Non-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Franchisee Success Stories
The owners who do best with a Blackthorn Locksmith & Security franchise are not career salespeople. They’re former field technicians, retired law enforcement, hospitality managers, and people who simply like fixing things properly. What they share is an unwillingness to cut corners and a genuine comfort with walking into a stranger’s home and leaving it better than they found it. If you’d rather explain a deadbolt than upsell one, you’ll fit right in.
Meet Our Owners
Kevin N. – Sacramento Metro
Kevin spent fourteen years as an automotive service manager before he got tired of explaining labor rates to people who just wanted their car to start. He’d done lock work on the side for family and friends since his twenties, mostly rekeys and hardware swaps on rental properties. When he started looking at franchises, he was wary of the ones that promised six figures in year one with no experience. He chose Blackthorn because the model was built on the Cedarwell Care Promise: a written price before work starts, shoe covers at the door, and a photo of the clean-up before leaving. That matched how he already ran his garage. Five years in, Kevin runs three vans and says the 365-Day Done Right Promise is the only marketing he’s ever needed. His callback rate from repeat residential customers runs above sixty percent, and most of them ask for him by name. He still takes the late-night lockout calls himself because, as he puts it, “that’s where the referrals come from.”
Norma R. – San Antonio
Norma was a 911 dispatcher for eleven years before buying her Blackthorn territory. She’d handled enough home and business lockout calls to know exactly what happens when a cheap locksmith shows up at midnight with no written price and a drill in hand. She wanted to be the alternative. What convinced her was the live-answer model: someone from Blackthorn’s scheduling line picks up within a few rings, day or night, and dispatches from there. No voicemail trees, no “press 2 for emergencies.” That meant she could build a business where the phone never rang into silence. Norma now runs a tight operation with two background-checked technicians on staff, both in uniform, both trained on the full hardware line from Schlage and Kwikset up through Medeco and Mul-T-Lock. She laughs that she never expected to know this much about cylinder tolerances, but it beats talking someone through a burglary in progress at 3 a.m. Her customers, she says, are mostly families with kids and pets, and the drop-cloth-and-clean-up promise is what gets mentioned in nearly every five-star review.
Grace W. – Phoenix East Valley
Grace managed a national hardware chain’s lock and key department for nine years before going out on her own. She knew the product lines cold: Yale, Baldwin, Sargent, Abloy, the whole spectrum. What she didn’t know was how to price a rekey without undercutting herself or scaring off a customer. Blackthorn’s written-price model fixed that on day one. No verbal ranges, no “it depends on what we find.” Every job gets a written price before any work begins, and that price is the invoice price. Grace says that single practice removed ninety percent of her pricing anxiety and all of the haggling. Now she runs a territory covering Mesa, Gilbert, and Chandler, and she’s become the go-to for small business owners who need access control systems installed and maintained. She keeps a demo board in her van with Schlage Encode, Kwikset Halo, and a Mul-T-Lock high-security cylinder so customers can see and feel the hardware before she writes the quote. “Half of selling access control,” she says, “is just letting people hold the thing.”
Luis C. – Central Florida
Luis spent eight years running night-shift operations for a commercial cleaning company. He was good at managing crews, terrible at sleeping. When he decided to buy a business, he wanted something with real recurring revenue and a brand that didn’t require him to spend every dollar on advertising. Blackthorn gave him both: commercial accounts on service contracts and a brand promise that generates word-of-mouth on its own. He focuses almost entirely on commercial locksmith work now: master key systems, storefront locks, panic bars, and access control for small offices and medical clinics. The Cedarwell C.A.R.E. values, he says, apply just as much in a dentist’s office as in a family living room. His technicians are trained to clean up like it’s their own business, ask before moving anything on a desk, respect office hours, and explain every line item before work begins. Luis says the best part is the 365-Day Done Right Promise. When a client knows the job is guaranteed in writing for a full year, renewing the service contract is not a hard conversation.
Your Story Starts Here
If you’re ready to own a business built on written prices, clean job sites, and work that gets done right the first time, call (818) 390-9007. Or request the franchise info kit below. A live person will answer, day or night.
Written by Shane Delaney, Owner & Lead Technician at Blackthorn Locksmith & Security, serving customers since 2008.