After visiting the LV show we are toying with the idea of getting a truck to allow tenants to use on move-in. I'm sure you all know the drill, so I won't go into all of the details, but I'm interested in any of you that have had experience with them. I plan on getting it wrapped with advertising, and driving it around town on errands when it is not being used by a tenant.

On The Move has a pretty good system going, but I'm thinking I can do much better putting all of the pieces together myself rather than "one stop shopping" with them. I must say that they have been VERY helpful and great to deal with, so I still may use them, we're just now exploring options.

Any thoughts from those of you that have or had trucks?

Storman
one major area to deal with near the front of the list as you think about offering a truck is insurance coverage. I have had several owners who have found the insurance costs out weighted the benefits for them. Many others have found methods to protect themselves with off setting usage fees to customers. Just make sure you do all of the homework before your jump in. I have many clients who feel that they could not do without their own local truck.

Best of luck,
MisterJim444

__________________
Learning Never Ends

Try this instead of investing in a truck. Give a rent credit instead. If a tenant uses one of the rental truck companies, give them a rent credit (discount) equal to the cost of the truck rental Limit the amount ($29.95 worked for me). Do not include mileage or fuel.

This saves you the cost of the truck, insurance and maintenance. Let the truck rental company do that.

Easy, clean and simple

Astro

The Free truck is definately a good way to differentiate yourself from other sites in your market and many times it is what closes the deal for the customer.

You can lease a truck from On the Move or The Nash Group. You can then monitor to see if it helps increase your rentals.

Offer your truck to community organizations so the truck stays on the road.

We have a truck at one of our facilities in Tucson, our customers love it and we have received business because we have one. The Nash group has been great to work with.

__________________
Mel Holsinger, President
Professional Self Storage Management, LLC
3434 E. Kleindale Ste. E
Tucson, AZ 85716
O: 520.320.9135
F: 520.320.9435
www.proselfstorage.com

I suggest using one of the truck rental companies. It is very difficult to obtain insurance on these trucks since you allow your tenants to drive them. Obviously, your manager isn't going to pull a driving record each time the truck is used. Insurance companies are wary - therefore, it is difficult to get insurance and it is costly. The truck rental companies like Nash and On the Move take care of that for you!

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Randy J Tipton, CIC
President
Universal Insurance
3300 N Central Ave, Suite 1520
Phoenix, AZ 85012
randyt@univins.com
800-844-2101 extension 1153

Thank for the responses.

On The Move will allow me to use their insurance with a buy-in even if I obtain the truck on my own. I still think it may be better to use them from start to finish, but I'm still researching. I have found what Randy says to be true, the "mainstream" insurance companies can't touch the insurance that the truck companies are offering, they're not even sure how to quote it without knowing each renter individually.

Nash only offers the scrolling ad trucks now, no more static ad trucks. You may have seen it at the LV show, pretty slick, but also pricey.

The rental credit for a moving in tenant around here just won't work. The U-haul store up the street is like the DMV from hell, you'll wait hours to find that they don't have your truck. I think I'd still lose to my competitors that had a truck available for move-in if I were offering a $29.95 credit and the hassle of going to U-haul. Plus, I wouldn't get ANY advertising or goodwill from a U-haul driving around town. Just in the last month since the show I've noticed 4-5 opportunities where a truck with my company all over it could have been used by local charities and the high school.

Thanks for your thoughts, keep 'em coming...

We have a company-owned 17' truck, with all the advertising logo'd on it, that you can use for free with a move-in, and also rent U-Haul trucks. We get about 25% of our rentals from those trucks....every time a customer comes in and rents a storage unit because we can also rent them a truck (free or otherwise), I thank my lucky stars that we have the trucks. We do charge the customers $14.00 each time they use the company-owned truck to help cover the insurance and they only get 25 free miles, anything over that is $.89 cents a mile.

The company-owned truck does not pay for itself most months, it's about $800 a month for everything, and brings in about $500, though some months it's more....but it is definitely a big factor in our 92.6% occupancy. The U-Haul trucks also bring in a lot of rentals, either people rent the storage room because they are here picking up a truck, or when they come to get a truck, we ask them if they need storage and they do.

So I would highly recommend having your own truck, or at the very least looking into truck rentals.

Lisa- How many tenants per month do you think your truck is responsible for "getting"? RK said in a seminar that each tenant is worth $1200 on average, I figure if I get at least 1 tenant a month due to the free truck usage, I'm ahead of the game already. Let alone the advertising and goodwill by having it around town and loaning it out.

I could see how letting it go out for $14 here and $25 there would be an uphill climb to pay for itself, I almost hope it isn't running TOO much, the hassle factor overcomes the benefit at some point. BUT, if I can rely on it to get me at least 1 renter per month, according to the stat that RK told us, we're making $200 and getting the rest of the benefits for free.

Am I wrong here? Please correct me if I am, I don't need to make a $35,000 experiment with incorrect assumptions.

Unfortunately I don't have space for multiple truck rentals, and even if I did I would be renting the space as RV spots. The demand for RV spots in my area is skyrocketing as the cities around me get tough with parking them on the streets or sideyards. Wish I did have more room ....

Storman, our big sign out front says "Free Truck with Move In"

So just about everyone who calls or stops by, the first thing they ask about is the free truck. It's hard to determine how many would call or stop by if our sign didn't say that. But I do know that many callers say they drove by, saw the sign, and wrote down our number.

And there's not a good method of determining how many see the truck while it's in use around town and then contact us.

What we do with the truck is you can use it to move in, it's $14.00 for insurance and the first 25 miles are free. If you go over 25 miles, then it's $.89 mile.

If a customer wants to rent it to move out, it's $29.95 per day, $.89 mile, and $14.00 insurance. It could pay for itself and actually turn a profit if we ran a real tight schedule on it...for example telling customer they could only have it for 4 or 6 hours and renting it several times a day, but usually we do one rental per day. No use in stressing ourselves and the customers.

We rent the truck about 20 times a month to new move-in's. I don't know how many of them would move in without the free truck, but it definitely is an attention getter. Also, if all prices are close to the same between you and your competitors, the free truck will definitely tip the balance. It even tips the balance when you are higher priced if the customer is tired or stressed and doesn't feel like running around town trying to find a truck.

Many times when a customer needs to move or put things in storage, they are more focused on what they have to do next (gotta get a truck, gotta get a truck)....once they have that problem taken care of, then they can focus on the next one (gotta get storage, gotta get storage).

So like I said, I think it's definitely worthwhile, but then again, I would also take into account what your competition is doing, and other location factors such as "are you in a rural area where most everyone has pick up trucks?" if so, then a storage rental truck may not be as much in demand.