SSA Blog

Marketing one’s self storage facility (or portfolio of self storage facilities) is incredibly fun. Each and every customer who walks through the door (or the virtual door of your website) is facing a unique life experience, oftentimes involving great transition and change.

This past June I was fortunate enough to have three great weeks in Africa. We spent the first 10 days seeing amazing animals in the wild from giraffe, elephants, lions, water buffalo, wart hogs, more stunningly beautiful birds than you can imagine, and so many other gorgeous creatures.

There has been a long-standing debate within the self storage industry about when the first self storage facilities were built. The general census is that the first self storage facilities were built in the southwest in the mid-1960's.

You’ve done everything you can to get your storage facility in peak condition. It’s impeccably clean, the security systems are in place and functional, and your marketing, online and otherwise, is up and running.

During the course of my life, I’ve had many mentors and most of them didn’t even know it. They were businessmen and women whose leadership style struck a chord with me. Inspirational figures who achieved in the areas where I wanted to find success. Over time, some of them became close friends. All of them helped me greatly.

It used to be a pretty straightforward process for customers to find a self-storage facility. They’d either pop into the facility that they passed on the way to work every day, or they would crack open the Yellow Pages, call a few places, and book a unit based on a quick price.

Employers must begin using the revised I-9 form for new hires no later than September 19, 2017. Employer must ensure that every new hire executes an I-9 within the first 3 days of employment and must retain the form for at least three years from the hiring date or one year after the last day of employment, whichever occurs later.

With over 100 hours of video uploaded very minute, 1 billion unique monthly visitors, and 6 billion hours of video viewed every month, YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google.

Certainly, the self storage industry has benefited from adding computers and the internet to their business operations over the last twenty years. The ability to store and transmit data about self storage tenants, the ease of managing financial transactions and the use of social media to engage greater marketing have certainly affected how facility operators conduct their business and have enhanced their bottom line profitability.

In this tough economic climate, automated and high-tech facilities are gaining ground on traditional mom and pop operations. Storage customers expect self-service convenience, climate controlled units, and a fortress protecting their items from the dangers of the outside world. But those amenities don’t come cheap: automated facility owners can charge a premium rate for ultra-modern storage technology and high-security upgrades.