» Self Storage Business Plan
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Backbone of a Self Storage Business Plan
Starting a place for safekeeping facility requires lot of planning. It is essential to develop a blueprint of a proper self storage business plan before entering into this field. Before you start planning, you have to answer one question i.e. whether you want to start your own warehouse or want to become a franchisee of some reputed storehouse. If you want to start your own warehouse, then the various aspects of this business like location, facilities, marketing and sources of funds, have to be kept in mind while developing the blueprint.
Some important points for developing a blueprint are
Type Of Storehouse
The first step in developing a business plan is to decide the type of storehouse you want to set up. Do you want to set up multi facility storehouse providing wine storing units, vehicle parking and store units for general purpose or you want to set up a vehicle garage only.
Investment
Decide the amount of money you want to invest in starting a warehouse facility. You should then determine the amount that you can finance through your own funds. For raising the rest of the money, you need to find other sources of funds.
Location
The next step in the self storage business plan is to decide the location of the warehouse. You should opt for a location where there is huge demand for the storehouse facilities but less competition. However, you have to keep your start up investment in mind while choosing a location.
Facilities
You should decide the kinds of facilities that you would offer to your customers. For e.g. if you are planning to develop a vehicle storehouse, then what kind of parking space will you offer to your customers Would you include facilities like servicing of cars in your storehouse.
Laws And Taxes
You should know the laws and taxes of the state where you want to setup the storehouse. The knowledge of the laws would help you to list all the clearance and paper work you need to do before starting the warehouse facility. The taxes would help you in calculating your overheads of the storehouse facility.
Manpower Estimation
An important part of the business plan is estimating the human resources required to run the facility. This in turn would help in estimating the monthly wages of the employees and the amount of money required for their training.
Marketing Strategy
You should clearly state your marketing budget and strategy in your self storage business plan . This is one of the most important steps for running a warehouse successfully. During the initial stages, you need to advertise more so that people become aware of your storehouse and start using your safekeeping facilities.
Security Arrangements
Security of the storehouse is very important and hence allocation of a proper budget for security arrangements is essential. Some of the basic security measures that you should have at your warehouse are high fenced walls and 24 X 7 security personnel.
While developing a self storage business plan , you should take advice from consultants in this field. They have a good knowledge about this industry and can help you to set up the best storehouse. They would also acquaint you with the challenges that you might face while running the facility and the solutions to those problems. They know how to impress the financial institutions with the right blueprint to raise finances and hence can help you make a winning plan.
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Self Storage Business Plan and ProcedureBy admin on February 5, 2009 | No Comments
A self storage business plan is a blueprint of the methods and procedures that one needs to implement to start with a storehouse venture. One might think that the storehouse venture is an easy and simple one and it involves purchasing land, constructing storehouses on it and then giving them out to a property management service on hire. But in reality it is not all that simple. It is a complicated process involving a lot of subtasks. One needs to think out methodically about the materials that he would require to start the venture and about all the operations that are involved in setting up storehouses and running them. He will have to think about the type and number of manpower that he is going to engage for his work.
A self storage business plan should contain a rough estimate of the amount of money that needs to be invested in the storehouse project. One of the foremost things that should be paid due attention to, is publicizing the newly constructed storehouses. One has to consider the threat from existing and futuristic competition. The employee wages also have to be decided upon. Other similar factors also need to be considered. A blueprint of the background work that has to be done is to be drafted out so that one gets a fair idea of the amount of money that he needs to invest in a storehouse project. This will serve as a guideline for the investor as well as those responsible for implementing the project successfully.
While formulating a self storage business plan some guidelines need to be followed.
- One needs to first understand the storehouse industry thoroughly. Reviews from good magazines can be read to get a fair idea of the latest in the industry and an in depth understanding of the firms running the storehouse establishments.
- It is important to project a new venture as a unique venture. This is because funding organizations will be interested in funding only when they find something novel about a new establishment. Otherwise they might reject providing any aid if they find that the new venture is going on the lines of its competitors and it has nothing new to offer.
The self storage business plan should be unique and attractive to the investors. Plans that are very ordinary and commonly followed are rejected as it will be difficult for a new establishment to survive fierce competition if it is not different from the others. Only establishments that can offer novel features to their clients can survive competition.
- The blueprint should mention the features that the new establishment is offering. Features that are designed for the convenience and cost effectiveness of the clients are the ones that are going to get a lot of importance from clients. The approach to the venture should be stated in clear terms. Investors will not be interested in goals, strategies and action plans that are vague. The self storage business plan should reveal to the investor the way in which he will be benefited by making the investments. Personal loans, savings accounts and any other financial commitments should be clearly mentioned in the blueprint. There should be hundred percent transparency.
- All initial sources of financial aid should be listed out in the blueprint so that the investors get a clear idea of the financial status of the entrepreneur and his potential strength.
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ClarificationBy Natalie Thomas, blog manager on August 10, 2006 | No Comments
Welcome to PhoneSmart’s call center blog, a diary of the self storage industry, self storage trends and sales techniques.
Clarification of Tron Jordheim’s quote in the Columbia Business Times.
The August 12th issue of the Columbia Business Times, a local Columbia Missouri business newspaper features a profile of The PhoneSmart Off Site Sales Force. It is a well written article that manages to paint a pretty good picture of how PhoneSmart serves the self storage industry. The article also includes excerpts from an interview with self storage insider Tron Jordheim, the director of PhoneSmart. (That’s me)There is one quote I would like to clarify. It was taken somewhat out of context and omitted the whole the point of my overall comment. The quote goes like this, “The biggest challenge is keeping your customers. Customers are very fickle and even though they might like you today, they may not like you tomorrow.” I in no way meant to insult any customers or suggest they are flighty or even suggest we have trouble keeping customers.I was talking about how a company needs to be customer-centric. I was trying to explain how customers don’t always know the good work you are doing for them, because if you are doing your job well for them, they don’t really notice you a whole lot. You become part of their standard operating procedure and can become invisible.Then something can happen internally in your customer’s company or you can make an error that your customer doesn’t appreciate and you fall temporarily out of favor with your customer.The part of my interview that the quote missed was where I said something like…This is why PhoneSmart tries to be very sensitive to our customers and we react quickly if there is a problem or an issue. We have an entire department dedicated to quality assurance. This is why we try to keep lines of communication open and talk regularly with customers, so we know what is going on and can do whatever we need to do to stay relevant and to continue to create value. We have a whole department dedicated to client care and contact.This is why we have a variety of billing options and a variety of service packages and can customize many aspects of our services. We want to create value and not just provide a service.This is why we send our clients an ROI report every month, so they can see how much profit we are helping them attain.This is why we love demanding customers and customers that are quick to point out problems. Every opportunity we have to improve our service and to prove our worth is a very valuable opportunity for us. We are eager to show we have a “Can-do” attitude!Anyway, of you are already a PhoneSmart customer, I hope you are seeing on a day to day basis that we are working to be your most valuable business partner.Because of this, our customer base is very solid and we have many long and mutually beneficial business relationships with some of the most successful operators of self storage businesses in North America.Self Storage in Pompano Beach, Florida Yes, we have wine storage! (954)942-0091
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Which side of the dog are you on?By Natalie Thomas, blog manager on July 5, 2006 | No Comments
Written by Tron Jordheim, director and go-getter of PhoneSmart.
Welcome to PhoneSmart’s self storage blog, a diary of the self storage industry.Now that we are a few months into the busy storage season, I wonder which side of the dog you are on. I used to spend a lot of time on my dog training hobby/sport and as in many hobbies and sports the people involved can be very competitive and sometimes a bit combative with each other. There are a few rude but funny things you can say about other dog trainers if you don’t think they are on top of their game. You could say, “He doesn’t know which end of the leash to hold.”There are many other good “put-downs”, but my favorite is “He doesn’t know which side of the dog he is on.”The good dog trainers knew you had to be at the dog’s head and neck, so you could be in charge of the situation and communicate effectively with the dog. If you suggested that someone was at the tail of their dog, they were following the dog’s lead and were distracted by the tail wagging and never knew what was going on. They could not communicate with the dog or get in charge of the situation.This is how it is in the storage business, too. If you are trying to think ahead, make plans and set up situations to make yourself successful down the road, you are at the head of your dog. You don’t need a five year plan, but you do have to be thinking about next week, next month, next season and next year.If you are just reacting to the day to day demands of customers and the day to day business challenges, then you have your face in your dog’s tail. From there, you don’t have a very good view and it often doesn’t smell very good either.I know many of us are said that the “build it and we can fill it” days are done for the most part. Storage has become a business that requires strategy, planning and intentional action.So get in front of your dog and take the correct end of the leash. You may get your hands slobbery and might even trip over yourself a few times, but I am sure you will prefer it to the tail end.PhoneSmart Your Offsite Sales Solution
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Lead to Rental RatiosBy Sarah E. Little, Blog Executive on May 30, 2006 | No Comments
Laurie Cox, Phone Smart Outbound Sales Project Manager speaks out on the importance of follow calls for leads.
Welcome to the Phone Smart call center blog. We offer an insider view of the self-storage and call center industry.
I have noticed something important
While I was researching lead-to-rental ratios for some of our call center stores, it came to me that not every manager may be following up on our leads by phone. We have handled follow-up calls for some of our call center clients for over a year now. We have learned that a simple follow-up call from the individual store can be the difference between that store having a 10% rental rate or as high as a 50% rental rate.Phone Smart’s outbound department finds leads from various web sources and brings them to our clients. If we determine there is a lead from a potential renter that is looking to store within a 5-mile radius of one of our call center client stores, then we attempt to get them to store with our client. We call and E-mail the potential renter first. Second, if we don’t get them on the phone, we leave a fabulous message promoting the amenities and convenience of our target store. Finally, we forward the potential renter’s information to the target store for the manager to follow up. The idea is to get to them before the competition, something difficult to do this time of year.What happens if the store manager is too busy and unable to follow-up? Hmmm…It made me think about building a house on concrete that isn’t dry. Once we lay the foundation we would hope for someone to come behind us and build a solid relationship. The stores with managers who are known for being excellent in following-up in a timely (and somewhat persistent) manner far exceeded the lead-to-rental ratio of the rest.Hmmm…Something to think about…We all know (here at Phone Smart) how happy it makes a customer to speak to a live person! I would advise any store manager to simply keep trying to call until you get the chance to speak with your potential renter. It is not only the best chance to build a rapport, it’s your best chance to get to them before the competition.In the world of following up, persistence pays!
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Keep up the paceBy Sarah E. Little, Blog Executive on April 20, 2006 | No Comments
Welcome to the self storage blog.
Authored by: Tron Jordheim, PhoneSmart Director
If you have ever heard me give a presentation, then you know how I see the development of the self storage business. It started as a construction business. It didn’t much matter where your piece of land was. If you built a storage facility right, you could fill it up and flow cash. Then the business developed enough where this was no longer enough. You had to get a good location to attract customers. This is when storage became a real estate game. In order to succeed you needed to find the right location at the right price and become adept at handling the entitlement process. As things became more competitive, people found out that they had to focus on operations and run storage like a business. This is when store management software became important and when managing the properties really became important.As more and more people got into the business it became clear that storage had to become more than just a space to put stuff and it became a retail game. It has not been that long since storage facilities started selling boxes and packing supplies. Now any new facility or any renovation includes lots of retail space with a retail feel.But this too is becoming old hat. Storage is now becoming a sales and marketing game. You have to be able to get people to think about you and then get them to rent with you.It was not long ago you could have caretakers run your properties and you could get away with it. Now in order to compete, you need to make a leap into hiring sales oriented people and creating a real marketing strategy.We have gone form the build it and they will come era to a build it and they won’t care, unless you give them a reason to care and then ask them to rent with you era. Are you keeping up?Secret Shopping Blog Your inside peek
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Call centers move in new renters. MessengerBy Tron Jordheim on March 17, 2006 | No Comments
In self storage, you have two ways of getting business. People either drive by your location and stop in… or they call you on the phone. Yes there is some business being generated from the internet, but it even involves the telephone. Almost every means of marketing involves the telephone. Even people who drive by your store often call first before coming in. Your current tenants see the telephone as their primary means of communicating with you.So from a marketing stand point, you really only have two assets. 1. Your location. 2. Your telephone.How do you leverage these assets? Most people understand how to find a good location, build an attractive facility, put up good signs and keep the curb appeal looking good.Once you build it can you handle the calls? Many people think that the site staff can handle any and all situations that will come up at the store. You hope your store staff answers the phone in a polite and professional way and that they are good sales people. But the fact is that your staff cannot answer all the phone calls you get. You get phone calls before hours and you get phone calls after hours. You get phone calls when the store staff is already on the phone. What happens to these calls? They go to voicemail or they get a busy signal. If these are your current tenants, they will be frustrated that they could not reach anyone live. If they are people shopping for a storage unit, they will call the next storage place on their list and keep calling until someone answers the phone.Allowing calls to go unanswered is like closing your driveway for parts of the day. Would you rope off your driveway so no one could come in for half hour intervals during the day? Probably not.So what do you do with the over flow calls? Send them to a call center. Call centers are designed to handle your phone calls when you cannot. The technology available today allows the call center to have up to date information on your availability, pricing and specials. The reps answering the phone for you can be trained sales people who talk to self storage callers all day long and know how to help people shop for storage. The call center’s job is to help your callers talk themselves into renting with you, so that when they hang up the phone they put away the phone book and cross “Find storage” off of their to-do lists.The call center acts as your sales backup making sure your sales calls don’t end up talking to your competitors. A soon as the call center sales reps are done talking to your caller, a report of the call is emailed, faxed and loaded to a web page for you so you can do a quick follow-up call and make sure the prospect comes in to rent. It is all quite seamless. The callers are happy to have talked to someone who could help. Your staff is happy to have rented a storage unit while they were unavailable. Everybody wins.
Sure it is fine to have someone fielding your missed phone calls. But what does it cost? Pricing structures vary depending on the provider and the anticipated call volume. But suffice it to say that in most markets you will pay for your call center service with the first rental the call center gets for you in any given month. Most storage businesses are missing enough phone calls to rent to at least several people a month from their call center leads and reservations. A storage operator could easily quadruple the investment in using a call center.The call center is only going to be as good as the information you give them about your property. Make sure that you have painted a clear picture of your project and that the call center people know about all your best features and your competitors’ worst features. Keep your call center up to date on changes in pricing and specials. They can’t handle your calls well if you don’t give them the info they need. Make sure to let the call center know when you will be closed for business or when you have staff changes. The more the call center knows, the better they can help you rent units.Your store staff has to be accepting of the idea of other people talking to their customers. It is sometimes hard to let other people handle your business for you, but your customers would much rather talk to a friendly and helpful person than your answering machine.A call center can also help you predict what your sales results could be. You know how many calls go to the call center, because the call center tracks this and lots of other information about call performance. You will easily be able to come up with sales ratios from the call center reports that you can apply to your store performance so you can see whether your call center and your store staff are giving you top sales performance with your rental opportunities.You are able to evaluate your call center’s performance in several ways. The call center will not only give you reports on things like speed to answer, average call length and answer percentages but can also send you the sound files of phone calls so you can hear how your calls are being answered. This helps you be sure that you are using a call center that is interested in giving you the best performance possible.Using call centers to help rent more units is not a fad. It is standard operating procedure for many companies. All the largest storage companies use call centers. Most use an in-house call center. Many, many other operators use call centers, too. There are about 1,000 independently operated storage facilities currently being serviced by an outsource third party call center. There are a small number of call centers that specialize in self storage and handle calls from all around the US and Canada.There are only a few reasons not to use a call center. If you own a smaller facility that generates very few phone calls, you can get away with forwarding your missed calls to your cell phone. This works as long as you and your family are willing to handle the disruptions a ringing cell phone can cause. It means you are never off the clock.Even smaller stores do well with a call center. A call center doesn’t have to field too many calls to make it a profitable endeavor. Even if your call center talks to only 10 callers a month for you, they are probably going to rent 2 units for you.How much is a missed rental worth? In most markets a rental is worth $800.00 on average ($100 a month times 8 months). So if your call center got you two rentals a month that would be worth $19,000 a year in revenue. The nice thing about a call center rental is that the revenue goes straight to the bottom line. Once the call center gets paid, you have incurred no additional overhead. You haven’t increased your electrical cost. You haven’t increased payroll. A call center can be a very profitable relationship.It will happen that the first few weeks or few months using a call center will create a few challenges. Every store is run a little differently and it will take the call center a little while to adjust to any of your store’s peculiarities. Your staff will have to get used to having sales support backing them up. They will need to learn to get good at following up on leads that the call center creates. And your staff will have to make sure to keep the call center up to speed on any developments at the store.After you have gotten comfortable with your call center and your call center has gotten comfortable with you, you will find that it takes very little effort to keep the momentum going. Your call -
Is it winter or spring?By Tron Jordheim on January 31, 2006 | No Comments
Welcome to the self storage blog, where self storage insiders go to keep up with self storage trends.
Spring Time Strategies…
January is coming to an end here very soon. So far we have seen a much stronger than usual January. We have taken more calls than previous Januarys and the percentage of reservations to calls has been stronger as well.
This is good news for storage operators. January is a month that most operators dread. But the weather has not been too bad throughout the country and although the housing market seems to have softened a little, it has not been enough of a softening to negatively impact storage demand.
Does this mean that you should be re-examining your pricing structure now, rather than in May? Does this mean you should hold back on move-in specials to see if demand will fill you up before you have to start giving concessions? I can’t answer these questions for your market. You will have to look at the local conditions and decide whether you continue with slow season strategies, or whether you let the springtime strategies kick in early.
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Why not your own in-house call center?By Tron Jordheim on May 11, 2005 | 3 Comments
So you want your own call center for your self storage facilities?
There are a few things most operators would like in a call center. Most would like a First Class Operation staffed by the best most experienced people available with the flexibility to change approaches and offers. Many self storage insiders would also like to get the best conversion rates possible, control the flow of demand and maybe even do some collection calls and outbound marketing to businesses. I would say that PhoneSmart already satisfies all these requirements, so you should just use us. Here is my reasoning.
First class operation…above and beyond other self storage call centers. It is our goal, too, to be a first class call center second to none. Although one must always look at cost/benefit considerations and maintain a profitable operation. One can be first rate without going overboard and without breaking the bank. That is what we do.
Best people…I think we have them. I would pit any of our experienced reps against anyone anywhere in a selling storage competition. Our new reps get up to speed quickly. We use innovative training, monitoring, secret shopping and incentive programs to keep our people improving. Yes we have the experience…more than 200,000 leads and reservations sent to storage clients.
Flexibility. We have some flexibility in how we present a store as long as it doesn’t mess with our basic selling program. And our basic selling program is proven and effective. You don’t have to try to re-invent the wheel. You can let us do the driving.
Conversion rates. If you use us then you can concentrate on closing. Closing is the key. You should be at 75-85% of credit card reservations at least and 30% of Hot Leads. You won’t get better close rates if you do it yourself. We can do closing calls for you, too, on Hot Leads. We do this with great effectiveness for some clients now. If you let us do the follow up calls then you can concentrate on moving people in, not on managing your lead flow.
One huge factor in using us is that you can concentrate on buying, building, converting, operations and marketing. You don’t need to worry about your call center and lead management activities. Your management team is probably stretched thin anyway. Using us allows you to do what you do best.
Control demand…We can make notes on screens and push demand from one of your properties to another. We do this of for other clients. When one store is full, we move the leads to a neighboring store of the same company.
Outbound & collections. We can do those for you, too. Your cost would be more to do it yourself. These are labor intensive programs and require organizing and supervising. We don’t charge nearly as much as other outbound agencies do, but it still might seem high. But it would not cost you less to do yourself. But you would have to manage the programs if you did them yourself.
Cost…real estate and labor are high in most areas. Our Mid Missouri area is still experiencing lower costs in every category, which makes us a cost effective solution as well. We are a lot less expensive than doing it yourself and require no sunk costs and no purchase of assets and equipment.
So maybe, you should just let us do it.
Bye for now,
Tron.
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