On June 10th 2008 I did what many removers in the U.K. would like to do, I sold out! Not for much money, but for something worth a lot more than cash. My true reward for years of headache was the opportunity of getting out of the removal industry before the stress of employing stubborn removal men, working for over-demanding customers, and ever increasing legislation killed me.
So on June 10th I found myself with a couple of warehouses with some self-storage units in one of them and an empty yard where there were once 12 vehicles and large forklifts all parked up. I was now free of the burden of removals but with property still to pay for, I had a rough idea in my head of just turning to self-storage and hopefully making a living from that. I embarked upon getting quotes for exterior storage units from ECB and quotes for a further fit out of one of my warehouses. I knew where I wanted to get to but had no idea of how to get there and didn’t know if I was talking rubbish or not.
It was at this very early stage that I was passed a mail shot from a company called UR-Store Self-Storage consultants (pronounced your-store). I wasn’t sent this flyer as I wasn’t in the SSA so it was by pure fluke that I made an exploratory phone call. I was expecting to speak to someone with a posh accent trying to talk to me about high flying property acquisitions and stuff I wouldn’t understand.
The reality was completely different. I was soon in deep conversation with Ian Allen about what I was trying to do, what we had done so far and how I thought I was going to achieve my aims. The nice thing about our chat was that I could see in just a few minutes that I really didn’t know as much about the self-storage industry as I thought I did. In fact, I think most of us removers who dabble at self-storage really do not have an understanding of just how different this ‘sister industry’ is.
Ian didn’t talk at me but he listened and when given the opportunity he imparted small bits of information that made me realise just how ‘Heath Robinson’ my self-storage operation had been. I also started to realise why us removers were getting left behind by the big self-storage players.
Ian came to see me a few days later and spent the whole day studying my site and my operation and commenced assisting me in making tweaks to my plans. I also came to realise that I needed to throw the rule book away of how I dealt with new enquiries, how I processed clients, and how I stayed on top of things including the bad debts that can occur.
Ian also offered to help me liaise with the companies who were bidding for my business. These included fit out companies, access control and software. The main advantage of this is that I really didn’t know what I was buying or what I should be paying. I asked Ian to take control and he soon had the suppliers quoting the right prices for the products I actually needed as opposed to selling me stuff that wasn’t appropriate. He also made the suppliers keep their prices sharp and in doing so has saved me enough money to upgrade on some things and has easily paid for his own time as well. What a bargain!
Along the way we put brand new working systems in place which are already proving far superior to the cobbled together methods I used before and as a direct result we are already converting more of the enquiries and processing them much more professionally.
We are nearing the end of our fit out and its now time to make our investment start paying for itself. Hopefully Ian will give me the opportunity of updating my story in a few months but I would to thank both Ian and Julie for their positive attitudes and for all of their support during this whole process.
Mr Paul Delo – (Owner) - Simply Store @ Coventry Self Storage.
To contact Paul click paul@coventryselfstorage.co.uk
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