Inflation in the Locksmith Business (Update)

Greetings to all lock bosses out there! I hope the weather is good where you are. Up here in Idaho, it's a nice day. As far as I can remember, it's one of the first nice days in a decent amount of time—fun fact: I haven't even turned on my sprinklers at my house yet. So hopefully, we're going to have good weather soon. Uncap your ice cold Topo Chico bottle because we have a whole bunch of stuff packed in tonight. For this month, we released our Lock Boss Campfire Mug. I've been drinking coffee out of it every morning since we got them. For any order over $250, you could add one of these to your cart for free.

POSTS OF THE WEEK

And let's start with the post of the week, which should be plural. I need to change that because I got several of them.

The first one up was the key cleaner IQ test right there. I mean, looking at some of the comments and just looking at it, I was like, 'Oh my gosh!' Like just thinking about it is painful even to think. But I tell you what, once again, the internet is creative. Very creative, Odin's Lock.

A picture from Thomas W. He says, 'Just wanted to write a quick thank you note. This means a lot to someone like myself that is just getting started in the Locksmith trade. What an awesome surprise when I opened the box from you. Again, thank you so much!' How cool is that? Well, Thomas, I tell you what, thank you for participating in the lock boss giveaway. I also love seeing a couple of our pinning that sit down there. He has Flash 008, and that kit looks like a great addition to what you got going on. So very happy for you.

Now, let's talk about that image for a second there. I hope that image was made for a meme or something. That's interesting and special because, in this industry, there are many opportunities to do embarrassing things in front of customers. So we're not short of material.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

That's funny, man. I'm trying to think of any pointers for you. I mean, I'm guessing the stock market's down tremendously. I don't know if that helps or hurts you; it probably hurts you in this situation. But, hey, if you need us to vote, help vote with you on that. We can throw a vote in your favor. But that's good stuff.

INFLATION IN THE LOCKSMITH BUSINESS

This is not a fun topic for us to talk about. So I figure we have a little fun with the few memes beforehand.

Can you imagine my dad doing that for a second, taking me to school that way? Can you imagine me on the roller skates and my dad pedaling up there? That'd be a sight to see. I wonder if we could re-enact that scene. But the funny part about this meme is that it dates itself with the $5 a gallon thing. I mean, most of us are creeping around that area, which to me, even makes this meme a lot funnier.

The meme talks about $5 gas like it's a long way away. It dates it, which is funny, but I love the wheel on the bottom. I mean, that would break my arm, putting one of those on the bottom with falling. Hey, what do you know?

So I pulled this yesterday from Gas Buddy. And essentially is, this is an 18-month average retail price chart. Of course, it varies based on state with the different taxes and other stuff, but it gives us a decent way to look at it. When we look at a chart like this, we hope that this is what our portfolio looks like, maybe like our retirement portfolio, right? We like that upwards to the right trend. Unfortunately, this is the gas price and as of yesterday, when I pulled this - let me see what that is 66. So it looks like the gas price, you know, it's just a hair under $5 nationwide, so when we first started talking about that, you know you go down a little bit, you know we've seen a pretty good spike right we have. With that being said, we've already talked about this in the past, you know, months ago, and that we need to keep a good eye on our trip charge rates and as the gas prices change because that can affect a lot of us. Unfortunately, this is proof that it is something that we need to keep up on definitely. But not only that, I want to bring up gas and just talk about it that we have to make sure we're staying up to date with our trip charge prices.

More price increases from manufacturers are happening, and it's just the reality of the world we live in right now. And so June 1, you know, JMA had a 9% increase just a few days ago. Ilco, on June 13, is doing a five to 20% increase. The 20% is on nickel-silver keys. So like your best keys and that sort of thing. So if you're used to buy in best nickel silver key, or excuse me, Ilco, nickel silver keys, well, they're going to be 20%, more after the 13th, unfortunately, but most items went up about 9.5%. Abus, they're going up right around 11%. And as you can see there, Keydex is going to 25%. That's their first increase since 2017. So that's pretty minor, but it's a lot at once. So why do I want to bring this up? Well, first of all, I want to talk about it. I mean, this is something that is reality. I mean, it's the reality of the times that we're living in. And in this industry, in particular, we're burdensome into commodities, when it comes to metals, the brass, the zinc, the copper, all of that stuff, you know, is locks and keys. So it makes perfect sense that when we get into these, like high price spike times in the metals, we're going to experience this, and I think you know. So I guess the best way I could say this and put this out here quick would be a lot of times when we talk about inflation. All these price increases, it's easy to want to like, shift that narrative and just be upset about it, maybe, you know, talk politics talk this or that how we things could be done differently and make it better and all that I get it, by the way, I get it. But a lot of times, we get so busy in that area that we don't spend time to think through or have good conversations about what we can do about it, right? So, unfortunately, I nor you, can change the price of the skyrocketing price of brass, okay. But what we can do is try to get ourselves set up to our when we have these increases, that we can stay with it, we can stay with it and make sure that we're not paying the price for not raising our prices and finding ourselves our bank accounts going down and making it harder to do business. And so when you see why I put those percentages on there real quick if that's happening this month, it is just for like a wild thing, right? So every key on your wall right now is what I'm trying to say is this: every key on your wall right now is essentially worth 10, nine to 10% more. And that's good. That's good. Because your assets and your business just became more valuable, the next time you buy that key, it's also going to be more expensive. And so you want to make sure that you're adjusting accordingly. And probably the best way to see how you're doing if you use QuickBooks, or some sort of like zero some accounting software, is to pull up to profit and losses, like the last month, or the last quarter in 2021, and the first quarter and 2022. And look at your expenses, see your gas line item and the different items, and see how you're doing right. I mean, we can agree that everybody does it differently and has different thoughts and ideas when it comes to pricing and this and that, which is fine. But something that you can do that you can use more of as a valid document is look at an older profit and loss against a current one and see how you're doing with the price. There are other rising prices all over the place, whether it's gas, whether it's your lock hardware or your keys, right. So being able to sit down and take that time to look at those prices and see how you're doing personally as a business can be the most helpful thing you can do. Instead, we all wish it was maybe a little different, right? So that's kind of what I have to say about that. Today, I hope you found that helpful. Um, hopefully, it's just a reminder about, hey, you know what, I need to pull that profit loss in QuickBooks, and kind of see how I'm doing, or Hey, thanks for bringing it up the fact that right now, the keys are essentially this month, nine to 10, up to 20% more than they were last month. So that's the thing. And that's, its reality, and I tell you what it is, it's crazy, you know, from my personal experience, I mean, I've never seen anything like this, none of us have. But I don't know if it'll say like this or if it's gonna go up or down. But here's what I can tell you. What I'm going to do is stay with it. And I hope you do, as well. So there you have it there.