Locksmith Trip Charges and Gas Prices...Are you going Broke?

Grab your bottle of Topo Chico as we go through the post, comment, memes of the week, and how gas prices will affect our service business.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Cooking up beans in the crocpot. How ridiculous is that? The thing that gets to me more than anything is I'm pretending it's clean, but the beans were sticking through the holes. Somehow it gets me, and it's not good. But it's a pretty funny meme cooking up beans in the crock pot. Have you seen it before? I'd love to know. But yeah, that got pretty much throw up emojis back at me.

POST OF THE WEEK

Post the week. I have a couple of them for you here.

The first is from Bradley. Bradley, thanks for sending this picture. These are his lock boss stuff. That one looks like a bit of lab three in one universal pin kit, the icon beanie, big bro, and pinning mat. Bradley, thank you for sending that in.

Next, we got Tyler sent in a picture he got for his toddler. I'm picky shirt. How cool, funny, and punny is that? That's pretty gosh darn good, Tyler. I wish I had had those for my kids when they were young. That is lock boss themed.

We also got Andrew N to send in a picture. Some padlocks, back lock, abus, and his lock boss sticker. It looks like he put the lock boss sticker on his workbench, and it was a must that we share it with the world. Good stuff.

And lastly, we have JD lock set in his winnings. You can see the picture of his winnings in that blue new lock boss sticker. Of course, you know the color kit for the cylinders by major. And it looks like he's working with a lab super wedge in the background, and off to the left, I see hints of a flash or a flash mobile. Good stuff.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Pouncer Minned, I want to say thank you for putting that question. I know that it takes humility to write that and ask for help or advice. That's awesome. And the fact that you're asking a question like that, and you're being honest about, like, where you're at on that spectrum, pretty much tells me you're going to make it. And that's the best part. To answer your question, I think this happens to all of us. We're going to experience mistakes and stuff that seems like it should be easy but ends up not being accessible on our learning curve. And that's part of the learning process, and it's unavoidable. A couple of questions that go through my mind are: were you supplying the locks or the customer supplying the locks? A lot of times, latches can be a problem. If it has a mortise latch or Azumi drive-in latch, and you have a mortise latch that you're replacing it with, there are all sorts of minor issues that can add up the time and cause frustration. It seems like you're trying to get those main two screws on there to clamp it down, and they're being a pain. So, I'd say if you can, before you go to a job, and you have the hardware, go ahead practice on one of your doors or something. Try putting one on and making sure everything is good there. Learning about the lock a little bit because it takes time to get comfortable a lot of times. We start to feel a little pressure from the customer. I don't know about you, but it starts to make me get a little antsier, and they're just human nature. We want our customers to be happy. And well, that's how it goes. Such a great question. Thank you again for asking it. And I'd love to hear all the community input there as well. When it comes to the pricing, you have to find that spot. And you have to realize that even a pro who is well experienced will struggle on a job from time to time. And you shouldn't necessarily let that fix your pricing, and I'm guessing you did flat-rate pricing from what it sounds, and so that's good. I'd say the problem there would be charging per hour for an experience. But yeah, I love to hear everyone's feedback for Pouncer.

GAS PRICES ARE UP

Moving on, gas prices are up. Are you going broke? Because let's face it, it's tough. Everywhere you looked, social media or news talked about gas prices. And if you drive a service van as a locksmith or a vehicle in general, that takes gas or diesel. It's a little stressful, and it affects all of us. But today, we're going to be talking about the business side of it. And, guys, let's be honest, it's typically challenging to talk about rising gas prices or prices on anything and in an economy and not want to go, Hey, let's go political. But, in this setting, it's good to stay on the what can I do? How can I deal with this? Because in life, we can either choose to be proactive or reactive with the gas prices. And if you choose to be reactive, you're going to lose money. That's just the way it is. So, let's kind of dive into this a little bit, and give you my perspective; a couple of pointers. But what I'm most interested in is how you deal with this? Because the truth is how we succeed is by going to be together. Mixing of thoughts and ideas that all of us can learn together; that's the purpose of the lock boss community.

First of all, traveling to do a job will cost you gas. When costs go up, you'll have less money. That's how it works. So, not addressing this issue is going to cost you money. And the best way for us is to figure out how much it costs you per mile. Take the price of gasoline and divide it by how many miles you get a gallon. It will give you ballpark figures. Because a lot of times, especially if you're in a rural area, you might have to travel quite a bit of distance, and you might be using flat fee trip charges. And by not considering the distances you're driving, it will be a problem. It will cost you a lot more to go a lot further. The weird part to me is we don't talk enough about when it comes to trips. We have to come back. A 20 miles drive is 20 miles driving around as well. Hopefully, you're going to your next job to do that kind of thing. So you want to consider that.

Next is to look back when you set your pricing. We live in a time of inflation. Right now, we have to keep adjusting the prices to deal with that. And so I would say, look back when the last time you set your price for your trip charge was and look at the expense of gas. Compare it to what it is now and look at that difference. You can combine that into like what it costs you every month. And then, at that point, you can start figuring out do I need to add on a surcharge or update that price. And I would highly recommend setting up some price structure right now. Be prepared. Make sure that when price when gas hits a certain level, you've already done the math, and you know how to adjust your trip charge pricing. And at the same time, you have to be willing to communicate that with the customers. Be reasonable about it and set up a win-win type of situation.

I hope that stuff is helpful at all, maybe got some wheels spinning, perhaps something you can kind of think about. I think what I want to say more than anything is, please don't do nothing. The biggest mistake you can make is to decide at a fear most likely to keep the price the same. Small business is fragile, and we have to protect our companies or livelihood.