What’s your point of difference?

While a large self storage facility (or multi-facility group) has the scale, finances and capacity to outsource a lot of their needs, staff at smaller facilities are often left wearing many hats filling all kinds of roles – salesperson, marketer, cleaner, taker-of-payments, chaser-of-bad-debts… the list goes on.

Some of these roles & associated tasks can, of course, be outsourced to your existing software platform. Take Storman Cloud as an example – it can manage leads for you, run your online unit rentals, securely take and chase payments and so on – but other tasks require some additional research, planning and execution – particularly if you also have to justify additional spend & devise a method of showing return on investment.

Marketing is one such example. Many of us work in our businesses day to day and should all generally know what our key selling points, strengths and weaknesses are – but sometimes we need to look to our competitors to find our true point of difference and create an awesome value proposition. After all, your value proposition is the reason people buy from you.

 

Finding Your Value Proposition

In my marketing workshop at the SSAA’s recent convention in Cairns, I covered a broad range of topics – everything from video to social media, but if you were there (PS: sorry if you missed out on a seat – it was a packed room!) you may recall I also covered the POD, POP, POI framework.

This is a great way to find your value prop through the analysis of what you & your competitors offer, and compare it to what storers actually want. It comprises of three parts – POD (Points of Difference), POP (Points of Parity) and POI (Points of Irrelevance).

 

How to Build Your Matrix

Start by writing down all of your PODs; the things you offer but your competitor does not. Some examples might be that you have covered driveways and a courtesy move-in truck.

Then, write down all of your POPs; the things that both you and your competitors both have. Some examples might be the fact that you have many unit sizes, regular pest control or an on-site box shop. These are nice to have on your website and in your marketing, but they should not by the focus.

Finally, write down all of your POIs; the things you have but your storers aren’t really fussed about. Some examples might be your nice landscaping & gardens, or the fact that storers can pay their invoice online. You should mostly ignore these in your marketing.

Now that you have your PODs, POPs and POIs, focus on the PODs in your marketing. These are your key selling points and should form your value proposition in all of your marketing moving forward. Happy marketing!