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Self Storage Income

261. How to Get More Self Storage Customers While Spending $0 on Ads w/Jason Koonin

Self Storage Income

AJ Osborne

How To, Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship, Education

4.9591 Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Self storage investing ISN’T only for the United States. Our neighbors to the north might be a way better pick for your next self storage facility than down here in the States. Need proof? Today’s guest, Jason Koonin from Bluebird Self Storage, is getting higher occupancy and rents and spending $0 on ads with his Canadian self storage facilities. How is he doing it, especially since big facilities in the States are fighting tooth and nail to get any customer in the door? His self storage marketing strategy is a little bit different…

First, how does someone new to self storage go from having zero experience to building A-class facilities across a different country? Jason shares how his self storage companies exploded in 2020 and 2021 and how they managed to survive 2022 and 2023. Not only that, Jason realized something that most self storage operators get completely wrong about customer acquisition—you DON’T need to pay for ads…at all! Through strategic self storage SEO, he’s bringing in customers at a fraction of the cost while most of his competitors are still trying to outrank him.

We’ll also speak about the significant differences between Canadian self storage investing and American self storage investing and why now may be the best time to get into the Canadian market as their population grows, with VERY few self storage facilities to match the demand.

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

  • Why Canada might be the next best place to buy (or build) a self storage facility 
  • How to get more self storage customers without paying a dollar for ads
  • Jason’s self storage SEO strategy he uses to outrank even the biggest competitors in his market 
  • What you MUST do as soon as you start building/planning to buy a self storage facility to rank #1 on Google
  • Jason’s outlook for the self storage industry and what he’s doing to beat the competition
  • Why development is starting to come back and good news for those in self storage acquisitions 

Forge Building episode

Sunbird Storage

Storagely

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The population growth rate in Canada, obviously it's only got one-tenth of the population,

0:05.2

but its population growth rate is 5x the U.S. So you've got a position where you've got a shortage

0:09.8

of supply, and you've got the fastest growing sort of industrialized nation. Then I come to the U.S.,

0:16.5

which is where I live, but I come here a year ago and I'm looking at a lot of markets going,

0:20.6

who would build there? You may be surprised to learn that we don't spend money on any types of

0:25.2

paid ads. So here we are, generally speaking, you know, renting twice as many units in a month.

0:30.6

You know, instead of 30 units, you know, renting 60 units at the similar facilities without a single ad.

0:41.2

What? similar facilities without a single ad. Welcome everybody to self-storage income, and we have got an awesome guest today.

0:47.7

We're talking about a few things that we actually haven't hit on a lot in the podcast.

0:51.7

So this is going to be a really interesting one. I've already, before we

0:56.8

even started it, I asked a few questions and I was like, no, hold off. I got so many questions.

1:01.6

We're just going to have to wait until the podcast. So today I got with us, Jason Coonan,

1:06.7

and I'm really, really excited to have him on. He is the CEO of Sunbird Storage Management in the U.S. and Blue Bird Storage in Canada.

1:18.7

So with that, bring you on.

1:21.0

How are you doing, Jason?

1:22.3

Doing great today.

1:23.4

It's nice to see you, AJ.

1:24.6

I'm excited to be on.

1:25.8

Yeah, nice to have you on.

1:30.2

And I was looking at your stuff I was a little confused out here because I saw Canada then the United States so we got to start

1:35.2

just right off there um it do you own operate or manage in Canada and then you live in the

1:41.5

United States or how's that all work? Yeah, it's definitely

...

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