SSA Blog

Uber should be an inspiration to self storage owners. Okay, so maybe “Uber” and “self storage” aren’t words you see together very often, but they should be. In fact, storage owners could learn a lot from the small startup that revolutionized transit.

It cannot be understated how valuable a good manager is to the success of a self-storage facility. It can literally be the difference between that business surviving or not. If you’ve been in the storage business for a while, you know that employees can run the gambit between highly effective and not effective.

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.

In the self storage industry, it is estimated that approximately 12% of facilities are owned by publicly-traded REITs. The other 88% of facilities are mostly owned by small and mid-sized operators.

In the early days of self storage, prior to the industry’s understanding the need for savvy marketing and better business plans, providing top-notch customer service was rarely part of the plan. Rent the unit and let the customer take care of the move in.

Sometimes when we do the same job day in and day out our eyes gloss over the most obvious. In this story it was the golf cart that I overlooked.