Authorities have revealed a 30-year-old north Texas man killed in a self-storage unit fire last week was renting the space and residing in it during a recent cold snap.

The man, who was reportedly homeless, was staying at the Saf-T-Loc Self Storage at 2400 Southwest Parkway in Wichita Falls when his unit caught on fire. Fire officials have deemed the cause of the fire as a heat source too close to combustibles. Firefighters removed charred furniture and other items from inside the unit.

As the fire blazed, the man was rescued and taken to a hospital where he later died. Records show he had spent time at nearby shelters and lived a transient lifestyle for years.

Wichita Falls sits just south of the Red River near the Texas-Oklahoma border, about 140 miles northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

SMD Software Inc., provider of SiteLink self-storage management software, is partnering with Lead Tracking Solutions (LTS) to integrate services for self-storage customers.

The partnership between LTS and SiteLink offers storage owners in the United States and Canada a platform for lowering operating costs and increasing rentals.

LTS captures prospect data from sources such as e-mail, listing services, tracking numbers, call centers and walk-ins. The company then compares incoming contacts to SiteLink Web Edition, filters out duplicates and uploads leads to Web Edition. LTS can even unlock blocked numbers and add them to Web Edition.

Web Edition collects and manages data points from LTS, including pre-rental data, follow-up appointments, marketing info and post move-out exit interviews.

LTS offers owners a call-center version and eliminates purchasing tracking numbers separately.

We designed LTS for the unique needs of the storage industry and found the perfect partner in SiteLink, said Bill McCullough, CEO. With our SiteLink integration, operators now save all leads, calculate true return on investment in advertising dollars and measure sales team performance with confidence.

We are excited about partnering with LTS because it combines traffic, advertising and sales management in one comprehensive suite, said Markus Hecker, SiteLinks chief operating officer. LTS eliminates the manual handling of leads and analyzes them on an enterprise level.

Using everything from search engines and social media to teenagers spinning signs in front of properties, self-storage operators have experimented with marketing techniques ad nauseam in the past year. But what makes a marketing campaign effective in generating revenue? In the eyes of several Self-Storage Talk contributors, even the most ingenious marketing plan is worthless without a smart, confident sales teamin other words, a sales-savvy facility manager.

Self-Storage Talk, the industry's largest online forum, is hosting a discussion called "Marketing Is a Waste of Time,"  started by member rcooper, who emphasizes facility manager's phone sales skills. Rcooper writes, "More often than not, increasing phone calls or web leads won't be effective if the person answering the phone doesn't know how to turn those leads into rentals. The facts show that 85 percent of prospective tenants still call first, so we have to know how to answer the phone in an effective, professional manner. When customers are calling around (studies show they call four to six facilities before they make a decision), whoever does the best job on the phone has the best chance of getting that rental."

Member SMSSId, an owner, says the purpose of phone sales is not necessarily to close the rental but to get the person to come visit the facility: "The two most common questions we receive: No. 1, 'How much is your storage?' and No. 2 'How much is a 10-by-x? Don't answer the question directly. Answer it with a question or multiple questions. You want to get this person to walk in the door. Caller No. 1 probably knows little or nothing about storage. Caller No. 2 is shopping around and has an idea of what he or she wants."

To share more phone sales strategies, techniques and even scripts, visit the Marketing section of Self-Storage Talk. Only registered members can post, but registration is completely free and can be done at http://www.selfstoragetalk.com/register.

Live and growing since January 2008, Self-Storage Talk is the official forum of Inside Self-Storage, a dynamic services company that provides publications, events and educational resources for the self-storage industry. In addition to more than 4,050 registered members, SST has approximately 4,073 discussion threads and 35,800 posts in 23 different topical subforums.

By Mel Holsinger

All the options for computer and manually generated management reports in self-storage can become an overload of information, but can also provide a perfect understanding of how a business is operating. We need industry-specific reporting if we want to fully understand how were doing in terms of operational efficiency and financial standing. Your management reports help you know if youre making the right decisions to maximize your facilitys profitability.

Lets take a look at the various reports available and evaluate how the information can help you improve your self-storage business.

Operational Reports

Most self-storage management software programs can create a number of basic reports that are easily accessible by facility owners. Lets first look at operational reports.  

At a minimum, these reports should show the facilitys number of occupied and vacant units. You should also be able to quickly see your occupancy rate (rented units divided into available units) so you have a feel for what space you have left to sell. Getting a bit more sophisticated, categorize each of your unit sizes by occupancy rate, and then determine which customers are current and delinquent on rent. These three thingsoccupied, vacant and occupied but delinquentare the primary pieces of information that can help you make future business decisions.

You should also generate a report by unit size that shows the actual rate customers are paying vs. your board or asking rate. This becomes more important the longer youre in business because if you have customers who are paying substantially below the asking rate, you may want to consider raising their rent to increase your cash flow and, ultimately, profitability.

The report that shows your occupied but delinquent status is important because it lets you know how and when you may need to deal with these customers. Some tenants may simply require a generated billing statement to let them know theyre past due. As they become longer delinquent, you may need to remove them from your property via the lien-sale process. Knowing your tenants payment status can also help you determine other things such as expected cash flow or losses of income, and can help you determine the direction you need to take.

Demographic Reports

Other important operational reports include a ZIP-code analysis, which can show where your customers come from, and a report showing your percentage of residential vs. business customers. You may even want to break down this analysis to determine if your residential customers come from single-family or multi-family dwellings. Business customers can be divided into groups such as service, retail, industrial, etc. All this information can be helpful when it comes to marketing your facility and determining which advertising methods work best in your particular market.

Another important report is one that gives you information about your competitors. If you know their rates, facility features and the distance between your sites, you can make numerous decisions including marketing strategies, pricing, adding or omitting features, etc. The more you know about your competitors, the better prepared youll be to effectively compete with them for new customers.

The operational reports discussed above can give you a wealth of information to better understand what drives your business, and can be valuable in determining how youll operate. Keep in mind there are many more pieces of data you may want or need, but the basic reports described above will give you a good feel for your overall operation.

Financial Reports

Youll also need a few simple but necessary financial reports. All the information in the world is meaningless unless you truly know the financial status of your operation. In other words, if you dont know if youre profitable, then all the other information is irrelevant. It does you no good unless youre making enough money to stay in business.

The most important financial report is a profit and loss statement (P&L). The work that goes into producing this report has to be accurate and timely, and the person using the report must understand its makeup. You should have a monthly P&L and an annual one so you can measure your year-to-year profit and expenses. In its simplest form, the P&L should account for all income received and money spent to run the self-storage business.

Income. As your understanding of the business deepens, you should be able to break down your income by products and services so you can see whats producing a profit vs. whats just costing you money. For example, lets say you offer retail product and spend a great deal on inventory, but your sales are not profitable. At some point, you have to decide if you want to continue to offer ancillary items or reduce the number of products you offer.

Perhaps you have an abundance of 5-by-10 units available, but only a few 10-by-10s, and theyre almost always occupied. So you make the decision to combine or convert some of the smaller units into larger ones, thus increasing your sales of these units while gaining income from the smaller spaces that were once empty.

By organizing your income items in a detailed format, you can see which units are producing income and which are lagging. This offers you an opportunity to make changes, better meet your markets demands and generate more sales.

Expenses. A P&L report will also contain the most frequently used categories for expenses. For example, you should be able to track your advertising, payroll or wages, repairs and maintenance, services, utilities, insurance costs, and taxes. If you know these items, youll be able to deduce your profitability by comparing income received to business expenses.

No business owner can survive for a long period of time if the money he receives is less than the money he spends. Its a pretty simple conclusion but one that some business owners dont know until its too late. Unless you have some way to track your spending accurately, youll never really know if your business is thriving or failing.

In most self-storage management software, the financial reports that can be generated are numerous and can be very technical. Your level of business education, knowledge of finance and accounting, and ability to interpret the data will determine the level of sophistication youll need or want from your reports. If you dont understand the financial aspect of your business, seek professional guidance, as this can be the difference between staying in business for the long haul or ending up in potential bankruptcy or worse.

Management reports can be very simple or comprised of intensely complicated data. Keep in mind the reports you understand and require are simply one more piece to this puzzle we call business and should be embraced as such.

Mel Holsinger is president of Professional Self Storage Management LLC, which manages more than 40 facilities in Arizona, Colorado and Texas. Holsinger has been in the self-storage industry for more than 25 years. He is a frequent speaker at the Inside Self-Storage World Expo and other industry expos and a contributing writer to Inside Self-Storage magazine. To reach him, call 520.319.2164; e-mail mel@proselfstorage.com .

British customs agents found and seized £115,000 (more than $184,400) worth of loose tobacco and other goods last week from a self-storage facility in England's Black Country.

Suspecting a smuggling plot, authorities found 613 kilograms (more than 1,350 pounds) of tobacco, 180,000 cigarettes, 25 boxes of counterfeit tobacco packaging, and eight boxes of counterfeit DVDs and packaging at an unnamed facility in West Bromwich, U.K.

Cigarette brands included Regal, Benson and Hedges, and Lambert and Butler.

No arrests have been made, and investigations continue.

A-1 Self Storage will begin financial support of San Diego-based Father Joes Villages Scholarship Fund. The fund promotes academic excellence and provides an opportunity for minority students with significant financial need.

"We believe it is important to support organizations that promote the betterment of students and promote healthy living, said Brian Caster, president and CEO of A-1 Self Storage, in a news release.

A-1 Self Storage has 16 facilities in the San Diego County area and more than 40 throughout California. It is the self-storage division of the Caster Cos., a third-generation, family-owned company headquartered in Southern California since 1959.

The recently enacted IRS 1099 report, in which every company must document annual purchases totaling more than $600 in goods and services, may soon be reversed. 

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to strike the provision, which was part of health-care reform law. Under the new law, next year businesses will need to issue millions of new tax documents to meet the 1099 provision. Business owners have expressed concern over the administrative costs, particularly for small businesses, they will endure to comply. Theres also concern it will negatively impact job creation, economic growth and business investments.

Representatives from the National Association of Home Builders testified before the House Small Business Committee Feb. 9, expressing the need to repeal the 1099 provision. While many in Congress agree the 1099 provision could be harmful to business owners, there is concern about offsetting the $19 billion in revenue that will be lost.

The current amendment passed with broad bipartisan support in an 81-to-17 vote. The amendment would offset the cost of fully repealing the 1099 reporting requirements by directing the Office of Management and Budget to rescind $44 billion in unspent and unobligated federal dollars. The measure exempts the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration from the cuts.

The 1099 amendment is being considered in conjunction with a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill. Once that legislation is approved, the 1099 amendment will move to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration.

For more on how 1099 requirements could affect your self-storage business, read Jeffrey Greenberger's article, 1099 Reporting Requirement: A New Compliance Problem for Self-Storage Operators?

Foy & Co. Investment Real Estate Services, which specializes in equity raising and brokerage services for the Canadian self-storage market, recently released its National Self Storage Review, volume 10.

The review takes a look at the Canadian self-storage industry and how it has fared over the past year. The articles address a variety of topics including an update on Canadian financing, a closer look at the growing portable-storage market, a review of the largest self-storage markets, and ways the market is embracing green technology.  

The issue also highlights the inception of Storage Capital Inc., a new investment company focused on providing capital to self-storage owners and operators.

The National Self Storage Review can be downloaded free from the companys website.

Whether youre fully on board for the ride or being dragged along kicking and screaming, theres no denying that technology has found its place in the self-storage industry. If youve never had an opportunity to try some of these new tools firsthand, you may be intimidated or even skeptical. The Inside Self-Storage World Expo in Las Vegas aims to alleviate your reservations through seminars, networking events and exhibits that allow you to try technological offerings and ask questions of their makers and distributors.

The industrys largest conference and tradeshow, March 14-16, at the Paris Hotel & Resort gives attendees access to a technology-themed education track, an interactive Technology Marketplace, tech-themed roundtable discussions and, of course, a diverse selection of vendors who specialize in this area of the storage business. This years show floor will feature purveyors of kiosks, call centers, mobile devices, management software, security equipment, remote-management tools, online directories and more.

On the Seminar Side

On March 14, attendees who purchase the expos standard Education Package can partake in two in-depth panel discussions covering key issues of tech use.

The first, Self-Storage Software and Security: Evaluating Options, Maximizing Products, will help facility operators cut through the abundance of conflicting information on the market and choose the right systems for their unique properties. Theyll learn questions to ask vendors about their products, the most common features and components, tips for using tech support, insight to generating and understanding reports, training employees to use tools and more.

In the afternoon, a panel titled New Technological Tools: Automation, Sales and Operational Support will candidly address the tools available and how they can be used to maximize time and revenue. Topics to be discussed include integrating a kiosk into the facility operation, how kiosks affect the managers role, products that enable remote access, mobile devices for owners and managers, working with a call center and best ways to use online directories.

These open discussions, led by a panel of industry experts and peers, will be shared by facility operators, multi-facility operators, third-party management companies, and representatives of the some of the industrys most popular offerings. Attendees can ask questions and get answers that will help them choose the best products and services for their business.

More Interactive Info

On March 15, 8-10 a.m., ISS opens the doors on its Technology Marketplace, a roundtable-style networking event that allows attendees to meet in an intimate setting with suppliers of the industrys hottest tech products. Participating vendors will be on site to provide demonstrations, distribute information and answer specific questions. Some of the companies to be represented are Automatit Inc., eMove Inc., Lead Tracking Solutions, Linkmedia 360, OpenTech Alliance Inc., PureRFid, Quikstor, SMD Software, Sparefoot.com and USSelfStorageLocator.com.

Finally, the ISS exhibit hall will be open on March 15, noon to 5 p.m., and March 16, 9 a.m. to noon, providing the ultimate hands-on experience for those on the market for self-storage products and services. Attendees can sit down with a rep to try facility software, use keypad and gates, see video surveillance in action, try their hands at a kiosk transaction, and much more.

To learn details about the shows technology and other education offerings, visit www.insideselfstorageworldexpo.com . Register by March 11 to secure pre-registration discount rates!