The Inside Self-Storage Store, an e-commerce website providing on-demand insight and education products for self-storage professionals, is now offering for sale two books by civil engineer and self-storage owner Marc Goodin. One book focuses on marketing strategies to increase revenue while the other examines time- and money-saving ideas during facility planning, design and construction.

Crush Your Competition: 101 Self Storage Marketing Tips for the Fastest Way to Huge Profits is available in softcover or as an on-demand PDF. Goodin explains how to optimize simple marketing tactics and ideas with minimal cost for maximum earnings. It contains tools for new startups that have more energy than money and was also written for established businesses looking for fresh ideas.

Your Self-Storage: Planning, Site Selection, Design, Build is available only in PDF format and contains more than 150 ideas on how to save time and money while still making a self-storage building project a success. Goodin also provides important reminders and tips to use during the design process, regulatory and approval phase, and construction.

The books are available for individual purchase at www.insideselfstoragestore.com. Prices range from $10.95 to $24.95.

Goodin has designed dozens of site plans for self-storage facilities and many other businesses during his 25-year career as a professional civil engineer. He owns three self-storage facilities he designed and built, including one in Canada. He sold his engineering practice to concentrate full time on his storage businesses.

Conceived as a central hub allowing self-storage owners, operators, developers and investors to obtain cutting-edge information and resources, the ISS Store is owned and operated by ISS, a dynamic services provider that has served the self-storage industry for more than 20 years. The brand includes ISS magazine, the Inside Self-Storage World Expo, the Self-Storage Training Institute and Self-Storage Talk, the industrys largest online community.

Self-storage builder Mako Steel Inc. recently hired David Lopez as a drafter/detailer and Robert Holz as an estimator.

Lopez has more than 15 years of self-storage drafting and design experience. He will work out of Makos Pacific Northwest satellite office. Holz has nearly 20 years of self-storage construction experience including estimating, project management, engineering and concept site planning. He will also work out of the Northwest office.

Were really excited about the people weve added to the Mako family, said Caesar Wright, president. David and Bob are highly talented and bring with them a skill set that will help us grow as a company.

Mako designs, supplies and installs steel buildings for the self-storage industry. The company specializes in boat/RV storage, multi-story and custom buildings.

Boxed In, a short film about a reclusive self-storage manager who must overcome his phobias to save a friend, will receive a screening at the Roxie Theater on July 13 as part of the San Francisco Frozen Film Festival. The film is directed by Naga Kataru, a former Google engineer who graduated from the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking (SFSDF).

The inspiration behind Boxed In stems from Katarus fascination with managers who run self-storage facilities as well as the collection of property that accumulates in units. Originally conceived as a documentary, the project was transformed into a short film about a man named Alvarez whos forced to face his fears to save his assistant, his only friend and connection to the rest of the world. Actor Christopher Peak plays Alvarez.

Kataru took a sabbatical from his engineering position at Google to enroll in the five-week film program at SFSDF. After completing a short film, he quit his job at Google and enrolled in the one-year digital film-making program at SFSDF. He has since completed five short films in addition to Boxed In.

The film premiered in December 2012 at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival and has since played at several film festivals around the United States. It recently won The FreeStyle Life Audience award for the 2013 Best Short film.

Boxed In received story-editing, graphic-design and color-correction support from production company Rough House Editorial. Kataru was familiar with Rough House through its work with Google on corporate film projects.

"We lost some scenes, which was hard for me. We also changed the order of some scenes and added some small effects to give some scenes more impact, Kataru said. In the end, the work we did in the edit bay made the story line much clearer and gave the film more impact.

U.K. self-storage operator BiG Storage will sponsor the Chester FC professional soccer team for a fourth year. Based in Chester, England, the team finished first in the Football Conference standings last season.

The deal includes the companys name and logo incorporated into the teams mascotBiG Lupusas well as sponsorship recognition on game cards distributed throughout the city and on halftime draw tickets. BiG Storage also will receive advertising inside Exacta Stadium where the team plays, as well as in game programs, on the teams website, and through social media and special events, including ticket giveaways.

Were proud to be one of the founding supporting sponsors of Chester FC, and renewing and developing our deal for a fourth season was a no-brainer, said Andrew Donaldson, a partner with BiG Storage.

We are delighted to have extended the deal, and this season we are going to maximize every opportunity we can, said Dave Riche, marketing and business development consultant for Chester FC. Andrew Donaldson is very forward thinking, and we share a number of the same ideas as to how far we can take this partnership. Sponsorship is not just about sitting back and resting on your laurels, it is about expanding the brand into every opportunity possible, and BiG Storage will give us further doors to open up.

The deal will also forge a closer relationship between the soccer team and the Cheshire Phoenix professional basketball team, which BiG Storage supported last season. The relationship will include cross promotions between the teams, and BiG Lupus will make appearances during basketball games.

Founded in 2006, BiG Storage is a privately owned company that operates six self-storage facilities in the Northwest region of the United Kingdom.

Kangaroo Self-Storage, a 5.13-acre storage facility in Denver, recently sold to a private investor for $3.95 million. The property was built in 2000 and expanded in 2004. It comprises 431 storage units and 59,220 net rentable square feet.

Charles Chico LeClaire, a senior vice president in the Denver office of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, represented the seller, a limited liability company, as well as the buyer.

This was a great deal for both sides, LeClaire said. The seller was taking profits at a good time, and the buyer got to enter into the difficult Denver market.

The property at 15200 E. 53rd Ave. includes 68 spaces for vehicle storage and a two-story onsite manager's office with an apartment. Security features include perimeter fencing, coded gate access, exterior lighting and video cameras.

Marcus & Millichap has more than 1,000 investment professionals in offices nationwide and closed more than 6,100 transactions last year.

Florida self-storage operator Hide-Away Storage has opened its second automated Xpress Storage facility in Parrish, Fla., according to Steve Wilson, managing partner. The property comprises about 400 storage units and 40,000 square feet, and uses a self-serve kiosk for rentals.

The facility opened in June and is the second Xpress location Wilson has developed in the Sarasota area. The Xpress concept focuses on customer convenience and smaller footprints, with locations placed closer to residential areas than typical self-storage developments, according to a press release.

In addition to 24-hour access, the Parrish facility offers drive-up garage spaces and air-conditioned units.

Hide-Away owns 10 other self-storage facilities in Southwest Florida and opened its first Xpress property in 2010.

Self-storage operator LifeStorage of Elgin, Ill., which is part of a chain of 28 self-storage facilities in Illinois, Nevada and Wisconsin, is hosting its first annual car show on June 20, and will donate the proceeds to the United Way of Central Oklahoma May Tornadoes Relief Fund.

The event, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., will include dash plaques for the first 100 cars, trophies for winning participants, refreshments, and raffles and prizes. The facility at 450 Airport Road has hosted a number of community events since its opening in 2010, including a Halloween safety event and toy collections during the winter holidays.

The May Tornadoes Relief Fund was established after the May 31 tornado and flooding in Oklahoma City killed 20 people. Funds are distributed to United Way Partner Agencies working on tornado-relief efforts.

Founded in 2002, LifeStorage has 25 locations in the Chicagoland area as well as two in Nevada and one in Wisconsin.

By Michael Menard 

Any software you implement at your self-storage facility should enable or enhance your business process. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe the software or technology itself is the solution, when in reality, technology is, at best, 10 percent of the value equation. The other 90 percent is based on the human factor.

Knowing this, its no wonder 70 percent of technology implementations fail. In other words, seven out of 10 applications that are installed and for which companies spend thousands of dollars to implement arent being used one year later. Talk about wasted resources!

How does this happen? All too often, company or department leaders hear about new software and view it as the next shiny thing. They call the software provider and say, We heard you have a great tool and wed like a demonstration. The software is certainly seductive with its bells and whistles, but its effectiveness and usefulness depend on the validity of the information going in and how the people actually work with it. Having a tool is great, but remember that a fool with a tool is still a fool (and sometimes a dangerous fool).

So if technology is not the answer, what is? The answer that will really solve organizational challenges and enable business processes consists of three parts that, when done correctly in conjunction, will lead to long-lasting results.

1. Get the Business-Process Design Right

The first step to a smart technology implementation is to get clear on what information goes in and what analysis comes out, which has nothing to do with software itself. This is called business-process design. Unfortunately, many companies fail to align technology with their processes. Thats because some companies have no processes, while others have a stated process (the one they talk about) and an emergent process (the one they actually do). So whats a business process and how do you design one?

A process is like a recipe. If you have a great recipe for New York-style cheesecake that calls for folding in three eggs one at a time, yet you decide to blend in all three eggs at once, youll get a completely different (and probably not very good) end product than if you had followed the directions. Make the recipe again and follow the instructions in the proper order, and your cheesecake will be edible.

If you do anything more than twice in your organization, you should define a process for it. Once you have done so, you should continue to improve on it. In the absence of a defined and documented process, subsequent actions become experimental. Process design is an investment thats easy to understand. But while the idea of it usually gets an enthusiastic response, actually doing it gets shelved.

So prior to any software implementation, map out your business processes and define such things as:

• What do we want from the software?
• How will this software be used on a daily basis in our organization?
• Which business processes will the software affect?
• Who will be using the software?
• Who has the authority to make decisions about the software and the information it produces?
• Who will be responsible for inputting the needed data and making sure its accurate?
• Who will be receiving the data and acting upon it?
• How will the data inform our future business decisions?

The clearer you get on business-process design and how the software ties in, the better your results will be.

2. Choose the Right Technology

No company can do the things its called upon to do without technology, so some sort of technology is a must. We all need tools. If youve done step one, youll have a clear picture of your business and how the new software must play a role. Now its time to analyze your software options and choose the one that complements your business processes and will deliver the results youve outlined.

3. Implement the Tool

This third step is the most important because its about the human factor and how it impacts any organizational changeand implementing new technology is a big change. Unfortunately, too many companies today are simply doing installations. But installation, which means to put something in place, is very different than implementation, which means to put something into effect or action. Having a new car in the driveway is nice, but if you cant drive that car, it doesnt offer much value.

Implementations often fail because companies forget the human factor. In fact, in most changes, human factors pose the greatest risks to long-term profitability. New knowledge and behavior-adoption drive return on investment.

Why is change so difficult? Because most of us like comfort. We may complain about routine, but the majority of folks secretly like it. And almost any organizational change threatens our existing comfort zone. Change requires movement from what we know to what we dont yet know. Like people, organizational cultures prefer to remain the same. Thats why even changes directed at entire departments or organizations, rather than specific individuals, often meet resistance.

So why bother with change when the odds of success are stacked against it? The answer is simple: All businesses must continually change or they will die. The markets demand change; customers demand change. Therefore, you either instigate change or it will happen to you. David Nielson, a leading authority on organizational change, says to better prepare your team for change and have a successful implementation, be sure you do the following:

• Communicate the business case for the change
• Identify internal change agents (allies) and engage with them
• Educate and support the change agents
• Assess adoption readiness
• Define and support effective behavior
• Execute a communication plan about the change

Remember, implementation will fail unless sufficient time and resources are allocated to the process of learning. These six steps form the foundation of successful implementation. Miss one and youre asking for trouble.

Make Your Technology Implementations Work

The message is clear: Technology is not the answer. Yes, its an important piece of the puzzle, but its not the all-encompassing solution so many people believe it to be. If you just focus on the tool, you may end up the fool. But if you focus on the business, the tool and the people within the organization who will be using the tool, youll be the leader who not only uses technology effectively but who also sees great gains in productivity and profit.

Michael Menard is the author of A Fish in Your Ear: The New Discipline of Project Portfolio Management, and co-founder and president of The GenSight Group, which provides enterprise portfolio-management solutions for strategic planning, project-portfolio management and business-performance optimization. For more information, visit www.afishinyourear.com .