Self-Storage Brokerage — The John C. Lindsey Way

Lindsey Self Storage Group was started as a family business, and it will always remain that way. My father has passed on a lifetime of knowledge to my brother and me, and we plan to take it to the next level by working with amazing clients on bigger and better projects each day. We were fortunate enough to recognize an opportunity to go head-to-head with publicly traded brokerage firms and create a strong name for ourselves in a budding industry.

So why do people choose Lindsey Self Storage Group or the “John C. Lindsey Way”? Clients, both on the buy and sell sides, choose to work with us for a number of reasons—but namely, more than anything, we not only understand, but we also can relate to, the entire process of owning a storage facility. In addition, we work tirelessly to establish relationships that last while getting clients the best possible outcome.

I remember starting out calling every single self-storage facility in North Carolina. My days were spent pounding the phones, getting hung up on ninety-nine out of one hundred calls, and questioning why I had ever jumped into this line of work in the first place. However, there was always that one call that would make it worth it – even if the relationship and “sell” would span over the course of months and years.

When it was time to move forward we created a situation that was beneficial for all parties. That’s the John C. Lindsey way of self-storage brokerage. We bring good buyers and sellers together to create a win-win-win for all parties involved. A win for the seller means a sold property at a price that meets his or her expectations. A win for the buyer means a purchased property at a price that meets his or her expectations. A win for me is when the two expectations align.

What Does Self-Storage Brokerage Really Mean?

Just as a residential agent, like your friend Mrs. Mary Joe down the street, would help you buy or sell a house, I help you buy or sell self-storage facilities. Pretty simple, right? Yes and no! I make the process simple. When people decide to leverage the John C. Lindsey approach to self-storage brokerage, they benefit from my years of knowledge, network, process, and greater understanding of the market at large and condense it down into one smooth and seamless transaction. Without me, this process could become a cumbersome nightmare. I’ve seen some sales processes mishandled by the wrong people, and it has unnecessarily dragged out what otherwise should be a simple process. When working with me, you show up to your own party, and you haven’t planned one drop of it. That’s the benefit of working with someone who has been on every side of the transaction table before and has one of the deepest Rolodexes in the industry.

No matter what stage your facility is at in its life cycle, there is a buyer for your property. As a brokerage firm, we help facilities attract the buyers they want. With a site ready for sale and an understanding of the buyer pool at large, it’s time for Lindsey Self Storage Group to go to work in the sexy world of self-storage. Our years of industry involvement help us line up the right match for owners and their properties.

Whether it’s been sitting as an active board member of the National Self Storage Association or being a featured keynote speaker at the Asia Self Storage Expo, I’ve ensured the opportunities to continually expand our already vast network have been capitalized on at great lengths.

As our reach continues to grow, so do our services to our clients. We’re able to produce a wider array of high-quality buyers, which, at the end of the day, creates a seamless process for our sellers—coupled with the best prices and the best terms. Our vast understanding of buyers’ and sellers’ needs puts us in a unique position to best serve our clients and continue to deliver win-win-win scenarios time and time again.

Marketing Like a Millennial

Having all the knowledge in the world won’t necessarily land clients – you have to get their attention. Our approach to this is something else that makes the John C. Lindsey way different than everyone else. When my brother, Alan, and I started our company in 2012, not only did we have a clear vision for ourselves and what we wanted out of life—but we also specifically wanted to do it by our rules, and our rules alone. Ask anyone in the self-storage business, and they’ll say Lindsey Self Storage Group is known as the young millennial company that is taking the self-storage industry by storm.

To this day, one of the most impactful marketing efforts Lindsey Self Storage Group has done was a video we produced at the end of 2015. We wanted to shoot a movie-style trailer that would grab people’s attention, show people who we were, and lay some groundwork for the upcoming year. With the blades still turning, Alan and I exit the helicopter like a scene out of the HBO hit series Entourage. It’s coupled with some pop art, stop-style editing, and some rock music blaring in the background. We glide with ease down the hallways of a facility, showing it off one door at a time … you get the idea!

We never thought it would get thousands of views, be shared throughout the industry, and be remembered years and years later. At the time, it was new and exciting and put us on the map. In the video, we state that our goal for 2016 was to sell $20.16 million of self-storage. It was a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of the industry and our line of work, but at the time, that was a big year for us. Now, just five years later, we take on individual deals that are worth more than that. What this video showed the industry, though, was that we are not the norm. As a young millennial-run company, we’re here to shake up the status quo and do great work for our clients.

We do things differently and people notice. I’m the biggest believer that every single thing we do is a marketing piece, whether it’s a speaking engagement, a podcast, a deal done, or even something as simple as a site visit. PR is PR; I don’t care if it’s in Hong Kong or Charleston. That is just another piece of the puzzle we can put out in front of the industry. I have people call me all the time to comment on what we’ve got going on. It may be a client in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who exclaims, “Whoa, John, you’re in Hong Kong right now speaking at this conference. That’s amazing. You must be really good at what you do.” To me, that’s what it’s all about—solidifying the fact that John C. Lindsey is self-storage – the revolutionary approach to self-storage. Learn more about the John C. Lindsey way by downloading a free chapter of my book, The Sexy Side Of Self-Storage: An Insider’s Guide To A Necessary Commodity, here.