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Locksmith Trends of 2022 Part 2
PJ Slauson
So, I've been asking everybody, if you haven't already, go ahead and send in your photo. We're doing something special for Christmas. Only a few days left to be able to get your photo in. So thank you, so many of you have already sent them in, thank you. If you've been procrastinating or not sure, go ahead, and just send it in.
Send it to sales@clksupplies.com, and we're gonna get you put in there. It's something special that we've been working on, I want to tell you, but at the same time, I don't want to, because I want it to be a surprise. So hopefully, you can send that photo in, we'll get it in there. I tell you what. I'm running up against a tight deadline. I gotta get everything finished up this week. So, it's going to be a busy week for me. Busy week.
So, let's see here. Alright, with that being said, I think that's all the stuff I had to bring up before the slides. So, let's go ahead and get to it.
Posts of the Week
Alright, posts of the week, let's see what we're cooking on.
So, this says,
"I have attached a picture of my Nephew and I cutting his very 1st key. We used the first key machine my grandfather ever bought as well.
That makes 4 generations of my family that have cut keys on this machine.
I thought being a multi generation family with several business in the lock and key industry you might appreciate this." -Michael M.
Michael, thank you for sending that in. That is so cool. I tell you what, this post honestly makes me wonder. I don't think I've taught any of my kids how to cut a key, and I look at your post and I'm like, guilty. I feel guilty that I haven't done that yet, especially on the machine that I actually learned on. It's still in my dad's lock shop, so I need to get my kids over there and get them to cut a key, right? That's very cool. Michael, thank you for sending that in. That's awesome.
Alright, next up here is from Jeff K. at Kelley Locksmith says,
"please find attached picture's Thank you for being a great supplier of Locksmith supplies even when unexpected things happen you all get it handled very well I appreciate you all that work there to help us lockbosses with the supplies we need." -Jeff K. at Kelley Locksmith LLC
And looks like you got a mini Durex kit, as well as a key gauge that's pretty cool. Pretty cool. Let's see here.
Next up is from Chris H.
Chris, thanks for sending those pictures in and very cool so looks like yeah, you got a pinning kit, a metal case pinning kit. Trying to look at something else in the picture. Sorry, you know, the funny part is the pictures are so small on my laptop from where I'm doing this from, so you all could probably see it better than me. Thanks very much, Chris. Alright.
This next one is from Lock Mechanic Locksmith,
"Rytan RY2000 Dual Key Punch. Put it to work right after receiving and unpacking it for an emergency job, and it performed flawlessly. Much faster than manual duplication or a key code machine. Thanks @clksupplies for the quick delivery!" -Lock Mechanic Locksmith
Very cool. Those are fun. We use one of those here quite a bit actually. So, very cool. Hey, there's Lock Mechanic Locksmith right there. Hey, pull it up here. Let's pull this up, "Oh, hey, that's my post." Yes, it is. Thanks for sending that in. That's really cool. Even cooler seeing the Triton sit right back there. How about that?
Comment of the Week
Alright, so let's go to comment of the week.
From Dave Mica,
"Always appreciate videos like this on ways to save money and reduce inventory."
Yeah, that's so true. You know the funny part about that video is- I think it was released on Sunday, and it's talking about keys that you no longer need to stock. You know, the funny part is that you shouldn't stock them, but the funnier part is that like, I still stock them. We have all of those keys in stock, and we sell them all the time, you know. And so, it's like, it's a SKU, we should stock it, because I'm guessing that if they search it on our website, and we don't have it, they're gonna go somewhere else. So, we'll sell it to them. But it's kind of funny, you know, sitting there doing a video talking about like, don't buy these keys, yet we sell these keys.
But you know, it's the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to hopefully equip everyone with the best knowledge that we can. Because at the end of the day, it's just better for everybody. So, especially, you know I've been picking on that FIC1 key forever now. And I'm going to keep picking on it, and every opportunity I get to pick on that key to hopefully never have to buy another one, because people are buying the FIC3s instead.
So, let's see. "I've got a cold Dr. Pepper" well hey, cheers to you Lucky Strike. Very cool.
So anyways, hey, at the end of the day, we're gonna keep putting content out. If you remember a while ago, on the number one cutter that we sell, or at the time we sold, and I'd have to look for to know for sure if it's this still, but was the 994 cutter bits, right? And it's really because how the machine works, it kind of screws up, it can get a little confusing and people are snapping bits, right? So I did the video going over how to make sure that doesn't happen. But I think at the end of the day, it's better to not, you know, like, hey, let's save money at the end of the day. It's good to save money on stuff that you don't need, so that's cool. Let's see here. Oh man, we have so many good comments. I look at that.
Newhouse Lock and Key says, "PJ I just got my mullets and love them." Very cool.
And Tims Sharpening says, "Get your worms?" Tim Sharpening, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. I don't think so. Maybe if you sent some or something. Maybe I'll be getting them soon. I don't know.
Let's see here. Oh, hey, Michael Eckert, "boise idaho here. #lockboss" Fellow Idahoan out of Boise. Michael, what's up. Very cool.
2022 Locksmith Trends Part 2
Alright, so with that being said, let's go ahead and dive into it. Okay, so let's do a quick review. So, a couple weeks ago, we started talking about this survey that the Locksmith Ledger did. They had about 250 people participate in it. And I was kind of highlighting some of the key points. And I'm going to be highlighting some more today. Now of course, if you want to look at it for yourself, you can definitely go to the Locksmith Ledger's website and take a look at that. But alright, so here we go. So tonight, we're going to talk about profit. Alright?
So, I wanted to separate this one out, because I want to dive into it a little bit. Let's talk about it and see if we all can't maybe learn something or look at something to examine.
Revenue for Locksmiths in 2022
So, according to this survey, the revenue for locksmiths essentially going from 2021 to 22, it's really looking at like, did you grow or what's revenue look like for 2022 compared to 2021. Alright, 31% said it was about even. 29.3% said it was slightly up. 15% said significantly up, and then you have 13% and 10% saying either slightly down or significantly down.
So, what I'm interested is like, what does this look like for you? Are you in the 31%? 29%? Now, the hard part with studies, and I always kind of talked about this a lot is that there's about 250 locksmiths that were surveyed for this. But without seeing revenue size, it's always kind of hard to tell. Right? I mean, if you did $10,000, last year, and you were, you know, a part time locksmith or something, and then this year, you did $20,000? Well, that'd be, you know, obviously, double revenue.
And so, it could really skew that up. And it would of course, put that in significantly up. What are those numbers actually looking like? I don't know, it probably doesn't matter. Now let's go ahead and go to the next slide here.
Profit for Locksmiths in 2022
Which is locksmith profit. Okay, so the same people were surveyed. We just talked about the sales, and now we're talking about the profit. So, 36.4% were about even. 29.8% were slightly up. 8.9% were significantly up. 13.8% are slightly down and 11.8% are significantly down.
Revenue vs Profit for Locksmiths in 2022
So, I wanted to just kind of compare these a little bit. So, if you look at the revenue 31% were about even and 36% were about even. You know, something that's kind of cool though, is that when you can visually look at it, the significantly down revenue is about that same percentage as was significantly down on the profit. And same with a slightly down revenue versus profit.
So, when you look at the other two, right, the interesting one to me, as always, like, if you look at the significantly up revenue,15.1%, but only 8.9% had a significantly up profit. So that is interesting. So, half of the people who were significantly up in revenue, their profit was not significantly up, which is a real easy thing to fall into.
Right? It's really easy to, you know, I think it's more true than untrue to say that a lot of people like to talk about things, like this big job they got or, you know, their sales, revenue growth, which is all fun and dandy. You know, it feeds the ego a little bit, maybe impresses your friends, whatever it might be.
But what really matters, of course, is the actual profit. If you were to say, "hey, I just landed this $10,000 job." But you followed up with, "but I'm only making $500," the person you're telling to be like, "oh, I don't really know if that's good." Right. So yeah, I find it very, very interesting.
People are commenting a whole bunch of good stuff. Thanks for putting that in there. Robert says, "we are 42% full." I think that means that's good.
"My incomes up a lot this year." That's cool. That's cool. So yeah, so that's kind of what we're looking at. So even if you don't want to share in the comments, or whatever, just remember this and kind of look at your own numbers and compare and at minimum, it's going to help you just kind of understand where you're sitting compared to others in the industry.
So, Odin says, "I had to raise my prices for the first time in 10 years." Good for you. Very good. Very good. Put it on there. And you know, it's something we should do. You know, I record the conversations my dad and I have about him raising his prices. Dad, you watching? We have some good fun topics about that.
Biggest Challenge for Locksmiths in 2022
But alright, the next thing I want to dive into is similar depending on how you rank on this, and that is the biggest challenge in 2022 for Locksmiths.
Now, this isn't a surprise to any of us, product delays accounted for 64% of people. They said that product delays are a significant challenge for them. So, that is not surprising at all. I think we're all in the same boat trying get the product that we need, including myself. Our sales would even be more than whatever they currently are. So, although, I will say it's getting a lot better. We're seeing it right now. Manufacturer fill rates are really at the highest that we've seen them in a decent amount of time. So that's really cool.
Alright, so next up is 57.3% said controlling costs are a factor. And that's no surprise, right? We're living at a time of inflation, and it makes a lot of sense.
So next up is that 38.7% said keeping current with new technology and products. I have a question for everybody actually watching, and that is would you find any value in in some of our shows, where I actually went over some of the newer lock technology that is coming out? Or is out? And what about anything that you could apply to your business and what you're doing? So, if you think that would be something that maybe you would find value in, I could certainly start doing that could be kind of kind of fun. So definitely let me know on that one, but let's do a few more.
Alright next, almost 33% says finding and retaining employees. Yes, that, of course, I think is more general. Like I think so far, I mean, at least three of the top four is probably like, every news headline in 2022. Right? That's kind of how it goes. But let's go on a couple more here.
Creating recurring monthly revenue is at 26%. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, when I'm reading these, I get so many ideas. But we'll keep going on here.
One more. Let's go one more so, and that 22% is acquiring and keeping customers. So yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these are either, you know, 2022 normal headlines, and then a couple of the other ones, you know, staff retention, and acquiring keeping customers, that's business, right? I mean, that's business. So, not surprising. So, I hope you guys found some value in that. So, that's what we have today.
Now there is a part three, since we're already 27 minutes in here. So, there we go. I will do a part three here in a few weeks. And we'll kind of finish out these trends and go from there.
So yeah, it looks like a lot of you want to see some of the new technology stuff coming out. And so here fairly soon, I'll put together a couple shows where we'll kind of go over talking about some new technology, whether or not it's something that is relevant to us in this industry or not, or how it applies.
We can have fun, right? We can have fun. So, let's do that. So, let's see here. Good comments, everybody. Alright. So, with that being said, let's go on to this week's #Lockboss winners.
#Lockboss Winners
Now of course, before we do, let's talk about what to do if you win. And if you win, you want to email us your shipping info to sales@clksupplies.com or call us at 800-848-6989 and we'll send your gifts soon.
How to Win: comment on our videos with the hashtag #lockboss. Winners will be chosen from comments on the previous week's videos. So, without further ado, let me take a quick sip here and let's get them announced.
Alright, here we go.
Winner number one is: Michael Eckart
Michael, congratulations.
Winner number two is: Jeff and Things
Jeff and Things, congratulations.
Winner number three is: Honey Lovelace
How cool? I know Honey's on here. Congratulations.
Winner number four is CT
CT, congratulations.
And last, but not least winner number five this week is: Steven Zeis
Steven, congratulations.
And there you have it, everybody that is the show tonight. Let me head the comments here for a minute.
Yes, Honey, you won. Congratulations! How cool was that? So, make sure you send us an email to sales@clksupplies.com. And we'll get you hooked up. So that's the end of that.
You know, guys, hey, you know, I think the Lockfather's watching, you know, we're live on the internet. So why not talk about things? But what do you guys think? So, I have some ideas for locksmithing advertising and that sort of thing. And I'm thinking about trying to get my dad to let me do it inside of his business, which is no big deal, but I'm gonna film it. How fun would that be? Like filming if it works or not? How about that? And just see how it goes. And then hopefully, the reason we film it is maybe I'll, you know, fail, and we'll have it on video. But something cooler would be if it actually worked. And you guys could apply it to what you're doing and stuff. So, I don't know might be kind of fun. So, you nudge him. Lockfather, let PJ do weird marketing things in your business and let him film it? I don't know. I'm asking live on the internet. Right. That's peer pressure. Healthy peer pressure.
Let's see here. Yes, Sarge says, "Indeed if you could cover some of the newer stuff and easy ways for us to implement it that would be amazing." And but yeah, yeah, I think be kind of fun. You know, heading in the new year, I think there'd be some good stuff to do.
Alright, everybody, have a good evening. We'll see it same place same time. Next week. Y'all take care
