Manage, Manage, Manage! You must Manager your Managers!

Manage, Manage, Manage! You must Manager your Managers!

Location! Location! Location! You hear this all the time. What you don’t hear is that it is just as important to manage your managers. If you are not making sure that they are hitting their targets, who will? If you are not verifying that they are meeting your expectations and going what you need them to be doing to make your self-storage facility run to maximum efficiency, who will? Once you have multiple properties, you really can’t manage the day-to-day business on all of those facilities. What you can do is you can manage your self-storage managers.

The first thing that you need to do is you need to train your managers. If they don’t know what you want them to do, then how are you going to measure whether they are meeting your expectations? Make a list of everything that you are currently doing to successfully run your self-storage facility. Now take that list and turn it into a Standard Operating Procedures Manual.

Put the targets you expect the manager to hit each month in the manual. Tell them exactly what they have to do each month to earn a bonus. You want them to earn bonuses! If your manager is earning bonuses, then you are making money.

Make sure that when you train your property manager, you go over the new rental procedure. Exactly what are the steps that you want them to follow? How much information can they get before the client arrives to speed up the interview process. You always want to make sure that the manager is hitting the key points in your contract. The best way to do that is to have the renter initial by the sections that are critical to you.

You also want them to show the property to ever prospective client. This way they can begin an upsell as soon as the potential rental starts. Train your manager on how to upsell to a better unit. Show them how to present a unit in a way that a renter wants to get something closer or better, so they are willing to pay more for the unit.

Next, explain that there is no discrimination and no discrepancies between potential renters. This way there will never be an opportunity for a lawsuit against you. If your manager does everything the same on every property, then there is no chance that you will be open for a discrimination lawsuit.

Next, make sure that your manager is raising rents regularly. These are going to be minor rent increases every 6 to 9 months. Most people are not willing to move their belongings over a few $ a month. On the other hand, if the rents are drastically increasing, there is a higher likelihood of a max exodus from your property and that isn’t good for your bottom line. If you raise the rent a few dollars every 9 months, you will get a rate increase, without the risk of losing tenants who don’t want to move their belongings.

Make sure that your manager knows your software inside and out. You don’t want them wasting time reinventing the wheel. You should have software that makes it easy for them to see who has paid the rent and who hasn’t. They should be able to easily pull your reports and they should be able to easily see where they are compared to the prior month and prior year. Make their job to manage as easy as possible.

You want your manager to succeed because this means that your property is succeeding. Put the systems in place to be able to manage your managers so that you know they are doing what you need them to be doing to keep your property rented. As always, happy investing.