y initial job in self-storage was a trainer for National Self Storage beginning in 1984. We created an amazing 10-day training course for managers in Tucson, Ariz. Once they successfully completed the course, the newly trained employees would return to their respective storage facilities located across six states. We observed that the employees were not retaining the training procedures, particularly selling over the phone and on site. So, we hired Donald Michalak, who wrote Making the Training Process Work, to evaluate our training program and speakers. He provided us with insight into our effectiveness as speakers and assessed our training materials.

I personally discovered his training book provided a practical, step-by-step guide to handle training challenges and the training process. Since I have a degree in both secondary education and vocal performance, his approach of training and maintaining behavior was a perfect fit. As a singer, or when trying to succeed at anything, you must constantly learn, train, and use your voice, racquet, club, etc. My parents started me in voice lessons at age 10, when my bible school teacher said that she thought I might have perfect pitch and an operatic voice. I could start every song in the correct key and stay in that same key. Young children and many adults can’t continually sing in the correct key. That is when I realized the importance of training and practice. I utilized both practice, performance, and feedback to improve my skills. Some people should not sing out loud; however, even if you don’t have a good voice, you will significantly improve if you have instruction and feedback. The same is true for selling goods. If you train an employee to sell in a particular manner, they tend to return to what is comfortable for them and not what is most effective. This is true for athletes, too. Your golf swing and follow-though can significantly enhance your game and results.

Michalak provided us with a great understanding of what was working well in our program and areas that needed improvement. We were able to train the employees effectively. However, we were not maintaining and following up on their training abilities, particularly on the employees’ phone and on-site sales. Michalak suggested that we evaluate the employees monthly to maintain the desired sales behavior.

Based on that principle, the idea of a one-time training course for sales skills is not sufficient. Michalak suggested that we evaluate each trained employee once a month and give them constructive, unbiased feedback. The employee does not know when the mystery call will be made, nor which recorded sales call will be evaluated. This keeps them on their toes for every sales call throughout the month. On occasion, my storage managers have told me that they got a low sales score because the office was busy, or they knew it was the shopper. Logically, my brain has trouble with both of those excuses for not doing a good job. They are implying that they offer poor sales or customer service when multitasking or when they know it’s a shopper. These are simply excuses for poor performance.

When the employee has a customer hanging out in the office just “shooting the bull,” they must prioritize what is happening in the office. If you have a current customer chatting with the manager in the office, the priority is the potential client on the phone.

Admittedly, this is only one sales call. However, each evaluation gives specific feedback in the following five objective areas (SkilCheck also utilizes 10 overall subjective sales skills):

• GREETING
• INQUIRY
• COUNSEL
• INVITATION
• CLOSING

The sales conversation should be a pleasant and professional interaction with the customer. It is not simply giving the price and ending the call. Open the call with a good greeting and ask effective open-ended qualifying questions to determine the customer’s storage needs (e.g., size space, location, a/c, etc.). The information from the customer leads to discussing the characteristics of the facility.

The subjective portion of our sale evaluation gives our experienced sales evaluators an opportunity to show specific areas that the employee can improve:

• Effective sales presentation
• Controlling the sales call
• Built value in the store by selling the features and benefits
• Created a sense of urgency to visit/rent
• Handling qualifying questions
• Enthusiasm/friendliness/positive attitude
• Involved customer in the sales call
• Voice (rate of speech, clarity)
• Professionalism (rings, length of call, hold, attitude)

Over the years I have trained and supervised hundreds of storage managers. My managers’ bonuses are based on their mystery shopping score. For example, my employees would need to score above 80 percent to get their sales bonus. The higher the score, the higher the bonus. On one occasion, I was at my storage property in Las Vegas and the manager came out to my car as I arrived. She was obviously nervous, and she told me that she wanted to discuss getting a raise. I informed her that I needed to make a quick call and then I would speak to her in the office. I verified with the home office that for three months she had scored below 70 percent on her mystery shops and that her bonus would have been $1,100 extra if she had scored at least 80 percent. My office manager also noted that we had several complaints about the manager’s service from current customers who called our 800 number. When I went into the office, I asked her how she would like $1,100. She said, “Oh my gosh, that would be awesome!” and she hugged me. Unfortunately, my response was, “Don’t get too excited, because that is what you would have received if you had scored over an 80 percent on your mystery shops.” As you may have guessed, she did not like that answer. As I did my physical inventory, I noticed a variety of things that were not being done on the property. Ultimately, I proceeded to find a new manager who loved selling, scored in the 90s in her first month, improved the occupancy in the low 90s, and increased the income of the storage property by over $10,000 per month. I prefer the mystery shopping process and training to be a positive reward, however, it is an indication of training and attitude issues of the employees.

Our work force may be composed of the over 60 million members of Gen Z. They may appear much different than what we are used to seeing. Generally, they will be easily frustrated with outdated or dysfunctional software or any training that involves old technology. If we think about training younger employees, we need to create shorter instructional videos and put them on YouTube.

As I was writing this article, I zoomed with a client; we were discussing their mystery shops and he commented that one of his managers got a really low score. While talking with her about her low score, she shared the fact that she was just diagnosed with cancer. Job performance can be impacted by many factors. It is important to discuss low scores or even a change in the team member’s attitude, mood, habits, etc. You may discover something that is problematic for the employee that you would want to know about and help resolve.

When implementing the mystery shopping program with your staff, be sure to reward and congratulate your managers for excellence. It is much easier to utilize a training tool that has a reward for the desired behavior. And, if you have multiple storage properties, every store may not have the same bonus structure. I prefer to tie in the phone performance scores and store income to determine the monthly bonus. If you are interested in seeing my Excel Manager Bonus spreadsheet, please send me an email.

Happy renting!