I was just doing a quick review of recent and pending activity. I have been busy. I was a featured speaker at the Self Storage Association’s Executive Ski Workshop, where I spoke on the power of branding and how local branding is more important than ever. 

I did three sessions for the first Virtual Self StoragExpo with the good people at StorSuccess and Bitsonthewire. I talked about training sales people, specific sales tactics and trends in the industry. 

I lead a webinar for my friends at the Mini Storage Messenger on how people still like to deal with people…if they like how those people treat them. 

I am getting ready to do two sessions for the great folks at Inside Self Storage for their March world expo trade show. The one session is about conflict in the workplace…how to handle things when you don’t like the people you work with, your customers are rude, and your boss is a jerk. Not that I have first hand experience with any of these scenarios, but I can give a good talk even on things I don’t know personally. ( wink) The other session is a panel on new technologies that I will moderate. We will talk about all kinds of new tools from automated delinquent notices to the new self storage kiosk in a pocket. I hope the attendees will have lots of questions and stories to share about what they are using, what they have tried and what they hope to test soon. 

I am doing lots of business speaker activities for the storage industry while helping the crew at PhoneSmart get ready for its busy season. I really like what we are seeing from consumer demand. I really like how well our crew has developed in the last few years and all of our new tools, tactics and processes. 

And my favorite business speaking event is not far off. The PhoneSmart Hawaii Un-Conference is coming up June. You don not want to miss that.