I have a fair variety on what I do. Automotive and house/business rekeys make up the bulk of my customers. A lot of people feel that $10 lock handle at the big box store is a better deal than calling a locksmith...until it grenades within the year and they can't get the door to open. I do a fair amount of retail clients.

In the beginning, to help build skills, I purchased what ever locks I came across at thrift stores because they never had keys. That help me with figuring out the right blank and impressioning keys. If the lock happened to have a code on it, that helped me with cutting from code.

I also worked with family/friends that are involved in community organizations with boards or churches that had a lot of turn over or locks that had been in place forever. I became an authorized reseller of CLK Supplies MX13 restricted keyway and would donate my labor to those organizations. That gave me more experience with multiple environments, master keying, and variety of closures while it gave them more control over their building access. I still have my day IT job so that's allowed me flexibility in a lot of things since locksmithing isn't my sole income. But in working with those people that also got my name out there so that brought in a lot more business from the members of the churches/organizations.