A day in the life of a locksmith with Justin Fankhauser 

U seem more like a honda guy...

lmao exatly

Take a shot for every "obviously" XD

@heath mcdonald then you employ a locksmith who supplies good quality ones. I only supply those which meet basic insurance standards and 95% of those I replace don't, so what would be the point of rekeying them? Just fit a better one in their place...

Because saving a client $30-$150 by repairing their existing lock can lead to better jobs down the line. Most locksmiths work with property management firms and realtors, replacing every lock every time a spring is broken is not sustainable. As soon as you run into a property manager who knows you could have just rekeyed their apartment building instead of trying to sell them all new locks for 20+ doors you just lost a client. Except not only did you just lose a client, that guy is now going to bad mouth you to all their friends about how you're ripping people off. You have no idea who the person on the other side of the door knows, and the locksmith trade is a largely word of mouth profession. Be honest, work with integrity, there is no room for crooks in the security industry.

@@deadhammerwow $150..?!! 😮😮😮 That's £112 (GBP) - locks must cost a lot more over there..! The typical locks I supply here in the UK, vary from £25 to £60 (retail) and I only supply the medium to high end locks - most of my competitors would supply locks valued at half that price and I know I lose a lot of work because people would rather pay less than I charge, but at the end of the day, you get what you pay for. As for property management companies, they would only pay for medium range locks, they wouldn't entertain the more expensive ones. I carry the equipment to rekey the locks I supply if the customer wants keyed alike or at a push, I could build a basic master keyed suite, but it would be easier and fairly cheap, to buy a suite from my supplier if there was no massive rush for it. Another reason I would always prefer to replace, rather than rekey, is because I offer a 12mth guarantee on everything I supply (up to 2yrs, I will normally replace the product FOC, but charge labour) and I wouldn't put a guarantee on any lock that wasn't new. Most of the locks I replace are crap quality, usually fitted by a handyman or builder, for whom a lock is a lock - quality and spec are far less important to them that price or availablity.

@@hairychris71 that's in CAD not USD, which would be about £86. Over here we do quite a lot of Mul-T-Lock and Assa for apartment towers. Our Mul-T-Lock 7x7's are about £55, and the Assa NW4s are closer to £100. To be honest we're actually one of the cheaper companies around too. There are still plenty of standard Schlage, Weiser, and Kwikset jobs where a new cylinder is £15 or so, but you still end up needing to rekey it so they only have one set of keys to worry about. The difference in profit is so minimal there is just no point in throwing out a perfectly good lock. However, our rekey fee for Mul-T-Lock and Assa is about £10, so when you go to the client and say I can rekey eight doors for £80 and a £45 service call, or sell you all new cylinders for £440 for Mul-T-Lock or £800 for Assa plus labour, its an obvious choice what you're going to do.

You are doing your customer a disservice by replacing a lock that does not need replacing. If you think that making a higher profit in the short term should be your only consideration, you’ll find an increasingly shrinking market for your services as a parts changer.