There's a part of growing your self storage business that is often forgotten: how running the business itself changes. You can do all of the prep work to know that your market is ready for more self storage, have a great website and outstanding facility, and in the end still be caught off guard by how the expansion requires your business to adapt.
In this spotlight, Alan Lindsey and Jane Sauls dive into some of the main ways your business operations will change as you grow.
Question: "What major changes happen in your self storage business when you grow past your first facility?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Growing & Expanding, we spoke with Alan Lindsey and Jane Sauls about what it means to grow your self storage business. They explored everything from how to know when it's time, how to make your new expansion competitive, and the ways your business itself changes as it grows.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Alan and Jane had to say:
When you have just one store it's easy because you can be there every day and you can kind of see everything that's going on so you can see how the money's going in and out. When you have two, you can jump between both the stores as long as you're close by, and you can still have a good idea.
But once you start getting three, four or five, or if you start getting in separate markets, you have to have some form of check and balance to make sure that you understand everything that's going on in the facility.
I think one of the most essential ones, in my opinion, is making sure that, first of all, you have a facility management software, whether it be SiteLink, or storEDGE, or Tenant, or some other form, having some management software, so you know how much money is expected to be coming in according to what's there, and then having your deposits, I recommend daily, but some people do them weekly or monthly, and be able to match those.
For what we've done in the past, because at our height we had about 15 facilities that we're overseeing, we would have managers send us daily saying, hey, here's the money that we took in. So here's our daily deposit slip, proof we went to the bank and hey, here's how much money we took in according to SiteLink, and then we can match those up daily or at the end of the month, and kind of check in on those that way, you know: 'Okay. This is how much we took in. This is proof it went in the bank, and it can kind of come together.'
That's one of the most essential things, I would say, because you want to make sure as you have more places, that first of all, you have managers you trust, but that you can trust but verify you understand that the money is making it to the bank. Because, I mean, the whole thing about this business is collecting money, selling units, and getting it to the bank. So that would be the very first check and balance I would recommend."
- Alan Lindsey
"I think you learn the difference between working in the business and on the business.
And when you have that one facility, you spend most of your time in the business and the day to day grind. You spend little time on the business. As you're growing, you're able to actually truly start scaling when your time is devoted to working on the business and not just in the business."
- Jane Sauls
