Aloa: Why should I join, why should I renew?

On ALOA:(IMHO) Yes, you should renew your membership. If for no other reason than to take the high road; which for me is simply to support the profession by helping fund Aloa and its efforts. Get a subscription to The National Locksmith while you are at it.

The straight calculations are actually very favorable to joining/renewing your membership as well. The cost savings for attending classes and participating in PRP substantially out-weighs the cost of membership; if you are into learning and professional development. In my opinion, about half the cost of membership is justified just for the magazine subscription alone.

www.findalocksmith.com is Aloa’s web promotion on behalf of its members.

Google gives that site a very high ranking, primarily because official associations are given more search engine optimization weight in the algorithms that determine search results. Findalocksmith.com is a free service to members. If you search for "Locksmith" in Google, www.findalocksmtih.com comes up 1st or 2nd all the time...it also pushes one of the big scammer sites down the list as well. This represents a direct marketing benefit that could not be achieved by many members, on their own, without GREAT cost.

The Aloa monthly newsletter, I've enjoyed this new feature and look forward to receiving it. This feature has great potential for even more information, especially of a technical nature. It is an active member benefit which means that I don’t have to go hunt it down; it just shows up for me to trip over.

Exposing Scammers: David and the staff (especially Tim) have gone to great lengths to do public education regarding the scammers...in a way the scammers have prompted Aloa to engage in the strongest media campaign that the organization has undertook. I'm glad my dues have gone to that for sure. If two calls a year are received because someone called me instead of a scammer then my membership expense is justified.

Change: I've only been a member for 10 years but I can see a difference in the organization today. I think that the selection of president this year was very good, Ken is a very common sense guy. In my talks with him I've seen that he is legitimately wanting to help the industry and not just a ‘talking points’ type of guy. (The last few selections for president I think have been progressive.) Ken also strikes me as a good business guy and not just a tech guy. Having Steve Myslik on the board is also a reflection of a changing mindset that welcomes automotive locksmiths and a voice of 'call a spade a spade' change.

Areas for improvements:

-Increased support and sponsorship of online learning that is robust, affordable and easily available.

-Continued development of the internet presence on behalf of its members by using a more search friendly web-design that gives 'search presence' down to the local level. e.g. when 'googling' "Baltimore Locksmith" the Aloa page with their Baltimore members should come before the scammers pages or at least something in that direction.

-Re-Release and update of the locksmith core curriculum that was used prior to the adoption of the Bill Phillips book that now accompanies the basic locksmith course. Bills book is very nice but it is not a curriculum. The previous curriculum was well organized, had relevant information and self directed structure.

-Making all current and past locksmith books that they can available in searchable electronic format.

-Development of professionally produced TV commercials that can be used by members to educate the public regarding choosing a locksmith. Ideally, individual members can provide these to local TV stations to run as PSA's. To go one up on that, make a few state specific spots that educate the public regarding licensing. i.e. the same commercial but with some specific images for Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina etc.

-Update the life safety course with the goal of identifying common problems and corrections, based on the Life Safety Handbook...more so than just raw code. Existing course is good, but could use a refresh. A very visual course with a, “What’s wrong with this picture?” type format would be very awesome.

-I would like to see a compendium of the technical troubleshooting documents that Aloa has archived. Bob and David have provided some very useful documents to me especially on resetting electronic locks etc. I'd like to see all of those type of documents made available in one form or another, preferably in electronic format.

-Pursue active litigation against scammers using the Aloa logo and show aggressive defense of the service marks of the association. I think this is a case of you dont' have to kill all of them; you just need to post the head of one of them outside your tent so the others will get the message.-

Follow up on licensing: Now that many of these bills have been passed, what lessons have we learned? Are the laws being enforced? Are the laws being fairly applied? What other financial consequences such as new tax procedures etc are the licensing laws affecting. I'd like to help develop a standardized set of 'Administrative Rules' that can accompany the 'model law' that has been developed by Aloa. The administrative rules have a more visceral day to day effect on how locksmiths and lock related industries perform than does the wording of the laws.(North Carolina has a great set of admin rules that cover areas like Fair Trade Practices, Technical Integrity etc).

A good set of admin rules can also go a long way to standardizing the categories for licensing of 'kinda locksmith' players like: Atm techs, Bank Service Techs, Detention Locking specialist, Builders Hardware workers, automotive specialist, emergency service providers, electronic access sales and installers. These related industries seem to murky the waters of licensing...even when they aren't advertising in the YP as "Locksmith".-I’ve always heard members say, “Aloa needs to do more to promote itself…thereby promoting it’s members.”

However, promotion and marketing are very expensive; there are ways for Aloa to do that on the cheap. One is by providing high quality materials for its members to use for local advertising, thus saving the members money by avoiding the cost of having to produce TV/Radio/Print and internet spots. Another ‘low cost’ means is through press releases or press release service. To put it humorously, every time Aloa or one of its members does something good, such as attending a class, completing a PRP exam, doing a speech etc then a press release should go out via AP and web. E.g Local Aloa Locksmith, Johnny Smith, celebrates his 8th year as a member.

Aloa membership indicates a professional locksmith who adheres to ethical standards, technical competence…blah blah blah. Dallas Texas locksmith customers are lucky to have such professional service locally. You can find Johnny Smiths lock and key at www.findalocksmith.com...nnySmiths.

-Lastly and most importantly, I’d like to see Aloa putting together research and presentations for every state attorney general, district attorney and ‘AHJ’ regarding the scammers. I’ve been in close contact with Aloa regarding many of these efforts, particularly strategic web development to improve the www.findalocksmith.com. I/our company have been very actively supporting these efforts on a number of fronts including: Increased membership, education of local/state and federal officials as well as large commercial customers, search engine legal people and Internet Yellow Page administrators regarding the scammers, support of state licensing, participation in education programs, promotion of Ace® classes, loaning of talent ranging from marketing, promotion, programming, web development, search engine optimization and if nothing else a supportive attitude. Particularly, one that welcomes improvements but without trying to point out every little short-coming as evidence to” burn down the barn just to kill a few mice”.

I know, I know, "Rob won't you tell us how your really feel?"

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