ISS seminar outline

• If you are going to the ISS show later this month, you should see our session on maximizing profits. It should apply to several property management classifications as well as storage. One of the reasons self storage can be a profitable enterprise is the fact that there are several ways to push profits. Self storage is a demand driven business. There are always people needing it. So if you study your market correctly and build a nice facility on a good piece of ground, people will come to you. It is not like in the good old days where demand far outweighed supply, but you will still get a lot of people who will find you on their own. So what do you do to make sure you rent to as many people as possible and have as large an average ticket as possible? Fast food restaurants learned long ago that a large soda will send so much more money to the bottom line than a small soda. Selling large fries to each person at the drive-thru rather than a small order can easily send $10,000 more a month to the bottom line at even a slow location. Do you know how the drive-thru concept was born? Fast food owners knew they were missing business when the counter got busy. People did not want to wait and went elsewhere. But people don’t mind waiting in the car, do they? What was the key to pushing fast food profits? Asking for the order. “Can I super size that for you?” and “Would you like fries with that shake?” have been some of the most valuable phrases in history. How do you apply this strategy to self storage? We don’t have soda or fries. But we do have locks, boxes, insurance and truck rentals. We don’t have a drive-thru to capture people who might go elsewhere when our phones are busy, but you can use a call center. Using a call center to capture your missed rental opportunities can account for 15-20% of your rentals. We can learn to ask for the order. “How many boxes will you need today?” , “Which of our locks would you prefer for your unit?” , “Would you want the $2,000 or the $4,000 coverage?” , “I have a 16 foot or a 20 foot truck, which would fit your things better?” and “We take Visa or Master to hold a unit, which one do you have handy?” could send how much to your bottom line? If you are now renting 30 units a month, what could the impact be if you and your staff mastered these phrases? Boxes. You sell $10.00 more a month to each new tenant = $300.00 Locks. You double the number of locks you sell from 10 a month to 20 = $100.00 Your net on these supplies would be 50% or $200.00 per month. Insurance. 50% of new renters take insurance instead of your current figure of “next to none”. Let’s say you make $2.00 a month commission on each sale. (15 x $2.00) Your net would be $30.00 Learning to ask for the order with locks, boxes and insurance could easily be worth $2,500 a year in profit. What is wrong with that? Now increase your rentals from 30 a month to 34 a month because your call center is renting units for you from callers you would not have talked to without the service. Not only does that send the income from those rentals to your bottom line, which could easily average $600.00 or more per rental, but it gives you 4 more people to sell lock, boxes and insurance to. What about truck rentals? The commissions on local moves keep a little revenue flowing each week. And when you do a one-way, you get a nice little piece of change to send to the bottom line. Having trucks available draws people to your store. Your truck customers may not all rent a storage unit from you, but some will. These are additional rentals you probably would not have gotten without the truck. Truck renters buy a lot of boxes and moving supplies. My last word to you is that offering these add-ons is not enough. You have to sell them. Each item carries a list of conveniences and value-adding propositions for your customers. First, don’t let any potential customers get away from you. Then show your customers why it is good for them to get their locks, boxes, insurance and trucks from you. Finally ask for the order. If they don’t say “Yes”, ask them why they don’t think these additional products and services are not a good idea. Re-sell your value proposition and your convenience offering in terms of the customer’s resistance and then ask for the order again. Many sales are made to people who said “No” the first time they were asked to make a purchase. “No” is not the end of the conversation. “No” just tells you how to direct the conversation. Don’t be afraid to sell you profit maximizing services. Your bottom line will appreciate your efforts very much. You can contact Tron by email at tron@phone-smart.net Find out more about PhoneSmart: www.phone-smart.info www.selfstorageblog.com PhoneSmart is a sales solution provider for self storage owners, helping to maximize profits through its Call Center, Secret Shopping, Sales Training and On Site Recording.

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See you in Vegas- Planning and thinking- Questions we ask our clients- What are the points?- Handling Spanish calls- Storage Rentals- What does it take to use a call center?- Self Storage Companies Can Help with All Aspects of Moving- Internal Upside- Got Trucks?

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

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