With so many things to cover, what are the most important topics to bring up during an interview or in training?
In this Gabfocus Spotlight, Sue Haviland dives into the things to remember when training your self storage managers.
Question: "What is your manager training process like?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Best of the Best, we spoke with Sue Haviland of Haviland Storage Services and Kraig Haviland from San Diego Self Storage. They gave us their thoughts on how to find and hang onto the best of the best when it comes to self storage managers and other employees.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Sue had to say:
I'll be honest, I always like to start people with the rental agreement.
That is the fundamental place where our agreement with them is that we'll do this and this and this, and their agreement with us is that they'll do this and this and this. So it's the foundation of our business.
And then I think that naturally moves into whatever business software you use. We're a Site Link company here at SanDiego Self Storage. And so our people need to know how to take a payment. They need to know how to execute a lease. So those are the basics where we start.
Hopefully, you're somebody who likes to do lots of different things to make the day faster, because we have lots of different duties here. So I try to take it from a positive way. You will get dirty, but you will have fun. If you enjoy people, there's enough people interaction, but there's some downtime, too. I try to sell it from whatever hits their particular button."
—Kraig Haviland
"One thing that we do as well that's part of our training is most of the people they're dealing with are transitioning, lost a job, lost a family member. We do a lot about here's what you can and can't do. And here's what you can do as far as your discounts and your rent. And then we back them up on that.
But also so that they're learning not to take people personal and how to defuse the crabby person who comes in ready to take out everything on them, that it's not them. Nowadays, you're either going to get the friendliest person ever or the person who's not wanting to deal with you, and they're going to take everything out on you.
So I think it's key to let them know that we support them, we back them. And even if they don't handle a situation right the first time, then show them how."
—Sue Haviland
