Projected growth in Locksmithing

[cledry]

Well, after working on and off as a 'smith for 30 years and watching the business shrink and shrink, I gave up on ever being a fulltimer in the business again...til I found this job as an institutional locksmith (which are very rare).

I'm always suspicious of those job projections. If I was gonna start in the biz, I'd go for the higher end stuff-that way you don't have so much competition from big box stores and guys who work out of their car trunks.

I've been in the business a similar length of time and have seen an increase in business. It just changes. When I first started we did a lot of residential and automotive work, very little door work, and very little access control. Now we do almost no automotive, very little residential but we do a lot more safes, access control, doors and frames, pivots etc. All these things pay better than the residential and automotive and have less competition.

[dll932]

Well, after working on and off as a 'smith for 30 years and watching the business shrink and shrink, I gave up on ever being a fulltimer in the business again...til I found this job as an institutional locksmith (which are very rare).

I'm always suspicious of those job projections. If I was gonna start in the biz, I'd go for the higher end stuff-that way you don't have so much competition from big box stores and guys who work out of their car trunks.

I've been in the business a similar length of time and have seen an increase in business. It just changes. When I first started we did a lot of residential and automotive work, very little door work, and very little access control. Now we do almost no automotive, very little residential but we do a lot more safes, access control, doors and frames, pivots etc. All these things pay better than the residential and automotive and have less competition.

Great, if you can get it. I've seen 30+ year lock businesses that handled a variety of jobs go from turning calls away to maybe getting a call a day. As far as I know a lot of locksmiths have stopped doing cars due to the expense and PITA factor.

[cledry]

Many locksmiths are good locksmiths but poor businessmen and poor salesmen. Fortunately we have a couple of good salesmen and a very good businessman at the helm. That they are also good locksmiths is a bonus.

These are boom times for locksmithing. When the economy was bad a lot of work was found rekeying businesses that had terminated people, and sadly a lot of work was found after homes had been broken into. Now that the economy is booming, companies are hiring again and expanding. People have been buying homes on the cheap and selling them and the new owners are spending to make upgrades. We have a board with sales goals, we give employees commissions, we are pretty fast paced and there are several other really busy shops in the area, one shop regularly pays for TV commercials even.

I too have seen shops fail, I used to work at one and it failed due to poor business practices, not due to lack of work in the area. Customers want parts instantly, so that is what we try to do. If someone says they want a safe and want it delivered that day and we don't have it we will go and pick one up and deliver it. We don't want to say no we don't have it, no we cannot get it, no we cannot be there today and we certainly don't want to give the customer time to shop around or change their mind.

[dll932]

The shops that have staying power here seem to be the ones with established reps and word of mouth-generally 30 years worth or more. Of course, Cleveland isn't exactly a growing market...

[jeffmoss26]

I am in Cleveland too.
The larger shops are the ones that have branched out into other services, such as CCTV, alarms, national accounts, etc.
Bass Security comes to mind as a prime example.

[dll932]

I worked for Bass from 82 to 96. My understanding was they wweren't doing much in Cleveland any more.

[jeffmoss26]

They have a big HQ in Bedford Hts with a decent size retail area. I see their trucks all over but I know they do a lot of national chain store work. They do all the Medeco for our school district.

[dll932]

They have a big HQ in Bedford Hts with a decent size retail area. I see their trucks all over but I know they do a lot of national chain store work. They do all the Medeco for our school district.

Good for them! Remember though, they've been around since '74 and Dale the owner had some good connections when he started. To start NOW and build up a following would be a lot harder.

[cledry]

We do a lot of work for national service providers too. Probably 6-10 calls a day are for national service providers. We generally charge a minimum of @ $120 even if it is only 5 minutes on site. Usually the jobs run more and probably average $250 with no parts involved.