The Storage Investor Show
Learn how to turn your cash into cash flow with self-storage and small bay industrial. If it has a roll-up door, The Storage Investor Show covers it. Your host, Kris Bennett, will ask the right questions to help you find, fund, and close your next deal. New episodes every Tuesday.
The Storage Investor Show
Self Storage Management SECRETS with Rick Beal and Magen Smith
IN THIS EPISODE...
If you want to know how to effectively manage over 4 million square feet of self storage space while keeping theft at bay, this episode is for you!
I sat down with Rick Beal and Magen Smith, the incredible co-founders of Atomic Storage Group. They pulled back the curtain on the secrets of self storage management and share their playbook with you!
We get into the nitty-gritty of staffing strategies in the storage industry, sharing strategies to run your self storage facility with full-time managers or remotely.
This episode is packed with practical advice and personal anecdotes that aspiring entrepreneurs in the storage industry won't want to miss.
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CONNECT WITH ATOMIC (Rick and Magen)
https://atomicstoragegroup.com
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NEWSLETTER
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Hey guys, welcome to the Storage Investor Show. I have Rick Beal and Megan Smith, co-founders of Atomic Storage Group. Rick and Megan, thank you so much for being on the show. If you guys can give the listeners just a quick 60 seconds from each of you guys as to who you are, what you do and how you got to Atomic.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say you go first, but we'll have you go first. Yeah, so we started Atomic Storage Group, probably about five years ago Megan and I did. We are a third-party management company. We manage nationwide both remote. Currently we have about 100 and—.
Speaker 1:How many square feet roughly, or units. Either way, you know what we just calculated.
Speaker 2:I think we had like—do you remember Megan Like four. I am not the accountant, so it's either—.
Speaker 1:We just calculated it.
Speaker 3:We can't remember, not the accountant, so it's either just calculated, or a million, I can't remember.
Speaker 1:That is true, that is true.
Speaker 2:That's why I don't pay the bills.
Speaker 1:That's why I don't know. Ask the numbers person, megan, how many. She did the math.
Speaker 3:I didn't do the math. It's a lot. That's how many it is. It's a lot.
Speaker 2:Okay good, we have 4 million square feet under management.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was the number you told me Okay.
Speaker 2:yeah, got it Four or five, it's about the same right.
Speaker 1:There you go. Yeah, that's really good, and just so the audience knows, full disclosure. They do manage our portfolio as well, and that's whatever. I don't know how many units are square feet.
Speaker 3:We don't either, Chris. We don't either.
Speaker 2:We don't either.
Speaker 1:apparently, we don't know what's going on. Okay, Megan, tell us real quick about yourself. I'm going to just ask Megan all the questions. Rick, you just hang out in the background.
Speaker 2:I'll just be the pretty face, that's it.
Speaker 3:So my name is Megan Smith. I co-founded Atomic Storage Group with Rick. It's been five years now, I guess we've been in business. So I started as a CPA, started doing accounting, auditing Chris and I have done many meetings and things together over the years and then I was converting deals over time and took investor money and kind of playing the GP side of things and needed to manage it and needed to make sure the numbers got there and do the asset management and we gave our investors the returns that we promised them over time.
Speaker 3:I didn't like managing alone. It was a lot of work, it was more complicated than I thought it'd be and things were not going in the right direction. So I met Rick at a show forever ago and we launched Atomic five years ago and he's really good at the marketing and the people side of things and the money started growing and I was able to just take care of what I'm really good at, which we're still trying to figure out. But everything started working really well together and we've just grown from there. So we do manned, unmanned, hybrid, a mix of things. It's been fun to transition our management company as storage has gotten more complicated, with COVID rates going up and down rates coming in. There's so much more pressure on the industry to perform and we're constantly looking at everything we're doing and saying is this still right? Does this still work? Do we need to do something different here?
Speaker 1:So it's really been it's been fun to build this company. That's awesome. Yeah, I remember you and I met. You spoke at the North Carolina Self Storage Association. I don't remember what like 2018 or something like that. It was the first time I heard you talk and you were talking about yeah, you were talking about like theft and how to catch it, and I was like astounded by some of the stories that you had shared and some owners catching their employees, their managers, stealing and then actually saying, oh not really.
Speaker 1:It didn't come that much, yeah, and then others obviously not being too happy about it. So, yeah, those are very interesting. Let's jump in right there. How do you audit for theft at a facility? Yeah, jump in there. How do you audit for theft at a facility? Yeah, how do you audit for theft at a facility?
Speaker 3:Good question. So we actually just transitioned a manager. We're a no cash property and people are still coming in and saying I paid cash. Every time I've been here I paid cash and I'm like, what did the ledger say? Did it say a credit card that was the manager's credit card or did it say credit Because she either was very nice, took the cash, used her own personal card right, no theft or she didn't and she got herself a bonus. So we do a lot of things. We do our. We're big on kind of separation of duty. So our accountants part of what they do is check that the money in the system goes to the bank account. Every day. They check for that there's more than just theft. Like we were doing, one company and their ach hadn't gone through for a while and it was like fifteen thousand dollars of the ach payment they were just missing because nobody followed up on the ach bounces. So that's becoming more of a thing. We do regular audits. Walk the wait, make sure you're there do you mean?
Speaker 1:do you mean like customers or tenants were not like? What do you mean? Like customers or tenants were not like? What do you mean? Like they were not, the money wasn't coming through?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they were paying in the storage system, but the bank wasn't releasing the money to the bank account of the customer. So, yeah, that was what was going on with it. It was pretty crazy. So, for whatever reason, the funds weren't being released from the credit card is tied to the bank account processor into the customer's bank account. So how do?
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Speaker 3:You contact the processor and tell him give me my money and I had to go do some checks and things and audit and go through and check it.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it. So when is it possible to tell that theft is? How do you like when you look at a high level, like maybe a management summary or something like that is there a way to tell if theft is occurring there, or do you actually need to jump into the books and dig further?
Speaker 3:So we've had a customer that has applied other people's payments to other people's accounts as they have gone on. So we keep saying their AR being super low. We don't think it should be that low. It has been high. We have a conversation with the manager. It drops. Obviously customers didn't change behavior. Something changed. So that's one red flag.
Speaker 3:We're big fans of the way you do. One thing is the way you do everything. So if managers consistently clock in late, if they can't arrive to work on time, if they're always leaving early, they're probably not doing all the right things right. They're going to do some other things wrong too. So paying attention to those things, knowing your managers, knowing if they're going through life struggles, any kind of red flags, any sort of increase in stress on their life that would make them maybe consider doing things they wouldn't normally do, is something you want to pay attention to. You should be in contact with your store and then just watching what you expect. So are these rentals correct? Are these credits correct? Are they deleting charges? Cash if you're taking cash and checks, it should go to the bank. That's really easy. Make collection calls. Having another path for customers to call if they're in auction or late because they can say I paid her a year. What is going on with this? And then doing the basics of the walkthrough and making sure things are being done.
Speaker 1:Huh, interesting. Okay, do you recommend that owners stop taking cash and just go to cards or checks?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's an interesting thing. I agree, I think they should. There's some pros and cons, obviously. Typically, your late fees aren't going to be as high sometimes, but one one note of caution is just to be cognitive of any state laws that are flags for that. There are some states that are off the top of my head but because of COVID and when there's all those money issues and stuff like that, there are some laws out there that says you have to take all sorts of currency. So the last thing you want to do is be in a situation where you know you're going. Your policy is against state law. So, as you do that stuff, make sure that's. Ssa has tons of information on that stuff already to make sure to do that. But it's always great. Obviously, auto pay is great. Typically, customers stay within a month to two months longer if they're on auto pay and you can just much easier process to go through if they are on cashless systems.
Speaker 1:Got it Okay, so you can check with your state self-storage association. They would probably have resources if you want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a tricky one and it's relatively new since COVID. I guess COVID's not new anymore, but it's relatively new. So just making sure that you're in line with that and if you're really willing to accept the risk. Are you a high target priority, a storage unit, a hundred units in the middle of a field somewhere? Probably not, but just be willing to accept that risk.
Speaker 1:Okay, Got it. That makes sense. Okay, let's talk real quick, since we're talking about theft and all that. Let's talk about managers in general and just hiring in that process. What do you guys how you know what before we even get there? What are your thoughts on, like remote management versus traditional management I don't know how else to call it, but like where you have an unmanned facility versus a manned facility? I know you guys do a hybrid of that as well. What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of remote management and then the pros and cons of actually having someone on site?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll start with an overhead point of view, and I say this all the time in talks. I was in a psychology class a long time ago in college and I learned this one thing that some things work for some of the people some of the times and the exact same thing applies for self-storage facilities. If we have taken over remotely ran sites and put staff inside that needed it, we've taken over staff sites and made them remote. So I don't think there's a rubber stamp of it has to be one way or the other. I think it's what's best for your facility. Obviously, if you have 100 units, you're not going to be putting a full-time manager there, just being mindful that it isn't just a one and done kind of thing. There's a lot of pros of having a staff member there. You're there, you can promote a little bit more security. By far. Over and over again, our unmanned stores have more theft than our manned stores. Period Done. There's no question about that Done. Also, on average, which is an interesting thing, we found that we get maybe between 8 to 12 more rentals a month with a staff site member, which might be okay when you're full and you're just terming what you need and you don't need that. But if you have 500 empty units and you just opened on Monday morning, those extra units really make a big difference. Obviously, there's stories of people who open up a remotely managed store and what's filled in 24 hours or whatever. But by and large, that is what we have found as an average.
Speaker 2:Just being very mindful of that that you are going to lose that stuff. We've been at sites before that are remotely ran, watch people go up to the sign, read it and leave. So it's all the bell curve. The vast majority of people are going to be okay with it. You're going to get those people over here on this side that absolutely don't want to have any contact with people in any way, shape or form. So they will always do everything online and prefer that. And then you have the people over here on this side who won't want to do that stuff. They want to go in there. They've never used a storage facility before. They want to check out the size, they want to do those things. So they actually want to speak with someone and they'll never rent from a remotely managed site, no matter what. So you just got to be mindful of the pros and cons when it comes to occupancy and getting rentals.
Speaker 1:You mentioned theft again that there's more theft that occurs physically. Can you talk about that for a quick second? So the remote managed site you were saying definitively more theft occurs, do you mean like people breaking into units, cutting locks or whatever the case may be Like? What have you guys seen along those lines? Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Megan, you want to talk about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we see it can be more theft. Right, you're providing more opportunities if nobody's there and people start learning nobody's there. So if you're in the middle of a very safe town and it's very full and there's just a, it's a very safe area. Just because you don't have a staff member there doesn't mean you're going to have more theft. But if you're in an area that is leaning towards theft already, you'll have more theft if nobody's there. So it really just depends on the property and where it is and what it looks like.
Speaker 3:The things that will deter theft aren't there, so it's the person. They're not there every day, they're not checking, and it's the broken window theory. So you have one mattress or one piece of trash and then that accumulates because the person who checks it doesn't go but every three, four or five days. So it just problems become bigger. One thing that we have noticed in areas that are bent towards crime is people will rent units in various names under various accounts. They'll go in, they'll steal, they rent from their brother, their mom, their sister. It becomes a ring and you don't nobody's there. To recognize the same faces, though, you're having to go, do a lot more research to look at cameras and figure out who it is, and it just takes longer to figure out.
Speaker 3:So we have seen more theft and unmanned, although you do save the manager cost, and we have some properties that are unmanned a lot of properties actually that are unmanned that are just fine. They save the manager costs. We put in technology, the customers are happy, they're full, we raise rates, we get good reviews, they're just fine. So it's not like there's one cookie cutter approach to this. It just depends on the property, the location, the needs of the property. Do you need to raise rates 50% because you just bought it or can you just keep the ship sailing in the right direction? So depending on what you need from your property is how you need to decide on your staffing, and we're not fans of this. Is the one way forever. We've staffed things for a year and then transitioned to unmanned. We've unmanned for a year, transitioned to manned if we have an expansion or something. So it just depends on where the property is at the point in time and what the needs are of the property.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've run some locations unattended or I don't know what to call it Remote managed.
Speaker 3:No, but it's now. You can pick up your word.
Speaker 1:Yeah, touchless, I don't know who cares. Anyways, we've run them remote and we've had theft, as you guys know, because you manage the portfolio and then we also another part of it too. I'm not knocking remote, because we still have some locations that are remote managed. It's obviously the three of us know, so we do it as well. But we've had some locations where the weeds get overgrown pretty quick in the summertime and because no one's there to keep tabs on it, or when the guy the boots on the ground does go, they don't look too bad. He might say something about it, but they don't look too bad. He might just see it and forget he or she. And then by the time next week rolls around, the week after, they've grown like 10 feet tall and are taking over the unit. I'm exaggerating, sure, they've grown like 10 feet tall and are taking over the unit. I'm exaggerating, sure. We have seen that. Yeah, we've seen like trash pile up, like you talked about earlier on, and that doesn't look good either. And I've seen that other remote managed locations as well.
Speaker 1:So I guess you just got to take into consideration your market, your area, maybe the class of the facility. If it's class A3 story, maybe you don't run it remotely. At first you run it with a person there and then play it by ear and go from there. So, yeah, that makes sense. I don't mind having a manager on site at all, because we have several of them. They do a great job for us. Some of them are killers. Some of them are learning the business and getting their feet wet in it. How do you guys look for a potential manager? What does that actual process look like? Do you use a website, do you? And then like how do you screen them?
Speaker 2:How do you like? Find the right kind of fit for a manager? All right, You're ready for the soapbox, Chris? All right, here we go. I'm going to lay down the gospel truth here. When we're hired for a manager, we want two things right. We want someone who has common sense and someone who can talk with people. That's it.
Speaker 1:That's what I want. We don't want that.
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding, yeah, and it's so hard to find those people, especially common sense, because, honestly, the more common sense you have, the less work that I have to do, because you're not like coming back to me and talking with me all the time because you're solving problems. You can take a problem from point A to point C without having a lot and make a good decision. And the other part of it is we want someone who is able to connect with customers in that limited 10, 15 minute window of time to make a sale. People buy from people who they like, so typically we have people who are very friendly, very nice, very outgoing to be some of our salespeople. The process starts pretty easily. So we put the ad out on Indeed, we put it out locally.
Speaker 2:We have changed our ad over time. So at first you focus on the position where we are a self-sorage company, we value our employees, blah, blah, blah. You're required to lift 50 pounds, make customer calls, all this stuff. The quality candidates were horrid and very slim, because the people who want to go there are the people who want to work in self-storage, if that makes sense, if you see a job and you're like this looks maybe a chill job. So those are the kind of candidates you get. So we've swapped that script and changed it to looking for the personality versus the position. So our ads are stuff like are you the type of person who likes to work by themselves? You, are you the type of person who likes to take a project to start to completion? Are you the type of person who doesn't like to be micromanaged? So as and we even put this are you the type of person who likes to be a grownup and do their job? So we put those things actually in our ad. And the quality of candidates 10, 20 fold. So much better candidates. And over again, we ask them why did you apply for the job? And it's because I read the ad and all of a sudden these green flags are like going off. They're like, hey, this sounds just like me and this is what we want in our manager. So we go through that.
Speaker 2:The next thing we do is we send out invites for interviews. Now we put together a YouTube video, so they have to watch the YouTube video before they apply. It is me at the store, which you can do really easily. You can use it and take your phone. You videotape what a store manager does. It also saves you, so you don't have to repeat that over and over and over again, so you can keep all the key points. And then we make them watch that. And then they have to book their own interview.
Speaker 2:Now, this is an interesting thing In Indeed, we have them book it through Calendly. The Calendly link is not a hyperlink. All you have to do is copy and paste. So, while that doesn't seem like a big deal, what we're doing is putting small roadblocks in the way to circumvent the people who don't have the common sense to copy and paste the URL. Not a big deal, right? Because it's pretty normal. I would say 20% of the people in a round of applications will email us and say the link doesn't work. They'll email us and say I'm your guy. They'll email us and say I'm ready for Tuesday. So that weeds out 20% of the people who you don't have to go through, because I'm higher for common sense. For common sense, they watch that, they book that. They have to show up to the interview on time. They have to show up to a Zoom interview. It's also very interesting.
Speaker 2:Once we have the Zoom interview, we go through and, for whatever reason, people think that since it's a Zoom interview, you're a professional out professionalists can just be non-existent. So we had people walking their dog, they're with their buddies heading down to the lake and they just had a quick interview. So it really gives you an insight of what their behavior is by themselves. So this is the guy who I have, and it's January 6th in Denver, colorado, it's five degrees outside and snowing. Do I want someone who's responsible and shows up, or do I want the bro who's drinking a brewski heading down to the lake doing a Zoom interview? Because I know on January 5th at two o'clock in the afternoon, when it's five degrees outside, he's going to be fooling around and having fun.
Speaker 2:So that's how we go through that hiring process and then we actually go to the interview process. We just ask them good questions what are you looking for in the job? I want them to talk way more than me, so I just ask them really good questions and they say, oh, and what else? So what I'm looking for is do they have the ability to just talk and be a normal person? We can train for all those other skills, but, man, if you can talk and you can solve problems, I will hire you every single day and it's been amazing to see the quality candidates we've had. Yeah, there are some stinkers here and there, but the amazing to see the quality candidates we've had over time and how that has really helped in our hiring process. So that's my soapbox, chris. That's great.
Speaker 1:I like the link issue where it's not a link and they have to figure that out. And then how they interview. I would never imagine doing that type of interview Like I would want to be on this setting. I'm not saying suit and tie, but like in this setting in a quiet place and do an interview. If I'm looking for a job it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy to see the people who I mean because, yeah, that's, and it's funny when I talk with our managers or our district managers go through this. Everyone goes through the exact same process and then when I tell them that we've gone through this stuff, they're like what? They don't even realize that they went through these steps because it's common sense and it's okay and these are the people we're hiring, so they don't even understand. It's not even a thought in their mind when they come to and see these hoops that we made them go through.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we talk about hiring and I think the what is the saying Hire slow, fire fast, something like that. So you take your time, find the right people, or at least close to the right people, and then firing. So on occasion we have to let some managers go, or you guys have to let some managers go, or whatever. What happens in that case? Like how do you know when it's time You're not getting the warm and fuzzies anymore and it's time you got to find someone else?
Speaker 2:Are we talking about that or business partners? Both, you know, I'll just take that one about firing business partners.
Speaker 3:Wow, I'll let you take that one about firing. I'm horrible at firing so I never do it because I'm the worst at it. But we hold people accountable. They have certain things they're supposed to do. So our district managers review. It's not a lot, it's about nine things every week. Are they doing lead follow-ups? Are they making collection calls? Are they selling the right amount of merchandise? Are they doing their production plans on point? And then we have a form that the managers fill out. There's tasks every week. So are they checking the boxes and doing the tasks and doing the right thing and doing their job? Basically, if they're doing their job, great, we have satisfied the exchange. I paid you money, you did the job. Here's the job I want you to do. You're doing it. If they don't, we have the conversation. Why aren't you doing it? What we expect, that's the training, that's what you need to do. But we thankfully, honestly, don't have to fire too many people or have too many people quit, like we give people a lot of runway to do. At the end we give them the end result and they can figure out how they get there. So that gives people some buy-in of it.
Speaker 3:But we do have to fire people. Sometimes we do our normal visits. If the place is trash and looks horrid and they're just obviously not doing their job, yes, they're getting fired. If we show up in their theft, yes, they're getting fired. So there's not too many times, thankfully.
Speaker 3:We have to fire people. Sometimes it's just not the right fit. So sometimes we hired maybe a farmer who's very good and very nice and super sweet and they're good at taking care of the property. But the property has become a very competitive property and a competitive market and we need a hunter. We need somebody who is sales oriented and a go-getter, and we just need a different personality style, and that's okay too. So unfortunately, we have to let that person go to where they're going to be happier, because they can't give us what we need. They're not the right fit. We're going to ask things of them they are not capable of doing, nor should we. Right, they'll never be that good. That's just not who they are. So sometimes we have to let people go in those situations and hire the right personality for the store, because the store needs have changed. So that is something that we have to deal with too.
Speaker 1:That's funny. When you said farmer, I envisioned like an actual farmer but then I realized what you were saying, that the personality is a farmer, so we talk about hunters and farmers being someone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who's gonna you think of a farmer taking care of what they have in front of them, taking care of the crops, whatever they're not actually doing like sales. They're not out there going and finding new leads or whatever, whereas the hunter is doing that. They're not so much concerned about making sure the tomatoes grow. They're going to have to find new land, new territory, take on new challenges, and that type of person is what you need. When you're leasing up, I realized that's what you were saying I was like farmer.
Speaker 3:What does she?
Speaker 1:mean by farmer. You hired a farmer.
Speaker 3:Thank you for clarifying.
Speaker 1:You showed up in overalls and a straw hat.
Speaker 3:If they can close league, I don't care.
Speaker 1:And the sun goes throughout the period of time too.
Speaker 2:So it's really interesting. So we'll hire a hunter at the first and, like you said, they're not the best at killing the tomatoes and picking the tomatoes, but man can they plant those seeds and that's who we want. We want a hunter, and with the hunter comes with an expiration date. Typically, storage isn't. I don't know, it's a secret, but storage isn't as exciting as other industries. So you get in there and it's new, it's awesome. You're closing leads, people are coming in Boom, things are happening. And then over time and hopefully as your facility starts to fill up, you're able to cycle that hunter out, because they're getting bored, they want something new, they want a new challenge. I get it because I tend to lean a little bit more toward that side.
Speaker 2:And then you bring in the farmer, and the farmer is literally the one who's there to take care of the current customer base, the friendly person who smiles and nods. We're basically just replacing what we're terming. And then we're also switching into a new game. We're past the occupancy game and now we're in the more of the revenue fine tuning games. We're going to be increasing rates. We're going to be a little heavy on this stuff. We're going to be increasing rates. We're going to be a little heavy on this stuff.
Speaker 2:If you had a hunter in there at that time and you increased rates, people are going to come in there and the hunter is going to be like, well, you can go somewhere else or you can keep your stuff here, but there's your choices, right, because that's what I would probably say. But the farmer and we've done this time and time again when we've taken over stores and we've really had to squeeze some rates out If we have a good farmer that's in there, it's very nice, very, oh my gosh. Yeah, I get it. I understand, we'll see what we can do. So they create a win situation for a lot of people because they have that empathy and they just have that kind of mindset of looking at things. So it's a phenomenal way to look at people mindset of looking at things, so it's a phenomenal way to look at people, awesome.
Speaker 1:So let's switch to marketing, because you just brought that up. Talk to us real quick about marketing, kind of like where we should be spending dollars as owners. I know that there's like a plethora. If you go to the conferences, like it's overwhelming sometimes the marketing and the options out there and all that. What can be done, like when in your mind, what's a good, what do you even start with it and how do you like get people in the door through marketing?
Speaker 2:we're just doing like the, the cornucopia of self-storage. Here we're talking about theft, hiring, marketing. I love it. We're just going.
Speaker 1:We're going wherever I try to give value I love it listener and that's's what I think people need to hear. So I'm going in that direction. If it was up to me, we'd be talking about doing other things hanging out, going to the beach that's not what the podcast is about. Going to the beach with Chris Bennett That'd be weird.
Speaker 2:I'd do it with you, chris, I'd do it with you, that'd be awesome. So Mark is interesting. So I'll touch on one thing and then I'll turn it over to Megan a little bit. So for the longest time, and even in talks, I have always poo-pooed social media marketing over and over again. I'm like, yeah, get social media, it's fine, it's do it because you're checking out a box. I have changed my tune on that. So it has been.
Speaker 2:We have hired on a social media manager. We actually do social media management for other companies, just social media management. And it has been shocking to me to see the leads and also just the overall brand awareness through social media. And I'm talking like 14,000, 28,000 views on social media and you know what? It's just crazy to have good quality stuff and I've seen self-storage social media stuff. We put a picture of a storage facility, we put a picture of our logo and 18 years later we put a picture of someone else Doing it.
Speaker 2:Right is very different than just having social media. So I have again been shocked. We have Pinterest for Modbox and it's very interesting. We talk about living conditions and pricing in certain markets and just the traction it gets and the overall. It's almost like it's like the new grassroots marketing and it's digital grassroots marketing basically. So it's just those seeds that you're planting out there that you can't have a direct correlation as easily, but it is brand awareness and it is. I've, sincerely, have changed my tune on social media management. So that's my kind of pitch on this stuff and I'll turn that kind of over to megan a little bit more to talk about, a little bit more about other stuff.
Speaker 3:The accountant is going to talk about marketing for sure. Get ready. I have actually been shocked at how much marketing has changed in self-story. So forever ago you'd build it, it would just fill itself up. You had a website, you call it a day, that was it, and it's become a lot more complicated. So for people who are doing it themselves and doing everything themselves, it can definitely get overwhelming. There is so many moving parts of it.
Speaker 3:So we have brought a lot of our marketing in-house. We have a marketing manager now. He handles all of our pay-per-click, our Google ads. He makes sure that we are spending the right click in the right amount with the right keyword and has this amazing portfolio overview. That blows my mind. So if you are not a marketing person, make sure you have the right marketing person. It's not something you can Google and watch some videos and figure out. So that's my message.
Speaker 3:Some of the aggregators have gotten very competitive, so a lot of the bigger players are buying up a lot of spend. So if you're a smaller operator trying to get eyes, you might be looking at less than 10% of what's left for demand, because the bigger operators are out bidding you out, spending you out, performing you. So, unless you are, we tend to be very high because we have the bandwidth now. So if you are doing it yourself and you're thinking about not choosing a management company is very good idea, simply because we have the bandwidth, that we can do the marketing correctly, which has blown my mind as we've seen how that's gone If you can't make sure you have all your things correct.
Speaker 3:The simple stuff Google my Business is very easy. You can set it up, you can do posts, you can respond to reviews. Those are easy things that anyone can do and understand how to do it correctly. Facebook shouldn't be. I have a sale on 5x5s. Literally nobody cares. It needs to be for this. This is the cute Pinterest-y stuff that people want to click on and read about and see in reels and funny memes and Instagram graphics and all those things. If you want to do it yourself, canva is a great free thing, putting out some posts like just get started with it, but if you actually really want to see it drive, consider using somebody who has been doing it and knows what they're doing.
Speaker 3:So we've changed a lot of our marketing stuff, even in the past year, even the past six months, even yesterday. It seems like we're not selling, just like trying new marketing thing to see what works and testing it and changing it and testing it and changing it and spend more here. Do we put on social, putting in reputation management things? So that would be your requesting google reviews, even if it's a simple move out text in your software all the way to a more complicated platform. Have something to request, move out and move in. Especially move in. It's not maybe as much moveouts because you might've auctioned them, but make sure people had a good experience and they're leaving good reviews. So that's what I've learned on how to do marketing better.
Speaker 1:What like, how do you find somebody like that? So let's say that you do want to bring someone on board within your own whatever organization or whatever to oversee that process. I see what you guys do and who you guys brought on behind the scenes, but like, how did you go about? You don't have to disclose all the information. But like, how does one go about finding this person, this marketing whiz? Because, yeah, I love Canva, I use it for basic things, but my everything I do on there is basic because it's not my forte. But if I wanted to, let's say for the podcast, I wanted to hire a marketing person to do all the whiz bang stuff for me. I use the word whiz bang stuff for me how do I go about finding that person?
Speaker 3:It's hard when you don't know what you're looking for, right, Because they'll just tell you things You're like. That sounds fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that sounds great. Yeah, what do you do Like? How do you go about finding? Is it like an Indeed job post kind of thing, or do you like so?
Speaker 2:it's not easy. I'll tell you the truth right there, for it's not easy. I think when we put on a social media manager, we had over 1800 people apply for it. It is crazy. It's a very high, and there's tons of super talented people out there that are and there's a lot of hot messes out there, let's be honest but there are a ton of super talented people who can do a really good job.
Speaker 2:If you are an individual owner operator, think about number one, just teaming up with another team that just does that stuff, or outsourcing it to a company. You can get on Fiverr I'm a big fan of Fiverr or Upwork, and like you, Chris, I mean you can do Canva. Everyone kind of does Canva. It looks like the same stuff over and over again, but I know when we first started out, we had that same issue. We could design it ourself and it would look okay, or we could just have someone else do it for us, and I think we got all of our stuff designed for 50 bucks and that was posters, takeaways, rack cards, all this stuff. And the same thing goes with social media stuff.
Speaker 2:If you want to do social media stuff, think about it. Think about what you want to do. Find someone on Upwork. There's tons of people on there. You can pay 500 bucks, whatever it is. You get your content for the year and at least you have the content and it looks good, because that's what really matters. And then you can find people. If you're a smaller operator, that can just do the one thing for you. Like I said, we do that just specifically social media. There's other companies that you're worrying about. Sometimes it's outside the self-storage industry, so they may do things that they think it's a good idea but may not be in line with how social media marketing works for self-storage. Yeah, just keep your eyes open for different things like that. But yeah, I would outsource it. It'd be a great idea to do Plus.
Speaker 1:It's done well and they know what they're doing yeah, you guys have done a good job for us, uh, with our stuff and uh, uh, I only say things I recommend, obviously because I use it, or somebody has um recommended it to me and I thought it was good, or something like that. But, um, yeah, I think what you guys have done is fantastic. We've gotten what was it. I can't remember the last meeting we had like 40,000 or 30, some thousand impressions across our social media, something like that.
Speaker 3:I know it was up like 300%. Whatever it was, that number stuck out to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for the listener who's out there, like I'm with you guys at first I'm like I don't know. I like social media, of course, but I don't know if it really translated to the business side. Although I know it's a powerful tool, it just never really that part of things I don't do Personally. I see stuff and I'll get on my personal stuff. Maybe on LinkedIn I'll get like 10,000 on average impressions across posts and that's consistent there. If I post, stop posting, it goes down, of course. So that's rough where it is, that's on LinkedIn. But I realized I was listening to I think it's Alex Ramosi the other day and I didn't like him. I'm getting somewhere with this.
Speaker 1:I didn't like him before. I didn't say I didn't like him, I just was like okay, he's a cool guy, he does cool things, he gives away cool stuff, he's done some great things in business. And I stopped listening to across the video, got back into it and I was like man, this guy's giving really good advice. He looks ridiculous with the nose strip. I don't know if you've seen him before, but he looks funny with the nose strip and the tank top and the giant muscles what the heck is going on here but and the goofy hats but. But he's legit and he gives very good, actionable advice. And one thing he said was when he was doing his stuff back in the day, when he would do like in-person meetups or whatever. He said I would gladly go across town or to another city to do a 100 person conference about his because he, like, launched gyms back in the day or whatever, and I would gladly do that to go talk to 100 people.
Speaker 1:If I have 100 followers online, that's essentially the same thing and you're telling me that, like you're getting you know we had almost 40,000 impressions. That's like the size of a football stadium or whatever almost right, a baseball. That many people have seen our stuff. That's phenomenal when you think of it that way. Our brand is called Modbox. That's what I think. I think Rick said it earlier on If they've seen that brand over and over again in their city or whatever, that's actually phenomenal when you translate it to like real life. If you got a chance to stand in front of people for 30 seconds 40,000 people and tell them your message, shoot, who wouldn't do that? And social media is actually free technically. You have to hire somebody right to do it, but otherwise to use the platform is free, so it's pretty amazing. I'm with you, rick, on the business side like it's actually very beneficial to jump into, even though it can be a little like brain damage at first. You know understanding what the heck is going on with it I've never felt so old.
Speaker 2:Now, when I talk with everyone, they're like I'm like. I feel like I'm like walking around with my iphone, with my flashlight on, like how do I turn this thing off, that's because he is often he is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw some lady it's funny you mentioned that outside of the store the other day. She had her iPhone out and she was a grandma and, like her light was on, I was driving by I could see it, otherwise I would have told her. But yeah, I felt.
Speaker 2:My mom called me the other day. She's like how do I turn off my light? I'm like just turn your phone off. How do I turn off? I'm like, oh boy, just wait till your battery dies. Mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I try to, my mom is like, can you help me do whatever? I'm like contemplating whether I can or because it's going to turn into this snowball of needing to download apps and show her how to do stuff, and it's like I guess I should do it. But yeah, it's okay, here we go. All right, we talked about marketing real quick. What is a I don't know how to say it what's a tech stack that you would have at a typical like storage facility? So at ours I can't remember everything we have, but we have like storage for the property management, maybe PTI at some locations, for the gate control or spider door, for the keypads and all that stuff. Like what's a like from top to bottom, just so the listener can understand. Like what's a good tech stack that you would have in place, not every single little component, but just that main facility.
Speaker 2:So I think those things are good. A review request system is essential. Especially for unmanned, remotely managed facilities. You have to have a review request system in place. Um, the next thing that we use is a survey. All of our sites have basically modern day suggestion box where people can scan the QR code, do whatever and they can give suggestion boxes, which is very interesting over time to see how that goes. We want to use that for a platform so people can complain or they tell us how we did. Good, but it gives people a chance to voice, especially for remotely managed sites.
Speaker 2:Communication is huge, so that is important. That's a big, essential part of your tech stack. Having a phone system that you have the ability to honestly play around with. If you want to send new customers to somewhere, if you want to send payments to somewhere you can around with, if you want to send new customers to somewhere, if you want to send payments to somewhere you can do that, if you want to take care of current customers, having a phone system that has some flexibility other than just a simple landline is, I think, essential. We learned that lesson a lot as we dealt with fires or hurricanes having the ability to stay in business and changing the phones and making them go wherever they they need to go. That's essential for our tech stack having an active crm, so when customers come in and they you know inquire of storage, we have a set these are the, the regulations within 10 minutes this happens. And then have a follow-up system of a drip system of text messages, emails, for those customers so we can get leads. What else am I missing out, megan?
Speaker 3:Communications. So if it's unmanned between whoever's taking the phone calls to the boots on the ground person to whoever's overseeing the property making sure that tasks get communicated issues go back and forth. So we use no email in our property at all. Internally there's no email. We use a platform for communication. So if a district manager wins the lottery and walks out tomorrow, we can just put somebody else into that. They can see the flow of everything, all the tasks, everything. Nothing gets dropped by the wayside. They can just continue on with the property. So communication is super, super important. Let's see. That's about it. I think you covered it pretty well.
Speaker 2:Oh, a way for customers to get feedback. I say our website.
Speaker 3:Yeah website and a way for customers to get feedback, which I think you had said, surveys and suggestions.
Speaker 2:We have kind of an internal website system and we have basically a digital operation manual. So we've taken all our operations and stuff, put FAQs in there, situations, training, all that stuff in an internal website so everyone can access it all the time and if they have questions they can use that as a resource to go to.
Speaker 1:Okay, so give us some specifics. So you mentioned the customer feedback. Who do you recommend for that?
Speaker 2:Easy. Surveyplanet is what we use. It's free. We have a paid version, but you can sign up. If you're a small owner operator, you SurveyPlanet. It's really easy to set it up, very simple. They can give you a link to the survey. You just make a QR code on it and you can put it on your facility, say, hey, let us know how we're doing, or questions issues, let us know. You can phrase it, however, if you want to. So it's super easy and free and then you can see your history of when you do rate increases and stuff like that. It's a great essential thing to have surveys for people.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then survey planet, you said. And then what was the megan, what was the? You said you don't use any email, you use a yeah, what is base?
Speaker 3:camp, so it's 100 bucks a month. You can have as many users as you want. It's not paper user, which is so nice in the software world.
Speaker 2:Paper user. Paper user.
Speaker 3:So it's $100 and you can have as many people as you want in there and it's really basic. So it's a great conversation and task management keeps it basic. Anyone can use it, can get it on your phone, upload pictures same thing.
Speaker 1:It's great, okay, and then what's the CRM that you guys?
Speaker 2:use to track the customer interactions. Yes, we do a difference between Basecamp and also through our storage software. So we do a little bit of both, depending on the store, depending on what needs to be done. So we use both. For that, If you're a small owner operator, you can't afford A hundred bucks is expensive if you're two people. There's a ton of other ones that are out there Monday Asana, trello, a bunch of good things like that. Take advantage of those. Like we said, the only people we get emails from are our vendors, and that's it. So our speed of communication is much quicker, which is also pro and con, because we get more communication that people wouldn't normally email, but we get more communication. So it's a pro and a con.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I recommend that one. Okay, something like Monday, whatever the case may be to use. That's pretty cheap too, okay, and then did we miss anything? I can't remember what else you guys had said.
Speaker 2:Reputation management. I know my friend Kel started out with Storage Reach Very great software. I highly recommend that we used BirdEye, which is a great program. There's a lot of different features that we needed as we got bigger, but essentially that is that if you have a marketing budget, you should reduce your marketing budget by X amount to pay for this. That's an essential thing that you have to be having right now. Birdeye reputation management Okay, birdeye is a great one, and then also StorageReach are the two ones that I would highly recommend.
Speaker 1:BirdEye and StorageReach. Okay, perfect, all right, we're coming in for a soft landing here for the end of the episode. Wanted to ask you this one kind of scenario, just because somebody may be facing it. Let's say there's somebody who owns a couple of facilities in a smaller market maybe 30,000 people or so and they bought in there. It's not really a growing, populated market. It's populated, but it's not a growing market. It's also not a diminishing, shrinking market. It just is what it is. The locations, the competitors are what they are.
Speaker 1:And a person bought a couple of deals in this market and they're trying to raise rents and do a few things, and then people moved out. They got mad. They moved out because they got rents raised, no longer taking cash, like we talked about earlier in the episode, and so now the owner, the new owner, has to deal with declining occupancy, some bad reviews and kind of a situation like that where all his competitors are roughly close to 100% occupied and they're just humming along, whereas this person is not in that scenario anymore and they're trying to fight and call their way out. How would you address something like that? And it's a worst-case scenario, not worst-case, but it's just a downside scenario, because I think anything you say to answer that will help anybody in a little bit of a better situation. So help me. My facility's on fire because I'm losing people. What do I need to do, rick and Megan?
Speaker 2:That seems like the last. How many stories facility. That literally is where we live at. Chris, is that worst case? They're all of them. So that's where we live at.
Speaker 2:I would say, first and foremost you're facing that stuff. You need to get your reputation back where it needs to be. If you're, if you look at your google my business and the last 20 reviews are one stars. You gotta got to triage that stuff. Man. You get a review software in there. Do what you say you will do and those reviews will come back.
Speaker 2:We have even shut down our Google my Business. Now I don't do that lightly and there's some ways to do that correctly, but we've had to shut down a Google my Business at one of our stores as we've taken it over because the reputation was so bad, relaunched it a month later and the reputation's cleared over and we're starting back over from ground zero. So that's essential. People are not going to rent if they sit there and read all these reviews and they're just one after another. So you got to have that proof of that.
Speaker 2:You're doing things and if you have to have some friends and family help reviews, whatever people say, don't do that. I say I don't care how reviews review but I think that's first and foremost what you have to do and then triage the issues that are around the facility. A lot of times, when you buy things like this, there are issues that need to be resolved doors that consistently break, fences that are down, gates that are, you know, open and closed. They don't work. Fix those things, spend the money, fix those things and help your customers out. Megan, do you want to do the next part?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then make sure you're ready with pricing discounts. You're not going to be competing at market or above. You need to accept. You're going to be a little bit of a low cost leader for a minute. Let people come back to you. You can raise rates later. Self-storage is 30 days notice so you can get there at some point, get your occupancy back then start playing that revenue management game. Never a bad idea to go out, meet and greet in the community, especially if you bought as an outsider and everyone else is the local people who grew up there and they know each other. So go, make friends, dig into the community. You might need staff to store again. Make sure you have really good banners and signage and you're doing all the things at the store to help the area. Because it's a smaller town, People know each other and turn that reputation around.
Speaker 1:Get your rates right and then start building back from there. Perfect, that is a great answer. So reputation management kind of address those fires, fix things at the facility and then maybe get out in the community and try to build reputation going from there. No easy fixes for that situation, but it can be fixed over time is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 3:Good, it's simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're not trying to land space shuttles on the moon or whatever. It takes time, exactly, yeah. Okay, all right, let's transition to the final three questions that I ask everybody. And basically, career highlight, career challenges and then a recommended business resource. So what was in your guys' career up to this point? What's been a highlight and what have you? What did you learn from it? Megan, if you want to shoot, go ahead and go first.
Speaker 2:Go ahead and quote me, just if you want to.
Speaker 3:There has been a lot of highlights in my career. I'm pretty lucky in that way. Recently we had our whole staff here for a retreat and they just took the paddles and started pushing the business forward, and that was really cool to sit back and watch people that we brought in get so excited about helping us get our company to the next phase. I look back. It was Rick and I for a long time. We've grown past us at this point and now we've grown, I think, to that next phase, which is just always fun in business, so that's been something pretty recent. We're able to help people, bring them along, move people up in different roles in our company, give them a path for their own career and it's not just us anymore. It's been fun to do that and then turn stores around too that were struggling, that needed better management, different style, that we've been able to look at the progress and see that over the years things are going in the right direction. That's really it's very rewarding for us.
Speaker 1:Rick, what about you?
Speaker 2:Recently, my mentor my self-storage mentor passed away unexpectedly this last year and the DNA that he's given to me is the same DNA of storage knowledge that I give to everyone else, and he was a phenomenal operator Really. He built 600 stores and sold it. So he knows and walks the walk, and the biggest thing that he taught me was that storage is the business of inches and not miles, and we have put that into place everywhere we go. It's those little things that you do every single day that make the biggest difference, and as we have grown and as we've progressed, it's been fun to see the things that he's taught me, that I'm able to teach other people and then that kind of consistent thread of his DNA has been able to be passed down for storage generations to come. That was a recent thing that has really hit me personally.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's fantastic. Ma'am very cool. Some careers.
Speaker 2:That was a much better question than much better answer than megan's. I know I got it.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right, you're winning rick, you're winning we have our staff pick, like who they're going to talk to and who they're going to meet with, and yeah, rick never wants to do it, because you know. But we say it all the time because I'm a little mal-ego.
Speaker 2:That's why I don't want to do it because you know, but we say it all the time. That's why I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:All right. Megan, what's been a career challenge or a low point in your career, and what did you learn from that?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, I have. So I do conversions. I work through one. That has been a giant challenge for me. That's been a challenge just getting through all the things you don't know and learning what you don't know at the worst possible time and in the worst possible way. It's really difficult. Sometimes you get into things and you're like this is not what I thought it'd be. So that's been a challenge, probably just growing our company beyond ourselves, because we can't do it all, we can't watch it all and we can't have to trust it and make sure people are doing their thing. So for me that's a little bit challenging. So it's not my nature, so I've had to. We have good people and they do a great job, but it's not easy.
Speaker 1:What on that conversion? So you're doing like a warehouse conversion or something like that.
Speaker 3:We won't get into that. That's a whole different podcast. No, I'll have to have you back. That sounds interesting. We will. When we, when we open, we'll go through our lessons learned.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's do that then, rick. What about yourself, man? What's been some career challenges for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that has been a rough one. I think some of the career challenges me is I'll be honest with you just personal belief that we can be and be where we're at. I am consistently humbled and honored about the people who want to join our company. I question why? All the time I'm like, why do you want to work with us? We're just a bunch of knuckleheads and when we started this I had people laugh at me because I'm like I want to get a hundred, a hundred stores within five years, and you know we're 130 now, a little over five years.
Speaker 2:So it's been a struggle for me to accept some success because I always feel like I can always be doing more and I come in that imposter syndrome a little bit of I try there's only so many hours in the day and I just I get into that a little bit of. I try there's only so many hours in the day and I just I get into that a little bit more. And so it's been difficult for me to rise above that and think, hey, this has been really successful. We should celebrate the wins, not focus on the bad things, and really celebrate how well we're doing as opposed to what can we be doing better, because that's typically just my mindset.
Speaker 3:No, you got to do better.
Speaker 1:I wonder why that's my mindset.
Speaker 2:Sorry, megan, yes.
Speaker 3:We have this conversation often.
Speaker 1:Maybe you can pull out the win here. What's a good recommended business resource? It could be anything Book, person, podcast show, I don't care. Conference.
Speaker 3:One book we're reading right now. It's called buy back your time and it's about how to scale a business. It's been really great for us. It's very actionable, it's very practical and it's it's just easy to swallow and go through. So we're working through that process right now. That's been one of the recent ones that I really like.
Speaker 1:Rick, what about you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I highly recommend that. Dan Martell is phenomenal. He has a lot of stuff on Instagram, stuff like that, so if you're not following him, please follow him. He has a lot of really good tidbits of information. One one that I've started to read again is essentialism. It's one of my favorite books. It's just focusing on those things that 80% of 20% of what we do moves 80% of our business. So making sure that we are doing exactly what we need to be doing. I have a tendency to be like oh my gosh, let's start this part of this, let's start this stuff. Let's start this stuff, which is good in a way, because it helps push us. Megan, you're saying no, but you should be saying yes, it's good because it pushes us. Focusing on what's essentially to drive our business is great, so I highly recommend that book. It's phenomenal for any entrepreneur or anybody who's looking to figure out what kind of focus you need.
Speaker 1:Excellent, I think Megan won that one.
Speaker 2:You got to throw a carrot every now and again, every now and then.
Speaker 1:We got to get her to come back, so I got to you know yeah, give her something. All right, guys, I appreciate you guys being on the show. It's been a blast. How can people reach out to you to connect with you on your third party management services, or maybe just ask you a few questions and get some advice?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, please reach out. Number one reach out to us on LinkedIn. Please follow us on LinkedIn. We post a lot of self-storage stuff on there. Reach out to us info at atomicstoragegroupcom. That's info at atomicstoragegroupcom. We actually just hired an assistant so we will be able to answer those emails, as opposed to just having them drift away into Neverland. So please reach out to us if you have questions or just issues. We're more than happy to help you with any resources or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Very good. Thank you guys for being on the show Rick Beal and Megan Smith.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Chris.