GOING UP?
SELLING UPPER-STORY UNITS

By Tron Jordheim

I’m a salesperson, so I believe you can sell anything to anyone as long as you give them a good enough reason to buy it. You know your property better than I do. Why should people rent your upper-story units? Surely, you can come up with a few good reasons for your customers to store upstairs, can’t you?

Like so many other things in life, you are only limited by what you allow yourself to be limited by. In this case, you might be convinced that there is something wrong with upper-story units, looking at them like seconds at the pottery shop or day-old bread at the bakery.

Tom Litton of Litton Property Management in Lodi, Calif., told me a funny story recently that I hope you take to heart. Tom has been in the self-storage business a long time and has seen a lot of things happen at stores. He once hired a manager team that was new to self-storage to take care of a multistory property he was responsible for. It was kind of a hectic time in his business and when setting up the new managers, he forgot to tell them that they should offer a discount to anyone wanting an upstairs unit. When he went back to check on them, he found they had rented more upstairs units in a short period of time than anyone ever had at this store before … and without an additional discount. Why? Because they didn’t know any better!

Give Up Your Bias
Tom realized that day how strong a bias there is in the industry against upstairs units, and he has been making his “give up your bias” speech ever since. Tom reminded me that you can’t give this speech once and expect anything to happen. Nevertheless, I am going to give you this speech.

If you think there is some deficiency in your upper-story units, then your customers will think so too. In truth, there is nothing wrong with upstairs units. It takes the same time and effort to go up the elevator as it does to go down the hall. Of course, it is easier to use a drive-up unit, but there are also negative aspects to using drive-up units.

A customer is outside in the elements when they use a drive-up unit. Heat, cold, and precipitation can make using a drive-up unit a miserable experience. And if you are concerned about personal safety, wouldn’t you rather be in the building than out on the lot? If it ever rains where you store your goods, you may have rain that blows under your door and onto your stuff. With all of these negatives, perhaps you should charge less for your drive-up units. Okay, maybe not. I’m simply illustrating the point that, if you try, you can talk yourself into any bias.

Just Ask
Here is the truth. You do not know what your customers want unless you ask them. You can give them the option of an upstairs unit or a lower level unit, or you can simply take them to whichever 10-by-10 you want to show them. Either way, most customers really don’t care where their unit is in the building as long as it suits their needs. Someone who accesses a unit every day might prefer a unit that is easy to get to, but it may be your upstairs unit near the elevator that the customers considers easier to get to than your downstairs unit way down the hallway.

Tom tells of a fun game his staff sometimes plays to help then fill upstairs units. They “eyeball” a customer coming in the door and quickly decide where they want to put that customer. If the customer seems able bodied and energetic, they don’t even talk about upstairs or downstairs. The employee simply takes the customer upstairs and shows an upstairs unit. They rarely get any protests! Likewise, if the employees see someone who appears less athletic or less energetic, they can usher this person to the closest and most easily accessible unit.

When talking about the upstairs unit, Tom suggests you take the “but” out of your language. In other words, don’t say, “We have a 10-by-10 available, but it is on the third floor.” That makes it sound like something is wrong with the unit. To the customer, anything that comes after the word “but” is bad. Instead, say something like, “Yes, we have 10-by-10s. Follow me.” Then take them to the upperstory unit and finalize the deal!

This may not make a lot of sense at first glance, but think about it for a second. If there is a feature of a unit that is not attractive and could turn off a customer, you don’t want it to become apparent late in the sale and ruin a deal that was going well. Just mentioning the feature isn’t enough. You must bring up the objection and overcome it at the same time. If the customer doesn’t object, then it is no longer an issue.

For example, say you are looking at a Hummer. The worst feature might be that it won’t fit in your garage. If the salesperson just mentioned this and left it at that, you might become annoyed and give up on the idea. Instead, the salesperson might say. “You might have trouble getting it in your garage, but man are you going to look good riding around town in this! And since the heat and A/C produce comfortable temperatures in 2.6 seconds, you’ll never even miss your garage. Hop up and get behind the wheel and you’ll see how easy the control panel is to view.”

In the same way, if you are looking at a health insurance plan with high co-pays, the salesperson would have to find another feature to offset the displeasure of high costs. It might go like this: “Now the co-pays at our company are generally higher than est and most easily accessible unit. When talking about the upstairs unit, Tom suggests you take the “but” out of your language. In other words, don’t say, “We have a 10-by-10 available, but it is on the third floor.” That makes it sound like something is wrong with the unit. To the customer, anything that comes after the word “but” is bad. Instead, say something like, “Yes we have 10-by-10s. Follow me.” Then take them to the upperstory unit and finalize the deal!

Selling Your Worst Feature
But what if you have a facility in which the upper units are especially difficult to access? You may even have walk-up units. If you truly have a problem with your upstairs access, I recommend a selling tool I call “Selling your Worst Feature.”

This may not make a lot of sense at first glance, but think about it for a second. If there is a feature of a unit that is not attractive and could turn off a customer, you don’t want it to become apparent late in the sale and ruin a deal that was going well. Just mentioning the feature isn’t enough. You must bring up the objection and overco

For example, say you are looking at a Hummer. The worst feature might be that it won’t fit in your garage. If the salesperson just mentioned this and left it at that, you might become annoyed and give up on the idea. Instead, the salesperson might say. “You might have trouble getting it in your garage, but man are you going to look good riding around town in this! And since the heat and A/C produce comfortable temperatures in 2.6 seconds, you’ll never even miss your garage. Hop up and get behind the wheel and you’ll see how easy the control panel is to view.”

In the same way, if you are looking at a health insurance plan with high co-pays, the salesperson would have to find another feature to offset the displeasure of high costs. It might go like this: “Now the co-pays at our company are generally higher than “One of the nice things about our store is that you can save a bunch of money by storing upstairs. Now we don’t have an elevator, but a lot of people are glad to go up a few stairs to save the money. Or, if you prefer, we have some convenient first-floor units. Which would you like to look at first?” The “worst” product just became the one that is the best value.

Keep An “Up” Attitude
If you are not uncomfortable about selling upstairs units to your customers, they won’t have any problems renting them. In fact, if you get good at renting upper-story units, you could keep your upstairs units set at market rates and up-charge for lower level units—or you could make it easy on yourself and charge the same rates no matter where units are located in the building! If you give your customers the impression that one unit is pretty much like any other, they will accept your recommendations and choose

whichever unit you show them. Make a decision to lose your bias against upstairs units. Find a few good reasons why people would want to rent your upstairs units, and then practice with each renter until you can sell upper-story units as well as ground floor.

Litton mentions an interesting statistic. He maintains that upper story renters stay 20 percent longer than drive-up renters. The little bit of extra effort it takes to move out from an upper-story unit as opposed to a downstairs or drive-up unit apparently does make a difference in people’s decisions to move out. If Tom is right, you are letting a lot of money get away every time you allow yourself to talk a customer out of renting upstairs.