During an earlier career while working for a lock maunfacturer, I was often invited into meetings when outside inventors would show us their lock inventions in hopes of selling the idea to the lock company. On a couple of occasions the inventors introduced themselves as thieves who were now going straight. These inventors claimed to have found weaknesses in existing locks during their burglary profession days and now believed they had better ideas for increasing security.
A recent article in the New York Times describes how two men were hired by a phone marketing company in Israel. The two men reportedly received phone calls from people in the United States who needed emergency locksmith services. The original emergency locksmith calls were then immediately relayed to waiting locksmiths in the U.S. who performed the emergency work. According to the New York Times article, the two men soon found out that prices quoted by phone were then inflated at the locksmiths at the U.S. jobsite.
According to the New York Times article, the two men from Israel have now relocated to California. Business practices learned from days in the questionable phone marketing business are now being put into use in their new career. The idea is to form a countrywide locksmith referral service. People requiring the services of a locksmith would contact this new marketing company which would then recommend a qualified local locksmith.
In the case of the burglar inventors, every idea divulged in those meetings had one or more hidden problems which made the idea unsaleable. In the case of phone marketing services, job distribution by phone inserts another layer into the sale of a job.
A phone bank located hundreds of miles away is simply sending us jobs we already own. If there are other local locksmith competitors then it is the responsibility of each locksmith to find ways to advertise their services so customers will call. The person who can best control the destiny of your business is you and not an unknown a thousand miles away.
