» Self Storage Companies

Welcome to the self storage bolg, our diary of the self storage industry.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending a few days in Canada working with two different client companies, helping them with their sales training. Because our call center takes so many self storage inquiry calls, we have become very seasoned and experienced in quickly and professionally selling self storage. I was sharing our selling system with our clients and helping their staff people hone their selling skills. My plan is to help them have a structure to follow, so they can keep the sales process on track and to give them some specific techniques to they can create more leads and reservations and convert more callers and visitors into rentals.

I am reminded that it is also about practice. The more you swing the bat, the better you will be at hitting the ball. Of course you have to swing correctly, but you also have to swing a lot. Sales is no different. Practice in the mirror, record yourself practicing in thin air. Practice with your friends and co-workers. The more you practice, the more you will be successful and the more profit you will create for your company.

Selling is a skill. Skills improve with pratice. So go out there and swing at the ball.

bye for now, Tron

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So far this week is shaping up nicely. A few of our reps are having average credit card reservation per hour ratios that are reminiscent of summer time. We saw self storage call volume cooperate with our projections yesterday. We had about a 17% increase in call volume over our other April Mondays. That was pretty close to the 20% I was using as my staff scheduling yardstick. It was our year-to-date top call volume day. This matches our trends, too. So far today has been steady and about as busy as we would have thought.

We are seeing one trend that represents a change in how our call volume behaves. Two years ago, the phones started getting very busy at about 7:00 am central and stayed very busy until a noon slow-down. It usually had a significant increase between 10:00 and 11:30 am. We also saw good rental activity early. With the exception of yesterday and a few other busy Mondays, we are seeing slower early mornings, with a lower percentage of rental inquiries. We aren’t seeing our big call volume until 9:30 or 10:30 am. We don’t think this has anything to do with the geographic distribution of our clients, as it has not changed significantly. We seem to pick up east coast and west cost clients with equal regularity.

We think it has something to do with consumer behavior. We can’t explain it because we haven’t done the survey of callers to find out why. But never the less, here it is.

We are encouraged to see the call volume and rental demand move according to projections. We hope that demand is increasing according to your projections in your local market as well. Make sure to come to the self storage blog tomorrow and read Mike Scanlon’s guest entry. Bye for now, Tron

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One of the most powerful ways of helping a customer is to tell them what you can do for them. Many times we get callers or you get customers who have a problem or a question we can do nothing about. People don’t like to be told “Too bad, so sad”. People like to be helped. So try to make sure to tell people “…but here is what I CAN do for you” or “…but I CAN get you in touch with someone who can help you with this situation” .

People realize you may not have all the answers or the authority to make unusual decisions. But they want someone to be sympathetic and to be helpful. If all they hear you say is that you can’t help them, they will become angry and vent on you. If they understand you to say “sorry, but here is what I CAN do”, they will remain calm and follow your instructions. This works as well with current customers as it does with people you are trying to rent a unit to. If this isn’t a part of your regular routine, make it so. You will find it will be very helpful.

Bye for now, Tron

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