Next meeting September 4, 2013

The summer break is winding up and we'll be convening our monthly meetings again starting September 4.

The location is still O'Gara's Bar & Grill in St Paul where we have use of their side room.

Social/dinner hour is from 6 pm - 7 pm during which time you may order dinner from a limited menu in the meeting room.

The general meeting starts at 7 pm until about 7:30/7:45 pm and then we will have Paul Davis from the local Door Security Solutions office to discuss everything new and fantastic from ASSA Abloy.

Hope to see you there!

MN ALOA at E.L. Reinhardt's event under the tent

The chapter had a booth at EL Reinhardt's annual customer appreciation and trade show event yesterday.

The weather was perfect, the show was well attended and the food was fantastic as always - Ken Stemig throws a great party and we're lucky to be invited.

Below, Phil, Pat and Henry at the show.

No meetings in July or August

Last night's meeting was unusually well-attended for June - probably owing to the very un-June like weather. Attendance was about 20 members. 

Thanks to Bill Wood of Nob Hill for giving a thorough - yet still concise - introduction to the Salto product offering. He covered tiers of distribution, their current integrated access solutions and some really exciting upcoming innovations in wireless, web based access solutions. 

Be sure to check the manufacturer website linked above and contact Bill Wood at Nob Hill for information about local sales opportunities. 

It's our annual summer hiatus at the Minnesota Chapter and we will not have meetings in July or August. Check the calendar for locksmith events during that time - especially the EL Reinhardt annual Event Under The Tent on Thursday, August 15th.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, September 4 - see you then!

Marketing and Locksmith Scams

Part of the inspiration for the Marketing Arm of the local chapter is the growing prevalence of Phony Locksmiths and Copycats throughout the country and in our region.

In the case of the Phonies - these are businesses (often national) who advertise services that they do not have the expertise to deliver; nor do they have the intention to deliver.

Minnesota has no specific locksmith licensing laws and the victims of the scams do not report the violations to the proper authorities so it is actually nigh impossible to mete out any sort of justice against the Phonies.

The Copycats are out-of-town concerns who deliberately register their business under a name that is very similar to that of an established lock company. Sometimes they even co-opt the address of a fast-food restaurant or gas station nearby to make it appear that they really are that company, or that they are located very nearby.

This is a very difficult situation because as long as the business name is not identical, what they are doing may not actually be illegal. Especially if their 'local address' is a PO box or UPS store.

Copycats may also hijack any internet listing, rerouting the search engine results to their own websites. This is not as difficult to address as the former situation - it may be resolved by password protecting your listing with the major search engines.

The important thing to remember is that there are more properly trained, Professional Locksmiths in this country than there are Phonies and Copycats by a factor of at least 100.

We have the advantage of numbers and integrity; this should not be that hard. Right now an handful of scam artists are damaging the reputation of every professional locksmith in the country and we've only got a handful of professionals giving 110% to try to pull our entire industry out of the mud.

Get involved: Join ALOA, participate in your local chapter, particpate in grassroots campaigns like Legal Locksmith, write an article, tell a friend, link your websites.

Next Trade Show Appearance - Doyle Show 2008

Look for the MN Chapter Table at the Doyle Trade Show on Saturday, September 20, 2008.

Second Annual Locksmith Swap Meet

EL Reinhardt hosted the Second Annual Minnesota Chapter of ALOA Swap Meet at their location on Saturday, August 16th.

ELR kept the big top over from their Customer Appreciation Day - it was a great venue and a great day and I can hardly think how to thank Ken and the rest of his staff who showed up to support us on such a beautiful Satuday.

Rosemarie went above and beyond with baked goods of exceedingly high quality and very reasonable price, we had an ALOA table with membership information and donated items for sale, and a great team of people who made set-up and take-down a breeze.

All proceeds from the ALOA table, bake sale and table fees went to the George Hall Scholarship fund and we raised nearly $400.

The only real hitch was, like last year, rather less total participation than we had hoped for. The participants we had were utterly first rate - but we could use a few more.

We're already thinking of next year so if you didn't come this year, we want to know why!

Please don't be shy about submitting suggestions via the comments below (you can do so anonymously) or by e-mailing Rebecca or Rosemarie (contact info at upper right).

EL Reinhardt Customer Appreciation Day

On August 14th EL Reinhardt hosted their Annual Customer Appreciation Day and Trade Show!

There was a Big Top tent in the parking lot, great BBQ, a good crowd and - right in the middle of everything - the Minnesota Chapter of ALOA booth.

That's two trade shows in a row and, folks, I think we're on a roll!

We had a nice selection of literature including Learning Curve Brochures, membership applications and Keys to Hiring a Locksmith marketing mock ups.

What's that last thing, you say? Well, it's deceptively simple: Rosemarie fixed up a double-sided 3x5 handout with tips for choosing a good locksmith. The idea is that we would bind 50 or so of these mini-flyers into a pad and provide them to individuals in the locksmithing community for a nominal fee.

Locksmiths would purchase the pads of flyers (proceeds to the marketing fund) and then have a handy source of self promotional material to hand out to customers and potential customers.

The flyer outlines techniques for and benefits of selecting a qualified, professional locksmith: it promotes our entire industry, reminds people of the quality of service they should expect for the money they spend, and includes a modest endorsement for membership in the local chapter of ALOA.

We have some fine tuning to do on the wording, but thus far the flyers have been met with broad approval, interest and maybe even a little enthusiasm!

Our next step will be to print a run and see how they go.