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Regina storage units are located in the great place of Saskatchewan, Canada.  Our last time together we started talking about pricing storage units.  We dove a little in the supply and demand curves and why pricing is so important.  We touched on the prices that are too cheap or too expensive as perceived by the consumer.  Pricing can always be a bit tricky and one should look at a whole array of the things to achieve the desired goal.  We talked about pricing just based on what your competition is doing, and why that is wrong.  If your self storage building is worlds better than another, why would you want to price down to them?  Remember, this is where you must have good sales people to show why your price is fair.  Consumers want fair prices, not just the cheapest.  It has been proven that consumers do not always pick the cheapest price so a company would lose twice in this situation.  They are losing business because the consumer looks at the price and thinks to themselves why is it so cheap when Joe Blow down the street is much more money?  There must be something wrong with the cheap one to have such a discrepancy in price.  We had better go to the other one.  The second way they lose is that if they rent a self storage space for twenty dollars, American money, and it is worth thirty, you lose a potential ten dollars.  If you do this a hundred times, you loose a whole lot of potential money.  Small fixes can help keep the price reasonable like a clean property.  A good manager or a good company can go around their storage places and throw some paint on doors, or spruce up the office or just run around and pick up stuff and junk off the property.  This is cost effective to do, and might get you back on the right track instead of just lowering your price and rolling the dice.  The wrong low price is worst than the wrong high price.

Regina storage units in the great place of Saskatchewan, Canada must think about pricing too.  Even if you are the only self storage place in a certain area, you still will lose business if you price wrong.  For example, a family wants to store all their Christmas stuff in a small storage space.  They do not want to spend a lot of money doing this, and do not really have to do it.  They go to the storage place and the price blows them away.  They go home and deal with the Christmas stuff.  On the other hand, if the price is perceived to be fair, they rent the space.  Do that a hundred times and you can see how revenue will change with wrong pricing methods.

Regina storage units in the great place of Saskatchewan, Canada will think about pricing.  They all do more than you think.  It is an ongoing situation.  Companies will go over pricing in meetings once a week or when the market shifts.  It is that pesky supply and demand again.  Too many empty storage spaces all the time is a recipe for disaster.  A lot of that may be a pricing problem.  Good luck to all.

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If you ask me, now is a pretty good time to be a member of the California self storage community.  Indeed, if you own a self storage facility, then you’re going to see some savings coming your way.  As of September 30th, 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger insists that California’s 3,890 self storage facilities operate under a new set of lien laws.  Indeed, the governor would like to make it a bit easier for self storage facilities to settle their lien disputes (likewise, to issue their lien notices).

When you begin to crunch the numbers; when you begin to develop an understanding of how pervasive these changes are—it’s truly staggering.  Take, for example, the changes that have been made to the protocol of issuing lien notices.  Back in the day, self storage owners had no choice but to use certified mail to issue their lien notices.  Problem tenants had to receive the mail and sign for it before further steps could be taken.  With Gov. Schwarzenegger’s changes in effect, you’ll no longer have to deal with this (somewhat costly) obstacle.  Now, certificates of mailing can be used in place of certified mail.  The best part: you’re going to be saving around $2 for each and ever lien notice that you have to send out.  Considering that most facilities send out about ten of these per month, you’re looking at nearly $480 in annual savings.  That’s money in your pocket.

Of course, the most significant amendment pertains to the “Declaration of Opposition” provision.  As you might remember, lien disputes, in previous years, had to be settled in the superior courts.  They’re slower courts, and the cost of winning the battle is, due to attorney fees and lost turnaround time on your self storage unit, much higher.  Now, lien disputes can be settled simply and quickly in small claims court.  It’s not going to take nearly as much time to settle the dispute, and you’re not going to have to worry about dumping tons of your time and money into your attorneys.  You should, with any luck, be able to drastically improve your turnaround time on disputed units.  Assuming that you typically deal with one major lien dispute per year, you’ll be saving a couple thousand dollars per year (approx. $2000) from this change alone.

And that, for the most part, is that.  Now, it’s easier for you to process your lien notices, and it’s easy for you to settle declarations of opposition in court—easier and cheaper.  Considering the economic rough patch that we’ve all been going through, I find it pretty hard to complain about that.

It bears mentioning, of course, that these expedient lien procedures should not, under any circumstances, have an effect on your customer service.  I implore you, as a property owner and a human being, to treat your tenants with the respect and dignity that they deserve.  True enough, it’s going to be easier for you to take your tenants to court and get the money that they owe you.  Really, though, you should continue working with people as you have in the past.  When their debt becomes a problem, by all means, take them to court.  But do not change your overall approach; don’t become a ruthless opportunist (one might say “trigger happy” in these regards.

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