Simple RE

Your Self Storage Site Needs a Blog ASAP

I'm not talking about setting up your self storage website with a spam blog that is stuffed with keywords, but makes you gag when you read it.  I mean a real blog that is useful or entertaining or informative.  Something a real human being would read. 

Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing, makes the case on his blog that Blogs are your best search marketing investment.

Using Google's keyword suggestion tool for building a pay per click campaign, you'll see that the search term "Self Storage Sacramento" is likely going to cost you $3.95 per click and there is "High Advertiser Competition" according to Google.

For as much effort as we put into SEO in the self storage industry, this should be a no-brainer. 

As Andy correctly points out "if it stops when you stop paying, it's advertising. If it keeps going, it's word of mouth marketing."

Sell More When Your Self Storage Managers Practice

The better you are at converting callers to customers the fewer leads you need to reach your occupancy goals, and the less you have to spend on marketing. 

About two years ago I was desparate for my self storage store managers to be more effective on the phone.  I knew they had no training and telling them to "sell" and "get persuasive" wasn't going to help. So I created a written document to help them understand the sales process and included very specific guidance on what to say to get prospective customers to the store to rent storage spaces. 

It didn't help.

Then I did some conference calls to review the wtitten guidance.  I thought this way I would know for sure that they were exposed to the material and the calls would give them a chance to hear some examples and ask questions. 

That was even worse! 

The conference calls took a lot of my time and it was hard to be engaging to a group of people that I couldn't see and who couldn't see me.  Plus, my students were being interrupted with customers and potential customers who all took precedence over our phone call.  

My latest iteration (innovation) was to create a series of 5-7 minute audio segments covering everything from how to answer the phone, to how to ask effective questions, to how to talk about features and benefits, and how set an appointment. 

This last effort has really paid off.  The audio can be listened to over and over again without my involvement.  Since each segment is a bite-sized chunk, my people actually listen to it.  New employees don't have to wait until I'm available, but can get going on training right away.  

The audio training has really laid the foundation.  However, the real secret is practice.  Check out these DJ's from Daly City, CA.  (Go ahead and click, it is a fun video, and you'll learn something even if you only watch for one or two minutes).  These guys are phenomenal.  Listen to the first minute or so and you'll see why practice is the reason they are featured in this video (and you'll be entertained).  

Wouldn't selling skills also benefit from practice?  Of course our business is competitive, so there is ample motivation. The question then becomes, how can we get the right kind of practice?  

I highly recommend these two books.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestseller Outliers, shows through a series of facinating stories how successful people like professional hockey and baseball players, and virtuoso musicians, and people like Bill Gates got to where they are largely because their circumstances allowed them the opportunity to practice. 

In Talent Is Overrated, Geoff Colvin cites reams of scholarly research that concludes the same thing. Practice it the key to skill building and successful execution.  He biggest contribution is in showing us what it means to practice effectively. 

Once my on-site managers understood what they were supposed to do (because they listened to the audio training) they then had to actually develop the skills to do it.  It's the difference between watching a football game and knowing what the players are supposed to do on a given play and actually being able to do the right things to execute the play. 

My challenge to you is to create processes that ensure your self storage managers are practicing effectively, and you will see fantastic results.  Since we have created processes that ensure that practice is happening, our conversion rates have gone through the roof and our sales of add-on products have more than doubled.

In a future post, I'll outline how to set up processes that will ensure practice is happening.  subscribe to my blog via email in the upper left hand corner if you don't want to miss it.

Screencast - Running a Sitelink Custom Query for Lifetime Value of a Customer

Here's the promised screencast that shows how to run a custom query in Sitelink. The custom query I posted yesterday works in Sitelink and allows you to find out the average lifetime value of a customer without any brain damage. If you need to download the script for the custom query you can scroll down to the previous post or click here.  

The screencast runs 3 minutes 59 seconds.  Please leave a comment and let me know if you find it useful.

Lifetime Value of a Customer - a Custom Query for Sitelink

The Custom Query

If you run Sitelink and are interested in knowing the lifetime Value of your customer here's a handy custom query that you can run to make analyzing your data a breeze. 

Download Lifetime Value Of a Customer  (right click and save target/link as)

I'll post a screencast tomorrow that will show you how to run it if you don't already know how to run custom reports in Sitelink.

Why calculate the lifetime value of your customers?

Knowing the lifetime value of your customers helps you decide whether your various marketing approaches are profitable.  For example, if a direct mail program attracts new customers, but at a cost that is higher than the likely lifetime value of your customers, then you should stop the marketing program because, on average, you are losing money.

If you don't run Sitelink

Here's a quick and dirty way to calculate the lifetime value of your customers.  For the overall average, calculate the average length of stay for your customers then multiply the average length of stay by your average rent per occupied unit.  This will give you a number a little on the low side because it won't take into account any late fees or merchandise sales of moving truck revenue, etc. You can repeat the calculation for each unit size to find out the average lifetime value for customers renting 5x5's or 10x10's or 10x20's etc.

If you're a bit geeky, keep reading for the technical details.

The script I posted above for the custom query breaks down the average lifetime value of the customer for the entire facility and for each unit size.  There is a caveat to using this data. It analyzes the data based only on customers that have vacated during the period you specify.  Vacated customers are used because these vacated customers have, presumably, stopped spending money with you. In other words, the amount of their lifetime value has been determined. 

What this analysis doesn't take into account is that there may be customers who began renting long ago, and have yet to move out, or didn't move out during the period you specified.  These customers have spent a lot of money with you and, if considered, would increase the average lifetime value calculation.  However, due to the nature of the analysis, they are excluded from the consideration set.  

Move the Conversation Forward

I was focused on some important projects yesterday, so ignored my phone.  By this morning I had 12 voice messages.  Only 3 were worth listening to. 

If you are going to leave a message with someone do yourself and them a favor and follow this simple mantra: move the conversation forward. 

If you are initiating the dialog then be clear about why you are call and what you would like from the other person.  I hate getting messages that say, "Hi Kenny, this is SoAndSo.  When you get minute, give me a call back."  Unless you are my wife or my child, why should I call you?  I'm left to assume I have better things to do. 

When returning someone's call and you get their voice mail (assuming you know why they called you in the first place) do your best to leave them the info they need in the voice message. In this way you are moving the conversation forward.  If the topic is too complicated for a simple voice message and a synchronous conversation must actually happen to be effective, then suggest a couple of times that you would be available to have the necessary discussion. Again, you are moving the conversation forward.

Sure, this means you have to take two seconds and think about what you will say if you get the other person's voice mail box, but by moving the conversation forward you save yourself and the other person time and frustration.  In my opinion, it is the professional and courteous thing to do. 

Bonus Thought 1:  Use Voice Mail instead of Email to respond to email messages.  Typing a lengthy reply can be time consuming.  In many cases you can get your thought across much more quickly with your voice.  So instead of pecking away at your keyboard, pick up the phone. 

Bonus Thought 2: Use Jott.  It's a free service that will allow you to speak a message and have it converted to text and then emailed to the recipient of your choice.  There are so many good uses for Jott that detailing them would be an entire other post. Give it a try if you haven't already, you won't be disappointed.