From Airline Pilot to Self Storage Success: Karl Walker's Unique Journey

Hi everybody and welcome back to our latest edition of our podcast. Today we're joined by Carl Walker. Carl Walker from TB Storage.

Hi Gavin, can you.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about your background, Carl, just how you get into self storage?

Yeah, So I was airline pilot for 25 years and decided to invest in a commercial property that sort of operated on the side. And I was living in Hong Kong and the family, kids got to an age where we wanted them to move back to the UK for schooling and I was going to commute from Hong Kong and then Covid came along, so commuting was impossible and I was struggling with the physical strain of flying long haul through the night. So Kor gave me a push instead of taking the leap that I always said I would. And yeah, that made me sort of focus on my commercial property. And when I put it under a microscope, I realized price per square foot is much better for smaller units rather than the larger ones. And that made me think, well, maybe I'm better off with a lot of small units rather than a couple of large ones. And that, yeah, that sowed the seed for the self storage. Really?

Wow. So you were like, you were a commercial airline pilot doing like, you were kind of doing the overnight flights and stuff. Long haul.

Yeah, yeah, it was all long haul, like 18 hours in the, in the tin box. Yeah.

But I've never done it at the very front before. Cool. So when did you open up your self storage facility?

2020. I started looking into how I could make it work and we opened in September 2021.

Okay.

So just had our three year anniversary and yeah, it was, it was all brand new to me. I'd never used storage company before, I'd never had a business even before. So absolutely everything was new in a way. I thought that was a bit of a advantage because I could just go straight out the box with no preconceived ideas or. And I wasn't trying to copy anyone either. I had no experience. So just a question of make the facility the way I wanted it to run and that was it. Just going through, through. You know, different manufacturers, builders had a look around at a lot of storage firms. They were all pretty much the same. Even I saw some in Hong Kong before I left. Operated almost the same way as they did in the uk. Lots of stuff running around, you know, lots of corridors with padlocks on that seemed, that seemed to be it. And I wanted to do something different, try to try to stand out a little bit, just to give us a usp, I guess. And yeah, that was smart locks and an app based access, basically.

Okay, so you run your site with. So it's indoor site, indoor units with locks on every door. Is that right? And then people download an app to get. To get in.

That's right, yeah. So it's indoor and smart locks. It's effectively staffless in terms of, from a customer's perspective. When they show up, there's, there's nobody there. Generally they're in there all by themselves and they're quite happy with that. Ideally, I'd say all our marketing drives people to book online.

Yep.

Make the booking, download the app, move in, move out, leave me alone, basically. In reality, I'd say The bookings over 90% come from a phone call and then a demo. Have a look around. Probably because most my customers are using storage for the first time. Yeah, they want to see how it works. But they do all. They love the app, they love the access and all the benefits that has with it. So locks on every door, smart locks, which means there's an alarm on every door and a motion sensor in every single unit. So again, added, added security.

So going back a little bit to when you were getting started. So it sounds like your first location was a site that you already owned, is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, I already owned the, the building. So when I was looking around to start the business, the location was, was kind of fixed. It was, that's the building. A tenant had moved out during COVID So everything was sort of lining up like if I don't do it now, I don't know when I'm going to get another chance. So fortunately there was no other indoor self storage in the area. So yeah, that helped me. The location was fixed so I didn't really worry about that too much. But in terms of fit out companies, I just found as many as I could. And like I said, I wanted the smart locks on every door so that narrowed down who I could use. I went with Active supply and design. I was really, really happy with them. Very happy.

Okay.

Obviously when it came to software, that was a sticking point because I was thinking I'm going to have to have another member of staff just to, just to run the software that I was looking at until I found Stora. And Stora was the only one I found that linked the access to the doors, the billing through stripe, the accounting through Xero. Easy decision for a sole operator. Yeah, there was, there was not nothing else. Once I found Stora, that was it. That was whole systems go well thank.

You very much, Carl. And it's worth saying you were one of our very first customers. This was 2021. Well, you know, I think was 2021. Probably on our first 10, I would have thought.

Wow. Right, okay.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so thanks very much for taking that leap of faith early on.

Not at all. You didn't tell me that at the time.

Oh, no, yeah, no, I probably told you. You were 100th customer. Yeah, sure, I didn't lie.

But anyway, no, no, it's been good to be on the journey. I've seen a store grow and change. One of the advantages I think is I could give feedback on certain things and you'd. And I'd see things change on the, on the site, on the, in the back office. Yeah, yeah, really good.

Yeah. Great. Okay, thanks very much. So how did, how did, whenever you opened, one of the key things, a lot of our, you know, customers, maybe some people listening or thinking about is how do I get my first customers? Because that's, I remember myself from my first sight. That's a, that's a nerve wracking time.

Yeah, absolutely.

First booking comes in, it's like you've just won the lottery. How have you gone about acquiring your first customers or. Well, I know it's a few years ago now, but how'd you go about doing that and what strategies have you tested since then and what strategies do you use?

Well, I started, as I said, no experience. So it was just a fire hose really. We had a massive banner on the front of the building. We used local trade magazines, a leaflet drop in our postcode and Google. And really important is to get the feedback from people who do make a booking. Fortunately, I got to speak to almost all of them because I'd give them a demo and I'd ask them how they found us. Over 90% were Google. Okay, I run Google Ads and now we get a few word of mouth, some recommendations or they've seen the building. But still it's the majority of our budget now is on Google.

So you're spending money on Google Ads. And so if somebody searches for the name of your town, self storage, are you also ranking. Well, naturally, or is it only the ad that would appear at the top of the page?

No, if they use the town name then we'll come up organically. Yeah. Number one, it's certainly. Well, there are. In the town. Yes. There are others that come up above us that aren't actually in the town but sort of claim to be. Okay, yeah, so that's for the customer to realize. But yeah, they have ways of getting up there. But yeah, organically we're quite high up. Yeah. Okay. I think that reviews help with that.

Yeah, yeah, I believe so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bit of dark art. The old SEO game.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, so. So the most effective strategy you've seen for growth sounds like it's. You would attribute that to Google Ads.

Yeah, I mean we recently put a big billboard up in the town just because it came available and even friends and family members haven't even seen it and they drive past it, you know, every single day. But I think it's because it's a demand item really. You can't give some self storage if they don't want it.

Yeah.

So selling it to people is quite hard, but when they do need it, they tend to need it now and they just jump on Google.

Yeah, yeah.

This is my experience anyway.

Yeah, yeah. Cool. So you mentioned a little bit there about how people moving in with the app and that it's kind of. It can run as a non staff site. But could, could you walk us through the sort of the. How you operate the business? Like what's the customer journey? Is it. Is the site entirely on manned? How, how do customers book, how do they check in, how do they access units? How do you sort of run that? The operational side of bookings and moving?

Yeah, it's designed to be totally unmanned. As I mentioned, the marketing always drives people book online. It's not really, you know, give us a call. It's book online. In reality, I do get phone calls. Customers tend to want a demo and a look around, but once they've done that, I don't see them again. They're confident enough to use the app. They show up in the bam. I don't know when they come in, I just see the cameras, tell me someone's there, they move themselves in and I never see them again. They move out, let me know online and that's fine. They don't tend to. So from, from their perspective, it's staffless or unmanned for sure. Nobody there. It's a rare but a beautiful thing when I just get an email saying someone's made a booking and then always get in touch and I just send them a WhatsApp and say thanks for your booking. Do you want a demo of the access? And of the people that have made a booking without coming to me, most of them say no, they're fine. So I assume they've used storage before in that scenario. Yeah, but I would say when they do that, they always seem to be under 30 years old, they're confident enough to book something online and without physically seeing that it exists here. And then they download an app and use the app in their end. But yeah, I'll say 30, that demographic. So obviously the hope is the younger generation again to the point where they need storage for home or university or whatever. Hopefully that figure will increase.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And so I saw on LinkedIn you mentioned that you'd acquired a new space and you're moving the business into phase two. What's going on there? What can you share about your plans for expansion?

Yeah, so I've been able to rearrange some of the existing commercial tenants we've got in the building. So we've extended GB Storage's footprint only by around 20%. So it's not huge. But where it is in the building it opens up areas for further expansion with corridors and fire escape designs and stuff. So hopefully I'll just gauge the demand and then do the same again as soon as possible if the demand's there.

So you're able to open up more in the same at the same facility?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're still only, we'll be taking about 20% of the facility after, after phase two, so there's much more scope. Yeah.

How many, what, what size is, is the current facility?

With that additional 20%, it'd be about 6,000 square foot.

Okay, okay. So and how many units do you have in there?

With phase two complete, it'll be 88 units.

Okay, all right, brilliant. And where do you see kind of the business in the next five to 10 years? What's the ultimate goal for you with the company?

When I originally started I thought, oh, I'm going to buy more staffless facilities. Just anywhere in the UK that I can find a site. The reality, I visit my site almost daily. So I'd say my goal really is to expand the existing facility which is 20,000 square foot and our town has 20,000 people. So you know by the numbers it's a good site for the town. So I expand that as and when I get the chance. And ultimately I think I'd like to get to a point where I could hire a multi site manager who can help out so I can relax a bit more. I do get a bit nervous when I leave town just because that's when things go wrong, isn't it? As soon as I leave the area I need to be there. So yeah, I've got friends and family who Sort of help out if things need doing. But yeah, that'd be the ultimate goal would be to run it with a sort of part time manager.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you've got the opportunity there to go to 20,000 square feet which is probably about 15,000 in that nettable population. 20,000. You know, at that size you have a decent amount of revenue flowing in them and you've got that 80% occupancy.

Exactly.

You know, you have a big business to build there. On your existing site, do you see yourself ever having an additional location or really just focus on the location you have?

I think the first is focus on what we've got and I don't know how long that would take to expand and but once that's done, as you said, I think the revenue that should generate should be enough for either I choose to do something else or expand with different locations. Yeah. Because I don't know how old I'll be by the time that comes around. But yeah, for now all my focus is on the, on the current site.

Okay. And what about your background as a pilot? Because I imagine that there's certain ways of working when you, you know, you train as a pilot. Has that influenced the way you've run the business, do you think any principles or routines you've kind of carried over from, from that career?

I never knew anything else really. So for 25 years I was a pilot and pilots were not customer facing and we're sort of trained against the customers needs and demands really. It's known as commercial pressure that would we don't succumb to it and as we should be. I mean, for example, you know, if you're on a plane and, and the pilot comes over the PA and says oh, we've had an engine fire, it's in flames right now. What do you guys think we should do? You know, you don't want to hear that. You want to trust the pilots to be trained professionals and they're going to take charge and do, do what's right. And so I kind of have the same approach with people now, but I think they like it. You know, people like to trust a professional. So someone's showing up for self storage for the first time. They want help and guidance for their storage needs. They don't really know what they need or what they want. So it's second nature for me to tell customers what they need rather than just let them dither around and show them 20 different units. Show them the one that I say this is the one you need this is how you book it, I'll download the app and away you go. I think they like that, to be honest. I think they find it helpful.

Yeah, I suppose. Especially if you're kind of new to self storage. You know, you. You want somebody to sort of show you what to do, don't you?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I can see how that approach works.

Yeah.

Just talking about engine fire at 35,000ft. Have you ever have any interesting stories from your time as a pilot that you can share or what do they say?

There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots. So because I did it for 25 years, I'd say no, I don't really have that many. And I'm glad to say that I had a long boring career and that's just how you want it to be. We did have a rapid depressurization once over the Pacific and pushed us down causing the diversion over the Rockies. I think we ended up in Anchorage and yeah, so we were going from Hong Kong to la so a lot of the passengers. So we had the rubber mass drop in the back and there were a lot of non English speaking passengers on, on board that had no idea what was going on. So they thought we'd landed in LA at 30 degrees and we're actually in Anchorage and it was about minus 10. So they were getting off in the flip flops and shorts not really knowing what was going on. But yeah, that was probably the most interesting scenario in terms of emergency wise. Yeah, it was a full scale emergency.

I was coming in land at I think it was Edinburgh a few months ago and the pilot had to abandon the landing and the pilot come on and he said this is a career first for me. There was a swan on the Runway.

Oh, okay.

And so we had to like loop Brian by the. Tried to get. This was a swan or a goose. I think it was a swan trying to remove the swan. So Anyway, even after 20 years you can have something like that happen?

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've taken engines out before now if they get into the engine. So yeah, yeah.

So yeah. Okay, cool. So if you could go back to when you started in self storage and give yourself some advice, what would it be? Or just do things exactly the way you did them or would there be any advice you would have for anyone listening who's thinking about getting into self storage, what they should think about at the start that maybe you didn't.

I think pricing maybe I wouldn't panic. Adjust the prices when. When the inquiries Drop off. In my experience, reducing the prices leads to reduced quality customers. If I can say that everyone's concerned about the price, everyone wants to know how much it costs but you can just tell when it's a customer's main concern. It's all they're interested in. Yeah, they're the ones who seem to be problematic when it comes time to pay.

Right.

And I think you get what you pay for. So if you built a modern facility, you know we have it's, it's very modern. There's quick convenience for street level and that's what we offer. It's got high security app based access seven days a week. If you want that we can offer it. But yeah, it's not going to be for the same price of a shipping container that's off the beaten track in a dark muddy yard. So yeah, I say just hold your, yeah. Hold your position and, and wait for the right kind of customers to come along.

Yeah, that's really good advice. So I think it applies to any business. Like all businesses you can apply to all business really you want customers who want to pay you for what you provide. They want something cheap and cheerful. Maybe you're providing something cheap and cheerful in that case price for cheap and cheerful but it's about knowing who your customers and targeting them. So that's very good advice. Okay, well Carl, thanks so much. That's been really interesting. Great story to go from being a pilot to opening up a self storage business. Think I have heard of, I've heard of a couple of pilots in the years have been in touch with us about moving into self storage. So you're the only one I know who's actually done it. So congratulations and I'm glad it's going so well and thanks for also as I said earlier, being an early customer of Stora. We really appreciate it and thanks for joining.

No problem. Thanks Kelly.

Thanks Carl. See you later.

Thank you. Bye.