8 Big Ideas from the Texas Self-Storage Association Trade Show

For sure Lien compliance, tenants communications, collections and auctions is very much top of mind for self-storage owners. Our team participated in this once a year trade show in Texas and we compiled for those interested a couple of insights and foresights that we are listing here. Before we dive into these let me start by saying that the TSSA organization did a great job organizing and gathering local and out of state self-storage owners, investors, vendors, third party management companies and enthusiasts! Such event helps industries truly reinvent themselves and remain thriving and sustainable. Thanks to all of you who spent valuable time meeting us.

Here are the 8 Big Ideas we are taking home with us:

-         Change before you must: The keynote speaker Ken Rutkowski of the TSSA convention in Texas said it loud and clear: disruption is here in self-storage, just like what we saw happen to the music or film industry (Think how music streaming or Netflix changed dramatically this industry…). So, according to our speaker, “Change before you must”

-         Great Resignation: The technological revolution has empowered people to work on their own time for companies like Uber or Lyft. The Pandemic accelerated this trend, and many people have and continue to be leaving the traditional “working for the man” route. Technology is a great way to make your business more automated and less reliant on missing staff.

-         Looming Recession: Everyone talks about it, in all industries. We heard it at the American Banking Association conference, and we are hearing it from self-storage owners. An economic downturn could already be here, as many are seeing upticks in delinquencies. Preparing for the worst is the best strategy.  

-         Great Termination: Some believe that potentially a recession could solve some of the great resignation related issues businesses are facing, yet, with more people wanting a regular job. Yet, this would need to prove correct, since the gig economy is real and people wanting more of that type of freedom and jobs.

-         Collections Proofing: When an economy becomes tight, collections excellence becomes priority. People prioritize their payments and slacking on collections leads to being late on payment requests. If you don’t collect what you are owed effectively, someone else will. Running out of cash or poor cashflow for businesses is a major risk.

-         Technology Advantage: Self-storage companies, large REITs show high performances for a few reasons. One of them is that, in fact, more and more, they are becoming platform software companies. Yes, you read that right. Software companies. Their advantage is technology, and they automate their business, from marketing to collections with perfection in mind. Such vision is also needed for the smaller owners to survive and not have to sell at the lowest price to these big guys. Bet on technology now.

-         Customer behaviors are changed: What works yesterday may still work in some areas, but one reality is here to stay. New generations, millennials, generation Zs have totally changed their expectations when it comes to brand, customer experience and technology.  Changing business practices is also needed to adapt to such change and not be seen as a dinosaur.

-         First movers’ advantage: Adopting new approaches, new technologies, is not an easy step to take. Change is never easy for no one. The best strategy is to take small steps, test solutions on a few locations, get comfortable with the data a pilot produces and then scale. To become a software driven company, yielding high performances: “Think big, start small”

Happy to converse more about this. Reach out to me, I will do my best to help out / help self-storage owners enhance their business strategy with technology, including, of course, our solution but also help rethink the entire full stack. Hope this helps folks, we are in this together! Remember, every company is becoming a software company...That is how you win!