INSELF-STORAGE
Carol Mixon, Owner of SkilCheck Services, Inc. BY ERICA SHATZER
A
single phone call can change the course of your life. Just ask Carol Mixon,
owner of Marana, Ariz.-based SkilCheck Services, Inc. She was fresh out of college and singing opera when destiny dialed her number in 1984.
A High Note Mixon had graduated from Northeastern State University in Tahlaquah, Okla., with a B.A. degree in vocal performance and secondary education, then moved back to her home- town of Tucson, Ariz., and started working evenings and weekends as an opera singer with the Arizona Opera Company. She was quite pleased with her part in “La traviata” and hopeful that she’d land additional roles.
At the same time, her parents, who
were retired teachers, were co-managing a National Self Storage facility in Tucson. When her mother needed to take her father to a doctor’s appointment one day, Mixon agreed to briefly cover the office. As she was oversee- ing the site in their absence, the telephone rang. Naturally, she answered the call.
Unbeknownst to her, the caller was
a mystery shopper for National Self Stor- age. Although she wasn’t formally trained in telephone sales or self-storage facility management, she managed to receive a perfect score on that momentous mystery shop.
Of course, the caller was stunned to learn
that Mixon was not an actual employee. But rather than reprimand her parents for allow- ing their daughter to fill in for them, National Self Storage offered her a job as a corporate trainer.
Being an opera singer was her dream job, though, so it took some parental influence to
persuade her to consider the offer. Their suggestion to sing part time on the weekends and work as National Self Storage’s corporate trainer during the daytime was an acceptable arrangement, so Mixon accepted the position.
New Virtuosity When National Self Storage established the industry’s first full-time corporate training program, Mixon developed the curriculum. She was in charge of leading each 10-day training session for the company’s employees, hiring and training more than 200 self- storage managers throughout her career at National Self Storage. In between training sessions, Mixon was busy learning the ins and outs of auditing and petty cash.
“I got to do everything,” says Mixon,
who enjoyed the variety of tasks that the position offered. Eventually, along- side her former husband, the late Tom Litton, who had owned a construction company, she also learned about devel- oping self-storage facilities. Serving as his partner and “helper,” she gained hands-on experience in all aspects of construction, “even hanging drywall.”
In those days, it was still fairly unusu-
al for a woman to be working on site, but she “never felt out of place.” Though frequently questioned at the hardware store about the accuracy of her purchas- es, she held her own with confidence and character. “I didn’t let gender roles define me,” says Mixon, a former athlete and cowgirl with no qualms about “getting dirty.” However, she admits
that she did have to ask the cigar-smoking men to open a door or window on at least one occasion. “They’d say, ‘Carol, can’t you learn how to smoke a cigar?’” As an opera singer and non-smoker, Mixon had no desire to puff on ceremonial stogies.
A few years after joining National Self
Storage, the company “went under,” so Mixon put her degree to use. Following a short duration as a teacher, she decided to start her own self-storage company.
In 1987, with a makeshift office set up
in her garage and a $25 advertisement in the Mini-Storage Messenger magazine, SkilCheck Services, Inc., was officially open for business. Mixon recalls the first tele- phone inquiry she received for mystery shop services and laughs about how she, assuming it wasn’t a business-related call, answered with a simple “hello.”
Despite not using a formal business
script for that initial call, within three months Mixon was making the same salary as a teacher as the owner of SkilCheck. Clearly, she had found a new forte! Since its inception, SkilCheck has conducted thou- sands of mystery shops for hundreds of self-storage facilities across the country.
MiniStorageMessenger.com • August 2023 11
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