A Day In The Life Of A Storage King Manager - Simon Fothergill

Storage King has been in existence since 2004, offering modern, clean and secure self storage solutions for businesses and everyday people.

The "A Day In The Life" series tells the story of the men and women who work in management roles at Storage King, managing the teams who make storage magic happen daily. This week we hear from Simon Fothergill, a Regional Manager at Storage King.

My wonderful wife makes my sandwiches first thing in the morning and makes sure I am ready for the day. My day starts in the car and with excellent transport links in my area, each of the stores I look after is about 90 minutes away.  Over the 15 years I have been in storage, I have learnt all the backroads and detours, so when I hit a lot of traffic or the dreaded M25, I always have the choice of routes if needed, even if it’s just for a change of scenery.

On my journey I call my stores for a catch up. This can be an update on sales, any repairs needed, any challenges the store is facing or just a personal catch up to make sure all is well.

Once at a store I catch up with any emails whilst the teams are making their morning sales calls. This gives me the opportunity to listen in and offer any guidance if required. Once the entire store team has arrived for the day, I take a tour of the store so the manager can show off his wonderfully clean store to me.

I ensure as a team we discuss the store results and sales figures and how we can improve these, even if we are ahead of targets. I am a firm believer there is always something we can do differently or better that will help our results. I also like to make sure we are all open in our communication and my teams know they can say what they feel, we are all transparent and as honest as possible. This means as a team we have the full information to try and adapt quickly to any challenges or changes in customer habits. If I can help make a difference then I can go away happy. Ultimately my goal is to have a happy team that are hitting their targets and earning their full bonus.

During the store visit we cover a wide variety of operational areas. This includes sales training and listening to the stores sales phone calls, a review of insurance and merchandise sales and a review of debtors and how often they have been called, as well as any room itemisations or disposals that are due. Every store and member of the team has their own different focus areas and challenges so I focus on these on the visits. During the day I am only a phone call away for any other store if they need to speak with me to get any advice or guidance in any area. If I can make my teams life easier, they are able to spend more time on the most important area – sales.

I prefer my team to think and act on their own judgements and deal with issues and not just to pass things on for someone else to deal with. One of my favourite sayings is, “Don’t just bring me problems, bring me solutions”.  But sadly in our business not every problem has an easy solution. So, with good transparent communication my team are also happy to share anything they believe may be beyond their scope or ability. I find one of the best attributes I can find in a team member is not being afraid to ask for help.

What I enjoy the most is taking on an underperforming store or employing a new team member, then coaching and training and making real positive change resulting in great store performance. I enjoy seeing the growth of personal knowledge and a team member maturing into a great sales person.

Before the store closes I review my calendar and my plans for the following day so I am fully prepared for my next store visit.

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