Many people say that you are what you eat. What do they mean by this? Many people who eat poorly are usually out of shape, lethargic, and not meeting their personal health goals. If they ate healthy, their whole lives would be different. So if a person eats things that will hurt their body, their body will reflect their eating habits. Do you think a storage owner resembles what their facilities look like? Let’s examine this thought.

Many owners put their heart, soul and sweat into their storage facilities and hope to get the maximum gain from this. Well that is the description of most owners. Unfortunately there are some who do not do anything to help their company put their best foot forward. The self storage owners that come into work daily looking to find ways to increase business are the same owners that have and own beautifully well kept facilities. The owners that just try to sit back and collect a paycheck are typically the ones with not so great looking facilities. Little do those managers know that how a facility looks can dramatically affect how a customer feels about renting there. If a owner knew that they were losing business because of how their facilities looked, would they make an effort to change their appearance?

Not everyone will have the capital to make the changes they want to their facilities, so they do the best they can do. Some owners have put their selves into debt just to make their facilities brighter, cleaner and more sophisticated than those around them only to get minimal return out of it. Of course it takes more than just a clean and well kept facility to make customers come through the door to rent, but it does help. There are many run down facilities out there where the owner is very satisfied with the income that is coming in so they do not do much with their facilities. They are fine just getting by. Does this make them bad storage owners?

No it does not. Ultimately it is up to the self storage customer on where they want to store. They have to make the right decision for their storage needs. They have to be the one to decide if you want to store there. The owners hope that they do decide to rent from their facility anyway and hope that the customer sees they are trying to keep costs down by just making sure they have a place to store. Some people are just looking for somewhere to put their belongings and not really needing anything extravagant. If that is the case, the customer doesn’t really need a well kept facility. They just need to have a place where they can put their belongings for now. A clean facility is great for the majority of those people who want to store, but it is not the only thing they are looking for.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

As most self storage owners, owning storage is not what most owners wanted to do when they were growing up. If you ask some of them, they might tell you that they grew up wanting to be successful and own their own business. They might tell you that they wanted to be business man of some sort, but they were not sure at the time what they wanted to be. Something in their life influenced their decision to become self storage owners.

There are self storage trade shows after trade show throughout the year, where you will find many self storage owners who have either been in the game for a long time or they are just itching to do so. With that said, no matter where they are in their self storage owner progress, they own self storage. They have accomplished their first step of their goal. Of course as time goes along they will get the experience they need in order to make a great owner.

People see self storage facilities all over the place and some often wonder what the idea behind owning self storage is. The reality of it is that people who are just staring out are told that self storage is a cash cow so they look more into it. That could have peaked their interest to get into self storage. They could have had a family member that worked for self storage or owned self storage in the past. There are many reasons people have decide to own self storage. As it stands, the self storage industry has a lot of owners, all wanting to be an owner for different reasons. What ever your reason to be an owner, make sure that you ready to get involved in a very competitive industry.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

Every owner is looking for the next best thing to hit the self storage industry that they can apply at their facilities. They go to all these different trade shows and such just to get ideas and to ensure that they know what they are talking about when they get into many discussions about storage. They want to be up on the latest and greatest so when it comes time to make changes they can try to put it into their budgets. Owners know that sometimes they will have to change their thoughts and their normal activities in order to stay competitive. They do not have it as easy as some people think.

Owners know that they have competition right down the street and they are not always looking to put that company out of business. They are looking at coexisting as long as their business is still growing. If the business is growing, then no one has a problem. The problem starts when there is not any growth and then the owner has to go back to the drawing board about some things or make some major changes. Owners might look at the property managers first before they think about making any changes to the property. Hiring an new person or giving more training is a lot easier than making physical changes to a building.

When new facilities are built next to older ones, they will always look better because they are nice, clean and their paint is nice and fresh. To keep up with them, an owner is going to have to find a way to keep that kind of stuff in the budget. Sometimes that is all the owner has to do in order to stay up with the competition. They might not have to install some fancy security systems or even a gate. Owners have to think about the tough decisions daily. Property managers go home and they lay their heads down with a quick thought about what they have to do the next day. Owners are constantly thinking about how to improve their business. Their thought process never really slows down. If they let their selves have a moment away from their thoughts they could have a great idea pass them by.

There are many that want to own or operate self storage facilities but it is not for everyone. It takes a particular kind of person to run a company and live with the decisions that they make. Many people try to make decisions but then they can not handle the prospect that they were wrong and start to second guess themselves. The moment they start to doubt them selves about one decision, every decision they make from here on out will be questioned in their minds. I do not envy self storage owners. Their jobs are harder than I would like to handle.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

Self storage owners have a pretty difficult job. Contrary to popular belief they are not just sitting on their yachts working on their tan, they are racking their brain trying to ensure that their business is running smoothly and efficiently. They have many things on their plate such as, staying within their budgets, making stock holders happy, ensuring that their facilities are being run correctly just to name a few. In regards to ensuring their facilities are being run correctly and making a profit, owners have to really take time out to find the right kind of person to run their facilities. That is not as easy in the self storage industry.

Owners make it a point to try to find managers to run their facilities that have the mindset to juggle many responsibilities. Owners have to feel comfortable leaving one of their facilities in the hands of a person that will be running the day to day business so they can focus their attention to other matters. There are some owners who would say they have found managers who are able to do it all without complaint and without flaw. It is assured that owners would love to clone such managers and spread them throughout their company. Unfortunately not all property managers are created equal.

There will be properties that are out there that are begin run by managers who talked a good talk during the interview process that are failing now. In the self storage industry you can just hire a warm body and expect that warm body to do all that is required to run a successful business. Owners need to take the time to do their research, recruit and do extensive background checks to make sure that are putting the best candidate in the position as possible. They are putting someone in charge of potential cash cow. Owners should make finding the right property manager on the top of their priority list.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

It takes a particular kind of person to work in the self storage business. Every day there are managers of self storage facilities that deal with the issues of the customers that they serve and attempt to find a solution for them. Sometimes you have to handle multiple issues in a day and that can be very taxing on an individual then they would need someone to help them with their stress. What are some qualities that self storage owners look for when they are trying to select the type of management they need for their store locations. They do not have the easiest task ahead of them.

In some retail environments the owner will just hire warm bodies that can smile and greet anyone that comes into their store or location. Then those warm bodies will hopefully keep the person interested enough until someone can come by to actually offer them some assistance. In some retail environments the responsibility of the manager is just to ensure that everyone entering the store has a person to help them. Well in a self storage environment, the manager could be the only one that is in the store that can help each person coming in. The self storage managers have to wear different hats in order to help their customers.

A self storage manager has to be patient and a good listener. They have to be able to get through stressful situations to find a solution for the customers. Being able to multitask as a self storage manager is a must. Sometimes you will have to find a way to walk a customer to their unit to ensure it’s ready to move and also try to get to phone when it rings. You have to ensure that the facility is clean while making sure that everyone is greeted. No one wants to shake your hand when you have trash juice all over it. A manager has to be able to treat each customer as they have spoken to them before and they are an old friend. Customers want to feel welcome and fell as if the manager is able to assist them.

The self storage manager will have many different things they need to do and not everyone has the skill set in order to do this. Self storage owners need to ensure they ask the right questions and seek individuals with the right background that can help the company move toward achieving their goals. Selecting the wrong kind of person could set that facility which will in turn set back the company.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

Tweet This Post 

Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.