The Go Local Brief

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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 today, Jason Barrett and Michael Solms are gonna talk about what you should expect from your marketing agency.

Let's get to it.

So welcome to the local front. This is the, uh, part of the show where we talk about the news of the industry.

Uh, Jason, we were tracking three really big, uh, kind of stories. Uh, one of them's about us even.

Jason: Yeah.

Yeah.

Shane: And, uh, so the first one, uh, that I wanted to talk to you about

U-Haul announced that they're going to lock their prices down for an entire. Year for interesting, for new people. I mean, yeah. I, I think they're, they're, they're doing this probably because there, there's a lot of external pressure.

Jason: There is some of the bigger states are really pushing on the industry to kind of be, uh, a little more, [00:01:00] what's the right word? Uh, transparent. Yeah, I think that's probably right. And allow the renters to, to understand what it is that, that, that they're getting themselves into. There have been situations where, you know, you get in with a lower rate and it's kind of an introductory rate, and then it switches on you pretty quickly and, and, uh, you, you know, like anything, you're moved in, all your stuff's somewhere.

It's kind of settled in and it's a, it's a, it's, the cost of switching is difficult and so I, you know, I don't have a an opinion on it other than to say that's what it looks like the is happening, and I think.

You know, we'll see how it plays out with all the other operators.

Shane: Well, yeah, and I think, I think for our, for our customers and, and, and for, for folks watching, I think that the thing to be aware of is just.

This is what's happening in the industry. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, there's, there's definitely, I mean, U-Haul is a huge player. Yeah. Uh, they've got tons of locations. Yeah. [00:02:00] Uh, and, and I think it's, it's worth mentioning. Yeah. Uh, so, so kind of not similar, but, but, uh, interesting thing I thought. Yeah. But I saw is there's, there's two cities, one in one in Washington state.

Two state, two cities. Two cities,

right. Two cities, I'm sorry. One in Washington State and then one in New York. Yeah. It's like up, uh, a little bit north of, of New York City. That they've announced that they're either considering or they're actually enacting a moratorium on self storage development. Yeah, I, I mean, to me that that signals that, not necessarily a negative thing, but it, but really,

this suggests that if you're an operator in, in a, a smaller market, particularly. It's probably good for you to go to a Chamber of Commerce event once in a while, you know?

Jason: . Uh, it's, it's, this is, uh, maybe not wi widely known, but I, I, uh, built my own me, Tom Carroll, another gentleman built a facility.

Mm-hmm. And you do, you have to go in front of the local zoning. You have to go in front of the county, you know, and, and present your [00:03:00] plans. And,

um, you know, every single location or jurisdiction has an opinion. You know, and, and certainly that's a fair, uh, you know, they're allowed that and. Those things can be stopped dead in their tracks.

We were looking at, uh, before we selected the site that we were in, we were looking at a, a another one few miles, uh, you know, down the road north of where we ended up, uh, building. And it was a no go right there. And it wasn't necessarily because of any statewide regulation or citywide, but it was, Hey, there's a church across the street.

Um, the way that people would enter and exit out of there would, would create a little more traffic in a place which maybe was a little harder to view, uh, because of hills and and whatnot. And we'd prefer to have something else there. And you just go, okay, we move on down the road. And, and I'm not saying, you know, [00:04:00] in these particular cities, could be any number of things.

And I can, for, for every two of these, I can hand you two that they would love to have 'em. Absolutely love to have 'em. Absolutely. Um, like for example, uh, my wife grew up in St. Louis and a lot of those old industrial buildings that were downtown warehouses, you know, ice houses, et cetera, they've just been sitting there and people have been, you know mm-hmm.

Unfortunately, they've kind of been destroying those buildings over time, and so a company coming in and converting that into self storage is, is welcomed. Right. So, you know, you've got both sides of the coin. Um, but certainly the, the recent news has been a little bit more of the, Hey, there's. There's a point of saturation.

That's the way I believe I read those. But the, the, there's enough here. I think we're we're good.

Shane: Yeah. And it, it comes in an interesting time because the rates are going down, the capital's becoming a little bit more free, and so That's right. Development probably will ramp up, but, but you have to be aware of where you're, where you're looking [00:05:00] to, to build.

Yeah. Uh, and so I think that's a, that's an interesting thing.

Jason: You know, I've got something and Yeah. Yeah. You can, maybe this fits or maybe it doesn't, but. It's really interesting to take a look at marketing based data to see if you should even be building where it is that you'd like to. Hmm. Um, you know, maybe if we ran the analysis on those particular markets, we would go, there's not much there.

Just so you know, like the, the, the place where we selected to build, I, I was pulling data not only on traffic and, and, and people will use rooftops. You all at home know that. But, um. I could see like the marketing, uh, let's see, the online activity that kind of goes along with all of that. So our traffic data was a little low.

Um, because it was a, a slightly rural location, but the marketing data was hot, you know, I mean, I, it was very easy to tell, no, this thing will go right here. Mm-hmm. You know, and so for what it's worth, um,

Shane: no, it, it, it's funny. I, I the similar experience, but what, what I, what I think is helpful, and [00:06:00] this kind of ties us back to our conversation last week, is.

You can help, you can have AI help you with that, with that research now. Right, right. Like it, it, you can do your own research. Absolutely. That's right.

But, but you could have Claude or, or, or Chat GPT, do some market research for you if you have the right, uh, level of account. Yeah. Uh, I was, I had this idea for an app, uh, just the other day.

Uh, and I was like, you know, I'm gonna. I just wanna play it out, like, and I was like, let's play this out. And I, and I, and I, I, I plugged my idea into Claude and Claude's, like, oh yeah. That app already exists.

Yeah.

Yeah. By the way. And I like, it's called this. Darn it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Shoot.

Jason: Yeah. Um, along those lines, just for what it's worth, Gemini's really good at that sort of like research project. Mm-hmm. If you're, if you're interested, if you're. Hey, I, I've got a business analysis to do, or I want a business plan, or, you know, that, that's the most likely, um, LLM at the moment to give you 35 pages of.

Like full on research with three pages [00:07:00] worth of citations and whatnot at the end, it's, it's legit. So

Shane: it's almost like they've got the largest indexing, uh, organization. That's weird behind them. That's weird. Yeah. That's weird. Yeah, that's weird how that works. Uh, our third, uh, our third big, big news this week that we wanna talk about .

I mean, it's a little self-serving, right? It's a little self-serving. We think it's, but at this time it is us, but, but we think it's cool.

Yeah. Like, uh, so, uh, just this week we announced that, uh, go Local is partnering now with tenant, uh, on That's right. To integrate that into storage essentials.

Jason: Yeah, it's a big deal. I mean, there are several integrations in place, but Tenant, we've been able to take all the way through to that, uh, final step. It rolls out at the end of this month, um, this month being March for those of you that, uh, I don't know if you, you know, when you're listening to it.

And so anyway, we're very excited. They're gonna, uh, join us on the show, I believe. Mm-hmm.

Shane: Yeah. We're gonna have 'em have 'em on soon.

Jason: Yep. So we're very excited what that means for us and, uh, and for our clients. It opens up another avenue. You know, what we're [00:08:00] trying to do out there. Well, I mean. In a lot of ways we just, we just want, no matter who you're with from an FMS perspective, you can still work with go local, right?

You shouldn't, shouldn't be excluded from. All of the value that comes from a go local partnership just because of who you've selected for your FMS.

Shane: Well, and, and, and I think, I think that that right there was, was one of the reasons why we really wanted to work with tenant. Right? 'cause I think tenant believes in a more open That's right.

Uh,

a more open architecture for the self storage space. You know, y yes, there are, there are opera or there are companies out there who will sell you the whole situation from soup to nuts, right?

Jason: Yeah, yeah. Right. But.

Shane: But what we want to do is we wanna make sure that our operators are using the, the tools that are the best for them.

And we're gonna try and fill, fill those, uh, integrate those directly with, uh, with storage essentials to make sure that, that, that they have the best experience possible.

Jason: Yeah. Well, and along with that, and, and it probably doesn't get said, um, [00:09:00] and, and maybe people would understand this maybe, but. Because of the integration there with Storage Essentials, it does open up, um, essential Insights, the reporting platform.

It opens up our, uh, price Monster revenue optimization product. It opens up, um, our CMS and Web builder product, so. The whole suite of, uh, products become available because of that integration. Mm-hmm. And that partnership there. Um, and then if I'm an operator, which, you know, I mentioned that I had a facility, I ended up selling that about a year ago.

But, um, I love that I have like a zero switching cost. Mm-hmm. Like say for whatever reason today I like, uh, FMS one and, and something's not right. And I switched to FMS two. Nothing has to change with my partnership with Go Local. Um, they just, you know, we, we would just go in and, and make the switch in the system and off we [00:10:00] go.

Yep. Yeah.

Shane: And I think that, that, that's one of the things that I, i've, I've really, uh, appreciated about our approach is, you know, bring, bring your FMS, it, it, you know, bring your FMS and we're gonna, we're gonna get, we're gonna get you the best marketing experience out of it that you can. That's right.

Right.

Jason: And most of those FMSs are really good at what they do.

Um, some of them have started to kind

of creep into other areas where, uh, you know, maybe it's, it's a new space for them and, and I think as people navigate along that experience, um, it, it'll be nice for them to, to, it'll be nice for those operators to have that integration back with somebody like Go local so that they can get that full suite of services.

Um, and, and, and continue down the road from a digital marketing perspective.

Shane: So, well, and, and tenant tenant's a, a, a, a really cool example of, of somebody who, uh, you know, this is a great technology suite. Mm-hmm. But they, they're operators. Yeah, that's right. Right.

Jason: And they're good [00:11:00] at it then. They're really good at it.

And that's why, you know, they've integrated that into that system and, and it's. It's a good system. Yeah. Um, so, uh, they're great guys too. Uh, our team loves those guys, so. Yep. For what it's worth, shout out.

Shane: Shout out to tenant. Yeah. Uh, alright. Last, last thing. Uh, it's conference season. Yep. Uh, we're gonna be at SSA, uh, spring. SSA next week. Next week, next week. Uh, San Antonio.

Yep.

Booth 239. Uh, is where Go local will be correct?

Uh, check the notes.

Yeah. Uh, booth 2 39 in, in San Antonio. And then we'll be in Vegas. That's right. In,

uh, a month. That's right. So, uh, I think, did you write that one down? I did

three. Uh, 3 38.

3 38. Uh, so, so come see us at, uh, SSA and iSS.

We'd love to, to have a conversation and chat with you. Um, we're gonna be doing some podcasting. I was gonna say on site if anybody's brave enough and wants to sit down

Yeah, shoot me an email. Uh, th through, uh, just contact us on, on the Go local website. And I'd love to, I'd love to sit with you at, SSA or, uh, ISS [00:12:00] So, yeah.

Uh, that's what we got for the news. Uh, we gonna, we're gonna move on to our main conversation. Uh, we're gonna bring in Michael and, and have him, uh, talk about what you should be looking for in an agency. So, excellent.

Jason: Hello everyone. Thanks for joining us again. Um, my name's Jason Barrett and I'm joined today by Michael Solms, the president of Go Local Interactive. Hello Michael. Hello. Um, today we are going to cover is your agency working for you or are you working for them? And thank you for having me on your show.

Michael: I'm excited to be here, Jason.

Jason: So, Michael . You've been at Go Local a long time, 14 years. 15. 15 years. 15 years, correct. Uh, literally in nine days. No, eight, eight days.

that's not right. You started in July.

Go local. Started March 29th and today is the 12th.

anyway, you've been here a long time. You've seen a lot of operators

come and go. self-storage to us from [00:13:00] other agencies. is the most common thing you hear, um, that kind of. As you're out there talking to these self storage operators, uh, about their agencies.

Michael: obviously a lot of, uh,

of come in those conversations. I think there's one in particular though that's common across all of them, regardless of what agency they're coming from, and that is. They're trying to have a better understanding of the return getting from the dollars that they're investing in the in marketing and I, I, I think that's usually reason they're talking to us is they can't piece it together and really understand.

What they're getting out of that investment. And it's a substantial investment and they've been making it for a while. It's, and they just, know, I, kind of equate it to like, if you imagined you were putting money into stocks, right. You no idea if you were positive or negative, that that would get you pretty, uh, uncomfortable.

Jason: how they, how do they find themselves in that [00:14:00] situation? Like what's the, what, what got them there?

Michael: Yeah, I, I think the, there's a lot of pieces to this, so we'll probably unpack them one at a time. Yeah. I think the, one of the more common things you hear first and foremost is they're not having regular, consistent conversations with the agency about the data.

They be getting Maybe

data. And there's no analysis, there's no set schedule to kind of go through that and get a firm understanding of what they're seeing in the data. That's one of the first core pieces is they're just unsure. I don't know, and I get some reports, but I'm, I'm not really sure what

Jason: So,. In that situation, do you, like, how do you that? Or are they coming to you that, is that, something that's just coming in or?

Michael: ' cause the, the, initial of that conversations. Often, just tell me what you're doing today. Yeah. From a marketing or [00:15:00] perspective, and then how's it going and how's that performing? Yeah. And you kind of get this, you know, pause of like, well, that's actually why I'm talking to you. I'm not quite sure. Yeah. I think it might be, yeah. Going okay. I think it might be doing well. Uh, but I don't have a clear picture or clear understanding one way or the that's, that's why I'm actually talking to you

Jason: then in conversation, how

do you help walk

them on through that? Like what's next

Michael: Sure. Um, first and it's better understanding of the, the type of reports and data that they're

um, and is from.

lot of times what we will up or attempt to do for somebody is into the analytics account And

a peek ourselves. Sometimes they don't even know where to point us to. Yep. But what happens when you start to take a look at the data is, is oftentimes you're realizing

it's for in And because, you know, we had a call literally, uh, yesterday where, [00:16:00] uh, the owner of the storage company said, Hey, I finally decided to log into my own ads account. You know, it's their responsibility, not mine. But I wasn't sure what was going ones

I cared about, right. I don't care as much about clicks as I do rental. So I mean, part of the disconnect is getting conversions set correctly in first first for what you and if it's not to fix it as complicated, right? Google Tag Manager isn't this easy thing where an owner of a storage company can just go in and fix it, and so they're, they're seeking that guidance and help to go, I don't even know how to fix the

Jason: That was something we were trying to solve for, I mean, years ago when we created storage essentials. Was in that scenario, through to what, what, what does success look like for, for a client? Is it, uh, a reservation? Is rental?

And, know, first of [00:17:00] aren't in there then, then we lose track of it. But what we're trying to do is go clear up that. Uh, funnel to understand did it come from organic, paid a phone call, whatever that might be, get the tags in there, right. But then we would, we would lose, uh, the ability to see them post reservation or post rental.

Right. that's a problem for most of these people today. And why there is storage essentials or something is what they're. They're You're driving to. Yeah.

Michael: think the the of that is, you to these online rentals are online reservations, which but did they come Yeah, Did come from paid where I'm spending, you know, a dollars a month? Did it come from um, and so understanding now that I'm tracking what I care about, rentals and reservations, I have to attribute 'em to the right.

right

Uh marketing channel that's driving that. And then, you know, I think what we're trying to do close that gap is dealing [00:18:00] data being in a lot of, lot of different Yeah. Right. You've got your FMS data over here, you've got analytics over here, Google Ads over here. You may have a call tracking provider over here. Um, and so you're trying to piece it together. Mm-hmm. Which makes it really, really complicated. And so we're those operators see it full end to end to where you can push that channel the FMS.

Yeah. This rental did come in, it did come from the website and it was from a campaign. it came in, it was from an organic, standpoint. So you can see it in the reporting, and it's a nice way to kind of hold that accountability. Yeah. Right.

Jason: So it's fair to say when you're in that conversation with a prospect that resonates, that's, that's something that they're like, ah, you can do that.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. And then not only do you know, slice and Can over year?

Yeah. you versus month, can look uh, at, at at a level? Right? Right. If, you've, you know, [00:19:00] a lot of you out there, if you've been in Google ads and Google Analytics, they're, they're great tools, but they're cumbersome to kind of navigate Yeah.

And out. And how can you surface the they care most frequently?

Right. That it's just there, you know, on demand.

Jason: What do you think ultimately they're trying to get to from a, from an operator perspective? Maybe they're the marketing manager, maybe they're the owner.

Like, what's the implication for the business to be being able to see all of that? What's, why, what's the why?

Michael: Yeah.

I, I, I think, uh, the, the simple answer is for decision making. You know, they're, they're, they're trying to decide. And, and especially if you're um. Uh, a facility that's leasing up, you've made an investment in facility.

Yeah. And, you know, you certainly wanna make there's a positive return, but they don't know whether or not they $500 on Google ads or a thousand or 1500. And when they ramp it up, are, are they seeing the, the return and the rentals come in? And so they're kind of just guessing. Right. [00:20:00] And so there's some uncertainty there.

So I think the main can lead to is good. Forecasting planning and strategic conversation. So if a facility's 80% and I need to units, can 10 rentals a month my paid budget. And I

know I can already take that 50 down to 40 just with my current budget.

Right? Right. If I know organic contributes another 10, there we to drive more of that? Yeah. Um, and so it, it, it makes not only that, um, decision making and what to spend way easier, but they can sort of, you know, see the future. And how they go from 80, 85% to 92, 93% occupied.

Jason: Is there is there a client out that's a little bit more Hey.

That's all great. You do it like, like, you know, since that's what we're talking some these clients, they get one time. If you go back and you look inside [00:21:00] of their ads account, somebody logs in once a month Sure.

Every weeks. Yep. Sometimes it's even worse than that. Yeah. And they have no They,

they, they get a really nice little gift. And there's a friendly relationship on the other end, but nobody's actually looking at those accounts. Yep. You know, and you're like, H dude, how is account.

Yep. You know, it reminds me of that, what is it, Billy Madison, where it's I can't say it on this, but you gotta find that dog.

what I mean? You gotta put some work in here.

Michael: I didn't know you were gonna have a Billy Madison. You know what I mean? Reference, yeah. Like. See, we can fit Tommy boy That would be good.

Jason: How is it that, yeah, you're managed, so when, when we're back to our, like, are, are, are you working for them or are they working for you? Oh my goodness. Sometimes you're like, you know, if it's like, here's your report, let us know what you think. Yeah. Like, what, what do you mean here?

Michael: Yeah, like, and I think you

see depending on the size the, company too, right?

So if you're talking to a [00:22:00] 50, a hundred operator or a hundred facility operator, they've got internal teams that, um, they've hired that experience in digesting that data, and they do want to get their hands in it. They, they don't have the capacity. To do all the work. And so they still need the agency, but they actually do like getting their hands dirty.

But as you start to move down into that, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5 operator, they've got business.

Some of them are still taking phone calls from customers, and so to your point, they don't want to. Pull up a dashboard and, you know, be in there 20, 30 times a month to see what the data looks like.

What the end of the you can point to the number and say it's working, and they say, sounds good. And you, you present the plan for next month. Yeah. It's, it's more or less like a, a reassurance. Yep, yep.

know, one time a month. Yep.

Everything's

uh, if a facility's struggling, we got a plan for that. Here's where we expect it to be next month and, and they're happy. So yeah, there's definitely two different ends of the, the spectrum there.

Jason: We've been in the self [00:23:00] storage space doing digital marketing for a long time. I mean, one of our very first clients, shout out to Kurt at Safeguard. At was he, he was our very first client, like, uh, one of like a group that came on with us right out the gate.

Michael: way, my use Safeguard. Oh

Jason: There with in mind, so them. Um, you know, we've worked in the industry for so long, what is it that we.

Uh, can bring to the clients, like what, what we're discussing here,

you know, whether a large operator, a midsize operator, or even some of these 1, 2, 3, 5 location operators we're talking about here.

What is that, that, that we bring along into that conversation that's, that's really adding value there, um, for that particular client.

Michael: Yeah. If you, if you kind of recap. You know what we've said so

am I getting Am I having conversations about it? Two, is it, it [00:24:00] accurate? Um, and, do I have it set up correctly?

I think this next piece is then, so the data's flowing in. It's accurate. level.

can see by Is it

bad? Right. If I'm getting a $200 cost per rental, am I happy? Am I, you know, so, um, I, I think that's where the name go local. And the partnerships we have really come into play because we have thousands and thousands of facilities, right? And so we have a base to compare you against in every aspect, whether it's traffic up or down.

It's phone reservations, it's converting

into rentals.

Uh,

it's value-based pricing and selecting an upgrade. Right? Yeah. Um, it's abandonment rates in the rental process, right? Ours is, you know, configurable so you can change the steps. So you're able to, to tell somebody like, is this a you problem?

Is this an industry problem or maybe it's a, it's a market problem, right? [00:25:00] Because we have other clients in that same area, and guess what, um, they're, they're experiencing the

same good that that

you know, on one of the calls with them and he said, man, I noticed the summer slowdown was hitting

Uhhuh.

was

than it normally did, maybe in August and instead of end August, early August instead of end. And he was like, man, is it just me?

He talked and found out Yeah, everybody's experiencing it. Yeah. But, but he didn't know that.

And that's, that's really, really powerful information. you you don't wanna make decisions. Right. Um, if it's not a you problem or it's an industry problem.

And you want to be able to pull the, the right levers to Right to, to see change. So what are those levers you can pull?

You can't change demand. Demand is what it is. So it's If searches and it's when it is. Yeah, exactly. So you can't really control, demand, but it's important to know that. And guess what? We can, we can explain that to you and show you that. Then the thing is, do I wanna change

my Right. [00:26:00] I could do, but the last thing I want to do is drop my price.

If it's a paid media ad copy problem, I've just given up revenue. Yeah. When it's, that's not the that's what I think bringing all that to the table is, and then the is.

You know, people feel really strongly about their websites. I think that's Maybe that's an understatement.

that's

And so they wanna change things, right? And I'll give you this as a real life example. We're meeting with a client, um, and we're going through the rental process and I wanna change this and I to this, and I want to, flip that. And, um, Chloe, shout on our SEO team.

Goes, Hey, Time out. on the same page. now, rental rate is in the 10% of our clients.

So before we go change everything, the last thing we wanna do is make these and find ourselves in the middle.

Jason: Secondarily, if I remember that exact example, the longer you make that Sure.

The, [00:27:00] the more you chip away at that conversion percentage. Yeah. And you've just lowered yourself down into the, you know, into the average.

Michael: But of it is to have that conversation, right? Because here's you You people we be we let on. I want to get at drivers, wanna all this information, right? And inform them to say, Hey. Doing all these additional data fields are gonna drop your conversion rate by 10, 15, 20%. Right. But they will be really quality. They may be okay with that trade.

Yeah.

Other people are on the flip side that says, look, I'm fine collecting that stuff operationally.

Get me as conversions as I can. you, you shorten your you're see 10, 20% improvement. That's what I mean when I, when I was talking earlier about being able to make decisions. Yeah. They don't know some If we can bring it to the table, they're making much more informed decisions and, and can understand the outcome that's about

Jason: Right. It's interesting 'cause I think, you know, we've seen in the industry, I'm [00:28:00] just sidetracked just a little bit, but like this

concept of a 30 second rental or this concept of a, you know, and, and, and I think bless their hearts, like it reminds me of my mom and my grandfather who's like, oh, they mean so well.

It's just a semantic difference. Sure. You're, that's not actually a rental. Correct. It's a reservation and it's a start one. Secondarily, um, there are some, in a lot of states you, there are required fields you have to have and so, um, in the of the operator you mentioning where, where with the conversation with Chloe, sometimes unfortunately the business requires changes.

Right. And you have to do it right. But what

or your marketing agency should be bringing to you is I just want you to be informed about what means. That decision you're making, the implications of that you should understand them going in open. Just so you know,

Michael: you, the thing want, you know, with any client is surprises at [00:29:00] end of the month.

Right? Right. Why did this? Why did this go down? You know, more than usual. Yeah. Well,

it was the decision this month. Remember we talked about that? Right. So you, you have to lay that groundwork just many areas you can, you can run into that. Even, know, things like privacy and cookie policies.

Opting out might drop your traffic. You can't think that that means your website is tanking. Right, right. That's of a, like, like you said, sometimes industry or business specific things that you can't work around.

Yeah. But you informed, so you know, to Nobody likes that, that shocker surprise when things are going the wrong way.

Jason: Question just to kind of, um, pull it all together here as we, uh, work our way to the end. I'm just thinking of the options that, you know, a self storage company has available to them. Um, I think that the range is everything from full tech on one side. All the way over [00:30:00] to full service, uh, just human time and, and, and billing on the other side.

Um, does that sound fair for self storage? Like I know that that's, that's pretty much in any industry. That's, it seems like what's available is the same thing. What we will find or what a, an operator or a marketer might find in self storage, and if so, like.

Where do we fit as, go local. Why are we where we are? Um, you know, we can just kind of have a conversation about, about that.

Michael: Yeah. 'cause it comes down to choice, right? Right. What am I, what am I picking to be, you know, in, in control of my destiny? And I think if you even think back to maybe dating ourselves a little bit.

Yeah. When we got into the agency world back in the late nineties, early two thousands. You and I both know heavily people. You, you won by the number of offices. That's right. You had, right. I think we had what, 13 and 600 people? Yeah. And, and that's how you [00:31:00] won. You, you won by being larger and having more Yeah.

Capacity and manpower. Um, and that, that worked for a while. Then you get, you know, internet, Google ads are running and things of that nature. And you fast forward to where we're now with ai. I think you're right. What, what you've seen, um, develop in the industry more recently are the a algorithmic.

Solutions, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hey, trust the machine. We're gonna set the machine up. It'll take care of everything. Nothing for you to worry about, and it, it, it kind of brings me back to your comment about the 30 second rental. It sounds great. Yeah. On paper or over the phone. Yeah. Yeah. And then in practice it falls apart.

Right. And so, you know, people go that route. And the ones we've talked to have realized that the machine needs help. Mm-hmm. Needs guidance. It needs somebody to, um, adjust the settings, if you will. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or to completely revamp it if it's not working. And so going this algorithmic route hasn't resulted, I think, in the best [00:32:00] outcomes, you know, from what we've heard.

You've got the, the other side. Even going back to our early days and people are great, but it takes people longer to do things right? Yeah, it does. And, and so I would,

Jason: I would add, and then when those people leave, sure there goes the, there goes some inherent knowledge from the account and you do your best to try.

Institutionalize that document that and, and, but acknowledging that now it has to be rebuilt. Yeah. So then you try to build bigger teams. Yeah. So that hey, person A left, but we still have B, C, D, and E on the team. Yep. So, but anyway.

Michael: Well, and, and. You know, firsthand our, our evolution, right when we started as Go local website wasn't a solution back in 2011.

That's, and I think by 2013 it became, obviously we had to, we had to do it. Yeah. And, and now it's, you know, our largest team. And so we've literally experienced that shift. I think the. The short answer is you need a balance, uh, of that, and you need somebody leveraging all the latest [00:33:00] and greatest tools that are out there.

Mm-hmm. And obviously what we're doing with AI is, is crucial in helping us do things faster, uh, and more extensively, right? Yeah, you can, you can analyze data, larger amounts of data quicker and more frequently. But once that data gets put out, somebody has to know what to do about it and what levers to pull.

Right. And, and certainly technology and tools give you a general idea of what needs to happen. Yes. But anyone that's, you know, you and I are messing with our little Claude bots and we're, we're, we're our firsthand touching this stuff and going, it needs a lot of help. It does. Um, and so that's again, where that expertise comes into play, not only of a very specific discipline like paid media.

Right. Uh, but also the knowledge of storage. Yeah. Right. And, and being able to apply those two to make the technology that much better. So I, I think we've, we've firsthand, not only seen the shift, we've experienced it ourselves. Um, but that blend seems to be the most powerful way to, to get the best results as of right now.

I'm sure maybe that changes.

Jason: I, I, I [00:34:00] was thinking of a good example. I, it doesn't matter what we do around here at Go Local, um, we. There's always a need to customize. Like I, I like, we can set, we're in the moment, you know, looking at more or less a five item rate card. And I swear to you, as soon as we take that to the market, there's a, Hey, we got a red line back.

Hey, uh, any chance we can, they, they are transitioning from, uh, this company to us and therefore we need to give 'em four weeks, six weeks of we we build, but don't. Bill or we, you know, whatever. And that's just, that's just the operational nuance, uh, of, of being in that space. But hey, yeah. You know, I like what you've done there.

Like, uh, here's a great example. Our reporting platform, essential Insights. For years we've had, uh, Google Analytics, then we went to, um, what's the Google? The other one I always forget was Data Studio. Data Studio. Yeah. Now it's, um, Looker Studio [00:35:00] Looker. Okay. And that's great, except nobody wants a standard report.

They all want, uh, customized reports. Sure. And we, so we finally build this system where we go, Hey, we know all about, uh, self storage. We bring that knowledge. We bring best in class. We know everything you're gonna want. And sure, as I sit here, somebody says, I, I know, but, but, and so I just bring that up because you can create the best tech.

You have to be able to make adjustments to it. What I, I don't, I don't mean like intricate customizations, but Fair to say, configurations. Sure. Optimizations, sure. Modifications. I don't know all the -ations that I can bring up here,

Michael: but I think that's where this evolution is going to help, as long as people have just a little bit of patience.

Right, right. I, I have an iPhone. [00:36:00] I can't go to the, uh, apple store and go, I want mine to be a circle. Right. I want mine to be this shape. No, no. It comes like this. Right. You can maybe change the memory a little bit. That's right. You can change the color, right? Yeah. You can change your home screen and change the apps.

Right? Right. So, so that, that's the way I think about it. So to, to, to use your reporting example, or let's even use website, um, the past world, um, would be, Hey, I wanna make this change so I make this change for you. Takes me some time. You get the benefit of it. Nobody else does. That's right. Right. Well then somebody else sees it.

They want, its, so then I gotta go do it over there, and then I do it over there and I do it over there, and I do it over there. It's the equivalent of like if I went to every iPhone and had the. Customize each one, you know, but that's not what happens, right? You get the software update and, and look, it doesn't happen every day.

That's right. But you know, on a somewhat of a frequency, there's this update, right? We can now do that. Same thing with reporting. Yeah. We got all these pieces of feedback in, [00:37:00] you wanted this, you wanted this, you wanted this, let's build them. And now we can turn 'em on for everybody. So now somebody's getting something they didn't even know to ask for.

Right? And they're surprised and you know, delighted that they're getting something new.

Jason: But that also comes from the human. Awareness to, to kind of bring that back together of left side tech, right side, all human. It's that middle ground for us at least that we find, right? For example, another one, the websites.

You know, certainly people have strong opinions on what that website needs to look like and do, but when you run as many as we do, and we've built them as many ways as we've built them, and we know which ones are working. It to the point of Chloe in that rental funnel or, um, just simply the speed, how well it ranks.

Sure. Some people out there, and I think it was a conversation you had, you said. Hey, I hear you. But this is best in class. Like, we're, we're [00:38:00] building this because you're gonna want this. Yeah. And the, and the guy, if I remember, I was like, fine by me. Yeah. That's perfect then. Yeah. Don't listen to me. Like, I want that.

Sure. And, and that's like bringing all of that together is really the key, right? I think.

Michael: And how do you do that right. Data. Yes. Right. You know, I've, I've had that before where somebody said, well, you know, I do like the way mine looks and yours looks nice, but I like the way mine looks. And then I go.

Here's your analytics. Yeah. And here's our client's analytics. And look at the conversion rate. Right. And all of a sudden they're a little less worried about the little aesthetics or the little way we're wording something. Yeah. 'cause the conversion rate is driving true rentals and dollars in the door.

Right. But if you can't inform them with that, again, you allow people to make those decisions based on Yeah. Gut versus, versus data and reporting, which is why you bring all that together.

Jason: So like, just the, the, the little bow on the end. So like, that's what I'm talking about with the, the, the, the title of this are, are you working for your [00:39:00] marketing company?

And, and by working for it could just be like, I got my hands in my ears going, la la, la. It's fine. Whatever. We'll just take whatever. Or are they. Are they working for you? Yeah. Are they bringing you that, those ideas, that tech, that those analytics, like our storage summit for example. I was thinking of that earlier but didn't, didn't interject.

Wouldn't it be nice to know like you're, the cost per clicks in the space have gone up 17% year over year for the last three years. Sure. So just to stay in the game even, you're gonna need to count. Count on budgeting plus 17. Sure. 1.17 for this coming year just to be even. Yep. But you need more rentals.

Yep. You know, and, and, and ps the whole point of it, go local. What does that look like in San Francisco versus somewhere Texas versus New York versus Kansas? Completely different.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. And so don't make the wrong decision and draw the wrong conclusions because you're not looking at the right things.

Right, that's right. That's not gonna move the needle for you, particularly in a more [00:40:00] challenging market like we're in now. You've gotta make the right decisions, you gotta make the best decisions. You can't be guessing. Yeah. No guess worth. Yeah, exactly.

Jason: Thanks for being on. Please don't point. Okay. So did we just hit this? Hey, it's been a good conversation. I'd hope so. Shockingly.

Yeah, I, I didn't think low, low, low. Yeah. I just had you right in here. Like, I assumed I'd never been. Yeah, you can cut this if you want, but I'm, I'm, I'm shocked you. Yeah, but I, it's literally 'cause nobody else wanted to be on here with you and our three viewers are gonna be like, huh, those guys are all right.

It's like when we host a summit, you know, they think we're friends. We're not. No, I mean, we're okay. We get along. We tried. No, you did great. Well, thank you. We appreciate it. Having on, again, we'll have a, another conversation and we'll, we'll find another topic and we'll do this again. And for everybody that is watching or listening, thank you for joining us.

I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you learned something and, uh, we'll see you on the next show. Yep. Take care.