Potential Business Owner

DESCRIPTION: A well-established commercial locksmith business whose owner is ready to turn over the reins with HUGE POTENTIAL for expanding the existing business even further!! REQUIREMENTS: Competent person with a can-do attitude and is service-minded and customer service mentality. Wants to play a BIG game! CONTACT INFO: Laura at laura@baycitieslock.com Many people know me on CSN as I actively buy/sell/help. I also am very opinionated, but my bark is worse than my bite. That being said we looking for somebody to take the reins. It could write us a check and we are gone or work your way into the position over a period of time. I love to work but I would like to be able to come & go and ease my way out. I have other irons in the fire and would love to move those projects along. Here is the good, bad & the ugly. Good: Have been established since 1980. The hard work is done. The weather in California is amazing. In a few hours, you can be in a variety of activities. We are almost 100% commercial. IMHO that is where the gravy is. We used to do it all but settled into this niche. We are HEAVILY involved in master keying. Most is Schlage and Schlage Primus. We do a lot of door work. Closers, exit devices, cover plates, conversions, hinge/pivot work and all the stuff that most people do not want to deal with. I personally like doing custom projects, but they can be trying and money losers if not managed properly. We have a great customer base with good loyal customers. We have a base of operations that is not generally open to the public, although they do show up once in a while. 2 guys are regularly in the field and we have a 3rd guy that does inside & outside and is the 3rd man out often. Bad: I am not a great manager, marketing person, or very skilled on the electronics side of the ledger. Little to no marketing or promotion has ever been done. We have grown organically over the years. IMHO somebody with better business skills and the smallest amount of promotion could have a tiger by the tail. Put a sales guy in the field and beat the bushes and you would be buried. California! We service a huge area. A lot of smiths here will not travel very far. We farm out more work than I would like as we are often overworked understaffed. We also have to partner with or pass on electronic stuff as I do not feel confident in delivering a stellar product. We also farm out all safe work that is not a combo change. Ugly: California! This establishment is a diamond in the rough. With a bit of elbow grease, knowledge, organization, hiring and youthful energy I bet you could double or triple the gross sales in 1-To 2 years. There are smiths in the area that are getting long in the tooth if you just wanted to buy additional market share & expansion. If you wanted to expand back out to doing automotive, residential, access control, alarms & CCTV, safes, or open a retail location - all of that could >be done. I have been heading in the opposite direction. We do whatever comes along and figure it out. That MO is not for everyone and a more focused approach on easily trainable skills with lots of repeatable work could work just as well. I have put Cali in the good, bad & ugly categories. It is beautiful and there are lots of things to do. The food is beyond amazing. There is tons of good high paying work. Then there is the flip side of it all if you're a conservative sort. The laws and goofiness are all over the place. I just keep my head down and just forge ahead. I believe in full disclosure and have nothing to hide. This business has been VERY good to me & my family! Had I been a better business person like Tom Demont, Breck Camp, or Mark Blum I would have been successful x 10 or more. I am not complaining, I shoulder full 100% responsibility for the Good (although most of the good is due to Laura who happens to be typing this). I would like to see the business carry on and expand to its potential. There are literally HUMONGOUS opportunities in this valley. A snapshot of some of the most recent projects we are working on: This past week a new building needed rekeying/masterkeying with 100 doors. All new Schlage LFIC with about 50% Primus. Followed up with a customer that needs 5 buildings rekeyed. Last year we rekeyed 1 new building and 2 existing buildings for this same customer. It is 100% Primus LFIC. An estimate out for 5 alarm lock DL2700's to be purchased and installed. Scheduling and installing 2 mullions and 4 electrified exit devices plus trim. Just this morning sending estimates totaling $25,144.00. Not bad for a Saturday morning! One of our property managers is in a buying mode and they just bought 6 new buildings that they want us to start working in. And a personal note: this business has allowed my wife and I to pay cash for what we purchase, trips we take, etc. and to be debt-free.