Self-storage and publishing are pretty solitary industries. Put the two together, and you get a big-time hermit like me. I only venture into public a few times per year to attend storage tradeshows, and then I'm like a small-town girl seeing big-city lights for the first time: "OOOOoohh, pretty!" The rest of the year, I interact with our readers and web users via phone, e-mail, webinars and, now, the new Self-Storage Talk forum. But those venues don't help me put faces with names. Hence why last week's event was such a "trip" for me.
To those of you who visited with me at the Inside Self-Storage/Self-Storage Talk booth during the ISS Expo in Vegas (Feb. 5-8), I want to say it was a real pleasure to meet you. And I mean that. It's rare that I get a chance to sit you down and ask, "What are the challenges you face in your business? What would you like to learn? How can we help?" I met some of the most forthcoming, friendly, phenomenal owners and managers, and I had a great time learning about their individual businesses.
For example, I spent several minutes talking with an owner from Tennessee. He shared some fantastic stories. First, I learned nearly all of his customers pay their rent in cash, being that he's in such a rural environment. He had one tenant who defaulted on a unit and never came to pay his bill. When the unit was sold at lien sale, he discovered jars of change containing more than the rent owed!
In another case, my Tennessee friend had a tenant who failed to pay rent for six months. He sold her goods at lien sale. Another six months later, she called about her property. When he told her it was gone, she cried about the loss of the U.S. Flag that had been folded at her father's gravesite (he was a veteran). The owner actually contacted the person who had won the keepsake and convinced him to return it. He then left a message for the tenant, telling her she could collect her momento. Several months later, she has yet to retrieve it.
Last week, I met managers from all over the U.S. and several from Canada. They each had a unique tale to tell, but their challenges share commonalities with those of other professionals in our industry. This is how I know that an ongoing, online, interactive forum is the resource we've all been waiting for, a place where we can go at any time to ask each other questions and share experiences and advice. If you haven't already been to www.selfstoragetalk.com, check it out. It's totally free, and you'll see that hundreds of managers and operators just like you are already on the site sharing information.
In fact, if you scroll to the bottom of the Self-Storage Talk home page, you'll see a box that shows which other members are online at the same time as you. It's a very cool feature. You'll see me in the forum under the username "teri_l." So watch for me on there and let me know your thoughts about this new resource. The forum is yours, folks. A place to call your own. Use it; don't abuse it. And have fun.