A sincere thank always makes an impact.  I’m not talking about some benign “thanks,” but a real, heartfelt thank you.

You’ll make even more impact when you say “thank you” with video.  A video thank you is as easy as talking and gives you a chance to heighten the intimacy and sincerity.  You customers will see your face (or your store manager’s face) and will be able to feel the energy and emotion in a way superior to a text-only note or email.

Below are a few thank you videos I filmed while visiting a few of my self storage properties in Kona, Hawaii.   The first two videos show how I filmed a thank you video to my team in Hawaii. The third video is the actual thank you video as my team in Hawaii would see it.

The last two videos are a two more examples of thank you videos that I recorded for Darlene McDonagh and for Gina Six Kudo who have been supp0rtive of our weekly self storage industry chat on Twitter.com called #StorChat.

I did all of the videos in one take.  I held the camera in my hand at arm’s length and I used YouTube.com’s free image stabilization feature to take out most of the shakiness (caused by not using a tripod) after I uploaded the videos.

Scroll down past the videos and  I share some pointers to help you make a good impression and to help your videos get shared.

Here Are The Documentary Videos

My video setup

Here’s the video thanking my team in Hawaii

Here’s a thank you video to Darlene McDonagh at U-Lock in Canada

Here’s a thank you video to Gina Six Kudo at Cochrane Storage in California

Tips For Making A Good Thank You Video

1. Put the main light source behind the camera so it is shining into your face, not coming at the camera from behind you.  In my videos above sometimes break this rule and have the light coming in from the side because I wanted to have the ocean in the background of some of the shots.  It worked OK, but the shots with the trees in the background came out with better contrast because I did a better job of turning toward the sun.
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2. Be sincere. You may be able to fake positive emotion in a written note or email. It’s a lot harder to fake on camera.  The intimacy created by video can boost your impact, and it can also destroy it if you don’t really mean what you say.
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3. Write down your thoughts before you start speaking if you want to get the shot in one take.
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4. Use a tripod to keep your video steady.  Shaky video is harder to watch and you can get a tripod for less than $20. Less than $100 for a really nice one.  It’s worth the small investment.
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5. Upload the video to YouTube.com.
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6. If you hold the camera in your hand (opposed to using a tripod), click on the “Edit Video” link and activate the image stabilization option.  Preview the “stabilized” version of your video and if everything looks ok, save your work.
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7. Put a link to your facility website in the description.  Be sure to type in the full URL including the “http://www.” at the beginning and YouTube will turn it into a clickable link.
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8. Once you have the video uploaded email a link to the video to your prospective customers.
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9. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.  Use this technique with people who refer business to you, vendors who do a great job for you, and for other great customers.

Here’s the gist of the video:

Self Storage operators who are making a concerted effort to figure out Social Media Marketing today are getting a 2 year head start on most of their competition. Watch the video or read below for the details.

Three reasons most people are going to go slow.

1. History
2. Staff
3. Structure

Industry history slows down your competition

• The industry was remarkably slow at adopting the web in general. You would think people would learn their lesson, but I doubt it.
• Historically we have been advertisers. Social media is different. With advertising you would pay your money to place your ad and then sit back and watch the magic happen. For this reason we see a high adoption of pay per click advertising, but a low adoption of social media marketing.
• Self storage marketing with social media tools requires someone to pay attention. There has to be a real human being who cares behind the wheel. That’s different than advertising and that’s slowing people down.

The wrong kind of staff is slowing everyone down

• If you are an owner or executive you are probably looking at yourself and thinking “I’m not the person for this” and then you look at the rest of your home office staff and you might not see an obvious choice there either.
• We have begun to shift from an advertising only model to an “advertising + engagement” model of marketing and its going to take the industry a while to figure out that they might need to recruit people with a different skill set. These days you need to find someone comfortable with digital tools like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and video, and someone you are happy to have as a spokesperson for your business.
• Recruiting a different skill set is hard work.  When you pile that on top of the mental shift required to try something different, most of your peers are going to be slow to react.

Self storage industry structure is going to slow all who pay a management fee as a percentage of revenue

• I see structure messing up anyone that pays a management fee to themselves or to a management company to manage their properties. Why? Because a typical fee management relationship is for a percentage of revenue and doesn’t allow the management company the room to hire more marketing staff. Historically, advertising expense has been paid by the property entity.  Marketing staff at the home office gets lumped in with the management company’s overhead.  Most will resist as long as possible the idea of bringing on additional overhead.

You have the chance to get out ahead

One key to a competitive advantage is to make yourself differnet from your competition by creating value in areas your competition is neglecting.  The marketing shift that has brought social media mainstream means you have a great opportunity to get out ahead.

Figure out a way to get some people on your team who are comfortable with digital tools and empower them to engage with your customers and prospects online. If you can figure it out, I think you’ll have a two year head start over most of your competition.

My daughter Claire helped me make the video

I wanted to find out how Extra Space sold their insurance product because I heard that they had very high conversion rates (anecdotally, something like 90% of their customers pay for insurance).  The video below documents my mystery shop and what I learned that can be applied to my business (and yours).

Below the video I also outline a few extra bonus observations…

Bonus Observations

1. Get the customer’s name and phone number so that you can follow up with them.  Both of the locations I visited knew I was looking to rent the unit “not this weekend, but next”.  Neither of them have a way to contact me. What, do they think they are so awesome that I will just magically feel compelled to come back when I need a storage unit.  As if there aren’t a hojillion other self storage facilities within a few miles.   What a wasted opportunity.
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2. Uniforms matter.   The Extra Space employee looked 10x more professional in his company issue polo shirt and company issue and logoed windbreaker.  I have to say, my employees don’t look quite as sharp, but I’ll be ordering new logowear for everyone next week.  That was how hard this observation slapped me upside the head.
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3. If you are a store manager, please, please, please stand up to greet customers who come in the store.  There is no good connection made when the customer has to peer down at you over the giant barrier of a counter (especially the ones that are high enough to write on while the customer is standing).
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4. Do the math for your customer.  Storage Direct offered me 1/2 of 3 months as a move in special on a unit priced at $119 a month.  Quick, divide 119 in half and multiply by 3 to get your total savings.  Uhhh, that’s way too much mental exertion for your casual shopper.  Make it easy by doing the math: “We are offering half off for three months.  That’s a total savings of $178.50.  Would you like to lock in your savings and reserve your storage space right now?”
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   As a side note, the more instantly comprehensible your offers are the better.   That’s why “First Month Rent $1″ or “one free month” type offers work so well.  You don’t need to think to understand them.  It’s like.. BAM!, your customers just instantly get it.

Ok, so if you still haven’t invested the few minutes to watch the video above you should at least watch a couple of minutes so that you can get through my first observation and take-away that you can apply to your business.  I think it will really help you.

What have you learned from your competition lately?

When you ask your customers to write a review, often they will agree, but the process is quickly out of your control.  No matter how easy you make it for them to leave the review, there is no guarantee that anything will make it online.

An alternative is to take matters into your own hands and collect testimonials and post them on your own website.   But, alas, written reviews posted on your own website or in your own literature are automatically suspect.  Wouldn’t it be better if your prospective customers could actually see the people that are behind the testimonial?   Wouldn’t it be more convincing and more intimate if the prospect could see that the person giving the review is a normal person, just like them?

A solution is to this problem is to record your customers and post the reviews online.  You get the best of both worlds.  You get to control the process, and you get a testimonial that is believable and persuasive.

7 tips to getting good video testimonials.

1. Set the stage by figuring out where you are going to have your subject stand and from where you are going to film.  Your video will turn out best if you face you subject toward an open window and or other source of light.  On the other hand, you never want to have the light source shining from behind your customer and into the camera because their face will seem very dark as the bright light behind them overwhelms the camera.
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2. Don’t zoom.  You want to fill the camera with your customer’s shoulders and face and this means you will have to stand fairly close.  Since it is not likely that you have a lapel microphone, you will get better sound from your flip-type camera if you stand close rather than zoom.
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3. Use a tripod.  Steady video is easier to watch.   A tripod is not absolutely necessary, but recommended.
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4. Limit yourself to two questions. Write the questions in big letters on a piece of paper that you hold above the camera as you film.  Having a constant reminder of the question is reassuring and will keep your customer on track.  This method of “paper prompting” also eliminates the need for you to speak from behind the camera.
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   Here’s the making of a YouTube commercial  that shows the ”paper prompting” technique in action.  For some reason, embedding this video is not allowed, so you’ll have to click over to YouTube to see it here: Making of The Red House Furniture Commercial .

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5. Do a dry run and shoot a couple of videos of yourself or your co-worker.  Use these practice rounds to work out the kinks.
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6. Now that you know how to shoot the video, the next logical step is to ask your customers to help you and share their thoughts.  Surely you have customers that you have come to know because they make payments in person every month or frequently visit the property to access their storage space.  Ask them to share their experience.
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7. Let your customer practice.  People are not used to speaking on camera. Sometimes just knowing that they can rehearse will make a reluctant person comfortable enough to give it a try.
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8. Once you have the video captured, upload it to YouTube.com.
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Once you upload the video to YouTube a whole universe of uses are opened to you.

• You can embed the videos on your website or blog.  Here’s a Roseville, California Chiropractor who has used this to good effect.
• You can email prospective customers links to the videos.
• You can send links to the videos to your Twitter followers or post them on your Facebook Fan Page.

Here are some recommended resources

Flip Ultra Camcorder 2nd Generation, 120 Minutes (Amazon affiliate link)
Gorillapod Flexible Tripod (Amazon affiliate link)
Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business (Amazon affiliate link)

You can check out what some of my store managers did at Jordan Landing Storage

Please share in the comments. How do you think video can benefit your selling efforts?

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.