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Newbie with a budget to to learn

This is the old Locksmith business info area and will be broken down to fill in the new sections below.

Postby lockey1963 » 10 May 2007 10:52

Its standard.
Your advertising budget alone should be between £5000 and £15000 for a year as a mobile, to get a good share of the calls.

I would advise you really do some research on start up and costs involved, also on your area and your competition and a workable realistic business plan before even considering commiting to a £9K loan.

It is fact in the UK that 9 out of 10 training , either never start up or fail inside the 1st 12 months, Dont be put off, it is a great career, but you need a bit of luck and years of experience to do well and survive, an adequate investment , successfull marketing and of course a bit of business sense.
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Postby NKT » 10 May 2007 11:37

I've got to agree with the other UK lockies here.

I'm now a few weeks short of my 24th month of trading. So far, I've got a whole load of tools, and lots of experiance. I'm not showing off, but I'm a good locksmith, or that's what people keep telling me. I work long hours and I love the job. Or should that be, but I love the job? I wouldn't have stuck at it for this long if I didn't love the job, not on the money I earn.

I dropped roughly £15K and a year of learning and practise into it, and have so far only paid myself enough to live on three months. I also have experiance of running other companies, and it is those that let me keep the house for the first year! That, and credit cards, and the other half's income. There was no real VAT or banking, etc. learning for me to do.

I'm pretty established now, but I'm still buying tools every month, it's just now they are that bit less essential - things like car tools, decoders for locks I see less often, and so on. That's still where all the profits go, it's just that I'm not borrowing to buy them now.

I don't do cars newer than 15 years old, since I haven't got the money to buy the gear for it. I do a little safe stuff, but, again, I need to save £££s for the key cutting machines for safe keys and transponder programming.

I've also gone the NDE route. This takes a lot of hard work. I'd say that I can now best 95% of doors without any damage at all, not even a scratch to the lock pins or paintwork. As far as drilling goes, it happens occassionally - twice this week! - which brings my total to about 15 over the time I've been trading, roughly shared between mortice and cylinders.

I'm in the ICL, which helps, and I also hang about on various lock related forums, so I'm well up on the types of locks, bypasses and tips for opening them, and the various ways into places. I got stumped yesterday, though, and resorted to exploratory drilling. Happens to everyone.

I don't think you can specialise, really. About as far as it goes, there is cars and everything else. You have no chance of jumping into safes, the market is sewn up, and the learning curves too steep. Even getting into autos is nearly impossible now - even if you have a magic wand to open them, you can't start them or re-key them without a huge cost in equipment, for each make.

I'd say, unless you want to make tools (and are good at it) or have some other form of income that can help support you as you learn, you are dead in the water with £9K.

Oh, and I'll repeat for you - DON'T touch the ebay trainers. They promise you more in a week (or even a day!) than I take in a month. I spend thousands on adverts, and there are still only a few calls a week coming in on slow weeks. Take out the advertising calls, and you can see that some weeks I get no money from Joe Public. And the adverts still cost money.

If you have a real passion for it, go for it. If you don't, drop your £9K on some shiny tools I don't have, and I'll buy them off you half price when you quit and go back to ForEx.
Loading pithy, witty comment in 3... 2... 1...
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Postby justinthomas » 11 May 2007 9:43

Hi,

I've found this course:

http://www.thelocksmithtrainingcompany. ... dayone.htm

I was wondering if anyone could let me know if it's woth doing?

Cheers

Justin
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Postby lockey1963 » 11 May 2007 15:33

It looks to be just another 2 day course, and it wasnt around 2 or 3 years ago so the claim of the original ?

the advice this thread has tried to give you is to forget all of the so called locksmith courses advertised, especially the 2 day ones.

if you want to do it properly then follow the MLA route, long term its well worth it, otherwise send us your 9k, you will be just as well off for it.
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Postby RodVT » 11 May 2007 20:22

Justin,

There is a world of difference between learning a trade, and starting a business. Borrowing 9K to learn a trade (school, etc.) could be a good investment if you can then find work in that line. Counting on being able to start a business also, especially in a country where the business is mature, is (as everyone has told you) very risky. If you want to make an investment in yourself, and really believe that self employment is for you, then first spend some money taking small business classes. You won't regret it.

Rod
Rod West
Blackfork Emergency Services
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Postby justinthomas » 13 May 2007 12:18

Thank you all for the advice. I really appreciate it.
I have had a look at he MLA website, also at a place called the British Locksmiths Association..

http://www.locksmithsassociation.com/gold.htm

This is a course I've enquired about, are they similar to the MLA? Or crap?

Cheers

Justin
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Postby lockey1963 » 13 May 2007 13:03

The BLA are a million miles away from the MLA, the MLA train , support and represent the locksmiths and the locksmith industry, The BLA are known criminals guilty of everything from drug dealing to credit card fraud.

The MLA will build you a career, the bla will rip you off and teach you nothing of any value .
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Postby NickBristol » 13 May 2007 13:05

Crap is the short answer. Dont get ripped off by them like several others here. Definitely go the ICL or MLA route. The BLA are a company, and a shady one at that, not an official organisation that puts it's members and the industry first.

There's no official organisation nationwide for locksmiths in the UK but the MLA are the closest thing to it, followed by the ICL. BLA and others are nothing more than companies who are only motivated by profits at the expense of newcomers to the industry.
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Postby justinthomas » 13 May 2007 13:22

WOW, I was gonna book the course too!

I'm sorry if I sound think, I just want to do the RIGHT course for me. I have contacted a sub-contractor who have told me that I can register with them once I'm trained & police checked, covering the whole of SE london and said I'd get loads of work.

What I plan to do is work for a sub-contractor for maybe 2 years whilst advertising privately building up my own name, again learning & practising on th ecalls I get from the sub-contractor.

I'd do the 2 day basic, 2 day advance & 1 day auto course with Rapidlocksmith (ICL Accredited Trainers) and get the necessary tools required.

Does this sound like a pipe dream or reachable? Please forgive my naievity, I just need some advice & dont want to p&*s my money up the wall...

Thanks in advance..

Justin
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Postby Afisch » 13 May 2007 14:45

I have no experiance with the locksmithing business specificly, but from experiances elsewhere id doupt the contractors would be happy about you working privately also. Prehaps someone with specific experiance could check this?
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Postby lockey1963 » 13 May 2007 14:49

as advised previously , i would spend some time here reading all of the topics, the locksmith industry doesnt suit all who desire to have a go, do you have the natural ability or the drive to make it work.

before considering any training at all, i still think you should consider some research and formulate a business plan.

i would consider splitting up your training, to ensure you get the most from it, if you try and do all you mention in one go, you will struggle to absorb it all,

start with the basics have a short break and absorb and practice this, the better you become at this, the more you will benefit from advanced training, i would certainly forget auto until you have absorbed the basics and the picking of domestic and commercial locks.

rapidlocksmiths only train a small number of novices, concentrating on trading locksmiths skills improvement, though they take on novices in areas that ICL need coverage only.
Rapidlocksmiths wont train anyone unless they submit a police check, and have researched their career move fully.

It is however worth noting that rapidlocksmiths do not train people to become locksmiths, they teach the art of non destructive lock opening for a specialist area of the industry, as has been mentioned before you need to look at other courses in carpentry and in upvc as well as lock opening, as if you concentrate purely on lock opening, unless good enough for warrants, you wont last long at all.
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Postby lockey1963 » 13 May 2007 14:55

i know its not probably what you want to hear, but if you want the best training for a long term career, then the MLA route is by far the most comprehensive available and most thorough, expensive and takes along time, but the best available career path avilable in the industry at present.

ICL is a specialist NDE lock opening association, excelling in certain areas of industry, not in competition with MLA but servicing a totally different industry sector.
ICL have a small trade show in nottingham on the 14th july where all trading locksmiths are welcome, the mla have a much larger trade show in leeds in september where ICL are also exhibiting , both will give you an insight into the industry and a good chance to talk to new and existing locksmiths.

at present read this site and learn from it, as the time doing this and doing some research will prove invaluable to you long term.
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Postby 79commando » 13 May 2007 14:58

You will do well if you follow the Rapidlocksmith, ICL or MLA route. The best test of a company is to ask them to give you a full refund on day one if you turn up with your own selection of locks and they fail to open them (Non destructively).

As most people will tell you the market is saturated but you can get work by subcontracting. Any company telling you that you will get loads of work is talking out of there ar** as if they had that much work they would employ their own lockmith to do the work before giving it to you.

Do a google of locksmiths in your area and see how much competition you have.

Specialising in any one area is difficult as most customers just call up any old locksmith and any old locksmith will have a go at most jobs and probably get away with it 90% of the time. One month you will get ten mortice lock jobs a couple of cylinders and a few cars. The next you will get ten cars, a couple of mortices and no cylinders. No one can make the customer phone you up, this only comes with a large advertisement budget and repeat business through word of mouth. Personaly for every advertised job I get coming in I will get three word of mouth ones. If I was to specialise this would reduce my workload massively.

Oh did I say DON'T USE E-BAY TRAINERS
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Postby Sbecspeledrx » 14 May 2007 6:14

Justin, It depends where you are and whether you have any unique selling point that will help you edge out other lockies in a section of the market - specialising is one way to do that. If for example you were on my patch with all the auto programming kit, you'd be working almost full time on the jobs I have to pass!

In terms of start up, I had about 2.5k, and have managed to build up to a 40k turnover, but to do that I had to go without income for two years, invest a lot of the income in new tools and advertising. And on last years 40k turnover - after further investment in a new van, tools etc the profit (wage) was under 5k. My outgoings in my first two years (funded from the income of the business) were about 40k. The 2.5k start up I had got me on a decent NDE entry course, and gave me a basic tool set.

I could not have done this had I been working at it part time, Every second I wasn't out earning I was reading this site, putting flyers through doors, meeting potential large customers or networking with other lockies. I work a minimum 10 hours a day at the moment, and get income for about 2 of those hours. If I just tried fitting the jobs in around another job, my business would not have expanded and unless you can provide immediate, efficient and fairly priced service to customers, you'll never make your money back on adverts (well unless you want to be a shyster and charge £100 for a one off opening). My advertising costs me around £70 a week, and brings in about 2 jobs. £90 if it's just the labour, now the only reason i keep the adverts going is that I also get about 4 jobs a week from people who used me before, after finding me by an advert - i.e. only through repeat work are the adverts worthwhile.

So, in short, you can start up with very little, but you'll make very little. You need to work hard, for no pay and invest all your income back into the business. Do that and in 4 years you'll have a decent little business, and a great job. Had I had 50k to start with I'm sure I'd have made money much quicker - but then I'm sure I wouldn't have used it to become a locksmith.
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Postby chip » 17 May 2007 10:27

As all has said, Don't touch ebay.

ICL have done me proud with support and advice from, in my opinion, some of the best lockies in the country.

Come to the trade trade show in Nott in July and get a feel for the business. there will be people with valuable advice there and prob a few stands where you can have a play and see how you feel after that.
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