SSA Blog

As we enter the Thanksgiving season, I find myself reflecting on everything I have to be thankful for, and something struck me this year differently than in previous years. This has been another great year, but it has not been without hardships to overcome.

Marketing one’s self storage facility (or portfolio of self storage facilities) is incredibly fun. Each and every customer who walks through the door (or the virtual door of your website) is facing a unique life experience, oftentimes involving great transition and change.

You’ve done everything you can to get your storage facility in peak condition. It’s impeccably clean, the security systems are in place and functional, and your marketing, online and otherwise, is up and running.

During the course of my life, I’ve had many mentors and most of them didn’t even know it. They were businessmen and women whose leadership style struck a chord with me. Inspirational figures who achieved in the areas where I wanted to find success. Over time, some of them became close friends. All of them helped me greatly.

Employers must begin using the revised I-9 form for new hires no later than September 19, 2017. Employer must ensure that every new hire executes an I-9 within the first 3 days of employment and must retain the form for at least three years from the hiring date or one year after the last day of employment, whichever occurs later.

With over 100 hours of video uploaded very minute, 1 billion unique monthly visitors, and 6 billion hours of video viewed every month, YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google.

Certainly, the self storage industry has benefited from adding computers and the internet to their business operations over the last twenty years. The ability to store and transmit data about self storage tenants, the ease of managing financial transactions and the use of social media to engage greater marketing have certainly affected how facility operators conduct their business and have enhanced their bottom line profitability.

In this tough economic climate, automated and high-tech facilities are gaining ground on traditional mom and pop operations. Storage customers expect self-service convenience, climate controlled units, and a fortress protecting their items from the dangers of the outside world. But those amenities don’t come cheap: automated facility owners can charge a premium rate for ultra-modern storage technology and high-security upgrades.

Not all states require that employees who work more than a set number of hours to be given an unpaid meal break. In states that do require meal breaks litigation against employers is common.

I recently spoke with John Eisenbarth, the Vice President of Operations for West Coast Self-Storage in Mill Creek, Washington, to get his take on how West Coast goes about finding the right types of storage properties to manage.