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Marketing Technology Insights and Intelligence from Go Local Interactive, a technology marketing company.
[00:00:00]
Shane: This is the Go Local Brief, brought to you by Go Local Interactive. Every episode we dig into digital marketing, technology, and AI and pull out what self storage operators actually need to know.
We're live here from SSA Spring and, this is a special episode. We are, recording here at the go local booth in San Antonio, and we've got a couple of good interviews that we're gonna share with you.
Let's get to it.
Shane: Welcome to the local Front, live here from SSA Spring. Uh, I'm Shane Adams. I'm the Director of Marketing at Go Local, interactive. Uh, and I'm excited to be here. Uh, I'm, I'm by myself today, uh, but not really by myself. Uh. There's a, a booth full of, of go local, uh, employees. Uh, we're, we're here on the trade show floor and we've got a lot of stuff going on, so let's get to it.
We've got a, a several pieces of news, [00:01:00] uh, that are, that are worth sharing today. And I want to wanna start with that huge news that came out, uh, just recently that Public Storage is buying NSA. Uh, that is just a massive, massive deal, and it is consistent with what we're hearing here on the floor, uh, at, at SSA, which is there's a, a real big, uh, propensity toward consolidation that is happening here.
And so we're, we're really excited to, to see what happens. Um, this is a, this is a massive, massive deal. It's a $10 billion deal and, we talked to Tim Hall, uh, from tenant about this a little bit, and he shared how interesting it is to see one of the REITs, uh, acquiring a company who has a, a real big presence in some of the secondary and tertiary markets. We're going to see where that takes, uh, public storage. It's obviously going to impact the industry in a big way, so we'll keep a, [00:02:00] an eye on that.
That's all the news we have, uh, from SSA, but, uh, wanted to just come with you with a quick update.
We've had a really good time here at SSA, uh, and we're looking forward to ISS next month. Uh, hopefully we will see you there. We'll be doing some live podcasting again from the Go Local booth. Uh, so if you're interested in being on the Go Local podcast, I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to to sit with you and, and have a conversation.
So shoot me an email. Uh, contact me on the Go Local website at golocalinteractive.com and I will, uh, I'll get back to you and we'll, we will, we'll set up some time. So hope to see you soon.
Let's get to the rest of the show.
We're here for the Go local brief, live at SSA Spring conference. We're here with the, the illustrious and well-known, uh, famous world-famous Jim Mooney.
Jim Mooney: wouldn't go that far,
Shane: I mean,
Jim Mooney: thank you.
Shane: Everybody knows you. Everybody knows you. I imagine that going to a, a show like this [00:03:00] is, uh, is it like,
is
it like a family reunion where you, where you avoid some people?
Or is
it,
Jim Mooney: you know, this industry is so great. I really, I get everybody's friendly and friends and it's funny 'cause right after COVID as SA said had pressure release for the first conference in Nashville and I said, no handshakes, no business cards, no hugging. And I'm like, who are they talking to? That's not us.
Everybody is that way. So I mean it is like old homecoming week here, get to see people meeting to. You know, new people are in the industry, new business, people coming in, new vendors coming in, but it's just connecting with, I mean, I can't, it took me 10 minutes to walk from my booth to your booth to get here without, Hey, I gotta stop and see somebody.
Shane: Yeah, I mean, we've been trying to get you on the podcast all day.
Jim Mooney: It's been crazy.
Shane: Uh, so, um, so what, what have you seen so far? What, what, what, what do you, what do you feel like the, the vibes are?
Jim Mooney: Vibes are positive. Everybody's still positive. Uh, the whole Public Storage - NSA thing is, is lab talk right now about how public storage is going to find.
To get [00:04:00] into the secondary tertiary markets. So as we've been talking about for years, that's going to just make the operators who are in those markets set up their game better.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: And I'm actually speaking on Friday about setting your property apart, and it's based on appearance, drone footage, cameras.
We actually have, uh, Josh Huff, uh, lighthouse gave me drone footage of an overhead property at night with the lights on. Ooh. Shows me what it looks like at night.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Um, painting the property. What painting does for somebody, the website. How they set apart what you can do on the websites. Um, being more, we are in such a needed now society and this younger generation, they don't wanna wait for anything.
I took my kids to Disney and they didn't wanna wait 30 minutes for a line.
Shane: Oh yeah.
Jim Mooney: I'm like,
Disney, you're waiting. So, um, it's just getting out here. The vibe's great. I mean, every Florida was the first show out, but this is the first show out of the gate, so everybody's excited to be back
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: Seeing everybody,
people you haven't seen in for, you know, 8, 6, 8 months.
So just connecting with people and, and learning. I mean, it's all about. I tell [00:05:00] people all the time, whenever go to these conferences, I wanna learn from others.
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: Uh, that's why I joined SBOA to figure out how and bring, you know, you guys are coming home as a VSP partner, we can help educate other operators to do better.
'cause the better everybody does, the better we all win.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: So it's a positive vibe. Um, some markets are still, you know, built building issues with, you know, costs for building and stuff like that, but for the most part it's, it's, it's fun.
Shane: Yeah. So, uh, you know, this, this podcast won't come out until after your, your panel on, on Friday. So give people a little bit of a preview of, of what, what is it that sets your property
apart,
Jim Mooney: you know? And, and I always end most of my slides with the same thing. As much as we use technology, people, managers set us apart so you can run remote stores. In our last, my last company we had 35 stores, only had three offices, but we had people answering the phone, people calling me back.
We didn't lie to people, manager's still the most important part for me. Getting your [00:06:00] managers trained to use the technology we have, like with our website, we were doing 85% digital rentals,
Shane: Okay.
Jim Mooney: But it
still that manager interaction. Make sure they got the lease complete, make sure they did everything. So for me, and we do that Friday Storage Meetup podcast every Friday with Jim Ross
And I said, which
Shane: we're gonna be on soon.
Jim Mooney: Yeah.
I said last week that it so amazes me that how many people buy these properties, spend millions of dollars to buy a property and then they won't train their manager.
manager.
Shane: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jim Mooney: And they don't
'em the tools they need to do to job successfully.
Shane: Yeah.
Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Yeah. And we all know storage is a, is a, a event driven business.
You don't wait till the morning, you know what, I want a storage unit. You need it 'cause you need it. It's not the best time divorce, separation.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: So you help solve that problem. 'cause you and I both know that most people still don't know what size they want, like for a storage unit.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: So they need us to educate them.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Having a good website, having a good call center, calling people back. The biggest thing I go through a lot is, and I miss. All [00:07:00] over the country. I shop people all the time. I can tell you if I call, if I call 10 people this week, not one person, not my name or number, how can you file with somebody?
Don't get your name or number.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: So they're missing opportunities. And again, these people called you 'cause there is a need. It's not like I'm shopping for a new tv.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: So educating the managers, educating, making sure they understand the process, making sure they understand all that process. Set yourself apart.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: So in my world there's always been a discussion about what's the most important focus. Okay, the first one, I would argue that what we would deem the thank you call the call the very next morning, you know? Hey Sean, thank you for coming in. Mad say thank you for calling. Thank you for going online. I know we talked about it 10 by 10 with these needs.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: How's our price look to you? Can I guarantee you? Where do you allow calling you back?
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: We, and I don't wanna be the cutest place in town. Yeah. 'cause we're better.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Good service sets you apart.
Shane: It absolutely does.
Jim Mooney: But [00:08:00] just by doing the follow up calls, it makes, makes it important. So,
Shane: so in in, in this world of, of AI and, and, you know, chatbots and, you know, uh, call analysis, like how, how does, how does an operator continue to run efficiently while still, uh, focusing on service?
Jim Mooney: Well, in my world, so we use, um, we, we did a lot of mystery shops,
Shane: Okay.
Jim Mooney: a mystery shop in person, on phone, online. And on the phone and in person. If the, if the lead, no matter how well you did on the lead, if it does not get logged into the software, it's an automatic zero.
Shane: Okay.
Okay.
Jim Mooney: And if you don't call back the next morning, you lose 50% of your score.
Shane: Oh. So
Jim Mooney: Oh. So the managers, my managers knew they were being
account
accountable for public, accountable for what they were doing.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: I can tell you my last company we had sort in Chicago, I had a manager fail three Mr. Shop in a row. I fired him.
Shane: Oh.
Jim Mooney: Not that I wanted to, but he would, he wouldn't do what we asked him to do.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: Because he,[00:09:00]
He was screening the customers, but he didn't want bad customers. That's not your job.
Shane: Right? Right.
Jim Mooney: So,
Wow.
and I, my, I said it always says continued education. The only thing. So you just can't, it's not a set and forget it. You can't hire somebody today and okay, training them out.
Now you're rolling out ai, you're rolling out in shaft, but you're rolling out your website value. You're rolling out this. You have to continually educate them. And one of my favorite stories is I had a manager 9, 6, 7 years ago now that he, he hated me when I got there because they, they were on the. They were a mom and pop velocity just shrink it at all costs.
And one day he was just really bad. I'm like, what's your problem? He goes, we're losing money. I
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: how are we losing money? We're not occupied. So I stopped, I locked the door. We printed out management are from that day and the same day a year ago.
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: Yes, we were down 7% off instead of being 97, we were 92,
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: we were up 17% in revenue.
But he didn't understand the difference.
Shane: Right, right.
Right.
Jim Mooney: So there's so many, I mean. You've probably [00:10:00] seen a lot. There's so many people. Only focus on occupancy.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: And I remember two years ago your summit was sitting with John Jordan and you guys were tracking the web leads sent to your clients. And a lot of us, I was in the top.
I know I was in the top three of closing percentages, but there were stores that weren't closing in, but they're not following up with 'em.
So last September
we were sitting in the Vegas trade show and I finished speaking and I'm sitting there talking, talking to his guy, and he walked by the.
I have a question for you. He goes, I need more rentals. How do I get more rentals? He goes, do I need a better website? I said, okay, how many leads are you getting? What's your closing fee? I don't know. I'm like, so do you need more leads or do you need a better closing percentage?
Shane: Yeah.
Understanding that. Understanding the, the, the, the data from beginning to end is so important, right? Like I, I am a marketer, so like understanding CVR and, and close rate and all, like, that's critical, right?
Jim Mooney: Well, that's the thing that I always say. You know, John, if John Jordan would sitting here, he'd tell you, I drove nuts. 'cause I'm a, I'm a good operator, but I understand [00:11:00] marketing. So I was always okay. So I knew how many reservations you guys had, how many quotes I got, how many phone calls, and I could account for every one of them.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: By using the codes in the software,
Shane: right.
Jim Mooney: Then I can
back you now. This is what we get. Leave. And even like little tweaks, we made tweaks and, and your team is phenomenal. Um, when I was working with Madison and Raylene and Ryan that we made tweaks to the. Online rental due in 2025. The first six months of the year, 43% of our online rentals would, we upgraded rental rate goes to how we displayed it.
Shane: That's amazing.
Jim Mooney: Then
had 41% take the upgraded protection plan. 'cause how we displayed that.
Shane: Right.
And how do you know that, Jim, this, this is the layup, but like, how, but, but, but you know that because you were able to get to the data, right? Yes. You were able to get to the data. You, you may, and I think often this is one of the, one of the mistakes that I think a lot of marketers make, but, but, but a lot of business o owners make is they'll, they'll change so many things [00:12:00] all at once that it's real hard to delineate what it is that made the, the biggest difference, but.
If you can dial into just one specific thing, like, Hey, we changed the way that we displayed this one thing and let's see what happens. Yeah, there's your data point and you can see what it does.
Jim Mooney: Well, we
did that with, with the online rentals, with the good better bets. We tweaked the verbiage. Good, better, best. Yeah. We had to tweak it so it fit on mobile as well as desktop. And we defaulted that when they landed on the page, they were in the better one.
So
were already circled in the better one.
And we tracked it.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: And we,
again, this is the great thing about digital marketing. If you push too far, you can fix it tomorrow.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: You can dial it back.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Same thing with the protection plans. We had to, and this was a fight with John getting you guys to agree to it, that I wanted the, the, the recommended level bar, the.
The size of the unit,
So
on what size you wanted, we recommended. And you're like, well, nobody's ever done [00:13:00] that before. It said, okay, why can't, why not? He goes, nobody has. They're like, okay, I want to, and it was you, 41% people took the upgraded policy
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: So much
that I, you guys rolled out to other clients?
Shane: sure that we did.
Jim Mooney: But
People, I tell people all the time and just drive John and Tom and Jason nuts because I don't wanna ride the train. It.
drive it.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: So.
I love when I come to a vendor and say,
why
we do this? And they say, nobody's ever done it,
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: Can we,
We've never tried. Let's try.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: I'm that guy. I wanna be the one pushing.
and I drive developers nuts.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: But I'm always changing.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: But if you're not, you're either sailing dead or you're alive and thriving.
Shane: Yep. Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Let's just give him, yeah, and that's the one thing
give Go Local. The relationship, like, you know, we had with you guys for many years, you know, we just shifted our sort way. But I [00:14:00] could call John or Madison or Raylin or Ryan or Tom and say, dude, what the hell?
Yeah. Let's do this.
Shane: Right?
Jim Mooney: And then, well, we've never done it. Okay, well I want to do it. What's it gonna cost? Let's try it.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: But things we do work. Yeah.
Yeah.
And then if it doesn't work, okay, we, we drop back 10 and punt and figure out what we can do next.
Shane: one of the things you said there that I wanna pull out that is really, that's I think really important is you at least acknowledge like, Hey, I want to do this.
I'll pay for it, but I want to do this. That's an important, that's an important thing. Sometimes I think people are like. Well, you should do this. Well, it's gonna cost money and, and resources and time and, and we're also gonna not be able to do these things. why?
Jim Mooney: Well,
wouldn't, I've gone to other clients who go local and said, Hey guys, we all, we all come to you guys as, as groups today. The five was. Want
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: We're gonna split
the cost.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Because that's the one thing I love about our industry. We all help each other. We all share each other. We share data.
So if I build something, it works. We gotta share it.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: And then we recoup [00:15:00] the cost, however it goes. There's cost for everything. Right.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: And I love people who say, I've never failed at anything. And my answer is, you've never tried hard enough. Because I'm gonna fail. I will.
Shane: Yeah. I'll all, all the, the, I think that that, I think Carol Dweck wrote a really great book called The Growth Mindset.
And, and in it is this philosophy that says you either believe in this fixed mindset or you believe in a growth mindset. A fixed mindset says, I'm only as good as the things that I'm good at, and I can get no better. Right? And the other one says, I can grow. I can always, but, but this one very importantly says, in order to grow, I must fail.
Yes, sir. I must try, I must push myself and not be afraid to, to do
Jim Mooney: was at a webinar, I was at a, uh, one of those. Conferences a couple years ago, the church based one, but they had a speaker and he said, I'll never forget it. He goes, the roses to success is how you handle and pave your potholes.[00:16:00]
Shane: Yeah. That's good.
Jim Mooney: like, I think it was Michael Jordan, I wanted to say
the, the, the, this
of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and over again
and expecting different results.
Shane: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Mooney: But what I, I honestly say, when people say I've never failed at anything, they're lying to somebody. It's usually.
Shane: Well, and, and, and, and I think either they're either very risk, very risk averse and very, and very fearful, or they haven't tried hard enough.
Jim Mooney: I can tell you, I do consulting all over the country. Right?
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: One of the phrases I hate the most
is,
that's the way we've always done it.
Drives me nuts. I'm like, you brought me here for a reason.
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: It's not working now. Yeah. Let's. No, we can't do that.
Well, I just joined SBOA December and came in and I upset the apple cart. I just changed everything.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: And my team knows that
They have
the ability to question what we're doing
Shane: Mm-hmm.[00:17:00]
Jim Mooney: and they come to me and say, we wanna try this, let's try it.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: I, and even when I had my stores, if a manager came to me with a problem, they better have an idea for a solution.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: I'm not here to solve all your problems.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: And I give you a prime one. In our industry, people hate rate increases and the managers hate the customers complaining about rate increases,
Shane: right?
Jim Mooney: So we gave the manager the ability to fill out a rent negotiation for it. Somebody came in to argue about a rate increase.
They had to fill out what the occupancy unit, what's their rate, what's, you know, value, price, unit, where's it at? Had they ever been, there's seven criteria on this thing. And by the time they came in, once or twice with that,
once they
realize when they're filling out the questionnaire.
they knew
the answer.
Yeah.
Shane: Why did you do that?
Jim Mooney: They didn't come in with questions anymore.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: they already knew what we were gonna say.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: So we educated 'em how to handle, already create a problem.
Shane: Yep.
Jim Mooney: That it's not personal.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: It's business.
Shane: Yep.
Jim Mooney: And the problem went away.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: So for me, the managers are already, [00:18:00] are, are the end all, be all the managers have to be part of it.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: So we're, you know, we're doing that so
Shane: good.
Jim Mooney: But,
Shane: So what's, what's the next year look like for storage?
Do you. What's 2020? We we're, it's, it's March of 2026. We got nine months left in the year. What do you think? What do you think we're gonna see?
Jim Mooney: I still think we're gonna see some consolidation.
Shane: Okay.
Jim Mooney: I still think we're gonna see some, a lot's gonna depend on the government and the rates.
If the interest rates come down a little more, you're gonna see more transactions.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Uh, people still wanna sell, but there's so many people that still have the COVID mindset number in their head that their property's worth x, but it's not.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: Um. I said
to couple, you last two years back to more, back to basics work and people doing what they're supposed to be doing.
We
are still in a very, very good industry.
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: And there's a lot of success to be made, but you have to be doing the right things every day.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: And
the biggest thing is I ask, you know, [00:19:00] I, I usually ask any company I would consult with, what are your managers two main jobs?
What do you think they are?
Shane: Uh, I would, I would say, uh, keeping your cu, keeping your customers and, and getting new ones.
Jim Mooney: Okay. Two main, my main focus is rent space and collect the money. Okay.
Shane: Okay.
Jim Mooney: If
do those things, everything else takes care of itself.
Shane: Right?
Jim Mooney: But don't be afraid to say, Hey, we're not getting leads. You don't track inquiries.
I mean, what I've seen a lot is people make bad business decisions based on no data or bad data,
Shane: right?
Jim Mooney: So I'll give you a prime example. I did a consulting job in Maine, Massachusetts. Oh no.
no. I,
And they stopped all rate increase 'cause they were 85% occupied less.
Shane: Yep.
Jim Mooney: Well, I looked at the reports, I found $10,000 in rate increases on units that were a hundred percent occupied that they weren't touching.
Mm.
Shane: And
Jim Mooney: so just because, and that's the one thing I think a lot of people in [00:20:00] our industry focused on is occupancy. And it should never be occupancy,
Shane: right?
Jim Mooney: It should be revenue
Shane: Revenue
Jim Mooney: and your effective rate after concessions and what you're getting.
Shane: Right?
Jim Mooney: Because I, I. Tell you, I did a job many years ago. I walked in the guy, he handed me a management summary.
He was a hundred percent occupied. I said, you're losing $13,000 a month. He goes, no, I'm full. Like, no, you're losing 13,000 a month. And I was being generous. He didn't have insurance and protection when he wasn't doing rate increase. His, the gap between effective and occupied rates was dramatic.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Like so you're losing money every day.
You're a hundred percent. I would never want be a hundred percent occupied.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: I wanna
be thank. Inside the property. 88 92 maybe,
but I
be that way.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: But people don't understand that far.
it.
Shane: Yeah. And, and I think, I think you have to have some experience in this space to be the,
The,
the, the, the brain.
The brain does plays tricks on you, right? You're, it makes sense. Like, I want, I wanna be full. Of course [00:21:00] I do. But
Jim Mooney: biggest thing people are industry make a mistake of. And social media is, you know, a, a blessing and a curse. Yeah. I'm in so many groups on Facebook and so many groups on, we do our webinar. And people ask literally, a girl came on last Friday and said, we haven't raised rates in four years.
Shane: Hmm.
Jim Mooney: How dumb is that?
Shane: Yeah. I mean,
Jim Mooney: but they don't know what they don't know.
Shane: Well, and, and, and I mean, even just you, you, your, your, your dollar is not as valuable anymore.
Jim Mooney: No.
Shane: And. Yeah, you might lose a customer, but if you're, if you're, if you're occupied, that means that there's demand out there.
Jim Mooney: I
can tell you something that people get what I tell them.
Blows their mind. If you come into my store and you're complaining about a rating and you start belittling my manager, treating my manager bad, I will come in. Hey Sean, you know what, I'm sorry. You're upset with us about the rate increase. You know it's part this, whatever. Tell you what, I'm gonna schedule your vacate now for the end of the month so you can find another place to go that can take better care of you than we can.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: Basically get out. [00:22:00]
Shane: Yeah,
Jim Mooney: I don't wanna leave. Well then pay your bill. But we now have the upper hand. Right. I will not let one of my managers be down talk to.
Shane: Right?
Jim Mooney: I mean, yes. It's trying times every is a. Upset here or there, but you're not gonna belittle one of my team. Yeah.
Shane: Yeah.
Jim Mooney: I will not stand for that.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: You will not be my customer.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: And we and, and when people walk in door and you have to rent to me, I don't if you won't take, if you don't, if you don't wanna sign our lease and you don't want the insurance protection plan and you don't, you don't, I'm not doing this or I'm not doing that. I don't, you're not gonna rent with me.
Shane: Yeah,
Jim Mooney: well you have to rent them. He said, no, I don't. It's a business. If you can't follow the rules, you're not. Right.
Shane: Right.
Jim Mooney: And I will lose a rental and I know some people will scoff at that, but I would rather lose a rental.
rental
Because that customer's gonna be pain the but down the road.
Shane: Yep.
Jim Mooney: I don't need it.
Yeah. More importantly, I don't want my managers to deal with it.
Shane: Right.
Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's clear to me you, you know the space incredibly well, Jim, and, and I really appreciate you taking the time. I mean, like, [00:23:00] it's been awesome to just kind of sit down with you and. And get your thoughts. Uh, any parting thoughts, like anything else you, you really feel like people need to know about, like SBOA?
Like do you wanna plug SBOA real quick? Well,
Jim Mooney: I mean, we're, we're, we're growing the SBOA to be, be, we want it to be the one stop shop for people looking for storage partners. Whether you're looking for a website company, whether you're looking for a paint, we sign a painting company, we're talking to a bank, we're talking to a, a couple different people.
That's different for our, our market. But when you're looking for something, reach out to us. We can help you. But more importantly, if you don't understand something, ask for help. This is probably the most friendly organization industry I've ever been in. We all share with competitors, uh, Stephanie. To Har from a Plus Storage.
Her and I spoke on stage in one of our conferences. We literally had properties side by side. We were competitors every day.
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Jim Mooney: We
on stage together.
Shane: Yeah.
That's, that's collegial
Jim Mooney: We, we help
Shane: by definition.
Jim Mooney: do these things. So for me, it's fun.
Shane: Good,
good. Well, alright
Jim Mooney: man.
Shane: Thank you [00:24:00] man. I really appreciate it. And uh, I, I just, I, I always appreciate talking to you. I learn something new every time,
Jim Mooney: Hopefully,
Oh, you
that's why I come here. I learn something every time I come.
Shane: That's great.
I'm here with Tim from Tenant I'm so excited to have you on the show, Tim, because as we announced on our last podcast, we just, we really are excited to work.
With you guys. And, and I think let's, let's talk about that just a little bit. Like
Tim Hall: Yeah. How
Shane: did that come together and what happened?
Tim Hall: Uh, well first is like we, as a company, we want to give all of our operators a choice.
Shane: Yeah.
Tim Hall: Right? And we, we come up with mind that says, you know, all tides rise all ships.
Right. And if we have a best in class service, like Go Local provides for their customers. Right. Why would we not want to apply that to a best in class property management software like Hummingbird that we offer
Shane: Absolutely.
Tim Hall: And so for us, we, we thought about it two ways First was number one, make our customers happy. Mm-hmm. You know, give them a choice that, you know, if they're thrilled with their services on web, they don't have to change them to change the platforms.[00:25:00]
Uh, and the second is, you know, the power of numbers like is, is we think about the collective of our two customer bases. There's a lot of opportunity to better serve that community.
Shane: Right?
Tim Hall: Yeah.
Shane: Yeah. I think, I think that was one of the things that I think is so neat about the relationship is,
and
and I've seen this in, in a lot of space.
Is in industries that I've worked in in the past where sometimes it feels like there, there's this like protection Yeah. Of like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to. If you're adjacent even to my business, I don't wanna be really protective of it. One, and I really like how the, the relationship with tenant and go Local has come together because it, it says, you know what, there are things that where we overlap and that's okay.
Sure. But, but it, it's better for an operator, which if we're here for the operator, that's what you. Yep. Uh, we want to make sure that it's better for them. So I think that that's a, I think it's, it's just a, it's a really nice, uh, approach [00:26:00] from a, a perspective of the operator. 'cause the operator is gonna get the better.
of the, of the
Tim Hall: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, especially when it comes to e-commerce websites, like the level of customization that you guys offer in your platform is I what I've seen best in class, you know, and we can couple that with maybe even unlocking more capabilities in the. The storefront that you can provide for the operator.
Things like an advanced AI chat bot or voice agency or, you know, very deep rich data. Access that proper rental flow that can be integrated directly into, you know, services and our, you know, the customers that you have today that can be elevated with capabilities to help them attracting, convert tenants and services you offer.
You know, and for us, you know, we also wanna give them automation and efficiencies. With innovative new age tech. Right. They might not have access to.
Shane: Right.
Tim Hall: Yeah.
Shane: Let's, let's like, back up just a second. [00:27:00] Just for fun. Tell me a little bit about how you came to work in storage.
Tim Hall: Yeah, so everyone has a self storage story, uh,
Shane: apparently.
Tim Hall: Yeah. I come from, you know, 11 years of Fortune 500 tech sales. Yeah. Uh, did that all the way through 2024.
Shane: Okay.
Tim Hall: And, uh, actually I wrote a business plan in the summer of 24 to building. Storage
in RV storage
in southwest Florida where I live.
Shane: Okay.
Tim Hall: Uh, I didn't see it to fruition and I decided that it was time to take a step back and focus on ownership in some capacity.
Okay.
Shane: Okay.
Tim Hall: And, uh, one of my mentees happened to be the daughter of the president of Tenant Inc.. Oh, okay.
Oh, okay. And found out that was available. And I came out and we had a chat led to some conversations about their go to market strategy. And next thing I know, I'm one year in
Shane: and.
Tim Hall: We, you know, driving double digit growth for the industry and serving, you know, that's incredible customers.
Yeah.
Shane: And, and, and I think you all have because that, that, [00:28:00] because Tenant is a group of operators that at its core your approach is, is so unique and, and
and
really operator focused that it's really, but at the same time, you're providing like excellent technology for folks to, to really be able to, to get the info, the use outta it.
that they need.
Tim Hall: Yeah. It's like a scenario based application approach.
Shane: Yeah.
Tim Hall: Right. Like we wanna make sure that because we have the deep institutional knowledge on the industry, we can formulate workflows and automations and technologies and integrations. Right? Right. That really serve the bottom line, which is how do we get the best NLI out of our property, right?
Or if we're in an acquisition game, how do we, you know, ensure that through acquisitions is a smooth transition that drives that NOI up upon a new purchase.
Shane: Right.
Tim Hall: Or if you're in the business of like. You're trying to exit and you wanna sell your property, have you run it so efficiently that you get the best cap rate possible and you exit the facility with, you know, the, the sticker price [00:29:00] that you're looking for?
Absolutely, and I think that that's the kind of approach that the tenant focuses on is how do we help our operators do that? And then taking all the feedback that we know is putting us into cutting edge. I,
AI
you know, are the scenarios that serve a collection cost. For example,
Right.
we have some operators that have a hundred thousand tenants.
If they have a single digit or. Or delinquency rate that might be hundred calls at the end of the month that they're not, you know, a manager's gonna have to make, imagine, you know, one ful information and all those calls are made,
and
you know, delinquency reduces more operating cash. It's all those things that matter to us.
Shane: Absolutely. Yeah.
Tim Hall: Absolutely. I
Shane: think,
I, I think
uh,
just the, the, the cutting edge like approach, it's hard to keep up, right? Like, it, it feels like, especially with the. advent of AI, and we've talked about AI a lot on the podcast so far. Yeah. Uh, it, it's, it's just, it feels like it's accelerating how quickly you have to keep up and [00:30:00] thankfully you're able to kind of integrate systems that can help, but at the same time, it's having the creative thinking to be able to go, oh, this is how I need to tailor this.
Tim Hall: Yeah.
Shane: To, to work.
and the right way.
Tim Hall: Yeah. And I'll tell you, like coming from, you know, 10 plus years in tech and watching the AI.
boom and being on a part of the,
Is advising how to do that has led very well to this industry because, you know, AI is only as good as the data sources it.
from.
And that's true when you look at any large language model or you look at any advancements of ai, you know, you, you might have people who have a frustrating experience because they get stuck because K information they want.
Right? And when you build your platform to tokenize all of those data points and you have very rich, deep data structure,
Shane: yeah.
Tim Hall: You can do things rapidly,
Shane: right?
Tim Hall: I mean, we turn. We have our, our AI voice agent doing, it's almost ready for
It was built in like
days.
days.
Shane: That's incredible,
Tim Hall: right?
Yeah. And that's because we've [00:31:00] gotten our data infrastructure so well managed in structure that we draw any information from
need
a chat bot or a voice agent or soon to be an operational agent or managers.
Right? Like there's a lot, there's a lot of advancements.
Shane: I, I read, I read just recently about, uh, somebody who fed all of this government. They got a bunch of government PDFs into like a, a system and the accuracy with which it was able to parse the data. And it was, it was actually kind of full because they were just, they were loading in flat PDFs.
And, and when you lose some of that like structure to the data, the LLM falls a part of it because it doesn't, it loses the context. Uh, and I, and I think what you're, I think what I'm hearing you say is that context matters and absolutely
Tim Hall: does. '
Shane: cause it gives, it gives the operator or the, the builder or whoever it is that's, that's using the ai, it gives the AI at [00:32:00] least a bit of direction to go, alright, this is what I'm,
need to do.
Tim Hall: yeah, there's so many things that it could be drawn from.
Like, so when you analyze millions of calls would be a great place to start. And the AI can use machine learning to understand what are the common question that are gonna happen and how do I build the AQ answers to that, the model.
model, right?
So that I can service 80% of
calls that come in or, you know, service 80% of the leads that I can convert from lead attribution perspective.
Um, and all of that is,
completely contingent upon data,
Shane: that's
Tim Hall: right. And that's why, you know, having API connectivity, like we come back to our integration, like the depth of the integration that we can drive is so important because we can unlock so many more things through marketing attribution and how well channels are performing and
Shane: well,
Tim Hall: and,
Shane: and to be able to not only just hit that market, that effort.
Attribution.
Tim Hall: Yeah.
Shane: But all the way through to, to the rental and, and even, even past that to go, okay, these are the ones that are attrition. That [00:33:00] have attrition, and they, and they're the ones that are, are, you're having to have your AI buy all for, for the collections. That's it, right?
Tim Hall: Yeah. From source through length of stay to client lifetime value to even a world where we might even start to be able to attrition based upon behavior in the facility, the volume of time that they're.
accessing things, right?
You can look into
history and
predictive analytics is gonna be the next thing I think that happens in sell storage and ai because it'll start to be able to promote like what your sell rates might need to be, or
or
you know, what you need to do to keep a customer longer. How do you manage rent increases?
Shane: Right? Or if, or if you can even predict when those attrition, uh, waves will
come like,
come.
Hey, you need to ramp up your, your paid during these times to to backfill the stuff that you know that you're gonna lose. It's, it's gonna,
it's gonna come into play.
Tim Hall: yeah. And you can run. The really cool thing about AI and data is that even if you wanted to do some A/B testing, like maybe you run a [00:34:00] program that says, if I'll give em a 10% discount, they pay six months in the advance.
Shane: Yeah.
Tim Hall: What impact does that have on client lifetime value And the end link can stay. You get them longer. Do they give you more revenue?
Shane: Absolutely.
Tim Hall: And so it's really interesting to be able to use an agent applied over a very strong data set to be able.
to predict, analyze,
Promote, serve up the information quickly and make decisions.
Shane: So you did, you've been in self storage technically for a year.
Tim Hall: Yeah.
Shane: Where do you see the next year going?
Tim Hall: Yeah, so the next year, I think what we will see in a very short period of time is that rapid advancement in the tools that are being, uh, delivered to the industry. And so, I mean, you can walk around the
trade show floor here and you're seeing
more AI.
companies than we've seen before.
There's also what appears to be maybe a consolidation.
in the market.
You know, I'm seeing a lot of third party management services. We just heard about the [00:35:00] announcement of public storage. Huge. Right? And so there is a consolidation happening in the U.S.. Yes. And uh, so I think 2026 will be a big year for acquisitions. I think 2026 would be a big year for tech.
That would be my two predictions.
Shane: It'll be what, what I think would be interesting is how those acquisitions. And that consolidation potentially forces almost a market adjustment because it feels like there's now a lot of tech companies who are flooding the market with, you know, seeing the dollar signs are going, oh, this is an underserved market.
They're
They're
probably too late now. Right?
Tim Hall: Yeah, I would, I would think so. Yeah. And well, I think that's the whole thing. When you look at primary, secondary, and tertiary markets, like the tertiary market is probably. The richest underserved market there is today, especially when you have really high intelligence from coming with TractIQ.
It can give you rich income data and [00:36:00] understanding, you know, what are the move rates in those cities and what's the average income? And you can see that the tertiary market might be growing. And then you can follow like the Lennars and the DR Hortons and the, you know, Pulte Homes of the world that are building 800,000
you know,
buildings every 90 days roughly.
And you can see where is the. The market that you could drive tertiary, maybe to a secondary and can absorb, have more supply because there's enough demand. Right.
Yeah. Right.
And I think that that's been the, the challenge for the last few years that there was a boom in supply and demand has been steadily shrinking.
Yeah. Right. 'cause interest rates, people aren't moving around the world. They don't have the great shift of digital that happened with
COVID. Right.
Uh, and all those things impact.
storage.
I think the one beauty about storage though is that it's a stable asset.
Right. Even when you look at, like, if you compare this market to other markets, the stability of. Market is much less [00:37:00] volatile than other places. Yeah. You know, even through recession, even through, you know, highs of economy, the stability of this asset class is very good. Right. And I think a big part of that is, well one is Americans particularly love to buy,
things.
Shane: Mm. Happy.
Tim Hall: And
and Amazon we can think,
for that.
right.
And one click buying is making that even more of a consumer model. And that stuff has to stay somewhere. Because people have emotional ties to it.
Shane: It does.
Tim Hall: Yeah,
Shane: it does.
Tim Hall: So,
Shane: uh, alright, so we're here at SSA. What, what, what's been your takeaway so far?
Tim Hall: Uh, takeaway so far is, um, you know,
To
off the year in March at an event like this I think it's a great way to start the year. There's, I've witnessed a lot of really quality content, you know, talking about financials and economies and, uh, the keynote was excellent, you know, uh, ring.
RingCentral, not
but ring [00:38:00] doorbells.
Shane: Yeah.
Tim Hall: Um, thought that that was really well thought out. You know, um, I will say that the conversations that we're having in our booth are also really interesting because people are looking for more choice in the industry.
There's kind of this, there's two sides of the coin. There's people who want to consolidate and have one stack, and then there's others that want to have a choice of multiple integrations and other businesses.
to their, to their liking.
Shane: Yeah.
Tim Hall: And that seems to be a kind of a healthy balance that I'm seeing.
at the event. Yeah.
Shane: Well, I, I mean, I'm, I'm excited for the next year 'cause I know that, you know, we're gonna continue to do great stuff together and, uh, it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a good 2026. I appreciate you coming and talk to us.
to us.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Yeah,
Tim Hall: it's great to see you Shane.
Yeah.
we're uh, SSA Spring. This is Tyler from Patchwork Labs. How's it going?
Tyler: It's great.
Uh, exciting conference
Shane: What, what, what's been, what's been the big takeaway today?
Tyler: Just the energy around storage.
Uh,
more money You know, vendors are excited, people are talking to each other, so,
Shane: yeah.
Tyler: [00:39:00] Yeah. Met all sorts of people.
Shane: So,
uh,
you, if you like, what's the, what's the theme of the, of the conference? Do you it's capital is available. now? Is it, is it that there's still, like, it still feels pretty stable?
Tyler: Yeah, I think, uh, we're seeing a bunch of capital,
you know, start to pour in.
Institutional
capital is getting more and
more interested in the space, which will shake
things up. Obviously
big,
uh, public news, uh,
earlier this week, uh, which was
really exciting to hear. They're, you know,
getting more and more active. Um, and then of
course,
AI just continuing to,
uh, to
its way into storage and, you know, help, uh, help operators do more with less
Shane: so.
That's a great segue.
Uh, AI, know, there's o
obviously, we've
partnered, uh,
Go Local's partnering patchwork on, on, uh, call tracking software
Tyler: Yep.
Shane: Uh, that guys have. But, uh,
I think
you guys are developing something really exciting
now.
Tyler: Oh yeah.
So we're, we're shipping super fast. Um, my co-founder Chase.
you know, it's, we're, we're
building, [00:40:00] uh, for ourselves and for others, we
own
you know, 25
facilities.
Uh, but the voice AI, we're taking probably 30,000 calls a month now.
you know?
You know, we're helping folks, uh, resolve 85
percent on first call resolution.
Uh, we're giving away our chat bot for free now, so folks can go on the website
and, uh, you know, take payments. Uh, they can rent units,
all of that stuff. And, and that's going really well. Uh, task management from, from the calls. Uh,
we, we just recently launched that and, you
know, that's helping folks. So really just trying to build the full suite
sits
on top of the FMS that allows folks to, to manage better.
We.
know,
operating our, all of our 25 stores
just one person.
Oh, wow. And
so the goal is, uh, operate about 30 stores for every,
for every one person. That's
Shane: incredible.
Tyler: What we're
That's a,
Shane: that's a, the scale on That's insane.
Tyler: Yeah. It's very exciting.
Shane: Yeah.
And that's, that's fully remote, like
Tyler: fully remote.
But then, you know, most of our customers are actually class A [00:41:00] folks.
Okay.
And so it allows their
managers to
do more with less. It allows, uh, you to actually understand what's going on at your facilities. So. Uh,
can.
lock in the data, uh, in your FMS and know that it's actually correct on the ground because the, some of the feedback loops and
pictures and
the videos we're having the
folks take.
And so, uh, it all just locks up, works really well, and all this previously unstructured data talks
each other.
Shane: awesome. I mean, I data is, data's a, a really big and important thing when it comes to, uh, being able
to
kind of unlock
that,
that next
level
analytics. Uh, and, and I wanted to ask you about this.
Chat bot, like
are you using
the same, uh,
uh, data
set for,
uh, chat bot
you are for the, the voice?
Tyler: For
sure. Yeah. We've trained, you know, all of our data models on millions and millions of these calls.
And the, uh, you know, the key is have one
centralized data model kind of
everything. So there's
unstructured data
your,
you know, [00:42:00] on your website, uh, your video feeds.
Uh, your phone calls,
FMS
data,
vendor
all of that stuff
previously hasn't talked
to each other. And so, you know, we have one data model that ingests all of that. Uh, and
then you can take action on that. Uh, previously unstructured data. So imagine someone calling in,
you know, about
a gate broken. Uh, you actually can take that information.
One, make sure it was fulfilled, two, automatically have a gate vendor go out
three, you know, confirm that that gate vendor has actually doing what they
say they're doing,
it's cameras or having them take videos and pictures of the properties.
And, uh, and
the whole thing is automated.
Wow. And we're, you know, we're in,
in
multiple hundreds of stores right now, and it's working in the field and, you know, we're, we're really excited about it.
Shane: That's, incredible.
So
what do you, what do you, where do you see the what's the next
thing that's gonna happen?
Tyler: So, I, I really think, um, folks are just going to continue to implement this.
Um, you know, whether us or
vendor,
you know, we like to think that we're leading the pack in [00:43:00] all of this, but, uh, I think you're gonna really see, continue to
tools
that allow, uh, one person to do more. And so it's not necessarily. You know, cutting you know, probably half the people on our platform have started third party
services because they just find themselves
with all this capacity and they can go out and, you know, help other folks.
So I think, uh,
is going to, you know, get
more and more
the business.
Uh, we just launched the free chat bot. Uh, our next big release will probably be, uh,
the camera ai. So AI looking
at all
cameras and automating tickets off of
that and going into that centralized patch for dashboard. Wow. Which will be
cool. Wow.
So that's, that's, uh, the future is now. I know it is.
Shane: it feels like
feels like it's just, it's just speeding up almost.
Tyler: Oh, yeah.
Shane: But but you touched on
something that I think is really important is even there's this kind of fear, like,
oh,
the AI's gonna take my
job or whatever.
the truth is, is
no, it gives you more capacity
do more things. Yes. It's not really,
you still have to able to [00:44:00] manipulate, operate.
within the construct, and it's still gonna need human inputs,
Tyler: right? Yeah. Human in the
loop. So the human, not
to replace humans, right? We're just trying to
enable them to actually
focus on the things that matter.
So if someone calls in, you know, at. 3:00 PM about a gate code.
you know, the
folks that work with us, we don't want them them actually focusing on how do I serve the customer, right? And so really it's automating
things that can be automated
and then allowing, you know, the folks that work with us and
folks to,
to really focus on what matters,
is providing the best customer experience possible.
Shane: Yeah. Okay. And I think that's, that's the. That's the key, is
it, it, it gives
you the ability to even focus more on that human interaction.
Tyler: Hundred percent.
Shane: Yeah. And
uh, we had a with Jim, uh, Mooney, and like, that's what he's like, if
I was training my
folks, like, still am, still leaning into.
That, uh, I'm still
leaning into that customer interaction.
That human interaction is so important.
Tyler: Yeah. And ultimately the customer[00:45:00]
experience
all that
matters, if you have a good customer experience, they're gonna tell
their friends.
Um, and we are seeing on the voice AI side, it's a better
experie experience
because they get their, you know, their gate code or whatever under
10 seconds,
Well before it took a long time, you know, they can get their information
after hours, um, and you can kind of triage things much faster than traditional sense. And then,
you know, if they call in and they're complaining about
item, instead of manually
people tracking
that and, you know, maybe it
falling through the cracks or someone forgetting about it or
it down
somewhere on a spreadsheet, um, you know,
we can
Track all of this task in one place.
In a centralized system,
so we can say, oh, you know, this person,
uh, said, you know, gate, you know, the gate's down and the
spring is broken
on unit 57. And that, you know, you can see that right there and its tracks. And so I'm gonna be able to fix it much faster to sign the vendor.
Right. Uh,
again, just leads to
that better
experience because they feel like they're actually being heard.
Shane: Yeah, absolutely. Well,
cool. I, [00:46:00] I, really appreciate stopping by and talking today. Uh, else you want to,
to, to, to
say like, what's
going on, like. What's the, the, the patchwork
big, you voice, ai, uh, voice, uh, AI is,
gonna lead to video ai. Like what's after that?
Tyler: Yeah. Voice tasks, video, kind of the full AI product suite. How
you actually get AI
into your, uh,
operations, uh, you know, radically change,
uh, and allow, uh, yourself, uh, flexibility? Um, I think.
think, you know,
we have a free chat bot out, so if
you're interested, you sign up, it's free.
It'll always be free. Uh, and, you
kind of see. See where that goes from there.
Shane: Yeah.
And if you, uh, I know that
we have
great partnership,
uh, local patchwork and so you know,
whether it's reaching out to patchwork, out go local. Like go local customer you
talk to, talk to your sales rep and or your, or your client success person and, and we can get you connected with.
guys.
Tyler: Great.
Shane: Alright.
Thanks. buddy.
Tyler: Yeah.
Shane: Appreciate it.
Tyler: Thanks.
[00:47:00]