In this informative video, Jeremiah dives into the process of making an offer on a property.
- Valuable tips and strategies for securing great deals quickly
- Exploration of property valuation methods: NOI, comparable approach, and future modeling
- Determining the right price based on desired returns
- Discussion of negotiation tactics and considerations
- Understanding competition and gauging deal quality
- Explanation of key documents: Letter of Intent (LOI) and Purchase and Sales Agreement (PSA)
- LOI outlines basic terms and contingencies
- PSA's role in solidifying the transaction
- Significance of reviewing terms and using an attorney throughout the process
- Gain insights and make informed decisions in property offer-making
How To Make An Offer On A Self-Storage Facility with Jeremiah Boucher - Transcript
00:00 - 00:14
It's time to market the facility. The sooner you set this up, the better you're gonna be off. Remember the main goal is you gotta hit break even. You gotta make sure to cover your costs and expenses. So number one, what is the first thing you do for marketing? You get your Google My Business.
00:15 - 0:37
So you have a mailbox, you want to get it verified on Google so that you're actually on all Google search engines. On Google Maps. You want your Google My Business page and you're the one that controls that or your manager. That is the most important piece. Number two, you want to make sure that your signage is correct, that all the phone numbers are correct on it. This is simple, but you need to give people directions when they drive up to the facility.
00:38: - 00:49
So you have large signage on the road with the phone number visible, and then you have signage when people drive into the facility, locating exactly who they need to talk to, when they need to talk to them and how they rent a unit.
00:50 - 01:07
Also have a QR code on that sign. Make it very clear and visible. Try to use bright colors so you can catch people's attention. Some towns do not like yellow, so you need to be careful on how bright those are and you share those on your site. Plan a website and software. This is critical.
01:08 - 01:21
You want to make sure it's easy to rent the storage unit on your cell phone. They can click on a few buttons. It's an easy process and you wanna make sure that they can click on the unit and reserve that unit seamlessly. Store edge is a great platform to use.
01:22 - 01:37
They all have pros and cons localized Google ads. This is a tremendous strategy and you must master it in order to stay occupied. We are marketing the local customers, so you have to buy local Google ads so people can find you.
01:38 - 01:53
When they look for a storage near me in their search engine, people typically are five to 10 miles from your storage site and they're going to be Googling that. So you need to set up the ads properly as soon as you start renting out units on your Google My Business page, you need to ask for positive reviews.
01:54 - 02:05
Positive reviews in storage are as important as any other business. The more positive reviews you get, the more positive rating that you receive and more customers will wanna do business with you. And ultimately it's good customer service.
02:06 - 02:16
So if you hire a manager or you have a management company, you need to mystery shop and call your manager and they are going to tell you if that is a pleasant business or pleasant person to deal with or not.
02:17 - 02:27
Make sure that they have a smile on their face and that they answer the phone pleasantly. If they don't pick up the phone, they don't rent units. So the most important part of managing a facility is picking up the telephone.
02:28 - 02:43
People still do rent a unit over the telephone and they want to be helped through the process. And that ultimately leads to word of mouth. The referral program and word of mouth is critical because it's a local business and people talk to each other about the businesses that they use.
02:44 - 02:55
So if you offer a referral program and give someone a discount for someone bringing in a referral, that also drives more traffic and more occupancy. Make sure to get good marketing materials, brochures and flyers.
02:56 - 03:04
Hire a marketing person to help you generate these. And also if you can get drone footage or get good photos of the site, then put them on your website. It makes you look professional.
03:05 - 03:17
And the more professional you look, the more people expect to pay a higher rent. Promotions, you want to discount units when you first start, you want to have that on your promotional materials such as mailers or on your website.
03:18 - 03:33
Simply giving 20% off the first month or sometimes even the first full month off gets people in the door. And the goal is to get people in the door cuz once their items are there, they do not wanna leave. Highlight building features. If you have cameras, you have good lighting fencing, it is a safe place to be.
03:34 - 03:44
You wanna highlight that on all marketing materials and your website. Perception is reality and the majority of storage users, believe it or not, are women and women want to feel safe. So you wanna appeal to that demographic.
03:45: - 04:02
SpareFoot, they're a third party vendor that has a huge amount of traffic from customers looking to rent self-storage. Usually they charge between one month and three months of rent for a new customer. So meaning if they provide a new customer for you, you have to pay a full month rent to them, they will lease up your units.
04:03 - 04:23
It's just quite expensive to do that, but it is less expensive than organic advertising. I do recommend using SpareFoot because they will help you lease up your facility, local news or radio. Uh, you can consider putting a spot placement in a local media page or on a radio show. Some local media will offer heavy discounts.
04:24 - 04:45
So you can always negotiate these up front. But like we said, this is a localized business. So it's important as you open up to advertise in the local community marketing ideas. So you wanna check what other marketing strategies, other rates or other large companies are using and you can use these strategies yourself. And if you look at the national competitors, you'll always see that they have great quality marketing.
04:46 - 04:58
Try to make everything you do, have a high quality piece, great pictures, great marketing language, great service that's gonna command the highest pricing. And you want to look like one of the big boys, even if you are a small business.