How To Start A Self Storage Business
Storage business is one of the lucrative small businesses many people are making success with.
If you have an unbending flair for helping people to keep their bulky personal effects, office supplies and other items, engaging in storage business can be a suitable option for you.
However, you must be certain that you’re ready to provide maximum safety for your customers’ property.
Like other small businesses, a storage business is not difficult to start provided you have the essential requirements coupled with detailed information about your local storage market.
If you wish to establish an income stream through a storage business, you can check out our tips on how to start a storage business and how to promote/market the business after establishing it.
How to Start a Storage Business
Do Your Research
Doing a thorough research is the first step you should take if you’ll be starting up a storage business.
It’s essential that you understand how storage business is done in your area, the level of demand by customers and what storage business owners do to earn themselves reasonable profits.
In the course of your research, you should be able to find out what it will cost you to run a storage business effectively and the amount of profit you’re likely to get in return.
Importantly, check out the day-to-day activities of local storage businesses, the services these businesses render and the amounts they charge customers.
For veritable information, you can browse the internet and search for the storage businesses in your area.
Define Your Business Objective
You can do storage business on a small, medium or large scale depending on your financial capacity and what you aim to achieve through the business.
After gaining enough insights about your local storage market, defining your business objective could be the next step in starting your storage business.
If your objective is to render storage services to lots of people –precisely in busy areas –you may have to invest substantial money for the establishment of many storage facilities.
Estimate Your Start-up Expenses
Start-up expenses are part of the essential things to consider before establishing a storage business.
Of course, start-up expenses are what it will cost you to begin your storage business and they include the costs of office space as well as the rental facility for storing customers’ items.
While estimating your start-up expenses, try to include the cost of the promotional materials required in getting the storage business underway.
Create a Business Plan
A business plan is a document that will guide you on how to run your storage business and the direction the business should face in order to achieve its objective.
Factually, a business plan is one of the most essential documents your storage business should have.
Analytically, your business plan should indicate the ownership, location and size of your business.
Besides outlining the services your business will offer, it should contain a financial summary of estimated expenditure and proposed revenue.
Of course, a well-written business plan should contain several other important details including the marketing strategy to be adopted and how the business owner seeks to raise start-up funds.
Get Financial Support
If the fund at your disposal is not sufficient to start up your storage business –probably by covering the preliminary costs –you may consider meeting others for financial support.
If you’ll be seeking a financial institution for assistance, ensure you tender a well-written business plan and provide genuine financial information by outlining all the costs and funding needed to get your storage business underway.
Get Your Business Registered
Getting registered is an important step in legalizing your storage business. Also, there are legal and tax regulations you are expected to abide by while registering your business.
In that case, you may have to engage the service of an attorney who will ensure you’re registering your business in compliance with stipulated taxation and regulations for small businesses.
How to Promote Your Storage Business
Create an Online Presence for Your Storage Business
Online presence can go a long way to boost the success of both small and large businesses.
If you wish to widen the reach of your storage business and get yourself in front of many potential clients, nothing should stop you from taking the business online.
As part of this online presence, you can build a quality website for your storage business.
The website should contain veritable information about your storage services and the prices you charge customers for helping them to keep their items.
Obviously, a quality website with genuine contents can attract dozens of potential customers within your area.
More importantly, try to promote your website contents in such a way that they will rank well in the search results of storage directories.
Get in Touch with Clients
If you’re really concerned about marketing your storage business, you should try every essential method of getting in touch with clients.
From social media platforms to the use of mail-outs, there are several ways you can communicate effectively with your clients.
Customers who located your storage business through storage directories and online listings will need you to respond to their inquiries.
Also, provide such customers with reliable numbers through which they can speak with you on phone.
If you’ll be hiring somebody to pick phone calls and respond to customers’ inquiries, make sure he/she is conversant with your storage business, knows where your storage units are and can give customers detailed information about service availability, pricing, and other relevant things.
Expand Your Business
Business expansion is one great way to promote your established business.
Provided your business is already running and has garnered many customers, you can consider employing more workers and adding to the number of storage units.
Also, ensure there is a convincing demand for business expansion to avoid spending unnecessarily.
If the amount of existing storage units or the current number of employees isn’t sufficient to meet the demands of your numerous customers, then it would be a great idea to expand your storage business.