Joe Downs walks through a six-month system to raise self-storage occupancy from 70% to 90%. Start by diagnosing your real bottleneck, then spend months one through two building Google presence and reviews, months three through four training staff on phone conversion, and months five through six using dynamic pricing that raises rates above 90% occupancy and discounts below 70%. Twenty extra occupied units in a 300-unit facility adds roughly $100k annually.
Chapters
And welcome to day 103 of the Storage 100 series. I'm Joe Downs with the Storage Moguls. So going from 70 to 90% occupancy doesn't happen by accident, folks. It happens with a system. And today I'm going to lay out that roadmap for you. So for more occupancy optimization tools and strategies, though, you should probably join the Storage Moguls community at storagemoguls.ai. It is free to join and register right now because we're launching in a few short weeks. AI native and AI powered platform, education, community tools. It's all there. GPT tools, multimodal learning. Some have asked what that means. It's— we're giving you all this information to learn the storage business, become a storage mogul in many different forms. It's an immersive experience and you're going to be able to learn across eventually every storage vertical. So right now we got storage, self-storage loaded up, ready to go. And then we'll be adding iOS and boat and RV and small bay flex and parking and pro storage all in one place. It's going to be an incredible community. We're launching in a couple of weeks. Back to the matter at hand, though. How to boost your occupancy from 70 to 90% is not just about filling units, folks. It's about maximizing your revenue and securing your business's future. We're going to dive into actionable strategies. Right now that you can implement immediately, and it's a system and a plan, and I'm gonna show you how to roll it out. So let's get started by diagnosing the real issues that are holding you back, and that is don't guess, diagnose. That's the key. So before you can fix your occupancy problem, you need to pinpoint the exact bottleneck. We often see owners throwing money at the wrong issues, which wastes time and resources. You need to identify if your problem is marketing, conversion, pricing, or reputation. Each requires a different solution, and we're going to break down how to figure out which one is yours. First, let's talk about getting those leads in the door. If leads aren't coming in, your Google My Business profile is perhaps the culprit. This is your digital storefront. It needs to be optimized. We're talking about adding high-quality photos, getting those all-important 5-star reviews, and posting weekly updates. I go deeper on this. I don't know how many episodes back. You should be watching all of these. This signals to Google that you're active and relevant, which drives more calls. Fixing this alone can dramatically increase your lead flow, but getting leads in is only half the battle. Next, we need to convert them. Again, I've talked about this episodes back. You can have all the leads in the world, but if your team can't convert them, you're leaving money on the table. This is where the training we talked about becomes critical. We need scripts for calls. We need to track conversion rates. You should probably role-play objections like it's too expensive. And you do that with your, what, your team. They need to be well trained. And if they are, they can turn that 70% occupancy into 90% without spending extra dollars on marketing. Once you're converting leads, then we need to make sure your pricing strategy is smart. Your pricing strategy needs to be dynamic, not static. We call this a tiered rate strategy. When you're over 90% full, raise your rates. When you're under 70%, offer strategic discounts. This is about giving— this isn't about giving away units. It's about using revenue from high-demand units to offset discounts on slower ones. This makes sure that you're always maximizing your income. All right, so how do we handle those pesky bad reviews then? Well, because bad reviews can kill occupancy faster than anything else, so you need to address them head-on. Don't let negative feedback fester. Speed is key here. Respond within 24 hours. This shows you're engaged and you care. People read reviews. Acknowledge the problem, apologize sincerely, then offer a real solution offline. But don't stop there. You have to fix the underlying issue. If it's a broken gate, fix it immediately. If it's poor service, train the staff. This isn't just about damage control. It's about improving your operation. All right. So let's look at how these fixes fit into the larger occupancy roadmap. Because while this plan takes you from 79% in just 6 months, the first 2 months are all about fixing your online presence. Get those Google reviews handled, build that solid marketing foundation. Then months 3 and 4, you focus on your team, train them to master the phone conversions. This is where you're going to turn inquiries into leases. Then in months 5 and 6, you optimize your pricing, implement that tiered strategy we discussed. This roadmap, roadmap isn't just a suggestion. It's a proven path. This is what experienced professional and great operators do all the time. They don't let them get to this point. But when they do, or if they take over a facility, this is the pathway we take. But there's a common trap many owners fall into when occupancy is low. And this is the mistake almost every owner makes. They panic and they slash prices across the board. They think a discount will fill all units, but that's a short-sighted approach. You end up with 90% occupancy. That's good, but it's all at a discounted occupancy. That's far less profitable than the 70% occupancy at a full price. All right. Always prioritize your revenue, not just the number of units filled. Don't sacrifice your bottom line for a temporary bump in occupancy. All right. So what's the big takeaway from today? Don't guess, diagnose. You need to identify the real problems first. Fix your Google presence and the bad reviews. Improve your phone skills, then optimize your pricing. Do it in that order. This isn't magic; it's a systematic approach. That going from 70 to 90% occupancy is absolutely achievable in six months. You just have to follow the right steps. All right. Next up is day 104, where we will do a live recap. So tomorrow night, live recap to go over section seven. Then we got one more day, and then our final live, and then we introduce Boat and RV. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but please like and subscribe and share this video. And again, I'm just going to remind you, I'm going to keep reminding you, yes, I'm asking you to do it for me, but you're doing it for you because you're broadcasting to your networks, whether that's Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, wherever you're share— you want to share this, share it everywhere, by the way. And again, not just for me. You want to share it because you're— you are advertising, broadcasting to everybody that you are becoming a storage mogul. This is a win-win. Yes, it helps me spread my message, but it also helps you spread yours. And again, you didn't create the content. I did. All you have to do is share it. It's a win. You get 2 wins. You don't have to do anything but watch and share. Final reminder, 20 points of occupancy improvement on a 300-unit facility can mean an extra $100,000 in annual revenue. I'm not— no joke. That's not incremental. That's transformational. If only there was a way or a place where people geek out over this stuff. If only someone would launch an entire community for the aspiring storage mogul. Almost sounds too good to be true. What a great idea that would be. Obviously, I'm kidding, but I need to make it sound so obvious as to why you should join storage moguls.ai. Storage moguls.ai. Uh, all right, as I said, only one more recorded episode drop after this, then we go right into Boat and RV 100, which is super exciting and fun and, uh, where you're going to learn about higher revenue per square foot and lower operating costs. And you're just gonna see and find and create— be able to create deals that self-storage, as much as we love it, just can't touch. Because remember, folks, self-storage is what brought you here, but it's all the other verticals that make it That much more exciting and will transform you from someone interested in self-storage to a storage mogul that your friends will start talking about in pretty high regard. And for those wondering why you should want to become a storage mogul, besides the fact that we're the cool kids in the space, it's because storage moguls live out their dreams. We're doers, not talkers. We're a helping community, not a community of takers. And we're the identifiers of our own whys. who seek to achieve and fulfill them. Remember, mastery is a journey, not a destination. If you want to join the journey with friends and support, become a Storage Mogul and register today at storagemoguls.ai. See you tomorrow.
