$200 Per Hour Car Opener — How To Become A Locksmith
If you haven’t locked your keys in your car yet, someday you will. The odds are heavily against you because this is one of the most common mistakes that haunt the civilized world. Personally, I’ve done it no less than ten times over a period of, say, twenty years…and I’m a locksmith!
Now, how can you turn this into a benefit?
If you happen to be looking for a high paying, super interesting career, you could do a lot worse than to consider becoming a Lockout Specialist. I know what I’m talking about because as a working locksmith since 1983 I have opened (literally) countless vehicles and have had many cases where I made over $200 an hour for several hours at a time. I can recall one amazing day where I serviced twenty-three lockouts at an average cost of $40 and an average work time of 10 minutes per vehicle — most of the day. It was near Christmas 1995 in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was self employed and doing very well as a full service locksmith, but most of my holiday business was always in the form of lockouts.
It is important to make a distinction here to avoid confusion. I’m not suggesting you make that much money day after day. There will be average days and there will be busy days. But if you set up a business in a relatively large city, or at least base yourself near one, you’ll unwittingly make easy money once you’re established and your business is visible. Opening locked cars is as easy a profession as it has ever been imagined. It takes some skill, of course, and you’ll need to do a bit of research before pulling out the blocking tools and pitching in – but compared to many other professions, it simply can’t be beat for simplicity. You’ll also need to do some homework on the legalities. Some states require locksmiths to be registered locksmiths, but most do not! This is something you need to determine before taking another step.
If you find that you live in a jurisdiction that requires registration, this is not that difficult to do. You will need to acquire a wider knowledge of locksmithing, but this is certainly not a detriment as it will likely lead to a fantastic career that goes beyond opening locked vans. If, on the other hand, you are lucky enough to live in an area where locksmiths can be licensed without needing to be full-fledged locksmiths, the path to a light career lies before you.
I started my business in Salt Lake City when I was 37 years old. Until then, I had never dreamed of working with locks, opening cars or keys. I was in a tough situation, I had just lost almost everything I owned due to a business failure that happened as collateral damage from the divorce. Someone suggested I go door to door selling “door windows” — those little peepholes people put in their front doors. This actually worked fine, but only because I didn’t have any accounts at the time (everything was dumped). After some time I was asked to install locks. I started doing this and one day I was buying latches at a local locksmith shop when the guy behind the counter who had gotten to know me by then suggested I start a locksmith business. I thought he was kidding me, seriously. But he told me that locksmiths make incredible profit on almost everything they do, especially lockouts. He sold me some tools — which is perfectly legal in Utah (or at least it was at the time) — and also a little book on opening cars.
It was a turning point in my life. Within six months I started taking on small locksmith jobs and teaching myself. I ran a small ad in the yellow pages, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t go broke in the first few months because these ads can’t be canceled, and soon realized there was enough business out there that I was opening cars almost every day. I got better at it the more I did it (there were nightmare jobs where it took me hours to open a car, but that was in the very early days). Eventually the calls started coming in pretty regularly and I started making good money doing something I enjoyed. The feeling of helping others who really need your specialized service is great and knowing that you are working for yourself and no one else is indescribable.
I had to do all this without a road map. In those days there was nothing available for beginners, unlike today. The explosion of information that is the Internet has made all the difference. I wish in 1983 I had the advantages available to career seekers today. There are now many self-help manuals and DVD courses that can teach you how to set up a locksmith business or a full-fledged locksmith business. The prices are surprisingly affordable, and the information in at least some of them is staggering. In many cases, you can actually earn a certificate by purchasing one of these courses.
It’s worth considering if you like the idea of working ten minutes, helping a driver in need, and putting up to $50 or $60 dollars in your pocket for your trouble.
#Hour #Car #Opener #Locksmith