Most people I work with getting in the self storage business are individuals who think they are solo entrepreneurs getting in storage. It often takes a while to realize they are not. There is no way....

We talk a lot about creating new income cash flow streams in the self storage business. Mailboxes, selling propane, ATMs, record storage, and the list goes on. Here is a novel idea. Why not start automating certain aspects of your storage facility by offering it as a...

Last week I introduced some ideas about my opinion concerning the real source of innovation in the self storage industry. I don’t think it is all the new, shiny, tech solutions to running the business. I think it is the mindset, the thinking we use to approach how we...

We hear a lot about innovation in the self storage industry. At least for me, I immediately jump in my mind to new, shiny, tech solutions to running the business and interacting with customers, vendors, or creating deal-flow to analyze. But, as I began to really think...

Here is a term you will hear more and more of in the self storage business in the next year or so, “Practical Automation.” For us smaller owners and investors, it can be the difference between long-term success or not. New Shiny Objects The tendency for humans appears...

I am very grateful that I have figured out how to make money in self storage. Who I am now is someone you could take everything from, drop-off in a strange place where I know no one, and I would be OK, prosper, and soon have all I could ever want. And I don’t think it...

We find ourselves in new territory in terms of running a self storage business in the age of COVID-19. We've made some decisions on how to run our self storage business during this "lock-down" time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. First of all, we do not have everything...

It seems like there have been a lot of self storage facilities lately I have looked at with large amounts of non-paying tenants, or tenants paying an extremely low rent compared to street rate. Have you seen this lately? People I am working with ask why? Well, first...

There is no doubt about it; if you are in the self-storage business, there will be a moment in time when you ask the question," Should I renovate my facility?" For many of us, it is when we are looking to purchase an older project, and we want to reposition or expand...

One of the big trends in self-storage today is the use of a kiosk. There are a lot of self-storage companies that just use the kiosk and no onsite managers. In the old days, it was primarily just companies with smaller facilities. Now, there are many companies that...