cut a key, well by-golly, that's what he's going to do... and he'll get paid for it too. Personally, I'm already buying inventory and hope to share some floor space with my local pawn shop until I can afford my own building, but if I don't feel like messing with panic bars or commercial doors in general, I wont. You can't make me.

[CJM]

Yes an Auto-Locksmith can be a stand alone trade agreed. But if ie as a Locksmith. you get called out because the latch is not catching and you know nothing about closers how do you fix it? Exit/Panic hardware are locking mechs so in our remit?????? Bars, Grills, Safes, Master Key Systems, Fire Regs ect ect ect.

[Raccoon]

You simply tell the customer, "Sorry, I don't work on those kind of locks, but there's a locksmith 20 miles from you who does. Their number is..."

I mean seriously, there is not a single field where every business claims to be experienced in all areas of that field. There are plumbers who only unclog drains or sewer lines, and there are electricians who have never touched a power main or downed wire. Demand for these services will make and shape the market, and there's no shame in having to refer a customer to someone else. There is certainly someone else more capable because they don't stretch themselves thin.