Volumize Your Value
Insurance Sales - Customers are required in your lease to have 100 percent cash value replacement insur- ance. Most of us offer pay with rent insurance, and for this we receive an administrative fee or compensation from the insurance provider. This is a viable and important income stream for the store. Customers must have this at move- in and not within a certain number of days. Of course, if they can provide proof of coverage at move-in, then we keep a copy of that in their customer file. We are currently selling policies to approximately 98 percent of new move-ins (about 80 percent penetration overall). You will work with industry providers to negotiate the percentage you will receive, and they will handle all the set up and require- ments for you.
Merchandise Sales - Boxes, locks, pack- ing supplies, and other needed supplies can add a significant amount to your income. Pre-COVID, we were averaging
$40 of BSPL, box sales per lease, and 55 percent of that is profit using our 2.125 markup to costs. Having supplies on hand can be a lifesaver for custom- ers and brings in additional traffic to the store. Inventory must be clean, priced, and showcased as retail, with plenty of supplies on hand—not just a single item shown as a sample. We like our box stacks to be on furniture movers (we call them box floaters) and stacked chest high in bundles. We offer bundle pricing as well as a box buyback program for returned items that are clean and unused with the purchase receipt. We give a 10 to 15 percent discount when purchasing a bundle, which could be 10 to 15 boxes of the same size. We always load the purchases into our clients’ cars for them. We ask them, “What will you be packing?” to get them talking about their needs. Oftentimes, we can also pick up a new storage customer from this discussion.
Loss Of Discount - This paragraph in your lease can also be an income source. It simply says that anyone going 30 days or more delinquent is automatically taken to today’s street or market rate and does not require us to send any additional notices to them to make this effective. You might consider this an easy way to take those clients who are delinquent to a higher rate without any work except changing the number they owe within your system.
Based on your operation and manage-
ment style, many of these fees and charges can and should be deployed at your operation. For those running sites remotely, or called unmanned in the current vernacular, some of these services and sales items will be challenging. These are the decisions that must be made in setting up your operation or improving your current operation. It is hard to give up that increase in value of the operation that comes from these sources, so being mindful of the income you will be giving up should be part of the thought process in deciding to operate remotely or as an unmanned location.
Whichever path you take for your
operation, make sure the fees, charges, and costs of all your programs are clearly spelled out in your rental agreement and that you are following all state mandates or current laws. These fees and ancillary sales can make a big difference to your value and the price you might get at sale.
M. Anne Ballard is the president of marketing, training, and developmental services for Universal Storage Group in Atlanta, Ga. She is a two- term past-president of the Georgia Self Storage Association and the author of “The Hat Lady Speaks, Marketing and Managing Self-Storage,” along with numerous articles and presentations at national, state, and international self-storage conferences and trade shows. Universal is a 12-time winner of “Facility of the Year,” the last six of which Anne designed, and an eight-time winner of ISS Best of Business Award for Best Manager Training also for Best Third-Party Management and Best Operational Consulting. Universal is consistently listed in the Top Operators survey.
42 September 2022 •
MiniStorageMessenger.com
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