On Every Transaction?

Unless your advertising says “on every unit” or “on every size” or something similar, then you can better manage your discounts when you think of your move in specials as a closing tool, rather than a default part of the transaction.

Move In Special As A Closing Tool

Here’s how this concept works in practice.

Let’s say a prospective customer calls or walks in to rent a storage space and asks for a size that is highly occupied (let’s say 90% or above).  This prospective customer is interested in renting with you, and is also aggressively looking for the best deal so they  ask for your most aggressive move-in discount that you have advertised on a sign or flier or website.  Assuming, as I mentioned above, that you haven’t promised the discount on every storage space, you simply reply that your move-in incentives are tied to occupancy and that if they would like to rent a <name size that has the most vacancy> you would be happy to give them the <most aggressive move-in special>.

You then continue explaining what you are willing to do for them on the size the originally requested.  That would sound something like this, “If you still would rather have the <size they originally requested> I can offer you <very small token discount like $10 off the first month> .

Then be quiet.

You’ll be surprised at how many will move forward with the rental/reservation right then.

Escalate or Follow Up

For those shoppers that say something like, “Well…. I’m not sure… I think I need to keep shopping,” or something similar, then the ball is in your court to stand pat or to escalate your discount or move in incentive. In this way the move-in incentive becomes a closing tool rather than a standard offer.

With this approach you are in a better position to fine-tune your offer. If demand is slow or slowing and you really do want the rental, then sweeten the deal. If demand is strong or you are renting something you know your competitors don’t have, then maybe you let them go and use your follow up skills to rope them back in.

Do you differentiate your move-in incentives based on occupancy? How do you do it?

Photo Credit: timparkinson

Sure, sometimes self storage sales is about price.

But not always. And not usually.

So stop shooting yourself in the foot and giving away unnecessary discounts by making that faulty assumption.

The other day my coworker and I met for lunch near one of our self storage facilities. After eating some mediocre pizza that sat too long under the heat lamp of the lunch buffet, I headed to our self storage location. Rather than follow me, my co-worker went to a competitor just around the corner to shop them, get a feel for their manager, their prices and their move-in discounts.

Here’ s the report he came back with 20 minutes later…

“When I asked, he quoted me a price and then immediately said, “and we have some great discounts.”"

Why would the property manager say that? It seems he was assuming price was more important than anything else.

3 Ways To Rent With Fewer Discounts

1. If they are already at your location, they are more likely to rent from you, even without a discount or special. Because they have already invested so much time and energy coming to your location, there is often no need to pull out all kinds of crazy discounts. This is triple true if they drove up in a loaded truck.
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2. Do your best to showcase the benefits of renting with you (other than price or discount) and then invite them to rent. If they say something like, “I need to check a few other places” then you know that price might be a factor and you can address it. (See my video post on making a better invitation to rent by clicking here.)
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3. You can always sweeten the deal.
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   Here’s what you say to the person who just told you they “need to check a few other places”. You say “You are just the type of person I would love to rent to.” or “I would love to have your business.” Then follow with “Let me look at my availability one more time. If I can work you a special deal, can I entice you to go ahead and rent the storage space?”

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   So, all together it would sound something like, “You know, you are just the type of person I would love to rent to.  Let me look at my availability one more time.  If I can work you a special deal, can I entice you to go ahead and rent the storage space?”

I’ve found that if you have a strategy for refining the deal you offer, you can confidently offer your storage spaces to people without a discount. This is especially true for people who have already made the effort to physically come to your location.

Minimizing discounts without sacrificing occupancy is one of best benefits of learning to sell more effectively because it immediately increases your revenue.

The three tips above are my approach. What have you found to work?

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Too many self storage managers are missing an opportunity when they invite prospective customers to “come see the unit”  or “come check out the facility”.

Don’t get me wrong, inviting the prospect to do something is a good strategy.  I recommend that you make your first invitation an invitation to rent a storage space.  In this video I outline why I make this recommendation and give you some sample wording that you can use when making the invitation.

Here’s the summary:

• Invite your prospects to move forward toward renting a storage space.
• Ask for the commitment you really want, i.e. ask the prospect to reserve the self storage space and give you a deposit or come to the store and fill out the rental paperwork.
• If they say “no” you can fall back to a softer invitation, i.e. to simply come visit your store and get a better idea of what you have to offer.

This is a video post and I’m including the transcript below for convenience.    I know sometimes I want to hear or see one small part of a presentation, but I don’t want to spend the time trying to find the one segment of video I was looking for.   All of my premium (paid) video content will have written transcripts or summaries to make review easier and to suit those who would rather read than watch.  My premium video content will also have worksheets and other resources to help on-site self storage managers learn and apply the material as easily as possible.

One word of caution:  There are run on sentences and other grammatical errors.  This is a transcript of me talking, not an article about the same topic.  We all tend to talk less formally than when we write (that’s why you can tell when someone is reading their speech or presentation).  Let me know what you think.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey, I’m Kenny Pratt with http://sellingstorage.com and I’ve got another video blog post for you.

This time I’m going to talk a little more specifically about the invitations you make at the end of your phone calls with prospective customers.

A lot of self storage managers, like I’ve mentioned before, make no invitation at all.  They say something like, “We’re open from 9am to 6pm, come by anytime,” or “Give us a call when you are ready.” They make no invitation at all to move forward with the sales process. So, if you’re making any invitation whatsoever that would invite a prospective customer to move forward with the sales process…you know, good job, keep it up.

I’m going to tell you though that one invitation that I hear quite a bit which is not very effective, or, well It’s a decent invitation. I’m just saying it could be done better. Is to invite prospects to simply come visit the store or come see the unit.

That is a good invitation because we know that if a customer comes into the store they are much more likely to rent than if they are simply just talking to you on the phone. However, I think there is a better way to go about it.

The reason that is a problem, the whole inviting them to just come down to the store is a problem because if they say “no” you’ve really got nothing to fall back on.

So, let me suggest that you ask for something a little more substantial up front. You’d ask for something a little more substantial like asking them for a deposit on the unit or to reserve the unit and make a deposit. Or, alternatively you might ask them to come down to the store, not to see the unit, but instead to fill out the rental paperwork.

So, if you do that… if you make a deeper commitment…if you ask for a bigger commitment, then what that does is it gives you something to fall back on when they say no.

So, a simple way to ask for a commitment… a deeper commitment might be something like this.

“So, Ms. Smith it sounds like we’ve got a storage space that will really work well for you based on all of the things we have talked about.  The next step would be to reserve that unit and make a deposit.  How would you like to take care of that today, with your Visa or MasterCard?”

And so you’ve made an invitation and now your prospect is going to say
“yes” or “no”. If they say “no” then what that tells you is that they’ve got an objection to handle, to overcome.  We’re not going to get into all of that objection handling stuff right this moment, but it’s very powerful to know that.

And what that allows you to do because you have asked to this deeper commitment up front, this more… I guess, important commitment to come rent the space up front.  Now if they have an objection and you are coming back around to invite them again to move forward, you’ve tried to work on that objection and now you are coming back around to help them move forward again, you can fall back on a softer commitment. Namely, a commitment to come visit the store.

So that might sound something like, “OK Mrs. Smith, well you know I can understand you are hesitant to  reserve the unit right now and put down a deposit. You know I’ve had many customers that I’ve talked to over the phone that are still shopping around, they are unfamiliar with storage and they are uncomfortable making a deposit right away… many have felt that way.  What I’ve found is that when people come down to our store and take a look around, gosh they are just blown away by how clean everything is, by how well kept everything is, by how secure the facility and our location is, and you know they feel pleased with how well they are taken care of.  And they go ahead and feel more comfortable at that point. So, what I’d like to do Mrs. Smith is have you come on down to the store and take a look around.  In fact, I’m so confident you’ll like it when you get here that if you’ll come on down I’ll throw in one of those hardened steel, really high security disc locks that are great for storage, just for stopping by.  Even if you end up not renting with me.  I’ll throw that in just as a thank you for spending a little bit of time with me. So what do you say, would you come on down to visit us at our store?  What would work better for you, later today, or tomorrow, or maybe this weekend?

So you are throwing out… there I’m throwing out a kind of a very soft invitation for them to move forward. For them to do something to move forward with the sales process. Namely, to come visit the store.

So, rather than starting with the invite to visit the store why not ask for what you really want.  What you really want is the sale.  So go ahead and ask for that.  Ask for them to come to give you a reservation and a deposit if you are set up to take deposits at your store. Or, alternatively, invite them to come fill out the rental paperwork and move forward with the sale that way.  Then if they have an objection you can always fall back to a simple invite to visit the store.

So let me summarize.

You are going to invite the prospects to move forward. If they say “yes”, you are a winner.

If they say “no”, you know that you have some objections to overcome.

And when you have done some talking and some talking about or some discovery of their objections and you are inviting them again to make some progress towards closing the sale.  You are going to invite them with something softer.  You can… you are open, you have the ability to invite them with something softer because you started out with asking for the sale.

And in this case I’m asking you to come visit the store because that would be a great outcome as well.

Well that kinda wraps up this little vidoe tip today.  If you liked it I’d recommend you take a peak over at my email newsletter. It comes about once per week and you’ll start off with getting six, kind of a six part series… selling storage persuasion series that help and outline some really simple behaviors that a self storage can take to really boost their persuasive skills.

So, I’m Kenny Pratt with selling storage dot com.  Until next time.

I hope you wrap up your phone conversations with prospective customers by inviting them to move forward and rent a storage unit from you.  If you do, your prospect will sometimes say “No”. Although we all hope they say “yes” every time, even getting a “No” is a good thing.

Watch the video below and see why.

This is a video post and I’m including the transcript below for convenience.    I know sometimes I want to hear or see one small part of a presentation, but I don’t want to spend the time trying to find the one segment of video I was looking for.   All of my premium (paid) video content will have written transcripts or summaries to make review easier and to suit those who would rather read than watch.  My premium video content will also have worksheets and other resources to help on-site self storage managers learn and apply the material as easily as possible.

One word of caution:  There are run on sentences and other grammatical errors.  This is a transcript of me talking, not an article about the same topic.  We all tend to talk less formally than when we write (that’s why you can tell when someone is reading their speech or presentation).  Let me know what you think.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey, I’m Kenny Pratt from http://sellingstorage.com and today I just have a real brief tip for you about why, when you ask a prospective customer to commit to renting a storage space and you get a “no” answer, why that really is very helpful.

It may sound counter intuitive, but hear me out.

Often times self storage managers make no invitation at all. They say something at the close of a phone call with a  prospective customer like, “We’re open from 9am to 6pm, come by anytime.” Or, they say something like, “Give us a call when you are ready.” Which are no invitation at all.

Even if the customer then says, “Sure, I’ll give you a call.” or “Yeah, I’ll stop by when I’m ready,” something that is very positive sounding like that, you have no idea if they really intend to rent the space.  They may just be being polite, and instead intend on calling the next person in the Google search results and seeing if they can’t get a better deal or find something that better meets their needs.

The point is you have no idea when you close a conversation like that and fail to make any kind of invitation.

So, what I’m recommending is that you do invite them to move forward with the sales process.  An invitation may sound something like, “You know Ms. Janky, the next step is to fill out the paperwork.  What would work better for you to come on down and take care of that, later today, or tomorrow?”

So there you go. A simple invitation like that would give the prospective customer the opportunity to say “sure” and set the appointment and come on down.  You are going to get that sale.  Or, they may say “no”.

The beauty of a “No” answer is that you really know now that they have some objection.  The objection is not hidden. You are not waiting with your fingers crossed hoping that they are going to come into the store someday.

So, when they tell you “no”, you know they’ve got an objection and you can work on that. You can try to work and discover exactly what it is that they are not comfortable with regarding your store or the offer that you made or the price that you offer.

Just to summarize…
- Invite your prospects to do something to move the sales process forward. You’ll get, oftentimes, a “yes” and they will move forward and make the sale.
- Sometimes you’ll get a “no”, but at least then you will know there is an objection there that you can work on handling.

In some future video or some future blog post I’ll go into more detail on how to handle an objection and how to work through that to a sale.  But for now you can do at least this much and open your eyes to where your customer’s are really at.

Well, I’m Kenny Pratt with SellingStorage.com, until next time.