40 Keynotes December 2024 aloa.org Our Industry: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow W HEN IT COMES TO OUR INDUSTRY’S reputation, I found that there was some consistency but also differ- ences among the group. Both Andy Dennison and Bob DeWeese mentioned the locksmith-handyman comparison. “When I was running service calls [years ago], locksmiths seemed to be viewed as spe- cialized handymen or just opened locked doors or cars,” said Andy. And Bob said, “Locksmiths have had — and seem to continue to have — a reputation of being a glorified ‘handyman,’ although this does seem more prevalent in residential work than most commercial work. Safe technicians and automotive locksmiths, on the other hand, probably seem more, to the general public, like overpriced “magicians.” In Wayne Winton’s view, “The locksmith in the field today is the one building the reputation for the entire industry.” Although Bill Mandlebaum thinks that most locksmiths have a great reputation, he also thinks that it’s “been sullied the last 10 or 15 years by the scammers.” He was not the only one to raise the issue of scammers; so did Joe Cortie: “ Locksmithing has a mixed reputation. There are good, reputable locksmiths who take pride in their work, and there are scammers that just go after the money.” John Kieffer mentioned scammers in his response as well: “It’s probably just my perspective because I’ve been around a long time, but some locksmiths in today’s world do not have the ethical standards of 30 years ago. The term ‘locksmith scammer’ was unknown to me when I started in this industry, but now we all know ‘locksmith companies’ that don’t seem to take pride in being fair and honest. I think the internet and being able to get business from Google ads, etc. have contributed greatly to this. With that said, most well-established locksmith companies are very reputable and ethical.” John Kieffer mentioned that licensing may be a way to help with the industry’s reputation: “Many states now have locksmith licensing requirements, which did not exist in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It’s debatable whether these licenses increase the quality and ethics of our industry, but some states do have fairly severe penalties (North Carolina is one). I would like to see locksmith licensing that helps weed out the companies that are just looking to scam or take advantage of customers, who are mostly residential homeowners.” In Jon Payne’s opinion, the industry has a poor reputation, in part due to the lack of national licensing and the fact that Google makes it easy for people to advertise themselves as locksmiths: “As an industry, [the reputation] is poor. Failure to agree to national licensing when it was proposed in the ’80s has allowed anyone to claim the title of locksmith, when in fact many are ‘mocksmiths.’ Google is much to blame because they allow anyone to advertise on the platform, and those who pay the most rise to the top of search results. Every single day this continues, more and more of the public are ripped off, casting a dark shadow over the entire industry. We are at an inflection point. If we don’t do something now, today, with the participation of all our members, ALOA won’t exist in five years, and the industry and professional standards will decline. We need to up our standards, have each member aggressively advertise our standards, and purge the bad actors from our rolls. We can work to fix this with well-placed articles in magazines and on social media that work to convert the public thinking. ‘When you think locksmith, think ALOA’ or, borrowing from Sy Syms, ‘Educated consumers use educated locksmiths.’” Reputation ’The locksmith in the field today is the one building the reputation for the entire industry.’
