Improving Your Upstream Numbers

"Since 2015, we have employed simple, low cost, and often free strategies to drive traffic to our physical locations and websites which has allowed us to see, in some years, double-digit growth in revenue.

With a very specific plan of action, and doing so in concert with a solid digital marketing effort, you too will find a dramatic increase in Google data (also known as Insights) and Facebook reach which in turn will result in a dramatic upswing in prospect calls, prospect visits, online leads, and, ultimately, rentals.

In just a few short minutes, you will see the need to have a balanced, marketing plan of action and various approaches you can institute immediately. Learn how to measure to see the move-over-month improvement!"

Featured Speakers: Bob Vamvas

Bio

Bob Vamvas is a USAF veteran, holds a Masters degree from Columbia University and holds or has held certification in management consulting, process consulting, information mapping and instructional design.

Bob has spent the better part of the past 30 years consulting in a wide-array of industries - from oil services to self storage - gleaning what works best to bring those talents and approaches to the storage industry. He has extensive experience in performance management, operational excellence, competency analysis, sales and marketing, communication strategies, coaching and counseling. Since 2010, Bob has served as a business turn-around and business improvement specialist for storage owners from California to Kentucky.

In 1993 he created The Learning Process, LLC to provide advance leadership development and strategic planning processes to various mostly petro-chemical companies in southeast Texas. After a brief stint with Deloitte & Touche and Hein + Associates, providing business consulting services to national and international firms including Baker Hughes and Exxon Chemical, Bob began his career in the self storage industry with XPS Solutions as the National Sales Manager. In 2008 started Storage Revenue Solutions which became HansRoberts in 2017. Since its inception, Bob has provided management system design, consulting services, market studies, operational audits, and site turnaround / management services to dozens of the most recognized companies in the storage industry. In 2018 Bob teamed up with Burgess Carey to provide self storage real estate development and acquisition services to the ever-growing self storage industry including economic analysis, due diligence and market assessments

Questions Answered in this Session

How successful should my first facility be before I look to grow?
Is it best to expand on my property first before buying another facility?
Should I buy an existing facility or build new?
How do you know when the market is right to buy or expand?
How do I make sure my construction pro-formas are correct?
What changes do you need to make to your business when you have more than one facility?
What are the biggest challenges?
How does your management style and systems change as you grow?
How does your day-to-day change as your business scales? How do your focus and priorities change?
What are the big pitfalls when growing beyond your first facility?
How do you determine how big to grow your business? Is there a sweet spot?
What are the major goals self storage businesses use when scaling their business? How do they get there?
Are there other major benchmarks or changes that happen as a result of growing your portfolio past 10 facilities? i.e. hiring district managers, the need for new roles
With so many self storage businesses growing, how do I find my competitive advantage?

Alan Lindsey

Lindsey Self Storage Group

Website: https://lindseyselfstoragegroup.com/
Email: alan@lindseyselfstoragegroup.com

Jane Sauls

Sauls Storage Group

Website: https://www.saulsstoragegroup.com
Email: jane@saulsstoragegroup.com

Resources from this session

Awesome Quotes

“Once your operation is in place, you can become more dynamic with your pricing, but that requires data. You need some method of being able to record the data that you need to know whether your price is in the right place - whether you need to move it up or start giving some concessions.” - Warren Lieberman

“I never want to downplay to what someone else is doing. I'm better than they are, then I'm going to be worth a higher price. That's what value is. If you go out to a restaurant and get really good service, would you go back? Yes! What if it was pricier? You'd still go back because you got better service and a better product.” - Jim Mooney

"It's good to be informed on your competition. I don't want to ignore them, but I don't want to respond too strongly to them either." - Warren Lieberman

"We did a survey of 10,000 facilities on their pricing. We found out that two-thirds of those operators didn't change the price of a single unit of the course of a month." - Warren Lieberman

“Rate increases and value pricing are the number one ways to grow your revenue.” - Jim Mooney

"Tenants in more convenient units tend to be less price sensitive." - Warren Lieberman

"The size of the unit is only one aspect of what people are willing to pay for." - Warren Lieberman

Highlights

Foundational marketing strategies to have in place - whether leasing up or stabilized:

Website
Set up listings (Yelp, Google My Business, Apple Maps)
Social Media
Establish Local Partnerships

Lease up marketing strategies:

Lead Generating Strategies (like digital ads)
Aggregators (Sparefoot, Storagefront, etc.)
Awareness Campaigns (like billboards, flyers, and sponsorships)

Your average customer value
Find the average stay length of all tenants. Next take your economic occupancy and divide by how many units you have. That will tell you what the average customer pays.

Multiply the average length of stay by what the average customer pays, and that's the average value of a customer.

For example, if a customer stays for 12 months and pays $100 per month, then their value is $1,200.

Your average lead value

Figure out your closing rate (or conversion rate) i.e. how many leads do you turn into tenants? Multiply that by your average customer lifetime value to figure out what your leads are worth.

Pro Tip: see which lead sources are converting the best. It may be that certain sources have a higher conversion rate, so those leads are worth more to you than a source that barely converts.

Typical Lease-up timeline

According to our panelists, it's typical to see a 3-4% increase each month, putting your facility at 36% after the first year, and 72% after the second.

Alternately, you can look at your lease up goals through the lens of your units, aiming for 20 units rented per month.

For Nick and StorageMax, they pro forma their economic occupancy at 85% with their sweet spot at 92%.