by 79commando » 11 Sep 2009 2:39
Hi Townie. Before even thinking of doing a course work out if their is work in the area you may set up in. The majority of courses are pretty much the same with the exception of one or two which just rip you off with the promise of working your own hours, earning over £1000 per week, being fully qualified after 2-3 days. I work in the industry and have friends UK wide some of whom are ten times the locksmith I will ever be and some are almost out of business due to lack of work. The reality is there is in some areas that many locksmiths, joiners, maintenance companies and call centres that you can go days between jobs. Sure you can make £100 in an hour on one job but if you don't get another one for three days you've made just over £33 minus fuel, insurance, advertisement etc you are onto a loser. Work on your phone ringing on a Monday nothing Tuesday and the odd job during the week normaly after 5pm when customers get back from work. Daytime find a good book to read. The emergency lockouts after 21:00hrs are a thing of the past. I used to do 2-3 per week but have not had a single one in over 1.5 years due to call centres spending a fortune on advertising, mainly 118 numbers etc. They buy about 20 numbers each and there are loads of them Nationwide and even some operating from America now so even if you advertise on 118 it could take over 100 lockouts before your turn comes up and at the end of the month it starts from number one again. I spent 0ver £2500 with 118247 over 2 years and received just 3 jobs even though they assured me I was the only Local Locksmith, they just happened top forget to mention the dozen or so call centres.
Whatever course you choose ask them if you can bring some of your own locks and if they can't open them non destructively can you get a refund. If they say yes do the course if they say no chances are they are shi@ locksmiths who can;t make a living doing their locksmithing so have resorted to training. Think about it if you could make money doing locksmithing why would you train others to do your work.
