Business Questions? Ask a Locksmith.

[Varjeal]

Luke: Nope.

mightymouse: Being on call isn't all as bad as you might think. Again, I'll repeat that I don't live in a metropolis or anything, so the late night/early morning calls are few and far between.

As for the cell phone, I switch it off on Sunday mornings and on my holidays. My wife, thank God, is very supportive of my business and I have no kids, which also makes life much easier. As for "spare time" I don't really have any. I just make sure that when I find myself getting too tired I take a day or two off and shut off the phone. Mondays are usually slow enough that I can get caught up on paperwork, etc. so it hasn't been a problem yet. When it does get so busy I feel like I can't shut the phone off, that's when I'll be looking to hiring someone.

regarding the british locksmiths, I hope you're right and and they're just so busy that they can't afford to waste any time at all, however they should still be taking enough time to do a job professionally with courteous customer service.

From the sounds of what you're saying they're swapping hourly rate for call-out fee, which in the end works out the same. The more satisfied customers they can fit into an hour, the better off their bottom line will be in, and for the majority, the bottom line is what it's all about.

[mightymouse]

OK, thanks for all the insight varjeal. I have just one more thing I'm curious about: How much interaction do you get with professional locksmith's associations and other local locksmiths?

Do the various professional associations provide much support to locksmith's when setting up a new business? Do you have regular meetings with your fellow locksmith's from your area to talk about business and network? Do you go to conventions often? (are there many conventions?) and what are they like? Boreing? Everyone gets drunk and laid? And how about trade magazines - any recommendations?

many thanks

[Varjeal]

We have one association for the entire province. (Not every province has one.)

1. Support for new business? Umm...depending on what kind of support your thinking of. But basically, No.

2. Also, locksmiths in this area don't meet to talk about business or network, mostly cause they don't want to tip their hand to any potential deals they may be working on. That is, with the exception of myself and another lockie in the area. Every once in awhile we meet for coffee and chat, but it's pretty light stuff.

3. We have one convention per year in this particular province, which I insure that I attend each year. If you want to keep up with technology, see new product, and spend time networking, it's pretty much a mandatory event.

4. The trade show usually has a Thursday, Friday, Saturday schedule. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday mornings usually involve training/info classes as provided by different popular vendors such as Strattec (for automotive), Master Lock, Kaba Peeks (push button combination locks, etc.), a safe manipulation/sales/service class, Abloy puts on product demonstrations, stuff like that. Most of it is very boring for non-lockies.

5. Friday night there's usually a dance/social, and Saturday afternoon is the actual trade show. Sometimes on Saturday nights they'll have a "spam"/social as well.

6. The trade show itself is a good place to network, there's tons of displays, free draws, and of course show specials, where you can pick up stuff at less than the normal costs. Sometimes there's pretty good deals, and they always have a lunch of some type. So it's all good.

7. As far as trade magazines, The National Locksmith, and the Locksmith Ledger are by far the most popular in terms of trade magazines.

[Eyes_Only]

Simple question...what is a key catalog? What is it really for?

[Varjeal]

Definitely an easy question. A key catalog is basically an index and profile of the (quite literally) thousands of different types of keys, and the i.d. codes that the most popular/largest companies use to identify them. For locksmiths, it helps to identify unknown, unfamiliar keyways when required to make keys for a lock. It's also a handy cross reference for when I customer brings in a key and wants a duplicate made.

It works basically the same as a mug shot book would.

Example:

Schlage makes a very popular key that they will stamp SC1. There is also another company that makes keyblanks to fit Schlage locks, but they use the code 1145 to mark their keys. If I was unfamiliar with the type of key, and a customer brought the key to me and it had one of those "codes" on 'em, I could look it up in the index and see exactly what the key looks like.

Also, by looking in the book, I can see what other types of locks the key may possibly work in, this is extremely handy for automotive, where a particular keyblank may work in several different brands of cars so I don't have to stock several different types of keyblanks.

Because of the number of different keyblank manufacturers combined in a single key catalog, it makes it much easier to cross-reference different id's to find the one being sought for.

Some examples are:

1. N1054WB= WR5 (common Weiser)
2. 1176=KW1 (common Kwikset)
3. 01122=Y11 (common wafer lock key)
4. 1092=M1 (for common 4 pin Master Padlocks)

[toomush2drink]

This thread is really helpful (varjeal take a bow) but is there anybody who can put up some uk specific information
ie a typical day for a mobile locksmith.
What type of work to expect
Insurance thats needed
Disclaimer forms
Busy periods
Typical charges (jason has posted some stuff on this i know but anything else would help)
Do you use a key machine in the van/car
How much work to expect (tricky i know but in terms of advertising costs to work brought in)

A lot to ask maybe but questions i need to find answers to before i start up myself.
if its too personal to post please pm me, discretion assured

thanks for any tit bits
toomush

[mightymouse]

toomush: Yeah, I requested a british locksmith write a parrallel of this thread from our perspective; no such luck as of yet.

I recall Jason mentioning that he doesn't go out for more than £70. (At least I think it was Jason). Keep in mind that this figure will vary depending on location. Jason is in London and so he can charge more than someone who lives in a smaller town etc. Of course, if it was a _really_ small town or a rural area and there were few other locksmiths around, you might be able to charge just as much I expect.

[toomush2drink]

I know what your saying about charges mightymouse so today im going to ring loads up and find out so charges for a day lock out and then do it again tonight to see the difference. It may take a few days of ringing around to gather the info but wil post the results once its done.

Toomush

[Eyes_Only]

Ive read on the pamphlets you get from these correspondence locksmithing schools that after you finish the course, you can start a full time business, go work for a locksmith or run a part time business. What defines a part time business for a locksmith? Would you still need to be fingerprinted and licensed and stuff (if your area requires) for a part time business just like a full time business?

[Varjeal]

The status of the business really doesn't matter. If your area requires fingerprinting and licensing then you would need the same sort of stuff regardless. The cost of licensing may be different though, depending on whether you had a storefront, employees, collect sales tax, etc.

[mightymouse]

I saw that chucklz mentioned locksmithtraining.com in another thread and I thought I'd post it here as well. I've just been browsing it a little and have found that the Articles Section contains a sub-section "Business Guidance". Much of the information here is general stuff applicable to any business. I've found it to be an interesting read though; hope somebody else finds it useful too.

[horwichg]

How much would you recieve if you rekeyed and entire highschool, with probably 400 doors. They are all masterkeyed, some being masterkeyed 4 times, so there are almost like sub master key systems. (key a opens locks 1-20, key b opens locks 1-15, key c opens locks 1-10, key d opens locks 1-5, and key e opens lock 1).

I am wondering because a master-master key was lost in my school and the whole building had to be rekeyed, and i was trying to figure out how much money the locksmith would have made.

[Chucklz]

Horchwig... back when I was in HS, the school switched from a Yale multiplex keyway system to Best SFIC (K keyway if I remember). Cost a few thousand US and we had a small school. In this case, new hardware was needed all around. But, the school did it this way because it wasnt much more expensive than rekeying all those Yales, and certainly more convenient when keys were lost/stolen. Unfortunately, a few sub masters and master keys were swiped, and a grandmaster (highest level we had) went missing for a month. Nothing was done to fix it though (sigh, I woudl have liked to have seen that job). As you can probably tell I was very friendly with the maintinence fellows.... but thats another story. I would assume that a rekey would be much more expensive for your school, considering the size/complexity of the system. Just, FYI it goes (Submaster- not always present) Master, Grand Master (GM), GreatGrand Master (GGM), Great Great Grand Master (GGGM) etc.
A Submaster controls a set of locks under a Master key. A grand master key controls a set of groups controlled by separate master keys. A great grand master.....well you get the idea.

[Varjeal]

horwichg: Rekeying that many doors, unless one was in a large shop, would probably send the locksmith to the manufacturer of his favorite system, he would spec the whole job, and then send the quote to the school. If purchased, the cylinders would most likely arrive already keyed and tagged. The locksmith would then go and spend a week swapping locks out.

If you think of the GGM at the top of a pyramid, the order from bottom to top would go like so:

Bottom: Change key (1 key works one lock)
Next level up: Master key (M)
Next: Grand Master (GM)
Top: Great Grandmaster (GGM)

The terms "Submaster, Sectional Master, Top Master Key" are more generic descriptive terms.

For example, in the case listed above the GGM is essentially the TMK. A Master key that only works a specific number of locks instead of the entire level is often described as a "sectional master" or "Sub Master" in a system.

[Eyes_Only]

When it comes to dealing with auto lock out calls, what tools do you usually use? Do you pick the lock or do you use tools like the under-over tools, long reach tools, etc? And if you do use those "wire" tools dont they ever get caught on the wires running along the insides of the door panels that controls the power windows and stuff?