North Carolina Locksmiths Association, Inc. 
58 General Lee Ave.
Spring Lake, NC  28390
(910) 273-4926

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!!! I hope 2023 was a year of growth professionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Planning for 2024 has already begun. We are looking to make 2024 our best year yet! What are your plans and goals for 2024? I will be honest, I am not a great planner. I am a more “grab the bull by the horns kind of guy.” I expect most people are this way, but if you are looking to grow or expand you have to learn, grow, and expand your knowledge in many ways. What are you looking to achieve this year? Do you have any financial goals? How about new skills that need to be developed? What about taking the next step and adding an employee to help with the load? There are many more things that you can do to improve yourself and your business, but it takes work outside of work to do it. Planning is a must for those who are looking to really grow themselves and their business. What are your goals for this year, for five years, and 10 years. What is your exit strategy (retirement plan)?

As we come into the new year, we need to look at the past year and see how things went. What went well, what went poorly, and what can we do to improve. Your team is working hard to improve in these areas. We are looking into some new meeting spaces, continuing to improve our educational experience, and the quality of meetings. On that note, I will give you an update on the future tradeshow that was mentioned at the last meeting. We are currently looking at having the meeting sometime in 2025 in Charlotte, NC. This will take a lot of time and planning to make sure it is done right. We didn’t want to rush this venture and just have a tradeshow just for the sake of having a tradeshow. We want this to be the best tradeshow on the east coast. So, with the NCLA and SCLA combining forces to do this we are exploring all avenues to ensure this will be a great and successful event. We will have more updates for you at our meeting in February.

What is the future of the locksmith industry? Have you really thought about the industry and how it has changed over the past 5,10, or 20 years? Technology has changed so many things. How are you using it to your advantage? Are parts of the locksmith industry getting easier or more difficult with technology? How can you keep things moving forward when the economy turns south? These are all questions we should ask ourselves as we continue to work on our business. It is all a part of planning for the future. One thing I can almost certainly promise though is that things do not always go to plan. I don’t know if you have days like that, but I have way too often. The Bible says that, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 The lesson to take from this is no matter what happens in life, good or bad, we should trust the LORD. That is one of my goals for 2024 along with many others.

 

Looking forward to seeing you all soon,

 

Waldo


Waldo Smith, III
CEO of Waldo Smith Locksmith, LLC.
NCLA President

Reidsville Office 336-613-5307
VA Services 434-473-7314