Auditing Your Operations | PugTalk

Auditing Your Operations

Your operations are the foundation of your storage business.

Having a solid operational plan can set you up for growth and success, but how do you identify any cracks in your foundation? Regularly auditing your operations can make sure you catch any issues before they become big problems. Join us as we dig into how to audit your operations, which areas you should be focusing on, and how to use that information to improve.

How often should you audit your operations?
How do you know when you may have a problem with your operations?
What areas of your operations should you focus on the most?
How can you use an audit to improve your operations?

Featured Speakers: Jason Christley, Heather McCombs, & Tommy Nguyen

Aired: October 29, 2024
Duration: 1:15:53

Overview

If you don't have time to watch the whole session, here are some of our favorite parts:

At 3:30, our experts talked about why operations audits matter and how they can help your business.
7:16, the panel defined what an audit is and what all it entails.
Starting at 11:08, they highlighted how often you should audit your operations and which areas you should focus on more often.
At 16:10, our experts shared instances where an audit caught issues before they became major issues.
20:40, they talked about how to audit your customer experience and which parts of it to pay the most attention to.
Around 27:30, they discussed the important parts of your sales process to focus on during an audit.
At 33:40, our guests highlighted the importance of including cleaning tasks and schedules in a regular audit.
42:00, they started digging into auditing your maintenance and the importance of preventative maintenance.
Starting at 46:10, they covered how often third-party management services should update or contact their owners.
Around 51:00, our experts walked through ways to audit your software and marketing strategies.
55:00, they discussed the most important parts of your business to audit if you have limited time.

Carol Mixon-Krendl

SkilCheck

Website: https://www.skilcheck.com/
Email: carol@skilcheck.com

Hailey Teal

Jenkins Organization

Website: https://www.jenkinsorg.com/
Email: hailey@jenkinsorg.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%.