Close

Choose your country

Or view all businesses for sale

Worldwide

CAN

How to Run a Locksmith Business in Canada

Enhance your presence, boost your revenue, and pave your way to success. Find out how to run your locksmith business to full potential.

Overview of the Sector

Whether a locksmith business is based in Canada or anywhere else, it pertains to the designing, picking, maintaining, and installing of both, electronic and mechanical locks.

Locksmiths offer services to a broad range of customers, in every kind of household. However, governments and corporations usually end up being the primary sources of profit for such businesses.

This is probably why an average locksmith in Canada is able to earn $47,183 annually. Entry level positions typically start off at $40,463 in a year, and experienced locksmiths can make $58,500 annually.

If you are in this business, then you are already aware of how locksmiths work. You have set yourself up, but now it's time to ramp up your efforts and boost your growth.

Reinventing Your Business

Here are a couple of strategies you can explore to boost your growth and revenue.

Venture towards expansion of services

For various reasons, such as staff limitations, locksmith businesses do not explore their potential and end up offering limited services. However, once you decide to expand the services you offer, you can reach a broader customer base. For example, you can offer wireless alarms and security lighting installation to your more financially able target market.

Enhance accessibility

Regardless of the industry, moving to a digitized way of business is integral. It allows your clients to access you easily and efficiently. If you have a website, consider upgrading it to improve its functionality and SEO, and think about developing an app for your services.

Improving Inventory Management Systems

You may not even realize this yet, but you could be bleeding money due to an inefficient inventory management system. You can fix that by bringing in an inventory software that is high rated in the locksmith industry in Canada. All you need to do is visit Capterra and find one that suits your needs.

Capterra provides software reviews. It consists of reviews from real users, who are verified owners. With its rating system and comparison charts for product features, pricing, and more, you can find the best inventory management system to suit the size of your business and budget.

However, if you do not want to spend time and money doing field work, you can use the inventory scheduling and tracking programs mentioned below, as suggested in locksmith business research reports.

Service Fusion

GeoNext

Growing in the Sector

Job prospects in the locksmith industry range from fair to good in Canada, with Manitoba reflecting good prospects, and Alberta, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and British Columbia reflecting fair prospects.

As previously mentioned, an experienced locksmith can make up to $58,500 a year. While this is relatively low, with the right training and expertise, it is possible for a locksmith to earn $43.74 per hour.

Some Industry Facts

  • Around 15,000 potential in-house and institutional security and lock related trade persons are currently operating in Canada.
  • The Institutional Locksmiths Organization of Canada was created to provide locksmiths with useful knowledge, guidance, training and support.

Marketing Your Business

Like any other business, locksmith business marketing tips include the establishment of a strong online presence.

You need to jump on the bandwagon and learn how to utilize web analytic tools to reach new audiences, increase your leads and generate a return on investment (ROI).

The purpose of these tools is to help you track anything and everything that is taking place on your website. You will be able to see the starting point of your visitor, as well as the device they used. Furthermore, you can also review the total revenue generated in a week, month, or the entire year.

With analytics tools, you can gain access to a number of activities occurring on your webpage. Consequently, as the owner of a locksmith website, you can open new doors for yourself by way of product sales and customer engagement. The latter can be achieved through content marketing and email campaigns.

Given that locksmiths provide a business that is service-based, you should encourage customer feedback. In this day and age, people prefer doing their research online, which is what you need to focus on.

Therefore, asking existing customers to leave reviews on Facebook and Google is imperative. This will allow you to pinpoint your weak areas and enhance the quality of your service. Moreover, testimonials will help boost online exposure and bring in more traffic by way of customer inquiries.

Exploring Financial Opportunities

Below are three of the most frequently used financing sources in Canada.

1. Unsecured loans

2. Crowdfunding

3. Angel investors

Exiting the Market

Despite the fact that business is steady in the locksmith market in Canada, as well as across the globe, business owners may want to exit the industry for multiple reasons.

Therefore, preparing to sell your business is always beneficial. Here are several reasons why people exit businesses:

  • Uncertainty regarding the future of market developments could make the owners want to cash out.
  • Businesses continuously losing money despite trying various approaches to become stable could eventually wave the white flag.
  • If the market is steady and stable, entrepreneurs may feel that the thrill of doing something new everyday is gone. They may no longer feel motivated to continue operations, due to the lack of new challenges and thus, give up in order to rediscover their passion.
  • Many owners become exhausted after having to constantly deal with failed agreements, ever-changing business models, and financial uncertainty. Thus, they choose to opt out and sell.


Megan Kelly

About the author

Megan is Head of Content Marketing at BusinessesForSale.com. She is a B2B Content Strategist and Copywriter. She has produced multiple articles that rank on the first page of Google SERPS, and loves creating people-first content.

@Be_theBoss