Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Shifman.
Hi Ben, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I used to work for moving companies for many years. Once I moved to Florida from Maryland, I worked for moving companies, third party shipping companies, and locksmith companies while attending Hillsborough Community College. I worked full time when I was working and was a times and half student. I barley had time to do anything but work, school, and sleep. Once I received my Associates in Arts degree in the summer of 2020, I knew I had liked being a locksmith because It is not like most jobs where everyday is repetitive. Locksmith is very broad. I started with residential jobs then moved up to commercial jobs. I could be picking locks, rekeying locks, installing locks. There is also lots of different brands of locks and until you learn how to work with some of them, you can get stuck for hours on a job site. Most of my family and uncles were already locksmiths which did help a bit when I needed help and got stuck at jobs. In May of 2022, I opened my own locksmith company. I have been grinding Daily to make it be a successful company. I added and learned how to do make car keys for various kinds of cars Including some European car keys. Tools are quite expensive. I am currently trying to obtain dealer tools in order to be able to do the new cars coming out every year. I alone have built my companies google online presence and is currently with 598 five star reviews. Business has slowed down due to the amount of competitors. Unfortunately there is a lot of scammers in the locksmith industry and not a lot of people are knowledgeable about it. Most realize it only once the locksmith shows up and up charges them and use an aggressive tactic. I have heard to many stories from previous customers. My company is based on loyalty and customer satisfaction. We help all of our customers as well as great competitive prices. I also have vendor contacts with large companies, schools, and churches around Tampa that only work with us because of that and especially already being scammed in the past. We also do some charity jobs when we can afford it to help the community. We unlock cars for free and make car keys for free sometimes to help customer in tough situations and cannot afford it and still need to get to work in the morning. It has not been easy for me either considering I am running the company by myself and have not found a trustworthy partner. I have a wife and a 1 and a half year old at home. My wife works in retail and has weird hours during the day. I am the one juggling and running the locksmith business as well as taking care of our son most of the time. I would definitely want to build a successful company in order for me to have some time off and actually spend it with my family. I have not taken any vacation in a really long time as well. I also want to get workers and more vendor contracts so I can take a breather from basically picking up the phone, accounting, doing the books, going out to the jobs, talking to manufactures and everything else. I sleep about 3 hours a night. Any help with would be appreciated. Even with finding someone to invest in the company and help build it more and faster. Thank you.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No it has not been a smooth road. There are months that are really slow and some months that really good. I even thought of closing the company at some points because we were under and the costs to keep company going monthly is expensive. Too much competition in Tampa with everyone trying to become locksmith because how AI as taken over. Lots of scammers now too which makes most Legitimate companies seem as a scam too.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Global One Locksmith LLC?
We offer commercial. residential, and automotive services. Most companies stick to one of those and specialize in that. We are known for competitive pricing in the industry compared to others that over charge. This is a family owned company. We help all of our customers and give them the best customer service and as well as a phenomenal service with warranty. We offer monthly deals and or discounts on certain services (its different every month). We even help out the community and provide free services to those in need and cannot afford or in a hard situation.
Any big plans?
We are planning on growing the business and get more workers. Achieve all or most of the dealer tools for car keys and be able to compete with the competition on those jobs that we are currently losing daily. We need better marketing. Unfortunately we do not have a lot of marketing right now but would love to start hitting that area strong and put our brand name out there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.globalonelocksmith.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globalonelocksmith
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/globalonelocksmithllc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/global-one-locksmith-llc-shifman-1a8848377/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@globalonelocksmith
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@globalonelocksmithllc
- Other: https://g.co/kgs/PekuZcp
