The Cairns of today may look a little different from the Cairns of the early ‘80s, but one thing that’s still going strong is Joe’s Mini Warehouses, the area’s oldest self storage facility. Originally an acreage property running horses, the founder, Joe Sorbello, would regularly have locals ask if he could store their cars and other belongings on site so they could enjoy a holiday. The rest, as they say, is history! From there, the family built small sheds and warehouses to ensure people could safely store their possessions for as long as they’d like, and Joe’s Mini Warehouses was born.
Lee Morrison has now taken over the management of her father’s legacy. We spoke to her recently about how Storman Cloud’s self storage management software has enabled her to easily and effectively manage her facility, wherever and whenever she needs to!
Read all about it below!
Saved Money
Saved Time
Support and Training
The challenge:
Rising vacancies, expensive management.
“Joe and his wife Rita, along with their son John, jointly ran the family business – where everything was manual,” Lee recalls. “There were whiteboards in the office with running totals of what people owed, and boxes of receipts and paperwork.”. 2007 & 2012 saw the passing of Joe’s wife, and then his son John. Following this, Joe engaged a real-estate agent to take care of the operations of Joe’s Mini Warehouses and take the weight off the family’s shoulders – but it didn’t all go to plan. The facility was becoming rundown and their vibrant main street sign (a key part of their marketing strategy) was changed to bland colours, losing all street appeal.
But the most pressing issue was that vacancies were on the rise due to inconsistent rent changes and management.
Something needed to change.
The Solution:
Enter Storman Cloud.
“I have an uncle in Sydney who just knows all sorts of things, and he happened to know that Kennards used the Storman software to run their self storage sites,” Lee explains. “From there, we just picked up the phone and away we went!”. Lee and Evan have now saved the family upwards of $25,000 per year in management fees that were previously being paid to the real-estate agent – and thanks to the Storman Cloud software, now have complete oversight and transparency into how the business is tracking, with all their key data and reporting conveniently in one central platform.
“I just wanted to be able to run things the way we wanted to, and in the best interests of the business. We can now be at home, and still handle all our invoices and records. We’ve completely taken back the management side of things now!”
It’s not only the money that Lee and Evan have saved by implementing Storman Cloud, it’s the time. As part of the Onboarding process, Storman provides new users with free access to an online learning management system packed full of video guides; and that’s how Lee found out about her favourite feature, bulk receipting!
“Instead of going into every individual agreement once we’ve received their payment, I can just do it all at once; it just saves me so much time. It takes seconds, not minutes, and then I can move on with my day and take care of all the other bits and pieces that need doing.”.
