We make money off our maintenance team!
It may show up as an expense on the P & L, but it sure makes us a lot of money. Here is how.
But first, I am amazed at the number of people in the self-storage industry who have a construction or maintenance background. For whatever reason, this industry is attractive to people with this skill set.
I sure don’t have it.
I have learned it is critical and goes a long way for any aspect of investment real estate, but especially for self-storage.
The beauty of this business is its simplicity. If you keep your eyes on a few things, and really hone in on them, the life of a self-storage facility is very smooth and profitable.
Now from a guy with no real skill in the realm of maintenance, let me tell you my view of it and how this aspect of the business fits in to the overall strategy of running a successful self-storage business. The key word here is strategy.
What is your business strategy? Ours is to turn whatever facility we have in any given market into the best, and most expensive in that sub-market.
A big part of that strategy is (1) how the facility looks, especially when someone is coming in for the first time, (2) how the units look when we are showing them, and (3) how the door works when the customer opens it.
Not to be too dramatic, but for a guy with a marketing background, I am very interested in the doors. The doors are what sell self-storage to a large degree. I want them clean, shiny, and visible from the street. Functioning smoothly and without noise when a customer opens them.
Ever open an Apple product directly from their retail box? Well, self-storage is a retail business, and the doors are essentially our box.
Nothing will get a manager in trouble faster in our little company, than having an empty unit that is (1) not clean, or (2) where the door gets stuck or is noisy when opening. This is our window display and our units are more expensive than the competition. It had better shine.
So to accomplish our strategy, we provide our managers (some of whom you met in Episode 25) with 10, 15, or 20 hours of maintenance per week. Sure they have a lot of other duties, much of which I am sure I don’t even know about; like making sure all of the HVAC is in good working order, that the temperature is set correctly in climate controlled areas, the lot is cleaned, the lights are in good working order; etc.. My managers know that above all else, I am particularly interested in how our units to be rented look. Let me show you a door on a facility built in 2001.
Nothing fancy, but we charge $119 per month for a 10 x 10 and we are 96% full on a facility with over 100,000 square feet of storage.
That is what a good maintenance team and a good manager can accomplish.
So my coaching today, relates to the maintenance of a facility as way more than just keeping things working. Sure we have maintenance logs, maintenance tracking and all the things you learn in self-storage management 101 (which is coming out in the Self-Storage Quick Start Academy, Course 3 “What To Do In Your First 90 Days”), but that isn’t today’s focus. No matter if you do it, or if you hire it out, have your maintenance be part of an overall strategy for your self-storage business. That decision makes a real difference.
