Two columns ago, I addressed ways to communicate the value of records storage lite (RS-lite) to self-storage customers. Last month, we looked at how to market the service to prospects. This month, youll learn how to develop a sales strategy for RS-lite in a self-storage environment.

To begin, youll need to identify the who, what, where, when, why and how of offering records storage at your facility. Once these questions are answered, determining the tools youll need to proceed is easy. Lets take a peek at how RS-lite works in an uninformed and unsuspecting marketplace:

Who is a prospect for RS-lite?

First, youre already in the self-storage business, and you already have business customers. This is a great place to start, especially since you experience reasonable turnover and have new sales opportunities every day. Second, unless youre in an unusual market, there should be many small businesses in your area, and they all have records to store. So the answer is: existing customers, new customers and your local community of small businesses. Dont rule out your competitors existing customers!

What are you selling?

Just as in your self-storage business, youre selling spacebut with a twist: Youre selling cubic instead of square feet. In short, selling records storage is just a little askew from what you already do.

Where do you sell your service?

Everywhere you can, at every opportunity. You can choose to sell over the counter in your office, via telemarketing, at community events and venues, etc. You can even hire inside or outside, part-time or full-time sales agents. The choice is yours.

When do you sell RS-lite?

Only when the opportunity is just right. Asking prospects appropriate questions is important in any sale. Its also key to predict (and have the answers to) any questions they might ask you. This presumes you have a product to sell and a trained salesperson, and understand the value of the service to the customer.

Why sell RS-lite?

It differentiates you from competitors, adds value to your business, and increases revenue with little effort. Of course, you must have the proper tools and skills to employ the service.

How do you sell RS-lite?

Using guerilla marketing tactics, which puts all of your resourcesnot just your moneyto work, including existing staff, computers, software, marketing strategies, space, security equipment, etc. By using creativity, you can generate marketing techniques that drive your business at a reduced cost.

Skills, Tools and Resources

Whats left to know? You need to learn the right tactics and skills to reach your records-storage goals. RS-lite is a business opportunity, but it doesnt just happen. You must understand the nature of the beast. In medieval times, when cartographers drew maps, they wrote the following along the perimeters to designate the unknown: Beyond here, there be dragons. When it comes to RS-lite, you must know your dragons, or you have no chance for victory.

In your quest, youll need three things: tools, plus the two fair sisters, skills and resources. A tool is a device used to do work. A skill is the ability to do something well. A resource is a source of supply or support. In RS-lite, your tools, skills and resources include:

1. Business PackagesThese packages can vary, but the RS-lite model generally includes: the Economy Package, the Small- Business Package and the Professional Package. Packages include storage and a modicum of services. They are designed to be attractive and inexpensive to the client and provide high yield to the owner.
2. Simple TrainingRepetitive training reinforces the art of the sale and simplifies the work of the RS-lite owner or management company.
3. Compensation PlanningNothing drives results in sales like compensation. Bonuses are the key to motivating employees to sell RS-lite. Your salespeople must be attracted to the sale and rewarded for completing itsimple as that.
4. Fool-Proof MethodsWork processes must be limited and concise with very few steps. They should be as automated as possible to minimize mistakes and maximize control.
5. Modeled AutomationChoose a software product with structured limitations. It should make complex tasks easy via a minimal working model.
6. Outsourced WorkAll tasks can be outsourced to companies or individuals with zero overhead. Work is driven by activities, which have four inherent components: cost, margin, compensation and profit.

When it comes to RS-litea vanilla servicesimplicity is key. Its components must be simple to understand and use for the customer, salesperson and business owner. That being said, simple is not necessarily easy. As my father used to say, Son, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. RS-lite may not be effortless, but it is very straightforward and can be highly profitable.

Cary F. McGovern is the principal of FileMan Records Management, which offers full-service assistance for commercial records-storage startups and sales training in commercial records-management operations. For help with feasibility determination, operational implementation or marketing support, call 877.FILEMAN; e-mail [email protected]; visit www.fileman.com.

Self-storage is a simple business, but its not an easy one. To be successful, you need to follow four basic steps: 1) Get people to pick up the phone and call you. 2) Get those who call to visit your facility. 3) Get those who visit to rent with you. 4) Get those who rent with you to stay forever and tell all their friends about you. These steps are essential, but more important, you need to track your progress in each of these areas to measure the success of your marketing program.

Step 1: Get Them to Call

Not only do you need to get your phone to ring, you need to track the number of calls you receive and the source of those calls. This number will give you key information about your marketing efforts. Dont concern yourself with the total calls; instead, focus on trends over time. If you get 120 calls per month and another storage operator gets 250, it doesnt mean hes doing a better job at marketing. His may be a much larger facility, or he may be in a more populated area.

How do you accurately track your numbers? First, dont manage them manually. You have better things to do than make tick marks on paper, and tracking figures by hand opens the door to inaccuracy. So monitor your calls automatically in one of three ways:

1. Have your phone-service provider track incoming calls for youif it is willing to do so, which is rare.
2. Have all of your calls automatically forwarded to another number. Your employees and customers never know the second number exists, as the forward occurs automatically. Though this will involve additional expense, it will help you trap some of the data you need. At the end of the month, youll get a report on your phone bill that shows you exactly how many calls got forwarded. Youll also get other info, such as the time and duration of each call.
3. Buy a device that attaches to your phone and traps the data you seek. This will cost you more up front but less in the long term than the previous two options.

How do you account for non-business calls, such as personal calls and wrong numbers? Unless something unusual occurs, the number of these calls should remain fairly consistent from month to month. While they affect your overall call count, they do not change the overall trend, which is what youre looking to discover. Watching patterns in call behavior will help you quickly identify if something out of the ordinary is occurring.

For example, one operator kept very meticulous call data. At one point, he noticed a 15 percent spike in the number of calls he received over a three-month period, even though he hadnt modified his marketing tactics. After some investigating, he discovered that his manager had gotten involved with a person who called him at the facility five to six times a day, obviously skewing the call numbers.

There is one element of call data that will need to be kept manually, and that is the source of all your calls. As you or your staff answer the phone, youll want to ask callers how they found out about you: the Yellow Pages, a flier, a friend, etc. This is critical marketing information. If you have trouble enforcing this policy with employees, try this method of incentive: Tape a $20 bill to the phone to remind them of the value of every phone call. In some marketsand depending on which marketing methods you useone call may actually be worth much more; but the method should still drive the point home.

Step 2: Get Them to Visit

After youve gotten prospects to call your site, the aim is to get them to visit the facility, and youll want to track the number of visits, too. Again, its best to automate the tracking process. An easy way to do this is to hook up a counter to your office door. How do you account for existing customers, employees, deliveries, etc.? Keep in mind youre not looking for a total number but a trend. The counts related to these visits should remain constant over time and should not affect your overall data.

After youve collected your monthly call and door counts, focus on the ratio of calls to visits. Assuming everything else is equal, an increase in the ratio of door openings to phone calls will indicate youre doing a better job converting callers to visitors. If your ratio stays constant or decreases over time, youll know you need to improve your phone-sales skills. Keeping track of the numbers allows you to pinpoint your problem areas.

Step 3: Get Them to Rent

The third step in the storage-marketing process is getting those who visit your facility to rent with you. This number is easily tracked by counting how many signed rental agreements you have at the end of every month. Thanks to your management software, tracking should be effortless.

Again, look at the ratio between the number of visits and rentals. It will tell you the effectiveness of your face-to-face marketing techniques. Look at the overall trend: If your ratio of visits to sales stays the same over time or goes down, you need to concentrate on developing your in-house sales presentation. Nine times out of 10, theres room for improvement.

Step 4: Get Them to Stay Forever and Tell Their Friends

The repeat or referral customer is very inexpensive to obtain. Therefore, your profitability will be enhanced if you win more customers through word-of-mouth or repeat business. The average storage operator gets somewhere around 20 percent of his customers through referrals and about an equal percentage of business from past tenants. How do they manage this? By providing superior customer service.

Its easy to track the number of customers youve earned through these means if you make a conscientious effort to learn the source of your business. Ask everyone who calls or comes through your door how they found out about you. If they indicate they have rented with you before or learned of you through someone they know, make note of this in your marketing data. To know whether youre providing the type of customer service that is likely to win you repeat or referral business, consider giving people a postcard survey to complete when they move out.

Not only is it important to understand the four steps to self-storage success, its crucial to track the numbers related to these stages. Work on improving your numbers in each area, and you will greatly improve your profitability.

Fred Gleeck is a consultant who helps self-storage owners and operators during all phases of the business, from the feasibility study to the creation of an ongoing marketing plan. He is also an expert in the field of information and seminar marketing, the author of more than 10 books, an accomplished business coach, and the producer of professional training videos on self-storage marketing. To receive his regular insights via e-mail, send a blank message to [email protected]. For more information, call 800. FGLEECK; e-mail [email protected]; visit www.FredGleeck.com.

On the positive side, they require less personnel, which means lower labor costs and fewer employee-related issues such as the need to hire, fire, train, settle disputes, etc. In addition, the lack of a managers residence increases a facilitys rentable square footage and eliminates the cost of apartment construction and maintenance. Automated sites allow for 24-hour access, which not only helps justify higher rents, but implies greater customer service and convenience. Finally, the ability to rent units around the clock means great revenue potential.

On the flip side, sites with minimal or no onsite staff face greater security challenges. First, the absence of consistent onsite management means fewer eyes observing facility activities. Second, while kiosk solutions can handle many manager duties, i.e. renting units and collecting payments, they cant do everything. To rent units, you need vacant spaces. If these are kept unlocked, they might be misused by other tenants, vandals or criminals. If they are locked, how do you allow tenants access to newly rented space? And how do you handle overlocks?

To successfully develop, market and protect a manager-less site, you must make the most of technological tools, smart devices that communicate with each other and your security system.

Electronic Door Locks

Kiosks make it possible for tenants to rent units, pay rent, procure a copy of their rental agreements, purchase tenant insurance and even buy locks for their units. On the security side, they can collect a tenant fingerprint, copy a drivers license and take a tenants photograph. This is more than even a human manager will sometimes do in the course of a new rental. But there are things a kiosk cannot do, such as lock or unlock a unitunless you use electronic door locks that tie into your management and security systems.

Electronic locks do not alter the conventional operation of a facility. A tenant still uses his own lock to secure his unit once the rental process is complete. What they allow, however, is the automatic unlocking of a unit when a new rental is made via a kiosk, and the locking of a unit if payment is delinquent or a tenant ends his lease.

Heres an example of how a system with electronic locks works: A new customer arrives at a facility at 2 a.m. and rents a unit using the kiosk. Upon completion of his rental, he receives a PIN code that he enters into the nearest access-control keypad. Three things happen simultaneously: the gate opens, his unit is unlocked, and his unit alarm is disabled.

A well-planned and designed electronic lock interfaces with your alarm and access systems, becoming an integral part of your site security. Not only does this integration reduce your overall security costs, it allows your electronic lock to be smart, meaning it knows when a door is open, closed or something in between. It will not lock until the door is ready. It will also be able to report all changes in the state of the door as well as its current lock position to the site computer.

A Closed-Loop System

In a closed-loop system with acknowledgment features, all of your devices are smartthey can listen to your PC and answer it. In general, self-storage security systems use a method called polling to communicate with remote devices such as keypad access controllers and multiplexed alarm-system components. The PC sends a message to all remote devices, making a status request. In essence, it asks the devices if anything new has occurred since the last poll. The response could be that a gate code was entered, a door was opened, or a lock changed from locked to unlocked.

If action is required, the PC will send a command to the necessary device, and the device will confirm with a report of what it has done. Think of it this way: When two people converse, they acknowledge what they have heard from the other verbally or through body language. The same is true of a quality security system.

If only one end of the system has the ability to communicate, data loss is likely. For example, a door at your facility is opened. The alarm component monitoring the door detects the change in door state. In an open system, i.e., one that does not require a status report from all devices, the alarm will transmit the data to the PC, which is good. But because theres no back-and-forth communication, the alarm doesnt know if the data was properly and fully received by the PC. It deletes the message. If the PC didnt receive it, too bad, so sad. The door-opening event is lost forever, and no alarm sounds.

Using a true closed-loop system featuring acknowledgement codes at the remote-device and PC ends, data loss will never occur. The system is designed so the alarm component does not delete a change in door state until it receives the proper acknowledgement code from the PC. The ability to re-send the information is intact, and the data will be transmitted again during the next status request. The result is a truly secure system.

Communication Speed

Sometimes having smart devices isnt enough. For a security system to be truly successful, you must consider its speed of communication. For example, if you have 10 multiplexers and four keypads, a total of 14 devices must be continually polled by your PC. If a tenant comes to the entrance gate, he doesnt want to wait long for it to open. The faster the PC can communicate with the entry keypadsend its status request and receive the data (in this case, a PIN code)the less time the tenant will wait. In the meantime, the other 13 devices need attention, since there may be doors opening or closing or a tenant at another keypad on the property.

When purchasing your security components, consider how long it takes to send and receive data between your PC and remote devices. Also consider how frequently the devices are polled. The more frequently they are polled, the less time it will take for them to respond to an event, be it gate-code entry or a change in door status that yields an alarm. Your poll rate is the number of times per second your PC sends a status request to a device and receives an answer (one full cycle). Fast systems poll about 10 times or more per second. Faster is always better, so if your system exceeds this rate, youre in great shape.

By integrating kiosks, electronic door locks and smart devices with your access controllers and alarm systemsand meeting the need for speedyou can achieve an unmanned site that is monitored and truly secure. Make the most of smart devices, and get smarter in your day-to-day operation.

Tim Seyfarth is president of Phoenix-based Global Electronics Ltd., which provides gate-access controllers, alarm systems, electronic locks and Windows-based access/alarm-system software. For more information, call 602.437.8005; e-mail [email protected]; visit www.global-electronics.com.

The media bombards us with stories that relate to personal, business and homeland security: stolen identities, acts of terrorism, computer hacking, misappropriated funds, theft, employee dishonesty, false claims, vandalism, etc. And while there are all manner of systems and practices to keep ourselves and our businesses safe, Id like to address a different kind of securitythe kind that results from good communication and trust, particularly in a business relationship.

From birth, most of us are taught to negotiate, facilitate and compromise on some level. But as business owners and managers, we are taught to diffuse and avoid conflict whenever possible. Consider the lengths to which we go to avoid unpleasant situations with customers, co-workers and employees. Does our eagerness to pacify make us vulnerable? What does it mean to our personal and business security? I dont have answers, but I cant help but think about the ramifications.

After all, in todays world, we are forced to invest more and more in security systems to protect ourselves and our livelihoods. Its unfortunate that we must constantly look over our shoulders and spend more to preserve what is rightly ours, but its a reality we must faceespecially in a business like car-washing that deals mostly in cash.

In the car-wash industry, inventories and receivables are minimal, but we deal with a lot of currency. And depending on the type of wash site, the owner or other management is scarcely present. The result? Lots of opportunities for loss.

How do you minimize your risk? You discourage undesirable behavior, such as theft or vandalism, by letting people know you have taken security to heart. You install electronic devices to monitor on-site activity. You implement security systems and software. You create an environment that makes people feel safe and supervised at the same time. Essentially, you protect employees and customers from themselves while safeguarding your business. But how might this dynamic change if we learned to communicate and trust?

The Role of Communication

Good or bad, thanks to historical events, we now see more security tools entering the business and private sectors. At tradeshows across the country, car-wash vendors show us how to monitor our cash registers, wash bays, driveways and the mechanical fitness of our equipment. This is some very cool stuff. But sadly, all this software and hardware is minimizing the role of trust and communication in our business relationships.

As facility owners and managers, we use the word trust every day. If we dont actually speak it, we imply it:

• I trust you will lock up.
• I trust you will make that deposit.
• I trust you will do the right thing.
• I trust you and, as a result, count on you to manage my business.

We want to believe we trust those closest to us, and obviously have to move forward with that assumption. But sometimes its hard not to feel were kidding ourselves. All you have to do is take one look at the daily newspaper or count the escalating number of attorneys and police to know one persons definition of trust is often different from anothers.

Which brings us back to the issue of communication. I believe the answer to the growing concern over safety and security lies in this one simple concept: talking openly to each other. Im not saying that if we improve our communication skills, no one will ever try to take advantage of us, but we have to vastly improve what and how we communicate in our business and personal environments. For example, its critical that employees understand what we expect of them and know the rules to which they must adhereor face the consequences. And we must be clear about what those consequences are.

The truth is security has largely replaced trust in the business relationship, just as automated systems have replaced the human element. But mechanized security isnt and shouldnt be enough. To be truly safe and in control of our financial destiny, the answer just might be communicating more effectively. Granted, Im not sure exactly how to do it. But my hope is, as we learn to commune at higher levels, our customers will feel more secure, our employees will meet our expectations and, just maybe, our dependence on hardware and software will diminish. The first step is to try.

Fred Grauer is the vice president, distributor network, for Mark VII Equipment LLC, a car-wash equipment manufacturer in Arvada, Colo. He has made a lifelong career of designing, selling, building and operating car washes. He can be reached at [email protected].