» Self Storage Companies
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Starting Your New Self Storage BusinessBy jeff on February 3, 2011 | 1,267 Comments
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Do not be afraid to start small. Your Douglasdale self storage enterprise does not need to be that flashy when you are starting off. You can make up for it with quality storage units and great customer service. Your storage employees should be trained on how to sell effectively. They should also be briefed on the company mission so that everyone is on the same page. You may find it helpful to have one on one meetings with employees to make sure that they are committed to your Douglasdale self storage company goals.
Everybody is different. Some people are born to sell and some will require a lot of training. You could just hire a bunch of people and see who can sell and who cannot. This is the path of least resistance. It is a fact that some, if not most, of the best salespeople in Alberta started out very poorly in the sales field. Through persistence and a desire to learn how to sell they are able to develop the skills necessary to achieve lofty sales goals. Typically, once they get it, they will be hard to catch.
The problem with natural born salesmen is work ethic. Since it always came so easily, they never had to work as hard as some. The best salespeople will typically have the best work ethic so do not give up on someone just because they do not sell. Pay close attention, though. They will still need to have a few traits to be a good Douglasdale self storage employee. They will need to have a great attitude and a willingness to learn. Some people will never be good because they do not have the desire to be great. After a little experience, you should be able evaluate which Douglasdale self storage employees will be successful. Be careful, though, because there are many ways to sell effectively so make sure to give everyone a chance.
People skills are a must. They must be able to get people to like them fast. With more involved sales calls, there is more of an opportunity to build rapport. In storage sales, it needs to happen fast. The average storage inquiry will only take about six minutes. There is no time to waste. The initial greeting needs to be positive, but not over the top. Imagine talking to a high school friend that you have not seen for awhile. You do not want to be over the top like a late night TV pitchman. This is excessive and may scare away may Douglasdale self storage prospects from the word go.
A lot of your business will come from people in Alberta who have fallen on hard times. They do not want to talk with someone who is jumping through the phone. They may not trust what you have to say. A warm greeting is enough. After you talk with the potential customer for a little bit, you will be able to gauge how to best handle the call. A calm approach may work best for some callers, while an exciting sales pitch and presentation may be better for others. You will probably want to be the most enthusiastic when you are going over specials that you are currently offering. Calm it down a bit when you are evaluating needs of the customer.
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Learning the Ropes of Selling Self StorageBy jeff on February 2, 2011 | 1,255 Comments
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Consider this. Education about the industry is the most important part of becoming the best Airdrie self storage salesperson. There are many factors that determine who the best is, but knowledge is the biggest factor. Before discussing that aspect, there are a few things that will help you become the best.
The first aspect is your attitude. You need to have a positive mental attitude in order to become the best. Your results are usually dictated by your initial expectations. If you expect to do bad or mediocre, then you will be. If you think you can or you think you cannot, then you are probably right as the saying goes. The competition in the Airdrie self storage industry is fierce. So to be the best you will need to have a great attitude. Also, if you have problems with alcohol or drugs, you should kick those habits right away so you can stay on top of your career. Everyone in Alberta kind of knows what to do, but not everyone will do what it takes to be the best.
Probably the first thing that you need to learn is how to tell callers how to get to your Airdrie self storage location. You should be able to learn how to get people to the site even if you are not that familiar with the area. Learning local landmarks will help you describe where you are located. In fact, most people in Alberta probably have been by your location before, but they may not have noticed that you were there. Storage properties are everywhere and StorageMart is one of the main companies that know what they are doing.
You should also familiarize yourself with what separates one Airdrie self storage property from another. One difference is security. Some sites have great security and some sites have major problems with break ins. No need to pay someone to make your stuff disappear, plenty of people will do that for free. Also, the overall quality tends to vary from one site to the next. Some facilities do take the time to make sure that everything is nice and clean. This makes a big difference. Your stuff will come back to you in good shape if the storage units are clean. Hard to tell what else has been in that unit so site cleanliness is important.
Another aspect is customer service. When you are calling Airdrie self storage properties, you should take notice of how you are greeted. You should listen to how many times the phone rings before you get an answer. A lot of sites will not even answer the phone and you will get voicemail. Some managers are obviously dealing with many customers when you call in. It is nice to have someones full attention when you are calling in so that you know that the information is accurate. If they are taking care of someone else, they are likely to make a mistake on a quote or leave out a very valuable piece of info that you will need to rent. Also, the level of customer service for sites usually does not change for the positive. If you are treated like you do not matter when you call for prices, this will not change when you are a customer.
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Doing Storage Business in SaskatchewanBy jeff on January 28, 2011 | 618 Comments
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Glencairn storage facilities in Saskatchewan, Canada have the same problems other storage places have, even in the United States of America. One problem that comes up is customers forgetting to pay their storage space bills. A self-storage business is a business where people come to find a storage space to store their belongings. The storage spaces can be as big as a garage, or as small as a footlocker. There are all sizes in between. Some storage facilities charge the month’s rent on the first day of each month, or the anniversary date, which is the date they moved their stuff in. So once a month their storage bill is due. Some places give the customer a three-day grace period. A grace period is a period of time the customer can pay his or her bill without a penalty. Late fees occur when the customer is past three days paying. It could be ten dollars or more. After the first three days without a payment, more late fees can occur, and the late fees will add up. After another period of time with no payments, a manager must cut the customer’s lock off; replace it with a manager lock, which locks the customer out of his or her storage space.
There is a lock fee too. With Glencairn storage in Saskatchewan, Canada, we think the same is being done most of the time. Some American companies have built storage places or purchased existing ones and we know these policies are in place. Lock fees can be twenty-five dollars and up. All the fees can add up real fast. The manager of the storage place tries to call the customer who will not pay his bill at least three times a week. He or she tries to call at different times trying to reach the customer. In the United States of America, it is a law to do this, or you can never auction off the unpaid storage space.
Some Glencairn storage facilities owned by American companies practice this, but of course, Canadian laws might be different, as they might be different all over the world. Storage is becoming big business too in other parts of the world. In countries with limited space and small dwellings to live in, storage spaces are important. People moving from a big house to a small apartment need storage. Most people do not want to loose everything they have put in storage. Most people forget to pay the bill. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes. They simply forget to pay their storage bill, because some people never go to it. Some customers have storages spaces for years without ever seeing it again. You can see why they might forget once in a while to pay the bill. We had a customer from Canada in the United States, who after ten years, came to his storage space one day. We wanted to meet him because we saw his check every month from Canada. He was a fun guy, who had hockey sticks stored and other stuff too. We laughed about things and he explained his story. It was a matter of health care he said. He was sick and America was too expensive to get better in. Good luck.
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Providing the Best Storage Product for Your CustomersBy jeff on January 28, 2011 | 1,234 Comments
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Washington Park storage companies in Saskatchewan, Canada are thinking of marketing right now as we press on with our four P’s of marketing. We have promotion, product, price and place. We have talked about promotion and place in past articles, and now will move on to product and price. Product seems to be obvious, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Yes, a product is the thing you buy most of the time, but it is more than that. Why do you buy a certain car over another one? They are all cars with very similar options on them and things they must have to run. Cars need engines, doors, seats, and all those things. Seats can be different in cars, leather, or cloth. Leather will cost more but last longer. Leather is easy to clean and stains less than cloth seats. Leather seats will bring you more value than cloth if you decide to sell your car one day. Seats are basically the same product, but as we can see now, the same product can be very different. This is the same with storage too. It is a space people put their things in and they are all alike, like seats in a car. They are not all alike. Storage spaces can have concrete floors but some could be very dirty and stained and uncared for. Walls are different in storage spaces. Some are brick or aluminum or concrete. Brick walls are hard to break in from the other side, so your stuff may be safer than aluminum walls where bad guys can break into one storage space than just go through all the walls and break into many storage spaces. These are more unsafe than bricks walls correct?
Washington Park storage facilities in Saskatchewan, Canada should think about their product. Are their walls brick or concrete or aluminum? Product is important to understand and how to change the perception in the consumer’s mind during the sales process. Product can also be what you sell in your office. Do you sell locks? Do you sell boxes? These could add many dollars to your bottom line if your managers are good sales people too. This is adding to your product mix. Product mix is what it sounds like; mixing up the products you sell. Product can also be what the storage building looks like. Is it old and dirty? Is it new? Is there junk all over your property or is it clean? Is there landscape that looks good to the eye, or is it just plain and unappealing? This is all product too in the storage industry. The potential customer is buying all of this.
Washington Park storage companies in Saskatchewan, Canada should hire good sales people to run their storage places. It has been proven that the sales people are part of what the customer buys. “We like this guy and trust him or her. We will purchase the product because of him or her.” Most of the time people buy products because they like and trust the sales people they deal with. Car sales people that are likable, considered honest, happy, and friendly, might do better than the grouchy ones, the burned out ones and the ones who are just tired of sales.
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The Perfect Self StorageBy admin on March 1, 2010 | 1,022 Comments
When you are shopping around for the perfect self storage unit, you are balancing a lot of variables in your mind. Indeed, chances are that you are looking around for a facility that is not only going to keep your belongings safe, but keep your wallet safe as well. Well, reader, know that you are going to be able to have your cake and eat it too. Indeed, if you are willing to do some hard work when it comes to shopping around, then you are not going to run into any particular problems, here. You are going to be able to find a unit that will both keep your belongings safe and fail to break the bank.
The first thing that you are going to want to do, here, is make sure that you are saving all of the self storage coupons that you are offered when you are calling around. When you have called a sufficient number of facilities in your area, then you are going to want to take a look at all of your coupons to see which ones are going to make the most sense with your time frame. Of course, if you know that you are only going to need your unit for six months, then you are going to want to pick a special that makes sense across six months. While it may be tempting to take your first month for free, you are actually going to save more money if you take your first six months at twenty percent off. So, be sure that you are sitting down and crunching some numbers before you agree to sign any paperwork.
Also, you are going to want to be sure that you are paying careful attention to the other services that the property offers. You will have to be sure that your property rents trucks, and that they can provide you with a moving service if you are going to need one. While these extra services are going to run you more money, they are going to be cheaper if you rent them through your storage property, typically speaking. If you run all over town looking for different providers for every service, then you may actually end up spending more than you have to at the end of the day.
Finally, reader, you are going to have to be sure that you are really keeping everything as tightly packed as you can. If you are looking to save money, you are NOT going to want to rent a unit that is too small for your belongings, as you might very well end up damaging them if you stack them too high. Of course, that does not mean that you cannot break down some of your furniture, pack up your belongings in boxes of uniform size, and see about making them take up a lot less space. You would be surprised by how much space you can save when you pack up your belongings correctly. Likewise, you would be surprised to see just how many dollars you can save on your monthly rent when you rent a smaller size.
When it comes down to saving space and money, reader, you are truly going to have to be sure that you are not being reckless with your belongings. While you can save space, and while you can consolidate your chores, and while you can make great use of the coupons that you are offered, you are not going to want to shoot yourself in the foot by cutting too many corners. Fortunately, though, you are always going to be able to find a way to make your budget work out well.
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Challenges Faced By Self Storage CompaniesBy admin on June 27, 2009 | 970 Comments
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Every business has its own challenges and the same holds true for the self storage companies . Some challenges are due to changing economic environment while others are fixed i.e. they remain there irrespective of how the economy is performing. The cargo space facilities started 30 years ago. Since then this industry has seen various ups and downs and overcome various challenges. In the last decade, the warehouse business has seen a lot of success. These storing facilities have become very popular and a necessity with many American households. But it is also true that nowadays these storehouses are facing the impact of the economic downturn. People are spending less and availing of fewer services than before. Thus the self storage companies are struggling with the challenge of keeping their units occupied.
The storehouses are developing various strategies to overcome this situation. They have resorted to various cost-cutting measures in order to offer the store units at lower prices to the customers. Different discounts are being offered by the warehouses to lure customers. This is a win-win situation for both the owners and the customers. If the units remain idle, the owners suffer huge losses. Hence, it is good for the storehouses to rent the units at a discount price. This at least takes care of their expenses, though they may not be able to make decent margins. It is also beneficial for the customers, as they are able to get the store units at a low per sq ft rate. If store units are available at cheap rates, many tenants and students prefer to shift to smaller homes to save on rent and hire store units to take care of their storing needs. Thus, such discounts are good for both the customers and the self storage companies during this recessionary period. It also encourages people who are short of storing space at home to hire the store units as it is a much cheaper option compared to undertaking renovation of garage or home.
Another challenge for the self storage companies is the high rate of defaults in payment. Few customers fail to pay their monthly rentals on time and this is a big problem that warehouses face frequently.
Nowadays, most storehouses have started including a clause regarding store unit auction in case of default in payment. This empowers the storehouse owners to take action, if the customer defaults on payment for long. After informing the customer who has been defaulting on payment, the owner puts the unit on auction to recover some losses. The main aim of this exercise is to get the store unit vacated so that the owner can rent it to some other customer.
The customers cannot store prohibited items like liquids, inflammables and other items that can damage the environment in the store units. However, few storeroom companies face problems due to storing of banned items in the store units by the customers. This not only poses a threat to the items of that customer but also to the store units of the other customers. Sometimes storing an item that can harm the environment creates a problem for the owner as it threatens the very survival of the warehouse due to strict environment laws and regulations.
In short, for running any business successfully you have to overcome various challenges. There are few challenges for the self storage companies too and you have to tactfully find solutions to overcome them in order to rule this market of safekeeping facilities.
