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Today’s self storage blog comes from Angela Lechtenberg. The PhoneSmart self storage blog is our self storage diary for self storage insiders.

Are you prepared?

Last night our area was hit with the worst storms of the year. Tornados touched down in many areas. Golf- and baseball sized hail came down to wreak havoc as well as high winds. Hundreds of people were displaced when homes were destroyed.

After the storms passed and people came out to see the damage it became clear that businesses in many industries would see a surge in sales activity as they were called in to get things back to normal.

Insurance companies would get a barrage of claims. Rental car companies would be busy putting people into cars as body shops hurry to repair windshields and dented doors. Construction companies would be called in to fix roofs, windows and siding.

Apartment complexes may see more rental inquiries from those whose homes were destroyed and storage facilities may see a surge as well as people sift through what’s left of their homes and belongings.

It makes one stop and think. Natural disasters can happen at any time. If the business community is able to step up and lend a hand to get everyone’s lives back to normal they create a great opportunity to help and also to create future repeat business. When our basement was flooded a few years back our insurance company set us up with contractors and cleaners to help us get through and clean up the mess. We used those companies for future jobs as well.

Being prepared to help people through the worst can give those people a little peace of mind and help businesses greatly increase their customer base for many future sales transactions as well. Making sure staff makes a connection with each customer and are willing to work hard to meet their needs can ensure loyalty in the future. It’s a good investment.

Angela L

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Welcome to the self storage blog, PhoneSmart’s diary of the self storage world.

I got an email from Teri Lanza the other day. Teri is the editor-in-chief of the Inside Self Storage magazine. I write a monthly column for Teri that deals with selling. I’ve had had some fun with it and I get some great feed back from readers on occasion. Teri likes to put interesting and thoughtful quotes on the bottom of her email signature. This is the one she is using now…

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
~Anais Nin

This is very true isn’t it? It is even true in our business life. We often decide what prospects are going to do before they even know what they are going to do. We often look at employees without thinking about who they are or how they are. We sometimes even look at our performance figures and inject our own meaning into them without having any real-world reason for doing so.

As an example, I have a friend who is a history buff. He likes reading about the American Revolution and American Civil War periods. I told him I read a good novel by former president Jimmy Carter called “The Hornet’s Nest”, and told him I thought he would enjoy it.

He told me that The Hornet’s Nest referred to a Civil War Battle that he had read about a few years ago and that I must be mistaken about the name of the book. I told him I was unfamiliar with a Hornet’s Net battle in the civil war, but had no doubt one happened, since he told me it did. Since I had just finished the book, I was pretty sure I remembered the title. It seemed likely that there were two different things of the same name. He refused to accept this. Months later, he came to me and said he looked “it” up and I was right.

How many times do you hear your prospects, customers and co-workers say something and paste your own ideas over what they said? Try taking things as they are and withholding your own interpretation. You may find you write more rentals, keep current tenants longer and see your co-workers become more successful

Tron

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Welcom to the self storage blog, where we examine issues that impact the profit levels at your self storage facility.

How much business is missed?
Stores are missing a lot of phone calls. We talk to about 50 live callers on average per month in the summer for our stores on the overflow call service. Since about half of the people we talk to are current tenants, you can assume the average store is missing 25 rental opportunities in a month.

There is a wide variation in the actual number of calls we take for a store. Some smaller properties in smaller markets only send us 20 or 25 callers. And some larger stores are sending 75 or 100 callers.

Anyway you slice it, it amounts to a lot of money left behind. The bulk of the calls come during office hours while the manager is busy doing something else or while the office at the store is full of tenants and prospective renters. We also get a good amount of calls in the hour or two just before and just after opening and closing.

We also see very little late evening calls from the west coast. Many believe that people like to shop after work. The bulk of the calls we get late in the evening are from the east coast. In our experience, west coast shoppers are done shopping by six or seven in the evening.

What we don’t know is the value of talking to current tenants. Does reaching a friendly person on the phone rather than a busy signal or an answering device help a tenant stay an extra month or two? If that were true, than there would be some real value in making sure all callers got a live voice. We must assume that any excuse a person can come up with to leave their belongings in storage is a good one. If the pain of paying the bill is less than the pain of going and removing the stuff, than the stuff stays. So if the phone experience is not painful, it must help in the long run.

Driving People to store:
The old tale says that if you can get someone in your store, you can rent to him or her. This proves to be truth time and time again. So our mission is to get people to our client’s stores. We have found the best way to get someone to the store is to take a credit number to reserve a unit. If this option is not available, a conditional hold or a first-come, first-served reservation is good.

If this option isn’t available, for instance the caller does not know for sure when a unit is needed, a site tour or visit works. When all else fails and we can’t do anything to get the caller to the store, a follow-up call from the store staff can do the job. Between the time we talk to a caller and the store calls back, the situation may have changed. Or the store manager may know enough about the local market, that this knowledge can help the caller overcome any hesitancies and come on down to the store.

bye for now,
Tron

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I heard a news report based on an analysis by Goldman-Sachs. So I can’t claim to have the exclusive scoop at the self storage blog. Goldman is projecting that oil prices will hit and hover at $100.00 a barrel range for an extended period of time. Their reasoning is that demand is skyrocketing in China and India. As these countries continue their development leaps more people are driving cars and more oil and gas are needed for industrial production and residential heating and cooling. Goldman thinks that oil producers are very close to maximum out–put from outdated and inefficient production plants. This could bring challenges and opportunities to all of us. One opportunity that might come of this could come from all the roof space that storage operators have. Many operators have been looking for additional revenue opportunities from cell phone tower leases, billboard rental and wi-fi antennas. Why not from electricity generation? We have already seen some self storage insiders put electric generating solar panels on their roofs. In most places, the pay back is ten years or more at today’s values, which means you have to think long term. If energy prices climb further and stay high, these kinds of projects may start to make a lot more sense. Some of you may even have enough space in your drainage areas to put up wind turbines. Wouldn’t it be something to see revenue flowing back to you from the energy companies from the electricity you are selling back to the grid? The Mini Storage Messenger did a piece on solar roofs and the self storage business not too long ago. I bet the numbers have changed even since then. Maybe this is one of the long term projects you should be thinking of and investigating? Do a search on solar roofing or self storage roofing and see what you come up with. Look at the Mini Storage Messenger site and see if you can find the article. Maybe a new self storage trend is in the making. It might be time for the self storage association and the ISS to solicit more electric panel and turbine companies for their trade shows. Make sure to come back to this storage diary on April 27th. We will have a special guest blogger. You should not miss his opinions on self storage. Bye for now, Tron

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The self storage association market study covers some interesting ground. It deals quite a bit with the reasons why people rent storage. One thing that we at PhoneSmart are interested in is finding out about is why people don’t rent, so we can prepare for these issues in our sales process. Most of us in the self storage industry would agree that everyone ought to have a storage unit just to help keep organized or to have some extra space to keep a few odds and ends. The fact that anyone would think that they don’t need storage is just ridiculous. Now granted I was one of those people who never used self-storage before I became a self storage insider. I always had a basement or a garage to put stuff in. But now that I have had a storage unit for a long time, I would never want to give it up. If, in the best case scenario we are renting to 50% of telephone rental inquiries, what happens to the rest of them? I know some will rent with a competitor. Many will not use storage at all. But why would people who have inquired about storage decide to not use it at all? I realize some will say that they don’t need it. Some mi9ght have some very practical reasons for not storing. But if they had a storage unit, they would use it and they would probably love having it. If we can find out more about what makes someone decide “NO”, then we can prevent some of these issues in the selling process.

Look at how new car dealers have dealt with consumer resistance in advance. One reason people don’t like buying a new car is because they have to pay sales tax on it. So now you can get cash back with your purchase, so you can pay the sales tax without having to dig into your pocket. There is one obstacle removed. Many people hesitate to buy a new car, because the payments are high. So now you can finance a car out 60 or even 72 months. This makes the monthly payments smaller and do-able. Another obstacle removed. People used to shy away from buying new cars because they were afraid of maintenance issues. Well, witch manufacturer does not have extended warranties, drive-train protections, discounted or free maintenance, etc.? You can look at every offering the car industry uses and know that it was in response to a selling obstacle. As competition heats up in our industry and as rents increase, it will become more and more important to be able to create desire for storage. I’d like to hear from you some of the reasons people give you for opting not to rent at all.

Bye for now, Tron

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