Preserves No. 3 Remote operations
On site 20 to 40 hours a week, down to 1 to 3, run remotely
- Ingredients
- cameras, keypads, one phone line, card and ACH, no cash drawer
- Packed
- Summer 2025 to Fall 2026
- Best before
- the next site that pays in cash
The sites we buy come with an office and someone in it, 20 to 40 hours a week, taking cash and checks and keeping the books by hand, sometimes on paper. The clearest case closed on a Monday with no software at all. We digitized the paper records, loaded them, and the site was live on our system five days after closing, with every tenant moving to card or ACH and nobody in the office.
Every acquired site now runs on 1 to 3 hours a week each, mostly office time from the team I hired: cameras, keypads, an in-house phone line, scheduled walkthroughs, and card and ACH only. Cash and check went from up to a third of the money to under one percent; autopay from under half of tenants to more than three quarters. The hard part was never the hardware. It was tenants in small rural towns who had paid the same way for years, and bringing them along instead of flipping a switch on them.
The mess
A rural self-storage site, as bought, is a gate, a few hundred units and an office with a person in it. The person is there 20 to 40 hours a week because the tenants pay in cash and checks, the books are on paper or in software nobody else can log into, and the phone rings in the office. Buy that and run it from another state, and the first question is who answers the phone and who takes the cash. The clearest case: no software at all, one person on the books 40 hours a week, cash and checks, everything on paper, and no email address for a single tenant.
What I built
The same recipe at every acquired site, in roughly this order. Payments off paper first: card and ACH only, with the seller’s stored cards moved over so autopay didn’t start from zero (its own jar someday). Cameras at every site, keypads with codes tied to the tenant’s account, and the phone line brought in house so a person who knows the site answers it. Scheduled walkthroughs by local field partners on an inspection form, with a review pass before anything is signed off. For the paper site: the records read by an AI tool and loaded in four days, text-first outreach because texting was what the tenants had, and the office role ended. It was rough for three or four months. It still works.
The result
Sites staffed 20 to 40 hours a week on site run on 1 to 3 hours a week each, mostly office time from a team I hired; one coordinator covers 25 sites. Cash and check went from up to a third of dollars to under 1%. Autopay went from 22 to 46% of tenants to 76 to 85%. Tenant protection went from under 10% enrolled to 75 to 97%. Collected as a share of billed went up at every site.
The call
Tenants are the lifeblood of the business, and in a small rural town they have paid the same way for years. You cannot flip them; you bring them along. Text first, because that’s what they had. A person on the phone who knows the site. A reason instead of a rule: autopay never misses, so there’s never a late fee. And a few months of patience, budgeted up front and said out loud. The hardware is the easy part; the culture is the work.
Seconds from this batch
Occupancy fell at every site we took remote while we cleared out the tenants who had stopped paying; one site’s rent roll held flat on 23 fewer occupied units. Cleaning up costs occupancy before it earns anything back, and that cost belongs on the label, not in a footnote.
Still mine
The vendor stack at every go-live (property software, access control, insurance, utilities, listings), with ten to fifteen support tickets a month, and the call on which site gets a field partner and how often.
What transfers
Take payments off paper before anything else; a remote site with a cash drawer is not remote. Put the cameras and keypads in before you close the office, not after. Text first if that is what the tenants have. Give people a reason, not a rule. And budget three or four rough months and a dip in occupancy, and say so before you start.