’ve seen a lot of changes during the almost 50 years that I’ve been in the self-storage business, most of which I would describe as incremental or gradual changes. Others are truly profound industry shifts or game-changers. From my vantage point, there have only been a handful of those.
For example, the introduction of climate-controlled storage in the late 80s not only introduced a new product line but began to change the way the public viewed self-storage and was part of what propelled it out of industrial parks and into acceptance as a mainstream retail use.
The operational transition from the live-in, on-site caretaker couple to a single, nonresident manager that began in the late ‘90s impacted everything from marketing to the advent of call centers. Why call centers? We studied it early on and discovered that a single manager, no matter how well trained, simply cannot answer the phone all the time. In fact, we found that our managers were missing about 50 percent of inbound calls, hence the installation of our first call center. And by the way, if you think your single manager is doing much better than that, you’re kidding yourself.
The introduction of multistory construction in the late ‘90s and early 2000s solidified the place of self-storage among other retail uses and facilitated obtaining difficult re-zonings and use permits for locations that would have been impossible a decade earlier.
The rapid demise of the old Yellow Pages and other print media in favor of online everything, from sophisticated websites offering customers online rentals, video chat, and QR codes (which half of the boomers have no idea how to use) and facilitating sophisticated, real-time revenue management for operators, has truly revolutionized modern-day marketing. And finally, the introduction of AI (which at this point almost no one understands how to use) promises to accelerate the development of all the above.
The latest game-changer, which is going on right now as I write this, is the transition from the fully staffed management model to the remotely operated facility with no on-site staff. There are various factors propelling this transition, but I’m confident that it’s here to stay and that the industry will look very different 10 or even five years from now as a result. (Yes, I’m aware that some of you out there are saying, “What’s he talking about? I’ve been running my facility out of my body shop a mile up the road for years!”)
In short, it’s an exciting time for our industry, and you can either embrace it or be dragged kicking and screaming into the future; either way, these changes are happening, so get ready!