If you haven’t locked your keys in your car yet, one day you will. The odds are 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’re looking for a super interesting, high-paying career, you could do a lot worse than consider becoming a lock specialist. I know what I’m talking about, because as a practicing locksmith since 1983, I have opened (literally) countless vehicles and had many cases where I made over $200 an hour for several hours at a time. I can remember one amazing day servicing twenty-three lockouts, at an average price of $40 and an average work time of 10 minutes per vehicle, for most of the day. This was around Christmas 1995, in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was self-employed and doing very well as a full-service locksmith, but most of my business during the holidays has always been lockouts.
It is important to make a distinction here, to avoid confusion. I am not proposing that you earn that kind of money day in and day out. There will be average days and there will be busy days. But if you establish a business, in a fairly large city or have a base at least close to one, you can make money inordinately easy once you get established and your business becomes visible. Opening locked cars is as easy a profession as ever conceived. It takes some skill, of course, and you’ll need to study a bit before using blocking tools and advertising, but compared to many other professions, it can’t be beat for simplicity. You will also have to do some homework regarding legality. Some states require lockout specialists to be registered locksmiths, but most do not! This is something you need to determine before taking another step.
If you discover that you live in a jurisdiction that requires registration, it’s not that hard to do. He will need to gain a broader knowledge of locksmithing, but this is certainly not a detriment as it will likely lead to a fantastic career that goes far beyond opening locked minivans. If, on the other hand, you’re lucky enough to live in an area where lockout specialists can be licensed without having to be full-fledged locksmiths, the path to a comfortable career lays before you.
I started my business in Salt Lake City when I was 37 years old. Until then I had never dreamed of getting involved with locks, be it openings or keys. He was in dire straits, having just lost almost everything he owned through a business bankruptcy that occurred as collateral damage from a divorce. Someone suggested that I go door to door and sell “door viewers,” those little peepholes that people put on their front doors. This actually worked fine, but only because at the time he had no bills (he got rid of everything). After some time they asked me to install locks. I started doing that and was shopping for deadbolts at a local locksmith shop one day when the man behind the counter, who knew me by then, suggested I open a locksmith business. I thought you were joking, seriously. But he told me that locksmiths make incredible profits from 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 how to open cars.
That was a turning point in my life. I went on, within six months, to taking small locksmith jobs and teaching myself. I put a little ad in the Yellow Pages, hoping I wouldn’t go out of business in the first few months because those ads can’t be canceled, and I soon realized there was enough business out there and I was opening cars almost every day. day. I got better the more I did it (there were nightmare jobs where it took me hours to open a single car, but that was in the early days). Eventually the calls started coming in pretty regularly and I started making a lot of 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 beyond description.
I had to do all of this without a roadmap. There was nothing available for beginners in those days, not like there is today. The information explosion that is the Internet has made all the difference. I wish in 1983 I had had the perks available to today’s career seekers. There are now many self-help manuals and DVD courses that can teach you how to set up a lockout specialist business or an entire locksmith business. The prices are surprisingly affordable and the information on at least some of them is amazing. In many cases, you can get certified by purchasing one of these courses.
It’s worth considering if you like the idea of working for ten minutes, helping a motorist in need, and putting up to $50 or $60 in your pocket for your trouble.