If you haven’t locked your keys inside your car yet, one day you will. The odds are against you, because this is one of the most common mistakes that plagues 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 profit?

If you’re looking for a super interesting, high-earning career, you could do a lot worse than consider becoming a lockdown 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 multiple hours at a time. I can remember one amazing day where I serviced 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 vacation business has always consisted of lockouts.

It is important to make a distinction here, to avoid confusion. I am not proposing that you earn that kind of money day after day. There will be average days and there will be busy days. But if you set up a business, in a fairly large city or have a base at least near one, you can make insanely easy money once you’re 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 do some studying before using the blocking tools and advertising, but compared to many other professions, it can’t be beaten for its 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 find out 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 are 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 lies 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, either openings or keys. I was in dire straits, having just lost almost everything I 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 people put in their front doors. This actually worked well, but only because he had no invoices at the time (he got rid of everything). After a while they asked me to install locks. I started doing that and was shopping for locks at a local locksmith one day when the man behind the counter, who knew me by then, suggested that I open a locksmith business. I thought he was joking, seriously. But he told me that locksmiths make incredible profits from almost everything they do, especially lockouts. He sold me some tools, which in Utah is perfectly legal (or at least was at the time), and also a little book on opening 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 bankrupt in the first few months because those ads can’t be cancelled, and 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 fairly 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 you 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 would have had the advantages 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 a complete 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.