I've asked you to tell about your best tenants and your worst tenants. Similarly, owners have discussed what makes good and bad managers.

Now it's the managers' turn. Give me some traits of the ideal owner or operator (or regional manager, etc.) What makes them good to work for and what about them makes the company a good one to work for?

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John Carlisle
Community Manager, Self-Storage Talk
Virgo Publishing LLC
jcarlisle at vpico dot com
312-623-9395

I think the biggest thing for me is that they treat me as if I am on the same level with them. They truely listen understand and address any concerns and problems we might be having. They are also personable when the time is appropriate, never forgetting to ask about our children, families etc. They are also never to proud to admit if one of us was right and they were wrong. They make us feel we can really trust them and that is key and I see that they seem to have this relationship with all of the managers not just a few. They expect us to strive to out do the others and with that expectation they also give us the tools needed to provide that to our customers.

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Lovin it.

Sandra hit on two of the three key words in my book

1. TRUST - they trust us to run the show without micromanaging and questioning every decision
2. RESPECT - they have earned our respect and they respect us for our abilities.
2. Relationship - they have developed a relationship with us (and us with them) they treat us like family.

They back us in every decision we make - right or wrong. If it's right we all bask in the glory. If it's wrong we all learn from the mistake.

I have said it many times - I feel so lucky to be working for this family!

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Wayne
All American Self Storage
Palmdale, CA.


All arguments can be resolved ... with high explosives and Humor!!!

The ideal Owner in my book is the Owner that I work for, like Wayne I am very blessed to work for such a good Owner/company/other employees at home-office......

My Owner's better than yours, nyah-nyah. Ok, got that out of my system.

Seriously, it's nice to see people who appreciate each other. One day I'll tell you the story of how I met my owner. I was mortified!!

The bottom line is a business is a shared responsibility. Those owners that share with their staff reap the rewards, those that don't... well, they wonder why their occupancy is in the tank. Each person has to put their britches on one leg at a time, no matter how fat their wallet is; so appreciation & respect of each other is the key element.

Know-it-all owners need not apply with me. I appreciate that our ownership team knows more about some parts than I do and I admire their willingness to put their own money on the line and put their trust in me to help their dreams or vision come to fruition.

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Gina 6k
CochraneStorage dot com
Morgan Hill, California
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!

Mine....

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James A Mathews
Facility Manager
CBD Indoor Mini Storage

First of all, as I have said in several other threads, I am lucky and work for great folks!

That being said, I wonder what the responses would be if you were allowed to post to this thread anonymously. Or start a new one with the question, what makes an owner hard or difficult to work for. I have a lot of friends in this business and I have heard some nightmare stories regarding owners.....

Just food for thought! And did I mention that I have Great Owners!!

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MusicCity Gal

Have the guys (owners) irritated the $%#@! out of me at times, and has my blood been boiling? Oh you better believe it!! But, I wholeheartedly admit that I have graciously returned the favor a time or two.

THAT is what makes the ownership team here great! We are all passionate about the business from our individual perspectives. No one is shut down on their ideas, BUT you need to present a valid case against the other ideas you may consider lame, or meet halfway sometimes. No one is afraid to say "Are you really sure you want to do that?" and then debate the topic. Those debates or brainstorming sessions sometimes lead to even better ideas than were originally presented!

It boils down to a mutual respect of each others' strengths and weaknesses and working together towards a common goal.

I'm going to be brazen here; an exceptional owner recognizes talent and does the 'lead, follow or get out of the way' approach. I got lucky & landed a position with this type of partnership.

In this case, they had the money & built it, I've got a fairly decent knack for the business & people so with very few suggestions along the way I'm left to do what I was hired to do; run the business in all aspects and make it profitable.

Anonymous I knew would not work for me from the start, which is why I logged in with my real name from the get go. Someone would have exposed me along the way anyway... if they could have beat me to it!

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Gina 6k
CochraneStorage dot com
Morgan Hill, California
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!