Holly Fiorello (Storable) on Self Storage Marketing Trends, AI SEO & Community Playbooks

Brian Russ (00:01)

I do have pants on, by the way. Well, yeah, there’s sweats. mean, don’t tell on me. It’s got an elastic waistband. Yeah, I mean, what did?

Chris Feild (00:01)

Yeah, full long pants?

Andrew Rockoff (00:06)

full long pants? Like, you think the man’s wearing capris?

Chris Feild (00:10)

No, ⁓

versus short pants.

Brian Russ (00:14)

⁓ It’s a little chilly this morning around out here Slightly chilly this morning, and I’m over a little a little sickness, so you know I decided to go with the sweats yeah little puma joggies

Andrew Rockoff (00:14)

Is that Capri’s?

Chris Feild (00:16)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (00:23)

You a pair of joggers on maybe? You rocking the joggers?

Brian Russ (00:27)

What are you wearing beneath your… What are you wearing beneath your Bill Murray?

Chris Feild (00:28)

Not gray though, not gray. That’s not,

you know I’m rocking the Delco tuxedo. No, I’m not. I’m rocking, yeah, gym shorts, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Straight out of Marshall’s, you know, and pockets, pockets necessary for all my accoutrement.

Brian Russ (00:35)

Gym shorts? Is it gym shorts? Like some An1s? Some B-ball shorts?

Yeah,

Yeah, all the things that you need throughout the day.

Chris Feild (00:52)

Yeah.

Brian Russ (00:55)

Somebody play us in.

⁓

Chris Feild (01:01)

Were you humming the Doug song? Yeah, rock off.

Andrew Rockoff (01:01)

Was that Doug?

Brian Russ (01:04)

I love you guys. This is

why we do this. You guys are my people.

Andrew Rockoff (01:06)

Nailed it.

I was like, I know that.

Chris Feild (01:10)

Yeah. And then he changed it the second time when he went back in. Yeah. Fucking pork chop the dog and shit.

Brian Russ (01:11)

Hmm hmm.

Andrew Rockoff (01:13)

Got a little nostalgic feeling going on.

Brian Russ (01:19)

Dude, ⁓ we played Killer Tofu for Adam by The Beats the other day from Doug. Come on guys, Killer Tofu, The Beats.

Chris Feild (01:30)

That was the band, right?

Brian Russ (01:31)

Yeah, like the Beatles, but the beats.

Chris Feild (01:33)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the angry bully. Was he in the beat still? Okay.

Brian Russ (01:37)

No, the angry bully

was Roger Klotz and he was just a piece of shit.

Chris Feild (01:40)

Sorry,

sorry, I’m clearly swimming in the deep end here. Go ahead.

Brian Russ (01:45)

You

I gotta mute for this one.

Chris Feild (01:50)

You gotta

hit the mute button. See, it’s facing the wrong way. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Brian Russ (01:55)

couldn’t get there quick enough.

think, doesn’t the mute button on the mic just mute yourself for yourself? Or does this actually…

Andrew Rockoff (02:04)

No, it mutes your mic.

Chris Feild (02:05)

⁓ I

can’t hear you. Yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (02:08)

Why wouldn’t they put it all on one side?

Chris Feild (02:10)

Alright, let me check mine.

Brian Russ (02:12)

That’s good to know.

Chris Feild (02:13)

I can’t even use it.

Andrew Rockoff (02:14)

little tap. There you go.

Brian Russ (02:15)

You guys really don’t know killer tofu. God damn it. Not willing to let this go. It’s been like 30 years. Only nothing, 30 years. Jesus.

Chris Feild (02:15)

It works.

Andrew Rockoff (02:20)

been a minute.

Chris Feild (02:22)

No,

I keep singing the Have You Ever Put Butter On Your Pop Tart from Family Guy.

Have you ever put butter on your Pop-Tart? It’s so friggin’ good!

Andrew Rockoff (02:31)

one?

Brian Russ (02:31)

that

one.

Chris Feild (02:39)

Have you ever put butter on your Pop-Tart if you haven’t done a thank you shirt?

Brian Russ (02:39)

Damn, that’s a…

Can you do back scratcher for me?

Chris Feild (02:46)

I don’t know. ⁓

Andrew Rockoff (02:46)

Hehehe. Hehehe.

Brian Russ (02:48)

Just say, you never heard Peter say back scratcher that episode where he says it like him. Yeah, yeah, basically. Back scratcher. did you ever see the one where he’s playing like the NBA jam and he just keeps going corner three corner three. You see that one? my God, that is so good to. ⁓

Chris Feild (02:51)

Back scratcher!

Andrew Rockoff (02:54)

we got our cold open, boys.

You

There was one…

Chris Feild (03:11)

I’m on fire! Quagmire, I’m on fire!

Andrew Rockoff (03:16)

There was one where they were, I think, a maternity ward or something. do you guys remember? It was like.

They were eating and then someone came and they’re are you supposed to be here? what’s your name? And he’s looking around for potential items. He looks at a pea on a plate and he’s like, ⁓ peed it, peed it. And then a Griffin flies by and he’s like, Griffin, peed a Griffin,

Holly Fiorello (04:24)

Hi, good morning.

Chris Feild (04:25)

Hey, Holly. Good morning.

Andrew Rockoff (04:25)

Hey Holly.

Brian Russ (04:26)

⁓

Good morning.

Andrew Rockoff (04:28)

How are you?

Holly Fiorello (04:29)

Hello. I’m good, how are you?

Andrew Rockoff (04:30)

doing pretty good.

Holly Fiorello (04:31)

It’s only the second time I’ve used this little recording studio. I had to play with the recordings a little bit first.

Brian Russ (04:33)

us too.

Andrew Rockoff (04:39)

Yeah, we’re figuring this out as we go too. We’ve had four episodes. So we’re kind of like seasoned vets by now. ⁓

Holly Fiorello (04:46)

Okay, perfect. Well, you can walk me through it in case I

Brian Russ (04:46)

Yeah

Holly Fiorello (04:49)

have any questions.

Chris Feild (04:50)

All right, who’s making all the noise? Brian? Damn it, Brian. I need you to sit still, sit on your hands. Sit on those hands, Brian.

Brian Russ (04:53)

That’s totally me. I’m sorry. I’m rattling all around here. Mess. I can’t. I’m

Holly Fiorello (04:59)

Thank

Brian Russ (05:00)

a fidgety. I’m gonna mute. I’m gonna

mute. And then there’s a 99 % chance that I’m gonna be coughing my head off at some point today too. So I’m gonna live in silence.

Holly Fiorello (05:08)

Aww.

Chris Feild (05:09)

So Holly, thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. Welcome to the podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to the self storage industry?

Holly Fiorello (05:20)

Yes, well thank you Chris for inviting me to join you guys today. I’m very excited. Let’s see, I graduated, moved to Florida, went to the University of South Florida, got my bachelor’s degree there, met my husband. His job ended up relocating him to Orlando, which I came with obviously, and I used.

Craigslist to find my next position. I had a marketing background, interned at a web marketing agency in Tampa before I moved to Orlando. And I ended up finding a group called The Storage Group. I don’t know if you’re familiar. I was their first, they had partnered with an agency and decided to go on their own. I was their first employee hire. And so it was a really cool experience to work with. At the time the owners were Brian Pelsky and Larry Hanks.

Chris Feild (05:54)

Sure,

Holly Fiorello (06:08)

and they had previously worked with SureGuard. So I ended up in this awesome spot of working with vendors who have operator backgrounds. And so during that time, I think I was probably there for a couple of months, the SSA asked Larry if he would come speak on SEO and digital marketing. And he’s like, you know, I know operations. I don’t know this side as well. I raised my hand, ended up speaking for my very first public speaking presentation in…

Las Vegas for the SSA in 2012. And it just opened my eyes to see self storage in that lens, right? Like thousands of people, the energy, everybody was so nice. Everybody wanted to know who I was. Everybody was like, you know, wanted to help each other. And I guess that was like love at first sight, if you will. So I stayed with the storage group for…

Chris Feild (06:38)

Wow.

Holly Fiorello (07:00)

four years ended up their vice president of marketing and customer success at the time before I ended up doing my own marketing and consulting. From there, one of my I am, yes, yep. My first customer with my business was Call Potential and Phil Murphy. And I also did the marketing for his stores, for Nextdoor Self Storage. So he’s got about 20 locations throughout Illinois.

Chris Feild (07:08)

Right. You’re still doing that, right?

Holly Fiorello (07:22)

And I just, again, really liked the team. I fell in like it was cohesive. He wanted to bring me on full time. I ended up, I still have my consulting and marketing company, but not necessarily in self storage. And so I just focused, dedicated my time to that full time. I became a mom during that time. I have an eight year old daughter and I was with the company for eight years before we were acquired by Storable. And here I am. ⁓

Chris Feild (07:47)

That’s awesome. you, yeah, really. You’ve really decided your first year of self storage to go to the big show in Las Vegas and become a speaker. How were the nerves the first time you did that? And do you still get nervous?

Brian Russ (07:47)

What a journey.

Holly Fiorello (08:01)

⁓ You know, I don’t. I was so excited to do it and I think a lot of it had to do, I was so young that I didn’t know to be scared yet. I just was like, I know this subject really, really well and I like communicating, I can do this. And I think I was a little nervous, like when I got up there, there’s just like a room of people staring at you. Some of them are smiling, some of them it’s early in the morning, they wanna know why they decided to go to a marketing presentation.

You know the look, right? have to crack a joke about if everybody got their Bloody Marys and etc. But I had really good feedback and it still sticks with me all these years later. I’ve spoken at hundreds, probably over a hundred shows at least, in at least 30 different states through the Self Storage Association. And I still remember that first presentation when someone came up to me and said that I really helped them understand marketing and like again, taking them from

Here’s what this means, here’s why it’s important. Here’s what this means to you and here’s what you can do. They said it was the best presentation they had ever been to. And that just like, I was like, oh my God, thank you so much. They probably lied to me to make me feel better. They saw this young girl up there. One encouraged me in my career. But yeah, I just, again, when I say I fell in love with self storage at that show, it’s the truth.

Chris Feild (09:01)

well.

Yeah, no, I know the feeling when you come off that stage and somebody comes up to you and says, hey, thank you very much for that. Or can I get your business card? I’d like to talk to you afterwards. It’s a really tremendous feeling. So the people out there who do that, it makes you feel really good. Like you immediately did a great job. That’s awesome. What brought you back to Pennsylvania?

Holly Fiorello (09:34)

My husband again, he dragged me kicking and screaming from Florida. I’m originally from Michigan, so I already knew I was not a girl fan of the winter. And his family is in New Jersey actually, in Stanhope, Nekong area. So we’re close enough, we’re seven miles from the border that we’re still in the Lehigh Valley, but close enough to go visit family.

Chris Feild (09:53)

And far enough that they have to call ahead.

Holly Fiorello (09:57)

You got it, yep.

Brian Russ (10:02)

Holly, I have a random question that really doesn’t fit in here that I’m thinking, Andrew, you’re gonna have to trim this out because it’s sort of derailing and slightly irrelevant. I know that you’re from that area. I’ve seen you speak at least a dozen times and I know you’ve mentioned it, or not from, but where you are now. And then, so a couple of years ago, I think it was the Mid-Atlantic SSA was in Bethlehem. Were you the one responsible?

for the granola factory Bethlehem bars coming into that show.

Holly Fiorello (10:35)

I wish I could say I was, but that was a new one for me. didn’t know there was a Bethlehem granola factory. Was it not the best granola you’ve ever had in your life?

Brian Russ (10:37)

Are you familiar with these?

It was fantastic and that’s okay.

Andrew Rockoff (10:44)

They were so good.

Brian Russ (10:45)

I thought of you at that time because I was like, well, I Holly’s from this area and I know she’s on the PASSA. And I was like, boy, I need to thank somebody for introducing me to these things. All right. Well, I’ll shoot Julie an email then. All right. Never mind. Sorry. Sorry. Back on topic. Chris, resume.

Holly Fiorello (10:55)

I bet you it was Julie, our executive director. I’ll pass it along. She’ll be out. Yeah. She’s fabulous. No, great. See, isn’t it so funny the things you think of? I love that.

Andrew Rockoff (10:58)

you

Holly Fiorello (11:10)

And I remember exactly what you’re talking about. They were so good.

Chris Feild (11:14)

So speaking of the self-storage associations, mean, you volunteer on the Texas Association, you’re on the board in Florida, you’re the president of Pennsylvania. Is it legal to be on three associations? I mean, have we looked into that? secondly, how do you divide your time to serve all of them and do the job that you’re doing in the corporate world and at home?

Holly Fiorello (11:40)

Well, I’m not sure if it’s legal. I’m not on the Texas board. I’m what they call a microvolunteer, which is new, but basically just helping advise them on what you would like a show to be about, why you’re going to a show. So that one was new for me. And I think really like a lot of what happens on the boards is the bandwidth that you’re focused on is around the big shows and around the big education.

Chris Feild (11:42)

I’m it.

Holly Fiorello (12:06)

I’m sure all the different association boards are different, but the Self Storage Association, National Association, manages the Pennsylvania Association and the Florida Association. So there’s a lot of similarities in between how they’re run. We have quarterly meetings. The executive directors do so much as a board. really there to guide and advise on where the association should go. And then in terms of the event planning and education planning and sponsorships and…

There is a lot to do, but it’s all very organized, very well. So it isn’t a huge commitment of time. So again, I wouldn’t go more than two boards at once, because I think at that point in time, then you’re a professional board member and it’s hard to anything else done at work. Yeah. Well, Pennsylvania, because I live here and again, I love the association.

Andrew Rockoff (12:44)

the

Holly Fiorello (12:52)

and then Florida again from living there for 10 years. So I felt like I had enough of a tie to those states that I could do a good job of serving. Because we do try to limit how many vendors we have on those boards. We want to have an operator focus because really we’re there for you guys, right? But it is also kind of nice to have a little bit of a vendor perspective on what we would pay for sponsorships, how long of a show we would go, because that’s what pays for the event really.

Registrations are great, but having the sponsorships would give us the receptions and the breakfast and the networking times.

Chris Feild (13:27)

Well, you do a wonderful job and thank you for doing everything you do for the SSA boards across the country. ⁓ So your current role, director of field marketing for Storable, How did that role come to be and how did you migrate from call potential into Storable? it a difficult transition or not really?

Holly Fiorello (13:35)

Thank

Oh, it was

a big change for sure. When I started Call Potential in 2016, there were about seven of us in the office. And when we were acquired in 23, we had 60. We were remote at that time, so it wasn’t all together, but we would come together. So again, that’s still a pretty small scale, comparatively speaking, where at Starville we have 900 employees. Still remote, but you can feel the breadth. It’s a lot bigger.

Chris Feild (14:15)

Yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (14:15)

God.

Holly Fiorello (14:20)

It was my first merger acquisition. I’d never been through that before. I’d always work at startups and kind of just moved along to the next one. So this is the first time that we had actually, I had actually been acquired. So it was a roller coaster for sure. I’ve talked to friends who’ve kind of gone through similar things since, and my advice has always been to them, just like go along for the ride. There’s going to be ups, there’s going to be downs. They’re going to do things differently. But at the end of the day, Storble actually did really care about the employee experience for bringing those acquisitions in.

So, yeah, mean, I will say I was the VP of marketing at Call Potential and now I’m the director of field marketing, which obviously it’s a much larger company. So it is just different in terms of the tiers. So I think that was probably one of the harder parts for me is I’ve been used to leading those departments and now to come in and have a couple layers above you, which no problem, okay, but it was just a change for me. And Chrissy, who is my boss at, well,

She’s my boss’s boss now, at Storable, she’s the senior vice president of marketing when she was new. They had hired her kind of during the acquisition, but she just took me in under her wing. She’s been through acquisitions before and she asked me what I wanted to do, what I liked about what I was doing at Call Potential and the area that I really honed in on is being out in the field with you guys. I love going to shows. I love talking to people. I love interviewing people. So a lot of what I do are…

case studies and customer features and webinars and presentations at shows. We just had an executive summit at Stora Ball where we bring some of our largest customers together. I got to participate in that planning and programming and education and things like that. So that’s really kind of where my strengths are and she asked what I wanted to do and I told her and she said, right and set me free. So that’s kind of where we are. We have hit two years now. So it’s been a ride.

Chris Feild (16:06)

That’s

awesome.

Andrew, marketing? Go for it. ⁓

Andrew Rockoff (16:39)

are there any new cool features that are coming out that’s storable is going to be offering we know that storable has become this big company that’s had a bunch of acquisitions is there any like new acquisitions on the horizon you might be able to share or are there

any new tech coming through that we can be on the lookout for.

Holly Fiorello (16:59)

I am not sure on the acquisition front, but you know, we’re storable. where I always say we’re always shopping in terms of like new technology. Yes. We’ve really like focused on development. That’s, know, basically we had heard from operators that they, you know, want to want to be more what’s in the future. So a couple of, you know, AI obviously is a big one. You can’t go anywhere in any business in any industry, not hear about it. So we’ve focused a lot on that.

We did launch our AI chat bot called Agent Assist, which integrates with your property management software. So it is a very integrated experience, help your management team, know, resolves 80 % plus of conversations, like all that labor that would go, how many times did your manager want to answer the phone and tell you what the gate hours are? And I forgot my gate code and things like that. So that’s been a really cool tool. Something else that we’ve heard from the industry ⁓ when using products is, I’ve got all this data.

help me make sense of it. So our business intelligence is a new feature that we will be launching soon, But really takes all your data and puts it in dashboards where you can kind of, you don’t have to run your spreadsheets and do your own tables and your own Excel to kind of see what’s happening. It’ll tell you what you want to know or want to see kind of at a high level.

So those are the two new cool things, I think, and that’s more like on the FMS website side. We also have, new services, digital marketing services, which is really like, ⁓ it’s more than just SEO. With the large language models out there, we’re trying to help everyone show up for AI, and that is really just like, it kind of reminds me of even almost like 10 years ago in SEO, it wasn’t just set at your website and your local listings and your dot, like you need to have your reputation management.

How are you appearing in Reddit? How are you appearing in Yelp? And it’s just a huge, huge undertaking. So we have different packages to kind of help do a more holistic 360 picture because with the AI overviews in Google search, we’re seeing click-through rates go down a lot because people are getting what they want to see on the overview they’re not clicking through. So that’s really what we’re trying to solve for. And obviously, different markets have different needs. So there’s different solutions for them. So again.

The Wild West, feel like, with the AI frontier. And we’ve just got our experts in the house telling us what to do and trying to make it happen for operators.

Andrew Rockoff (19:14)

Yeah, we’ve been seeing similar shifts. Obviously, AI has been I’ve never seen something like this grow, especially in the marketing industry, this fast. We started talking about this maybe two, three years ago when it started to really make its way into the conferences and stuff. And now it is everywhere.

But it’s interesting you mentioned the shift in click-through rates and traffic to the site because people are using these AI tools. And now they’re getting that comparison where they would shop around. It’s all being laid out for them before they even get to the websites.

So are the websites that Storable is involved with, are they now starting to optimize for AI and how to rank in those searches? Because it’s almost like a different kind of search that’s coming up now too.

Holly Fiorello (20:08)

It is, and that would be something I’d have to go more back to the digital marketing services team to ask explicitly what they’re doing. I know we’re taking like a full ⁓ court press in all directions between our marketplace website, our own personal website, what we’re doing for customers, kind of changing some of the tactics where we’re writing FAQs and glossaries and things like trying to write for what

We’re thinking AI is using those really long tail keywords at this point in time. So they’re trying to, trying to make it really easy for them again. And like some of the other things just being out in the field and hearing what other people are doing are like site maps are important again. Like I did not have that on my bingo card. I shouldn’t be surprised because New York Oats came back with a.

Chris Feild (20:53)

Hehehehehe

Holly Fiorello (20:57)

COVID, so anything’s possible really.

Andrew Rockoff (21:00)

so AI is kind of at the forefront right now and everybody’s trying to figure this whole thing out. But what do you see as kind of the next big opportunity from a marketing standpoint in our industry? Cause I feel like we’re in an industry that, and I’ve mentioned this before, everybody’s probably getting tired of hearing me say it, but we’re definitely behind a little bit from a technological standpoint when, when comparing to other industries. But,

Do you see any big opportunity from a marketing standpoint in our industry in any kind of regard?

Holly Fiorello (21:35)

I don’t think there’s an easy answer. I can tell you what I’ve heard recently, which made my ears perk up a little bit that I was surprised on. One of the things that I’ve heard has been driving some, it’s a new channel, I guess, basically. And it is still through Google. It’s called Google Local Service Ads. I don’t know if you’ve tried it yet, but I’ve heard that because not everyone’s on there yet, and it is really kind of a new service, it’s very laborious to get set up, apparently, but.

It was driving very high quality leads with a lower customer acquisition cost. So that, you know, I perked my ears up and I sent out a couple operators to check out something we’re looking at internally too. ⁓ And I don’t feel like there’s one thing that’s like, you have to take up this opportunity. ⁓ I honestly feel like it’s so much harder now. Like you have to be creative. You have to be strategic. There was an operator that I talked to who said that he was getting a lot of leads from Yelp again, which had been kind of a dead channel for us.

Chris Feild (22:30)

Hmm.

Holly Fiorello (22:32)

in the past and very, very expensive to use. You know, all things considered, there are a lot less leads and demand now than there used to be, so more competition. But those two things have been the top two that it kind of stood out. My very, very good, wonderful friend, Melissa Siles with Storage Asset Management will talk about how she’s used TikTok to generate tons of leads, which…

is super impressive. She’s just a brilliant marketer. So always look to her for anything new that’s coming out or where she’s seeing success. ⁓ She also speaks to a lot of the shows too.

Chris Feild (23:30)

I think when COVID hit, everybody was very excited. Those of ⁓ those companies that were already set up. Sorry.

Andrew Rockoff (23:38)

Brian and I are like,

yeah, excited is not really the word I would use for COVID, but sure, go ahead.

Chris Feild (23:44)

So when COVID hit, ⁓ some of the self-storage

operators were very happy that they had remote management kind of sort of figured out. ⁓ And then when things tailed off and the world opened up again in 22 and 23, I think we kind of saw that, well, not everybody’s really thrilled to death with remote management. the readaptation of the hybrid model or the manned model ⁓ seems to have gotten back on track.

Holly Fiorello (23:53)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Feild (24:14)

there. ⁓ So I think that’s a really interesting shift and I think we’ll see more of that hybrid model rather than unmanned.

Holly Fiorello (24:16)

Yeah.

Yeah, agree.

Brian Russ (24:24)

We’ve talked a lot about

kind of understanding as a storage operator, just know who you are, know where you are and who your customer base is and kind of what works for the community that the specific facility is in. ⁓ you know, so we’re definitely a people first business. We really invest heavily in our front line and our people interactions. Do you have any thoughts on marketing from that perspective? Like,

know, grassroots and local marketing or maybe some kind of best practices or just something fun or interesting that you’ve heard somebody do really well in that way.

Holly Fiorello (25:03)

Yeah, I am a big fan of grassroots marketing and participating in your local community. Some of the discussions that I’ve had with operators who do it really well partner with a charity, multiple charities. mean, you guys have such a large scale too that they’re looking for their local charity partners in each of their communities. They’re donating a storage unit for them. If they’re an animal rescue, you know, they’ve got an area for them to stage supplies and things that get sent.

And they’ve shared that because of, we’re going to give this to you, just please share that you’re using us on social or to support us. And they’re getting it back in droves. Again, I’m a big fan of having a social impact and helping your communities. So I definitely like partnering with charities or partners that way.

In terms of like other grassroots marketing, there’s, you know, operators who have done carnivals, not necessarily to bring a lot of traffic in, but sometimes it does. One of the favorite stories that I heard, which is when you say grassroots, it’s very boots on the ground grassroots, but this woman was owner operator. She would do a community yard sale once a year and all, and she would encourage her tenants, clean out your units, donate your stuff and everything from that yard sale would go to a charity.

And it was huge and she would get so many new rentals that day. She would get people tours of the facility. It was a huge revenue driver for her and also did some good in the community. you know, she might’ve got new tenants come in from tenants cleaning out their units and leaving, but it worked for everybody. was a win-win-win all around. But again, that’s definitely boots on the ground.

Brian Russ (26:39)

It’s interesting, it’s…

Andrew Rockoff (26:39)

Such a great idea.

Brian Russ (26:41)

Yeah,

it sort of feels kind of counterintuitive, right? For us to create an avenue for people to clean out their units. yeah, but we’ve done it too. We have, and we’ve had similar results. Yeah, we’ve definitely done that at a few of our properties over the years. yeah, it’s sort of a little bit of a hurdle to get past mentally, right? To be like, do we want them to clean out their units? Not really. But, you know, it is an inevitability at some point, right? People’s need,

Holly Fiorello (26:53)

word.

Yeah.

Brian Russ (27:10)

expires eventually and so yeah, giving them a path to that direction with some positivity behind it, it actually has worked out really well. Yeah, that’s a great one.

Chris Feild (27:22)

If you had to create a tagline for the entire industry,

Go!

Holly Fiorello (27:30)

⁓ boy, a tagline, self storage. ⁓

You know, it’s hard. That is a, that’s a challenge.

Chris Feild (27:37)

That one was brought to you by ChatGPT.

Holly Fiorello (27:38)

One of the ones that I said was, yeah,

Brian Russ (27:40)

Hahaha!

Holly Fiorello (27:41)

I know, one right here, guys. I’m not doing it, I promise. ⁓ I had like a fun one-liner that I used once that I think I’m just gonna use here again because my brain’s not pulling anything better, but all’s fair in love and self-storage.

Chris Feild (27:55)

That’s true. That’s true.

Holly Fiorello (27:58)

I don’t know about the tagline,

so to speak, but it speaks to me.

Chris Feild (28:02)

that’s really good.

Andrew Rockoff (28:02)

If you

Brian Russ (28:03)

this one.

Four D’s of self storage. Death, divorce, dislocation, downsizing. Yeah, it’s so negative. You’re gonna have to trim that one right out. Jesus. Death.

Chris Feild (28:10)

That’s a bummer. Yeah, that’s out.

Holly Fiorello (28:12)

Yeah.

But you know, I honestly, is it still the four Ds? Yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (28:18)

Way to go, Brian.

Holly Fiorello (28:22)

But is it still the four Ds though? Because, know, the SSA just put out their demand study and for the first time in many years, it went from 11 % usage for the population to 13 and a half. And they found that some of those demographics are people that are just outgrowing space, not necessarily having a life transition moment. So what, do we add a fifth D? What’s a D word that goes with that?

Brian Russ (28:44)

something more positive,

development perhaps, or, There are a lot more uses in self storage, right? I remember the days, I think we’ve all been in it long enough to remember when there was this big fear as to whether or not us millennials or whatever these kids after us are called, what is it, Gen Z? ⁓

Chris Feild (28:47)

⁓

Holly Fiorello (28:47)

Thank

Yeah.

Chris Feild (29:06)

Alpha.

Brian Russ (29:08)

That’s our kids, think, right? That’s Holly’s eight-year-old and my eight-year-old. I think they’re the Alphas. But yeah, that’s a, yeah, well, that’s a whole, we could do an hour on the podcast just on that. But we remember when there was a time where there was a lot of concern as to whether or not.

Chris Feild (29:10)

Bye bye.

Holly Fiorello (29:12)

Very terrifying.

Chris Feild (29:18)

That’s how old I am.

Holly Fiorello (29:20)

Yeah.

Brian Russ (29:26)

people our age and younger would find uses for self-storage, right? millennials don’t want to hold onto their parents’ stuff. Millennials are valuing experiences over items. is that going to be, ⁓ is that going to spell doom for the storage industry in the future? And clearly it has not, right? That age group has now makes up the majority of self-storage customers and… ⁓

you know, clearly we found other uses beyond those old 4Ds and there’s a lot of things that people are using it for. And I think the biggest one for us is growing new businesses. You know, we love to see customers who are launching their startup and loving the small space and the flexibility of short-term rentals, a month-to-month lease in order to, you know, not have to lay out a huge investment for

Holly Fiorello (30:04)

you

Brian Russ (30:18)

overhead of a location and all types of industries. mean, you name it. There’s so many, so many uses for storage. Have you seen anything interesting? Have you seen anything kind of that has peaked your interest where you’re like, ⁓ wow, that’s a, that’s a unique use case of self storage.

Chris, anybody? Andrew? I’m sure we’ve all seen some.

But I mean, maybe the traditional kind of like service industries like plumbing, electric, HVAC, those ones make a lot of sense.

Holly Fiorello (30:48)

Yeah.

Chris Feild (30:49)

I had a customer once who asked me if he could turn a 10 by 30 climate control self-storage unit into an art gallery for a weekend. And he said that he wasn’t gonna, he had a way to not drill into the walls.

So he was going to fix all of his art so he wouldn’t damage the walls. And that was my biggest concern. But then, of course, we had that $5,000 clause where, you know, you can’t store anything more than $5,000 in the unit. So that that went away because of the artwork that he was looking to store and sell as an art gallery. But I really thought that that was quite interesting. He wanted to advertise wherever he advertises and have people one week

Holly Fiorello (31:22)

Woo.

Yeah.

Chris Feild (31:36)

weekend, he wanted to serve wine and cheese and the whole thing. ⁓ Unfortunately, it never panned out, but I thought that person was really thinking outside of the proverbial three walls and a door. Really something.

Holly Fiorello (31:49)

Yeah, I love that.

That is so artistic. will, one of the weirdest, you’re saying cool, I’m thinking weird. yeah, outside of Orlando, it was the largest boat and RV storage facility in the area. And they also had some inside climate controlled units. And I got to go,

Andrew Rockoff (31:52)

Yep.

Chris Feild (31:54)

Yeah.

Brian Russ (31:54)

Yeah, that’s cool.

Chris Feild (32:01)

Weird is cool.

Brian Russ (32:02)

Yeah, we love it.

Holly Fiorello (32:15)

take a tour there. At the time it was called adult toy storage for boats and RVs. So that was always a fun website to work on, right? Yeah, it’s been acquired and the names changed. inside was all taxidermy. And it was, I mean, I can’t even tell you how big this unit was. It was like a whole second floor that was one unit and it was the owner and he stored his taxidermy from his hunts in Africa in there.

Chris Feild (32:20)

⁓ hell of a tour, hell of a tour, Holly.

Holly Fiorello (32:41)

So, I’m not talking like mice, I’m talking like lions and giraffes and all kinds of things that could make you sad depending on where you are in terms of hunting. And also, Arnold Schwarzenegger stored a tank that was gifted to him from, I think, Austria at some point in time. So, you walk around this facility and there’s weird stuff everywhere. But that was a very interesting situation. then, yeah, really was. It really was. It was bizarre.

Andrew Rockoff (32:49)

You

Brian Russ (33:04)

That’s cool. It’s like the Museum of Natural History up in there.

Andrew Rockoff (33:08)

You

Holly Fiorello (33:11)

But I was thankful for the tour, again, because when you’re to see something like that. And then kind of a horror story since it’s coming up on Halloween. This one is from Phil, my old boss at Call Potential, but he said one of his managers was walking around and found out that someone was storing their full colostomy bags in a self-storage unit. And so he’s like, you can’t store that here. You need to dispose of that. The tenant…

that was storing those ended up stealing another tenant’s vehicle on the property, a white BMW, to move said colostomy bags to the dumpster. So the other tenant goes, someone stole my Yeah. So the other tenant goes to the manager, is like, someone stole my car. And so they end up finding it where it is. And it was just, you know, it was a thing. believe the police had to get involved. ⁓ But the talk about…

Chris Feild (33:44)

White is gonna stain.

Holly Fiorello (34:03)

a horror story. That would be it for me. I’d be like, nope, I don’t need the car anymore. It’s totaled. How do I send this to insurance?

Andrew Rockoff (34:04)

it.

Brian Russ (34:11)

That’s a shitty situation.

Chris Feild (34:13)

Hey-oh!

Holly Fiorello (34:13)

Ditch.

You

Chris Feild (34:46)

Speaking of Halloween, ⁓ is your daughter going trick-or-treating this year? What’s the costume of the moment?

Holly Fiorello (34:51)

She is, she is going to be Megan. yeah, the little robot, she’s perfect height for it.

Chris Feild (34:56)

My daughter was Megan last year. Very creepy.

Holly Fiorello (35:02)

Yeah, yep. We tested it out at the Halloween parade this weekend. She got lots of candy, people loved it. She’s been practicing the dance. She’s ready to go. How about your guys’ costumes, your kids’ costumes?

Chris Feild (35:13)

The oldest one is gonna be the Lorax from Dr. Seuss. And then I’ve got two K-pop Demon Hunters. I’m not sure which ones, but yeah, yeah, they’ll be Demon Hunters this year.

Holly Fiorello (35:19)

That’s fun.

Nice.

Andrew Rockoff (35:27)

My younger son wanted to be a zombie, so my wife got him this costume and it looks awesome. And when I came home from the office one night, it was dark out and he’s out riding on his motorbike with this thing on, full mask. Scared the crap out of me. And then… ⁓

Holly Fiorello (35:44)

Thank

Andrew Rockoff (35:46)

Caden, my older one, was gonna be something else. I don’t remember what it was. And then he saw Bryce’s costume, my younger one. He’s like, I gotta get something like that. So they’re basically the same thing, just one’s green and one’s like a dark gray. yeah, zombies.

Holly Fiorello (36:02)

I love a good theme.

Chris Feild (36:04)

Yeah.

Brian Russ (36:05)

zombies.

We’ve officially moved past the cute and, ⁓ you know, fun stage of superheroes and video game characters and my son is now gonna be the Grim Reaper this year. He’s embracing the scary and creepy. So that’s a change. It’s a little disappointing. I’m like, the end of an era. We’re not, we’re not gonna be exactly right. Now we’re the…

Holly Fiorello (36:24)

Aw. ⁓

Chris Feild (36:25)

No more Paw Patrol.

Andrew Rockoff (36:26)

You

Holly Fiorello (36:28)

Aww.

Andrew Rockoff (36:30)

Kaden just

asked me ⁓ like two days ago, he’s like, can I go as the Grim Reaper next Halloween? And I’m like, bud, we got a lot of time. But the answer is yes now, but we have a lot of time.

Holly Fiorello (36:37)

you

Brian Russ (36:43)

Right.

I was going say the easy answer is just say, yeah, sure, knowing that that’s going to change six times between now and then.

Holly Fiorello (36:49)

Well now you know where to borrow a costume if you want. You only have to go get a new one.

Brian Russ (36:53)

That’s right, we

gotcha.

Andrew Rockoff (36:54)

awesome.

Are you starting to see, I’m gonna bring this back, sorry. Are you starting to see operators use some of the more traditional channels again? The reason I ask is we’ve done mailers and stuff like that in the past and then we kind of got away from that a little bit when COVID hit and.

You know, we put a big emphasis on digital for obvious reasons, but recently we’ve kind of been getting back to mailers and going to apartment buildings and giving them packets. And we’ve seen a really, really good response from that.

We track everything we use QR codes we use UTM so we can if they scan it we can have that go through the entire journey But are you are you seeing and I don’t know if you’re in the position to analyze this But is it are you are you hearing or seeing more operators start to go back to some of the old-school practices?

Holly Fiorello (37:52)

Anecdotally, yes, I will say conversations that I’ve been in and overheard is people are going kind of back to basics and quite a few operators, again, I haven’t analyzed this from a truly data science lens, but a lot of operators are saying their digital rentals are going down and their walk-ins and other means are going up.

So again, like, don’t know if it’s AI or how long the AI overviews are going to be, but yeah, like there, I’ve had quite a few operators who have expressed looking for someone who could kind of do more of a grassroots and less of just a digital or to kind of compliment, like you’re saying compliment, you’ve got a strong digital presence, but there are some opportunities to do some more boots on the ground stuff. I’m glad to hear that the apartments are going in. That was something I was curious about. know everyone did it, you know, 10.

plus years ago and realtors, now that the market’s kind of stalled. I think businesses is a really interesting one too, because isn’t the lifetime value a lot longer for commercial tenants? I thought it used to be in the past like double what the rest of the consumer demographics were, but even I guess consumers are staying longer now, according to the demand study.

Andrew Rockoff (38:59)

our director of revenue management told us on a recent episode, what was the, what was the length of stay? This was taking everybody into account, the commercial and the residential, but I think he said it was, for us, I think he said it was like 52 months across the board. Yeah. ⁓

Chris Feild (39:14)

Yep.

Holly Fiorello (39:15)

That’s amazing.

Andrew Rockoff (39:17)

I agree. think the commercial traditionally was definitely staying longer, but I think because of the housing market and there’s not really places for people to go, we’re starting to see tenants stay, a little bit longer than they wanted to also on the residential side.

Holly Fiorello (39:33)

Yeah, very interesting.

Chris Feild (39:33)

Have you noticed, ⁓

Absolutely, absolutely it is. All right, you ready for rapid fire? Off, off self storage completely. ⁓ Yeah, okay. Favorite Halloween candy.

Holly Fiorello (39:42)

sure. I’ll do my best.

Andrew Rockoff (39:45)

The fun stuff.

Holly Fiorello (39:47)

Okay.

Butterfingers.

Chris Feild (39:53)

Nice, nice, crispity and crunchity. ⁓ This is all food related, so you know where I’m coming from. ⁓ So we’re getting into multiple holidays. Favorite side and or dessert to eat or make during the holidays.

Holly Fiorello (39:54)

you

Okay. ⁓

⁓ favorite side and or dessert? Well, desserts pumpkin pie. I just can’t move past it. It’s perfection. Absolutely perfection. And it’s super easy to make even with your own pumpkin, by the way, which I see why it’s thing. Favorite side? I’m gonna have to go with green bean casserole. I really like it. It’s pretty good.

Chris Feild (40:14)

Classic.

French fried onions and everything.

Brian Russ (40:28)

yeah, so underrated. Little cream of mushroom soup, yeah, fantastic.

Holly Fiorello (40:29)

Yeah, yeah, crispy crunchy. It is.

Chris Feild (40:33)

Yeah.

We have actually adjusted the recipe. We’ve gone from cream of mushroom to cream of celery. And I don’t know if you want to get that crazy with your Thanksgiving because, you know, your aunt may fall on the floor, but it’s an interesting path to go down. The cream of celery. I highly recommend it. All right. Brian, what’s your favorite Thanksgiving side?

Holly Fiorello (40:42)

All right, I’ll try everything once.

Looking for my pen, I need to take a note. there it is. ⁓

Brian Russ (41:05)

mashed potatoes and gravy man, I could eat that every day. Boring maybe, but come

Chris Feild (41:09)

Does that even qualify? Does that even

qualify then, if you’re having it every day?

Brian Russ (41:13)

It’s a must have. It’s not Thanksgiving if it’s not there.

Chris Feild (41:17)

At my house, it’s not Thanksgiving until the uncles start fighting. So that’s really, you know, we launch from there.

rock off?

Andrew Rockoff (41:28)

boring stuffing and there is a like a I think someone makes like a corn casserole it’s a sweet thing it’s almost like a it’s actually almost like a dessert it’s delicious I love it

Brian Russ (41:38)

Hmm. Hmm.

Chris Feild (41:40)

I’m with you, stuffing. Stuffing has got to be, you know, you only have it a few times a year. Got to dust off grandma’s recipe. ⁓ It’s terrific. ⁓ Most recent concert attended and the first concert you ever attended.

Holly Fiorello (41:47)

and

First concert was Blue Oyster Colt and Nazareth. had a friend’s mom ⁓ take us. She was a rocker. That was really fun. Most recent concert was Post Malone.

Chris Feild (42:00)

Nice.

Where did you see them? Where did you see them play?

Andrew Rockoff (42:11)

Nice.

Holly Fiorello (42:12)

Yeah,

York, Pennsylvania. Actually, I went with Alana Ross and Melissa Stiles for my birthday. So it was really, really neat. It was fun. I hadn’t been to a concert like that in a while since I had my daughter, so.

Chris Feild (42:27)

He can really sing. Posty can really, really sing. Some of his songs are incredible.

Holly Fiorello (42:29)

Yeah, know,

jelly roll was there. It was a cool, it was a cool evening.

Chris Feild (42:34)

very

Holly Fiorello (42:36)

I gotta hear about your guys’s first and last two, I’m just very interested in that.

Brian Russ (42:38)

boy.

Chris Feild (42:39)

Go ahead.

Who wants to go? Yeah, yeah, you go ahead.

Andrew Rockoff (42:41)

Me? All right. ⁓

First concert was ⁓ with my parents and it was ⁓ Neil Diamond. Latest concert was probably Ed Sheeran. ⁓ I wasn’t like a huge Ed Sheeran fan but we went to this and I can’t stop listening to his music now.

Chris Feild (42:52)

Yes! Yes! Love, Neil. ⁓ Neil.

Holly Fiorello (42:52)

Nice.

Yeah, he’s a great singer.

Chris Feild (43:11)

Yeah, yeah, that’s really, really good. First concert, Beach Boys, the Valley Forge Music Fair in the late 80s. Stamos was not included in that one, unfortunately. And what was the most recent concert? I think it was ⁓ Counting Crows and Gaslight Anthem in Atlantic City this summer. I think that was the most recent one.

Andrew Rockoff (43:11)

guy can put on a concert.

Holly Fiorello (43:24)

you

Nice.

Chris Feild (43:38)

And that was pretty good, that was enjoyable. I brought my children. And it was still kind of enjoyable. No, on the way home, that was kind of challenging to listen to the feedback, the constructive criticism of the concert that they’ll never attend again. But ⁓ I enjoyed it. And they learned, know. Brian?

Holly Fiorello (43:48)

They don’t ruin it too much. ⁓

Brian Russ (44:04)

I’m actually struggling to remember my last one and I’m trying to pull up my setlist.fm where I track all my concerts and see what it was. And it’s been a while, so I haven’t been to one and I don’t remember, but I’m actually going to a concert on Friday. So we’re going to Atlantic City and we’re seeing Cage the Elephant. Big fan of them. so that’ll be fun. We’ve seen them twice before, so great show. First concert ever is…

Chris Feild (44:10)

Wow

Holly Fiorello (44:13)

Wow.

love them.

Brian Russ (44:34)

kind of obscure, but it was like a heavy metal concert. I was like 15 at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. saw Static X and Soulfly. I have not listened to either of those bands in a really long time, but not really interested in revisiting those either, to be honest.

Holly Fiorello (44:46)

Thank

Chris Feild (44:47)

You

Holly Fiorello (44:51)

Thank

Brian Russ (44:57)

I don’t know how my parents approved that when I was like 15.

Holly Fiorello (45:00)

Artistatic X, not the other one.

Chris Feild (45:05)

Yeah. Yeah. I know Wayne. I’ve heard of Wayne static, but otherwise no, no, couldn’t say. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. ⁓ so you live in the Christmas city.

Brian Russ (45:11)

RIP, gone too soon.

Chris Feild (45:20)

What are the most fun things to do in the Lehigh Valley around the holiday season that you would recommend?

Holly Fiorello (45:20)

I do.

My favorite thing, which again, cause I have an eight year old daughter is Peeps Fest, which is on New Year’s Eve. is, yes, it’s a 600 pound peep that they drop from, ⁓ you know, the steel stacks is where they have, where Bethlehem Steel used to be. Well, it is still there, but it’s shut down. But we have lots of concerts and festivals and activities on those grounds. And Peeps Fest is on New Year’s Eve and it,

Chris Feild (45:35)

Is that where they drop the peep?

Holly Fiorello (45:57)

the peep drops at 6 p.m. when it’s midnight in Australia. So the kids get to do it. There’s a concert. There’s fireworks. There’s activities. It’s just such a cool thing to do as a family and get like in the spirit. There’s also something they call Crystal Kindle Market, which is a huge, Christmas shopping type thing where there’s

bands, there’s live music, you can have breakfast with Santa, there’s stalls and shops and vendors and things like that. We’ve got carriage rides through Bethlehem, like they go, we go all out. It almost is kind of frustrating for me because Halloween is my favorite holiday, but they start decorating for Christmas before Halloween is over. But mid-October you’ll start seeing Christmas trees on some poles, because again, they go all out. It’s a really interesting place to be for the holidays.

Andrew Rockoff (46:39)

you

Chris Feild (46:47)

if you had to give one piece of advice to an operator looking to get in the industry, looking to purchase or build ⁓ a new facility, what would you tell

Holly Fiorello (46:57)

Wow. Well, if they’re new to the industry, before they bought or developed, I would tell them to find someone who has been established in the industry and either hire them to help with their third party management or at least advise on, know, because it’s not just set it, build it, and they’ll come anymore. Like you have to have the right deal to pencil out to make sense.

What would you say?

Chris Feild (47:23)

I don’t want to answer any questions. ⁓

Brian Russ (47:25)

Yeah, hire us. agree with your first point.

Holly Fiorello (47:26)

you

Andrew Rockoff (47:26)

you

Brian Russ (47:28)

Hire a great third party manager, access self storage if you’re in the Northeast. Great way to go.

Holly Fiorello (47:28)

Yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (47:35)

I think we’ve, so we’ve had two or three new facilities come on from the ground up in the past, what is it, like two years, Chris? ⁓ And we’ve been kind of surprised from a positive standpoint how quickly they’ve been renting up.

Chris Feild (47:44)

Yep, last two years.

Andrew Rockoff (47:56)

because 23 and 24 were so weird and down years that it was tough to see any of the success that we’ve had with these coming. But I would probably say something similar, maybe a year and a half, two years for rent up.

Chris Feild (48:12)

Yeah, like you said, Holly, it really depends on the location. We had one in way, way South Jersey on the coast, down the shore. And, ⁓ mean, that was 80 % full in a year. maybe a little more than that 14 months. ⁓ so that was a really big success. but you know, they, they had, ⁓ their next closest competitor was four miles away.

Holly Fiorello (48:25)

Wow.

Chris Feild (48:39)

and they were near a barrier island, so they had all that traffic coming off the islands and it really worked out. Location, location, location, still.

Holly Fiorello (48:40)

Thank

Chris Feild (48:48)

All right, well that’s it. Our time is over.

So, Holly Fiorello.

Andrew Rockoff (48:51)

We lose, Chris.

Brian Russ (48:51)

I know it seems like it

Holly Fiorello (48:52)

We froze.

Chris Feild (48:55)

Thank you so much for joining

Brian Russ (48:56)

All right.

Chris Feild (48:59)

us. We really appreciate it. It’s been wonderful.

Holly Fiorello (49:03)

Thank

you for having me. I had so much fun. It’s great way to start the morning. Thank you so much.

Andrew Rockoff (49:08)

Thank you, Holly. This was awesome.

Brian Russ (49:11)

And Holly, where can everybody find you? If they’re looking for a store bowl, if they need help, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Holly Fiorello (49:21)

Yeah, LinkedIn is a great avenue or I know it’s kind of, some people have a hard time spelling my name, but holly.fiorello at storable.com is a good way. Yeah.

Brian Russ (49:32)

Awesome. Thank you so much and we will definitely see you at the next SSA show.

Holly Fiorello (49:38)

Looking

forward to it. Thank you so much you guys You too. Thank you

Chris Feild (49:40)

Thanks, Holly. Have a great day.

Brian Russ (49:40)

Thanks all of you, have a great day.

Andrew Rockoff (49:41)

Thank you.

Brian Russ (49:44)

Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (49:44)

Thanks for listening to No Vacancy. If you liked what you heard, our episodes are available wherever you find your podcasts.