Value Pricing: What should I charge? | Gabfocus | Self Storage Virtual Workshop

Gabfocus Episode 17 | Value Pricing: What should I charge?

Knowing what to charge is one of the core decisions a facility has to make. How do you find the sweet spot? More and more facilities are trying out value-based pricing. In this Session, we dig deeper into the challenges around pricing, how value pricing works, and how it can be implemented into your facility.

Featured Speakers: Warren Lieberman & Jim Mooney
Moderators: Melissa Huff & Tommy Nguyen

Category: Operations
Focus: Owners and Managers
Aired: October 8th, 2020
Duration: 1:05:58

Gabfocus Sessions

Gabfocus Sessions are virtual workshops for self storage owners, managers, and operators. Brought to you by the team behind Gabfest: StoragePug and MR Management.

Each session features hand-picked industry pros who will dive deep into relevant topics surrounding our industry, share best practices, and explore trends in the market. It's our hope that these sessions help you navigate your self storage business better during these uncertain times.

Want more tools for your managers? Join us on Gabfocus weekly on Thursdays.

Top Questions Answered in this session

How do I determine a baseline of what to charge for my units?
How does my competition factor into what I charge for my units?
How do I grow revenue when so many of my costs are fixed?
What is Value Pricing?
How does Value Pricing work for drive-up facilities?
To what extent does the additional revenue depend on the design of the store?
Is Value Pricing units ever a bad idea for facilities?
What does it look like to implement Value Pricing into my facility?
How difficult is it to train our team on this program?
Do store managers need to be incentivized to offer upgrades?
What tips can you offer on how to make this program more effective?

These are just a few of the questions answered during this session! Get your pen and paper ready!

warren-lieberman

Warren Lieberman

President, Veritec Solutions

Website: https://veritecsolutions.com
Email: warren@veritecsolutions.com

Jim Mooney

Vice President, Freedom Storage Management

Website: https://freedomstoragemanagement.com
Email: jmooney@freedomstoragemanagement.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

Question of the Week

We asked our panelists: What’s the biggest hurdle to introducing value pricing to my facility?

““Manager buy-in is going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. ” - Jim Mooney

“Embracing the concepts and believing that this can really work. If you don't, you're going to find all sorts of reasons not to do it. After that, the next biggest hurdle is just ranking the units. You don't want to do it alone. Divide it amongst your team, and get help.” - Warren Lieberman

Gabfocus Takeaway

Traditional pricing for storage units has centered around size. A smaller unit costs less than a bigger unit. Right? In this Session, we learn how pricing can be dynamic and really depends on what matters most to a customer. Borrowing insights from other industries, Warren and Jim discuss how significant convenience and availability can be when pricing your units, as well as a whole host of other features and amenities. In short, the value of your units isn't static. Introducing dynamic value pricing to your facility, can not only help you get more out of your units, but it lets your customers prioritize and choose the qualities about your units that matter to them most.