Pogoda Cos., a Farmington Hills, Mich.-based self-storage operator and third-party management firm, has hired Jihad “Jay” Catrib as payroll and training coordinator. Catrib will help create and implement training programs across the company’s growing self-storage portfolio, according to a press release.

Catrib has more than 10 years of professional experience in retail training and operation. In his career, he’s hired, trained and mentored employees to build cohesive teams, the release stated. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan.

Catrib was referred to Pogoda by Real8 Group, an executive search firm specializing in real estate and self-storage, according to the release.

Pogoda Cos. operates more than 3.5 million square feet of self-storage space in Michigan and Ohio under National Storage Centers and other brand names. The firm also provides brokerage, consulting, investment and management services to the self-storage industry through Pogoda Group Inc. and Pogoda Management Co.

As a self-storage operator, you have a duty to keep your facility running smoothly and to ensure it’s safe and secure. You also need to control costs without compromising the quality of your product and services. A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can help you streamline the tasks and processes involved in site upkeep, and save money.

A CMMS is software that collects and organizes information about a company’s maintenance activities. Sometimes referred to as enterprise management software, it ensures tasks are prioritized correctly and all inventory and labor are in place to ensure success.

A CMMS provides immediate insight to a facility’s maintenance needs, generating things like work-order schedules, inventory forecasts and reports. It gives staff the freedom to focus more on the work to be done and less on logistics and paperwork. In short, it empowers you with data so you can make smart maintenance decisions. Let’s explore the many benefits such a system brings to the table.

Minimizing COVID-19 Exposure

One of a self-storage operator’s primary concerns right now is keeping his team and facility safe from the coronavirus. A CMMS is invaluable in helping you remain productive yet protected under hazardous conditions. It may even allow you to operate with fewer employees. A CMMS will allow you to do the following remotely:

• Monitor the premises in real time and track how well maintenance tasks are being handled via the software’s dashboards, reports and notifications
• Create, prioritize and manage work orders from your mobile devices and send safety-related information and reminders to staff in the form of text, images or how-to-videos
• Create and manage checklists to ensure tasks have been completed, especially those that are critical for maintaining hygiene
• Ensure that equipment such as mist-disinfection machines, automatic hand-sanitizer dispensers, disinfecting robots, etc., are being regularly inspected and kept in optimum condition
• Monitor the performance of other systems such as HVAC and air-filtration to promote better indoor air quality
• Record any incidents that might lead to the spread the virus

A carelessly managed self-storage facility can easily become a hot spot for infectious disease. It’s vital that you notice and handle any lapses in an efficient, cost-effective manner. A CMMS makes this easier to achieve.

Managing Costs

Naturally, you have a budget that serves as a roadmap for your monthly and annual self-storage expenses. Site maintenance is an area that can generate significant costs, and you need to track them carefully. Though having dependable equipment is key to running an efficient business, you never want to go overboard with spending, as doing so will negatively impact your return on investment.

One of the best ways to manage costs over the long term is to take a proactive rather than a reactive approach to maintenance. A CMMS will help you be predictive and preventive, which will allow you to avoid last-minute, costly repairs. An integrated system will also:

• Monitor your building and equipment maintenance
• Quickly show you where expenses are above normal and help you drill down to location and specific work orders
• Provide customizable and easy-to-use modules and dashboards that help you plan and schedule
• Identify areas for improvement in efficiency and cost savings
• Help you reduce equipment downtime while extending asset lifespan

Managing Physical Assets

Prospective customers get an idea of your facility standards from their first impression. They want a clean, modern, functional place to store their items. However, just like in a hotel, restaurant or any other establishment where different people come in daily, your self-storage site can be prone to deterioration, especially when tenants misuse the property. Some operators find that keeping their facility in premium condition becomes a daily struggle.

All this sounds like quite a handful, but with the right tools, it’s achievable. Regardless of size or location, all self-storage businesses can benefit from using technology to streamline their maintenance processes. A CMMS simplifies several aspects of operational management and planning.

Automating Safety and Security

Some self-storage operators are finding that traditional methods of deterring theft are insufficient. Trying to monitor security manually can be futile, especially at large facilities. A more realistic approach is to integrate your CMMS with smart security devices and make the resulting data accessible 24/7. For example, a mobile-enabled CMMS can interact with your security system and generate an alert when there’s an anomaly.

The same benefits can apply to safety. A CMMS can improve your performance significantly by helping you create an injury-free environment. By automating several aspects of safety management, you’ll realize a significant reduction in the conditions that breed hazards. For instance, with the reporting module, it’s easy to track equipment history and detect any recurring issues with high risk. Based on that information, your organization can proceed to lay out strategies for improvement and prevention.

Managing Vendors and Suppliers

Another area where CMMS can help is vendor management. You can save a chunk of overhead by using the system to review real-time or historic information about local vendors, service providers and other outsourced contractors.

Let’s say you have a local vendor that comes in to apply a fresh coat of paint to your building exterior at set intervals. A CMMS allows you to quickly and easily contact the company and assign a work order that details the resources it’ll need. That order can include special instructions and safety guidelines.

After executing the work order, the reporting module tallies hours worked and total costs. This is important information that gives you an overview of the vendor’s performance—or lack thereof. It puts you in a better position to make the right decisions about who to hire for various jobs. The system should also facilitate the vendor’s invoice and payment process.

Delivering Better Service

The importance of customer satisfaction can’t be overemphasized in today’s competitive self-storage market. Service delivery must be impeccable. In addition to helping you manage maintenance functions, a CMMS allows you to streamline communication between you and your team, and between your team and tenants. This fosters transparency and improves your perceived response rate, which is highly appreciated by customers in every industry.

It also helps to clear any ambiguities and reduces the risk of your staff making costly or dangerous mistakes while working on a maintenance-related job. Tasks are assigned faster, instructions are clear and feedback is encouraged. Overall, you have a system that saves time and frees you up to focus on more crucial issues.

Self-storage is a rewarding but competitive business. Remaining viable in this industry requires you to employ technology that yields insight to your daily operation without taking up too much time. By leveraging the power and benefits of a CMMS, you’ll be at able to make better decisions, streamline your processes, eliminate inefficiency and risk, and save money.

Mehdi Khalvati, president of Axxerion Inc., has more than 20 years of experience in developing software systems and solutions. He’s created product in the facilities-management, design and construction marketplaces. He holds degrees in civil engineering, structural engineering and computer sciences, and earned a doctorate from the University of California - Berkeley.

Guardian Storage, which operates 27 self-storage facilities in Colorado and Pennsylvania, is hosting a free “Shred-It” event this Saturday to raise funds for charity. In addition, the company received a “Top Workplaces 2020” award from the “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.”

The upcoming shred fest is the last of three such events the company has hosted in recent weeks to raise donations for The Education Partnership (TEP), a local nonprofit that provides supplies to schools. It’s part of the “Guardian Gives” program, which focuses on educating youth, helping neighbors in need and contributing to a cleaner environment, according to a press release. Guardian has offered the program annually for the last decade.

Individuals and businesses can safely and securely dispose of unwanted documents between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. at Guardian locations in Cranberry, Fox Chapel, North Huntingdon, Peters Township/North Stabane, Pleasant Hills and Waterfront, Pa. All safety precautions will be observed, the release stated, including mask-wearing.

In lieu of paying for the shredding services, Guardian is asking attendees to make a monetary or school-supply donation to TEP. Last year, the self-storage operator raised more than $10,000 in cash, plus more than 20 large boxes of school supplies.

Guardian also made the local “Top Workplaces 2020” list this year, ranking No. 58 in the small-companies category. Placement in the list was based on staff feedback gathered by employee-engagement technology firm Energage LLC.

“The last several months have been difficult on us all, but the one thing that has remained constant and uplifting was being surrounded by a dedicated team that embraced the changes with professionalism and optimism,” said Steven Cohen, president and founder of Guardian Storage. “Now, more than ever, I’m truly grateful for our team and look forward to overcoming these trying times together in a safe and enjoyable work environment. We want all teammates to feel appreciated and valued every day, so we can continue growing this company together.”

Established in Pittsburgh in 1987, Guardian operates 19 locations in the greater Pittsburgh area, with a new property under construction in Peter’s Township, Pa., and eight locations in Colorado.

I recently spoke to a self-storage owner who’s getting ready to build a new facility. When I asked if he was going to move forward with a feasibility study, he said, “Nope. My partner and I sat down over beers, and we decided we don’t need one.” As an industry consultant, I find that to be a mistake. But don’t just take my word for it!

I recently sat down with a few industry experts to get their take on the value and application of a self-storage feasibility study. To begin, let’s tackle the two main reasons owners and developers sometimes skip one.

Excuse 1: I Have the Perfect Site

Do you really? “Feasibility studies are necessary because of human nature,” says Brad Minsley, co-founder of 10 Federal Storage LLC, which operates several facilities in the Carolinas and Virginia. “When you are doing a deal, you want to interpret the data positively because you want to buy the property. That is fraught with risk. The benefit of doing a feasibility study is that you are engaging with an expert who does this day in and day out without any confirmation bias. Too often, developers and operators find themselves wanting to do a deal and needing to do a deal, and they end up doing a bad deal because they let confirmation bias sway their underwriting.”

Dan Hogan, owner of Hogan Self Storage in Pennington, N.J., made some surprising discoveries through his exploration. “Some of the information in my feasibility study was contrary to my intuition, specifically the data regarding Millennials and Generation X,” Hogan explains. “I was thinking Millennials don’t gather stuff and were not interested in self-storage, but the opposite is true. This directly impacted the future of my facility and how I should develop.”

Excuse 2: It’s Too Expensive

Oscar Wilde once said, “A fool is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing,” and Hogan concurs. “In my mind, it would be foolish to make a long-term decision about millions of dollars without spending money up front to make sure it is a good decision,” he says. “You don’t want to get too far down the road only to discover an issue you didn’t know about; and you’re stuck with the property, probably forever, because nobody else is going to want it either.”

For those who think feasibility is too expensive, keep in mind it’s a key piece to financing. “Whether you’re going to get funding through investors, a bank or crowdfunding, the first piece of information people are going to want to see is a feasibility study,” Hogan points out. “Unless you’ve got unlimited money and you can just roll the dice, a feasibility study is a vital part of every business plan. [Lenders and investors] want to know the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing your facility, and that is essentially what a feasibility study gives you.”

Building Without

Pursuing a self-storage development project without a feasibility study is good a way to save yourself thousands of dollars while setting yourself up to potentially lose millions. After 25 years in the industry, Dianne Tanna, co-founder of TNT Management, knows only one person who built a facility without a study. Her company has 60-plus years of combined experience in self-storage acquisitions, construction, management and property improvements.

“When I first met with this prospective client, I let him know we managed two other properties in the area where he wanted to build and that there was no depth of market there at all,” she recalls. “When he refused to do a study, I tried to convince him to change his unit mix to sizes I knew were in high demand; but he said it wouldn’t pencil. It doesn’t matter what pencils, if you can’t rent it!”

Fast forward to a few years later when this same owner contacted Tanna for help with lease-up. Unfortunately, many of the problems weren’t fixable. He ended up selling the facility and losing most of his personal wealth. Tanna remembers going through his financials and asking, “Doesn’t this make that $10,000 initial investment in a feasibility study look like nothing?”

Rare Cases When You Don’t Need a Study

There are two scenarios in which you may not need to hire a self-storage feasibility consultant: You have the data and expertise to do it yourself, or your market is so small that you don’t have competitors. 10 Federal now conducts its own feasibility research because the company has historical and current data from its 50 properties, according to Minsley.

“We take all the variables we can imagine that would impact the project’s feasibility and enter them into a regression model,” he explains. “That allows us to score new opportunities based on the performance of our trailing properties. This then becomes an unbiased algorithm allowing us to make informed decisions.”

There’s also a rare case in which the lender doesn’t demand a feasibility study. In Small Business Administration financing, a study is a requirement for 504 loan but not 7(a), according to Nick Collins, vice president of First Bank Financial Centre, which does hundreds of self-storage loans each year. Even then, First Bank would never deny a feasibility request from a borrower who wants one, he says. “A feasibility study may not be needed in tertiary or smaller markets when the bank and client can figure it out. These are typically smaller projects, usually around $500,000.

The Smart Choice

Here’s why any owner or developer who’s building a self-storage facility should pursue a feasibility study:

It tempers expectations. A feasibility study can help set reasonable regarding facility lease-up. “I want [my clients] to plan ahead,” explains Tanna. “That’s why I encourage them to do a feasibility study and be well-prepared. If they have a feasibility study and it says they are going to take two years to lease up, no one’s going to scream after a year, ‘Why aren’t we full?’ I try to be realistic as opposed to optimistic, so clients are not surprised.”

The market has changed. “Doing feasibility studies eight or nine years ago was different than in today’s market, with the [real estate investment trusts] building so many facilities,” Collins says. “More caution is needed going into new development deals than there was before. We’re heading into a time where some of the bigger projects that are being completed may not lease up as originally planned. It’s hard to say what will happen in this industry the next few years as far as larger developments go.”

It provides peace of mind. “Recently, we had a client whose first study came in a little lukewarm, so I recommended he have another one done,” Tanna says. “The second study was much more positive, and the investor and bank were then comfortable moving forward. Had the results come back negative, the client was prepared to look for a new site.”

It provides boots on the ground. Though there are online tools that can provide valuable insight to what’s occurring within a market, nothing replaces first-hand knowledge and experience. A remote or desktop study analyzes the supply and demand in a market without a physical visit to the trade area. “Getting a quick or remote study done might provide false hope,” says Collins. “An in-depth study that gives you the full picture is important.”

Typically, a full study includes an in-person site visit by the feasibility consultant to analyze market trends. The resulting report should include a specific unit mix, pricing and phasing recommendations as well as a complete financial model for the facility. This is the type of study most frequently required by lenders.

It guides marketing and operational decisions. A feasibility report offers value beyond just making a land or project decision. Its insight also applies to marketing and operational planning thanks to information about potential customers, local trends, demographics, competitors and more. “My feasibility study is a living document I reference and use for a lot of business-operational decisions,” says Hogan. “If I have a question in my mind, I can go back to [it] and see what to do. I refer to my study frequently for scientific information and data I can use for decisions.”

I hope I’ve shed light on the value a feasibility study provides. When building a self-storage project, it’s just smart to be as informed as possible and protect yourself against making poor decisions and investments.

Katherine D’Agostino is the founder of Self-Storage Ninjas, a feasibility-analysis firm delivering unbiased reports resulting in facilities with high occupancy and the highest possible returns. She offers a free, weekly newsletter that provides insider techniques, ready-to-use calculators, downloadable spreadsheets and data sources. For more information, visit www.selfstorageninjas.com.