Let’s talk about converting potential self-storage renters into customers.
Recently, I have written a lot about chatbots and high-tech stuff, but in the end, everything is only as good as a human sets it up. All, website hits, inquiries—they’re all great. But what really matters is how many of those turn into rentals.
I had this conversation last Friday in our Inner Circle group and thought it may be good to discuss it in more depth in this episode. Some might think this episode leans a little too far into “sales” and not enough into “storage,” but let me be clear: if you’re not selling, you’re not going to do well in the self-storage business.
So let me share one of the best things we do to help our team lease up facilities: we arm them with Unique Selling Propositions (USPs).
Unique Sale Proposition (USP)
We use USPs in a simple three-step process to help our managers, sales team, or chatbots guide the conversation and boost conversions. Let me explain.
When we put a facility in service, we sit down with the team and come up with three to five things about this property that separate us from the competition. This first assumes you know something about the competition (more on this in a minute).
We have had all kinds of USP’s, some of which might surprise you:
- • 35-foot drive lanes
• Underground drainage
• Has (or doesn’t have) sprinklers
• Only sell disk locks at the facility
• Will lock in rent for “X” number of months
• No history of break-ins
• No history of flooding
• Open 24 hours
• Closes at 10 PM (yes, even that can be a USP)
Yes, there are all the standard USP’s like gated facility, cameras, security, retail items available, “good customer service,” and so on, but every competitor says they offer those. We look for the unique ones, the things our competition either doesn’t have or doesn’t think to talk about.
Now here’s the key: features alone don’t sell. If a potential customer wants to know prices for a 10 x 10, etc., they are just features. No matter what you think, features don’t sell. Everything thinks they are above emotional responses, but we humans are not. Humans take action when an emotion is triggered, and features rarely, if ever, trigger emotional responses.
Benefits do. Our team can not say a feature without following up with what the benefit of that feature is, or by offering some other kind of feature/benefit.
So what are the benefits of some of the USP’s listed above?
Most of them came as a result of knowing where our competition was lacking.
Benefits of the USP’s:
- • 35-foot-wide drive lanes (feature)
- “You’ll never be blocked from getting to your unit” (benefit).
- “We’ve had people rent here after getting fed up with tight driveways elsewhere. If you’re calling Facility X or Y, ask them how wide their lanes are.”
- Underground drainage (feature)
- “Your stuff stays dry, even in heavy rain” (benefit).
- “We’ve had people move to us after their units got wet elsewhere. Ask Facility X or Y how many units have had flooding during storms.”
Get the picture.
And if it’s clear we’re not going to close the sale during the call, we don’t just say goodbye and thanks for calling. We give the customer questions to ask the next facility they call, questions we already know the answers to. That’s strategic “selling.”
Your Competition
You can see that it is important to know your competition.
All of this works best if you know your competitors well. How do you do that?
Simple: rent a unit from them.
That gives you insight into:
• What their customer service is like
• What their facility is actually like
• How they handle late payments
• How often they raise rents
If there are a number of close facilities that are my main competition, some partners and even managers will rent from them, and we compare notes.
I’ve even tried to hire good people from my competitors. That’s how serious I am about knowing what we’re up against.
Every facility, including yours, has positive things about it and negative things about it. If you can highlight your positive features that are unique or different from your competition, and share the BENEFITS with potential customers, I can almost guarantee your conversion ratio will go up.
Have fun crafting your USPs. They don’t have to be fancy. They just have to be real—and relevant to your customer.
