This presentation reviews 5 of the costliest mistakes your self storage facility is making. This was presented at the 2014 Inside Self Storage Convention in Las Vegas, NV by Matthew Van Horn and James Ross. In addition, please download your 3 free bonus items (Monthly Goals Sheet, Lifetime Customer Value Sheet, and our 3 Mile Domination Ebook) at www.cuttingedgeselfstorage.com/iss

2. The 5 Costliest Mistakes
Your Self-Storage Facility Is Making!
MATT VANHORN
Cutting Edge
Management
&
3 Mile Domination
JIM ROSS
Cutting Edge
Management
&
3 Mile Domination

3. Mistakes to Avoid
Not Having
Proper Revenue
Mgt
Forgetting About Other Marketing
Techniques
Not Having A ConvertingWebsite
Not Concentrating on Conversion %
Not Training Properly

4. Mistake #1: Not Training Your
Managers Properly

5. USE A TRAINING CHECKLIST

6. Mistake #1: Not Training Your
Managers Properly
FACILITY
MANAGEMENT
DAY TO DAY
ITEMS
FINANCIAL
MARKETINGSALES
CUSTOMER
SERVICE

7. DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS
Do The Manager’s of Your Self Storage Facility know what they should
be doing or are they making it up as they go along?
The operations of your facility need to be broken down to the most
boring detail.
• What time does your facility manager need to be in the office? Is it
10 Minutes Early? Right at opening?
• When, exactly, should they take lunch? How long?
• How often should a walk through be completed? What time? Where
is the documentation filed?
• How often should the Hallways be swept? Office cleaned? What is
allowed in the office? When should the bathroom be cleaned?
• If there is an emergency (Fire, Sink Hole, Customer Issue) who do I
contact? How do I get ahold of this person?

8. DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS
Having set policy’s and procedures will take care of this issue
• Use Checklists for everything.
• Have your Policy and Procedures available at all times
• Can be Paper, PDF in a file sharing program, or host them on a
website (easier then you think).
• If possible, use video to document how things are to be completed.

9. DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS

10. FINANCIAL
We need to train our self storage managers on the finance of self
storage
• Do your managers receive an annual budget, do they understand
where the numbers come from? Is your budget realistic?
• Do you allow your managers to review the facility’s P&L? Do they
understand how Revenue, Expenses, and NOI affect facility value?

11. MARKETING
The biggest issue in Self Storage Marketing, is who is responsible for
creating, executing, and tracking the plan?
• CREATING: Who is creating the marketing plan? Manager, Owner,
Outside Company?
• EXECUTING: Who is responsible for launching/implementing the
marketing plan? When? How? Budget? Time Frame?
• TRACKING: Who is responsible for making sure all of the
campaigns are tracked correctly? How? Conversions? What’s a
marketing win?

12. SALES
Your average self storage
customer is looking to your self
storage manager as the “expert”
• SCRIPTS: Do you have a sales
script? There is a reason the
biggest companies in the world,
use scripts?
• TRAINING: Invest in creating
training videos
• ROLE PLAY: Use role playing for
practice.

13. CUSTOMER SERVICE
• Has your self storage manager been trained on how to effectively
work with customers?
• How much leeway does your facility manager have? Can they waive
a late fee? Change a rental rate? Provide the customer with a cup of
coffee?

14. Mistake #2: Not Concentrating On
Higher Conversion %

15. How Much Is An Extra Rental Worth
To You ?
*based off national averages from 2013 self storage almanac

17. Mistake #3: Not Having A Great
Converting Website.

18. Design Your Website To Knock
Out Your Competition!!

20. Mistake #4: Forgetting About Other
Marketing Techniques

21. MARKETING BOMBARDMENT
• By age 66 most of us have
seen about 2 Million TV Ads
• Like watching nothing but Ads
24/7 for 6 consecutive years
• We are exposed to at least
247 separate images a day. You
probably didn’t notice ½ of them
• Email, Social Media, Phone Calls, Web, etc, etc.

22. GENERAL RULES
• Do not be boring….
• Do not Spam…
• Provide something that will evoke an emotional response
• Practice with multiple types of media: (Video, Web, Email, Direct
Mail, Print, Social Media, etc.)
• Create and Find great content, it’s necessary to be successful
• The average person needs to be touched
4-5 times by advertising before they make a decision

23. PHYSICAL NEWS LETTERS
• Helps get through the barrier
• Cannot be deleted
• It has to be touched before
it hits the trash
• Interesting articles, games,
recipes, etc.
Professional Cost:
$500 for Monthly Layout
$1.15 p/issue mailed

24. DIRECT MAIL
• Helps get through the barrier
• Cannot be deleted
• It has to be touched before
it hits the trash
• Create individual/targeted campaigns
• Attain a Solid Mailing List
• Track Everything

25. SOCIAL MEDIA

26. WHAT TO SHARE

27. TURNOFFS

28. WHEN TO SHARE

29. CUSTOMER SERVICE

30. Mistake #5: Not Having Proper
Revenue Management

31. WHAT IS REVENUE
MANAGEMENT?
Revenue Management is an overall strategy to most effectively
manage revenue to maximize return. Rate Management, USP,
Marketing, ETC
**Not just about raising rates**

32. IT’S ABOUT VALUE NOT PRICE
WE NOW LIVE IN A VALUE BASED WORLD
(AMAZON, NETFLIX, APPLE, ETC )

33. IF YOU ARE 100% OCCUPIED YOU
ARE LOSING MONEY

34. WITH ONE STATEMENT YOU HAVE
DONE THE FOLLOWING:
• Set a permanent limit on your potential revenue
• Your expenses will increase and you will sit back and watch them
deteriorate your NOI like a school of piranha.
• You will continually turn away potential customers
• You enjoy burning $100 bills, because that is exactly what you are
doing with your marketing budget.

35. EXISITING: HOW THE REITS DO IT
• EXTRA SPACE: Increases rates on current customers up to 7% and
as often as every 9 months.
• CUBE SMART: Increase rates, 6%, on current tenants once at 6
months then again every 12 months.

36. PRICING STRATEGIES

37. TIERED PRICING
3-TYPES OF OCCUPANCY:
1. PHYSICAL OCCUPANCY: NUMBER OF RENTED UNITS /
NUMBER OF TOTAL UNITS
2. SQUARE FOOT OCCUPANCY: AMOUNT OF RENTED SQUARE
FOOTAGE / TOTAL AMOUNT OF SQUARE FOOTAGE
3. ECONOMIC OCCUPANCY: ACTUAL RENT / POTENTIAL RENT

38. WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
The answer is Economic Occupancy.
THE ONLY OCCUPANCY
THAT CAN GO ABOVE 100%

39. EXAMPLE 1
So for example let’s say your 10x10’s are $100 at standard rate
and you have 10 of them.
Example 1:
10- 10x10’s @ $100 p/unit ($1000 potential rent)
10- Rented @ $100 p/unit (everyone is paying full price)
10x$100= $1000 p/month actual rent (because everyone is
paying the full price)
$1000 (actual rent)/ $1000 (potential rent) = 100% Economic
Occupancy

40. EXAMPLE 2
Now let’s look at it from a discounted point of view:
Example 2:
10-10x10’s @ $100 p/unit ($1000 potential rent)
10- Rented @ $90 p/unit ($10 dollar discount p/unit)
10x$90 = $900 p/month actual rent (because everyone is
discounted $10 p/unit and not paying full price)
$900 (actual rent)/ $1000 (potential rent) = 90% Economic
Occupancy

41. EXAMPLE 3
Now let’s look at it from a TIERED pricing point of view:
Example 3:
10-10x10’s @ $100 p/unit ($1000 potential rent)
10-Rented @ $110 p/unit ($10 premium on each unit)
10x$110 = $1100 p/month actual rent (because of TIERED
pricing everyone is paying $10 more than the standard rate
p/unit)
$1100 (actual rent)/$1000 (potential rent) = 110%
Economic Occupancy

42. ONLINE VS. OFFLINE STRATEGIES
ONLINE:
• CUSTOMERS ONLINE TEND TO BE MORE PRICE SENSITIVE.
• COMPARISON SHOPPING (LOOKING FOR DEALS)
• CONSIDER OFFERING DIFFERENT PRICES ONLINE

43. ONLINE VS. OFFLINE STRATEGIES
IN OFFICE:
• CUSTOMER IN YOUR OFFICE NEEDS YOUR PRODUCT NOW
• NO ONE JUST STOPS TO LOOK AT A STORAGE UNIT
• CONSIDER OFFERING DIFFERENT PRICES IN THE OFFICE

44. INCENTIVES & BONUSES
Incentives & bonuses must accomplish two things:
1. Be profitable for your facility
2. Be easy to understand and attainable for your facility managers

45. INCENTIVES & BONUSES
If it looks like this:
You’re doing it wrong…

46. CONSIDER THIS STRATEGY..
Each size code is given a range of prices:
Example: 10x10
• Internet Rate= $95.00
• Standard or Base Rate= $100.00
• “Upsell” Rate= $105.00+

47. CONSIDER THIS STRATEGY..
• Your internet rate will be supplied online, for those shoppers who are
price shopping
• Your base rate will be the lowest rate you should accept during an
office visit or phone call
• The difference between the base rate will be what the self storage
manager will be bonused on.

48. EXAMPLE:
XZY SELF STORAGE UPSELL RATE SHEET EARNED TOTAL
UPSELL BONUS UNITS BONUS
NON CLIMATE INTERNET BASE UPSELL UPSELL MONEY BONUS % P/UNIT RENTED EARNED
5X10 $42.00 $50.00 $55.00 $5.00 75% $3.75 1 $3.75
10X10 $64.00 $89.00 $99.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 0 $0.00
10X15 $89.00 $110.00 $114.00 $4.00 75% $3.00 3 $9.00
10X20 $99.00 $114.00 $125.00 $11.00 75% $8.25 2 $16.50
10X25 $142.00 $144.00 $154.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 1 $7.50
10X30 $154.00 $164.00 $174.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 1 $7.50
12X30 $174.00 $179.00 $189.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 1 $7.50
CLIMATE
5X5 $37.00 $49.00 $55.00 $6.00 75% $4.50 4 $18.00
5X10 $52.00 $79.00 $84.00 $5.00 75% $3.75 2 $7.50
10X10 $95.00 $109.00 $119.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 3 $22.50
10X15 $134.00 $134.00 $144.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 1 $7.50
10X20 $164.00 $164.00 $174.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 2 $15.00
10X25 $184.00 $184.00 $194.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 1 $7.50
10X30 $199.00 $199.00 $209.00 $10.00 75% $7.50 1 $7.50
TOTAL 23 $137.25

49. YOU MADE IT!!!

51. Thank you!
www.cuttingedgeselfstorage.com/iss