A powerful marketing campaign can greatly increase the value of your self storage investment. A successful self storage marketing strategy starts with your manager.
Your manager is a salesperson!
Set goals that challenge them to become a better manager.
Setting goals is an important part of having a successful manager at your facility.
It is important to involve your manager in the creation of their goals. Employees are more likely to achieve goals when they are involved in setting them.
When creating goals to help your managers succeed there are a number of items to consider. What are the facilities' values, vision, and goals? Does your storage facility have a mission statement?
What is the company's strategy?
Your manager’s goals should reflect those strategies and values.
Use the SMART system for setting your manager’s goals.
SMART goals are essential to motivating people in management positions. They will allow you to create an environment wherein managers can increase their production and feel good about their achievements.
S.M.A.R.T. stands for:
Avoid vague or general goals. Managers need to have clear expectations of what should be achieved.
In terms of marketing your storage facility, focus on the specific metric that you are wanting to improve.
Examples:
- I want to offer a better referral incentive by offering a free months rent to anyone who successfully refers someone.
- I want to increase web traffic to rent more units. Currently we are renting 2 units online a month. We will incorporate a digital marketing plan to increase the web traffic.
There will be some goals you want your manager to achieve that may not be numerical, but when setting sales goals they need to be in numbers.
The more clear and measurable the goal, the more the manager can focus on achieving that goal.
For example, you could set a goal to rent 5 more units this month than last.
This is a solid, measurable goal; however, there are other steps within that goal that could be measured.
You could additionally set a goal to create 20 more leads through marketing this month, getting more contact information for potential customers.
You could also set a goal to increase the number of follow up calls, etc.
Goals that are measurable can be tracked in real time. This makes it possible for you to follow up with your manager’s progress and make corrections if needed.
The goals need to be possible.
The main objective for most goals is to rent more units.
That drive brings in business and keeps facilities full; however, please also consider the importance of maintaining your current customer base.
For example, if you have a facility that is 98% occupied, it might be an unachievable goal to increase the number of rentals by 10.
In that case you could incentivize lowering the number of delinquent payments.
You could also offer an incentive to sign up more of your tenants to auto pay.
Create goals that relate to your facilities overall goal.
As you come up with goals there are some things that you need to consider:
If you are aware of some of those factors, you will be more likely to set goals that are achievable and beneficial to your self storage facility.
Goals need to have a due date - they need to expire.
This is necessary in order to measure the success of your manager in achieving the goal.
A due date also puts pressure on your manager to reach the goal.
If it is a large goal, there should be schedules for the different parts (or steps).
There should always be good follow-up with regard to each goal.
If the goal is not reached, adjust it to be more achievable while still making your manager stretch.
Employees are motivated when they are successful in meeting their goals.
Meeting goals that help them stretch will create positive experiences for them.
Goals should also be tailored to the employee.
Don’t expect your new manager to have the same sales goals as your manager who has been with your company for 5 years.
Also, allow them to be creative in meeting their goals.
For example, say a potential customer wants a drive-up 10X20 unit, but they are all occupied. Allow for deep discounts on two 10X10s.
This can also been seen as two sales.
When goals are achieved your managers should get recognition and a reward for their work.
Recognition and rewards will help motivate other managers to achieve their individual goals as well.
Many times people are motivated by more than just money.
Consider other options as well, such as a day off with pay, gift cards, etc. It is important to understand what motivates your managers.
StoragePug is a modern marketing company for self storage. We create intelligent marketing websites that allow you to rent units & take payments through your facilities’ website.
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