eKourier Oct 2011

Kourier Kennards

October 2011

Brand Fame is All About Our People T he 2011 Achievement Dinner was once again a wonderful illumination of our team’s achievements. It is apparent how many people are devoted to doing a great job.

In this issue Brand Fame is All About Our People Team Member Profiles Web Word Spotlight on... 2011 Achievement Dinner Highlights Customer Feedback Kenya Aid Property Development Pipeline Wine Training Review It’s All About the Internet 8 Questions... New Acquisition for KSS Kennards Reflections Congratulations Kennards Out & About Next issue Deadline: December 13th, 2011 Please send contributions to the editor Editor: Sharon Dux Email: sharon@kss.com.au Ph: 02 9764 9801 Distribution: January 30th, 2012 Upcoming events 21/10 - Hawkes Bay Anniversary Day (Napier, Onekawa, Hastings (NZ) PH Hours 24/10 - Labour Day (NZ) KSS Closed 25-31/10 - Skillbuilder - (NZ) 1/11 - Melbourne Cup (VIC) PH Hours 17/11 - Queensland Christmas Party 24/11 - South Australia Christmas Party 25/11 - Victoria Christmas Party 9/12 - Sydney (ACT) Christmas Party 25/12 - Christmas Day - KSS Closed 26/12 Boxing Day - KSS Closed 27/12 Public Holiday in rec of Boxing Day/ Proclamation Day - PH Hours 2/01 - New Years Day - KSS Closed 1-2/01 - New Years Day Public Holiday (NZ) KSS Closed 23/01 - Wellington Anniversary Day (P.N., Wanganui) (NZ) Closed 26/01 - Australia Day (NSW, VIC, QLD, SA) PH Hours 30/01 - Auckland Anniversary Day (Mt Eden, Three Kings, Tauranga) (NZ) Closed

This year again, the incredible number of 5 Year Service Awards is something to be proud of. It illustrates the engagement of the team members and their apparent fulfilment they get from being part of our company. This loyalty and commitment is not taken for granted. On the evening I took a moment to commend everyone for their efforts, particularly I recognised the importance of the countless unseen moments of great customer service. The tiny ‘moments of truth’ when dealing with a customer is where brand ‘fame’ is created, built and maintained. Slick marketing, sexy web sites and clean bold colours are just a veneer in contrast to the moments of truth. “The tiny ‘moments of truth’ when dealing with a customer is where brand ‘fame’ is created, and maintained.” Our Brand and reputation all boils down to people dealing with people . It is apparent the entire team has a great deal of pride in getting the detail right. There is a saying in retail industry - “retail is detail” – which suggests world class retailers understand their customers intimately. In this regard, they respond with outstanding execution and attention to detail. Customers notice this stuff, even though not all of them talk about it. Kennards Self Storage is a business we can all be proud of. Sam Kennard

Adding Value Awards Top - Bronwen Ault - Bankstown, David Bauze - Chermside, Beverley Brooking - TSM NZ, Joanne Woodhouse - THQ, Sandra Anderson - Yeerongpilly, Robert Todd - Thebarton, Nevillle Arkinstall - TSM QLD.

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Team Member Profiles

Mark Allen Assistant Manager - Homebush Career background: Department Manager (Audio/Video) for

Sandra Mazzitelli Manager - Preston Career background: Before Kennards I managed the Emirates 1st Class Lounge at Tullamarine Airport. Marital status: Living in sin! Any children? No. Hobbies/interests: I love cooking and eating. I also enjoy bingo and having a chinwag with my friends. Favourite movie: Dumb & Dumber

2nds World at Caringbah Marital status: Single Any children? No

Hobbies/interests: Horse riding, skiing and mostly spending time with the family Do you play any sport or have any special talents? Does Playstation count as a sport?! Favourite book: Anything by Wilber Smith Favourite movie: Zombieland

Favourite restaurant/food: Turkish food, especially their pizzas. Best restaurant would be Saganari at Docklands. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Melbourne to Italian Parents. Back then all everyone wanted to do was get married and have kids. Any pets? A chicken called Leslie Favourite holiday destination: I love Tasmania. I will retire there.

Favourite restaurant/food: Beef Strogonoff, K.F.C. Where did you grow up? A very small country town in South Africa. So small it only has 2 traffic lights! Any pets? A cat named Kat Favourite holiday destination: Geneva - Swiss Alps (skiing)

WEB WORD! - Where’s the Website and What’s on Google? I t’s great to be writing to you all at such an interesting time. To give you an update on the web site is seen by Google as one page only. When we do get into optimizing sites we’ll need to do the same for their surrounding suburbs. It will be far more effective with each of you having your own centre page on the site that we can point these listings to. on projects or ideas with all of the team and encourage feedback.

website, we’ve now had a month or so where updates to StorMan have settled down. This has allowed us to get stuck into the website and StorMan talking to each other. We’re now able to post transactions for enquiries, reservations and the box shop straight from the website, which is a great step forward. With many of you now having completed the section on Google at Skill Builder, we’re starting to get a flood of feedback from you on how to improve the ranking of your centres. This is sensational and please keep it up. At this stage (and most likely until the launch of the new site) we won’t get into optimizing individual sites organically. We have been concentrating on the bigger search terms such as capital cities and regions. At the moment as I am sure you remember from Skillbuilder, the old

Many occasions in the past demonstrate how the teams can be the originators of some of our best ideas. Yammer may prove to be the way you can engage in a conversation and shape future services without leaving the comfort of your shop front. “With many of you now having completed the section on Google at Skillbuilder, we’re starting to get a flood of feedback from you on how to improve the ranking of your centres.” The other initiative has been the bringing closer together of our Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and Blog pages. You will already see the Blog feeds articles on Facebook. Before the month is out we’ll be feeding the same articles directly to Twitter and Linked In.

This month we’ve also taken a big step up in our pay per click advertising - both from a branding perspective to ensure our name appears as frequently as our competitors, but also targeting the site names and niche services that we offer such as wine storage, safety deposit boxes and gun storage. Initial results are promising, showing a massive increase in customer click throughs. The real test will be when we see how many more enquiries and move-ins you receive over the longer term from this advertising. New platforms have also been the buzz word in the last month or so. At THQ we’ve been experimenting with an internal blog/ forum called Yammer. The aim is to see what is the best way in the future to share progress

Con’t Pg 3...

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WEB WORD con’t... To check us out go to:

Customer Feedback “Kennards supported the community by allowing Rotary District 9630 to store 5 pallets of linen until they were called upon for distribution to those who were flooded in QLD. For us you excelled in your generosity, and our storage experience was well above our expectations.” “Leonie at North Melbourne and the crew at Abbotsford Hoddle St are a fine team. We could not have achieved our objectives without their kind assistance.” “Prospect provided a nice, safe environment for my treasures. I always felt perfectly safe visiting at night. The refund came faster then expected, which was very welcome, and so was the box buy-back.”

hopefully the awareness for when one day they’ll need us again.

- Kennards Self Storage - Kennards Wine Storage

expanded with the addition of two new buildings, at a cost of $3.1 million and was completed in August 2008. This increased the total number of units to 722. The extension gave us a shop frontage on to Hunter Street and has increased merchandise sales by over 50%. Site Features We are the only storage centre in Newcastle that can offer gun storage, we have ten gun lockers for rent. At present we have 7 bands storing with us, using their units as practice areas and one of the bands give music lessons on a regular basis. The Team John Young is the Manager of the Centre and worked for Kennards at Fyshwick for 3 years before moving to Newcastle. He rejoined the company in 2004 . Terry Sharp is the Assistant Manager and was employed as a Green Keeper before joining Kennards and working at Sandgate and then transferring to Newcastle. Finally I’d like to take a moment to thank Amy and Sharon for their efforts in these areas. Over the past 6 months Amy has been intensely updating a large number of portals and directories with all of our information. Anything from Hot Frog to True Local and many in-between, not least of which has been our listings on google places. All of these sites should now have up to date information and where possible photographs and links to our You Tube etc. Sharon has been tireless in updating the Blog and adding content to the new website. Darryl Hodgson

@ KennardsStorage

- Kennards Self Storage - Wine Cellaring Enthusiasts: Australia and New Zealand

Maybe even Google+ in the not to distant future. This will allow any customer to talk with us or see our announcements on any platform they choose. Each new article or page we release will have the option for the customer to choose to follow us on any one of these platforms, again spreading the message further and wider and

Spotlight On Newcastle...

Our current occupancy is 77%, actual yield growth is 3.8%. Before the extensions we had 90% occupancy which dropped to 65% with the extra units. Growth since the extensions has been slow but steady. Income has increased accordingly and in the last financial year we exceeded one million dollars in total income. We now face the challenge of All Purpose Storage opening a new centre of 220 units in Railway Street, approximately 500 metres from our site. I am confident that with the quality product we offer and our high standard of customer service, that we will continue to grow and increase occupancy and income. Team Newcastle

History Kennards Self Storage purchased the property at 904 Hunter Street in Newcastle in 1984. At this time it was a wool store and had been for a number of years. It was converted to self storage and opened in 1985 with 303 units. The office and sales area faced onto a back street which greatly affected our merchandise sales and visible presence. Some time later a satellite centre was opened at 48 Throsby Street in Wickham which added a further 169 units for rental. In January 2008 renovations were carried out and the storage centre was Newcastle Manager John Young (left) and Assistant Manager Terry Sharp (right)

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2011 Achievement Dinner Highlights Firstly I would like to say...

There was no time to change our format so Wayne made the comment to Andrew “that it was nice knowing you” and walked up on stage. Darren’s opening ‘welcome’ speech had an allocated time of 15 minutes and lasted 5 – a first for Darren not to talk!

Our first opening lines generated a few laughs.

It was a nervous wait to gauge the audiences reactions, but we thought we had the audience hooked. The first cultural experiences of round the table discussions was also well received. Phil Howe took the ‘mike’ & O.M.G. we were never going to prise that microphone from his vice-like grasp. Bev Brooking told us a story about a ‘shitty’ experience with a customer making a deposit on-site in a bucket (could only happen in NZ), and Claire Kennard conveyed what we already suspected about a man that eats, drinks and sleeps self storage about their holiday life experiences. It was great to see the amount of team members presented with Service & Adding Value Certificates and Awards, and in particular the number of 5 years length of Service Achievement Awards distributed on the night. It certainly shows the company is growing with it’s people. A personal congratulations to both Patrick Norrish & Ron Walker on their fantastic milestones achieved with Kennards. We were also impressed with the number of Centre’s achieving a GOLD SCOTY Award, 18 Centre’s in total, a record first! At the end of the night, Wayne was surprisingly presented with a 2011 NZ World Cup jumper by Andrew & proudly wears it today (behind closed doors). Andrew for his efforts was presented from Wayne with $20 Australian Dollars - a gift he spent on his fellow team members (a first). Andrew Kirkham & Wayne Birch

T he 2011 Achievement Awards Night was filled with firsts. Having two Masters Of Ceremony on the night was a first. The Australian/ New Zealand cultural experience was going to be on show.

Our first thoughts as MC’s were based on the content on the night:

- Were people going to be entertained?

- Were people going to enjoy the evening with two inexperienced campaigners at the helm? - Were we going to be funny? We constantly practised hard our delivery and speeches during the day, even receiving a few laughs, positive comments & words of encouragement from the Hotel staff setting up the room for the night. Convinced that the ‘Kirky & Wayno’ show was going to be a hit and that we’d got the format just right, we were then ‘hit with a bombshell’ 30 seconds before commencing proceedings. Our new General Manager, Darren Marshall made a frightening comment “I don’t think it would be a wise decision (and future career move) to make fun of Sam tonight.” We both froze solid, well Wayne did because he was going to deliver the ultimate lines about Sam’s (lack of) ability as a Rugby Union player & make reference to his (lack of) height.

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Achievement Awards 5 Years Service Award Andrew Collett - Petersham Mary Nessek – THQ Bronwen Ault – Bankstown Clint Thompson – Erina Ben Moon – Guildford Tina Glynn – Castle Hill David Bauze – Chermside Aldo Gortan – Team Support David Morgan – Waterloo Joel McDonald – Camperdown James Burns – Hoxton Park Phillip Gallop – Prospect Sashnie Reddy – Bankstown Robert Todd – Thebarton Alan Bevin – Hastings Mark Montgomery – Port Melbourne Beverley Brooking – Team Support NZ

SCOTY - Cheque Special Distinction (Sustainable Income Growth) Lenci Taylor - Belmont Ian Thompson – Belmont

Karina Gardiner – Wanganui Kevin Forward - Wanganui SCOTY – Gold Artarmon 2

Leanne Nassif Nathan Deacon Richard Pope Erina Jenny Smith Clint Thompson

Chermside David Bauze Victor (Glen) D’Souza Kirrawee

Michael Howard David Courtney Springvale Brett Cleland Steve Chidgey

Amy Roberts – CCC Sharon Dux – THQ

10 Years Service Award Patrick Norrish (hornsby) 15 Years Service - Ron Walker (Rydalmere)

Fortitude Valley Patrick Rossow Sandra Anderson Belmont Lenci Taylor Ian Thompson Warriewood David Chapman Robert (Bob) Dutfield Panorama Rebecca Steinert Corinna Smith Preston Sandra Mazzitelli Nigel Spragg Chatswood Jim Kennard Mark Burgess Maribyrnong Charles Shepherd Vermont Christine Cutler

Adding Value Certificates Phyllis Jallais (Flemington) Sandra Mazzitelli (Preston) Phone Sales Excellence Sarah Scanlan – Artarmon

Geoffrey Turner – Wentworthville Bruce Newburn – TSM Newcastle Lenci Taylor – Belmont Mohammed Khan (Sarf) – Campbelltown Wendy Jorgensen – Campbelltown Iftikhar Ali – Camperdown

Joel McDonald – Camperdown Maria Katselas – Camperdown

Andrea Michaels – CCC Andrew Bauman – CCC

Fiona Harding – CCC Roddy Kennard – CCC Devashni Nandani (Dee) – TSM NSW/ACT Victor D’Souza (Glen) – Virginia Phyllis Jallais – Flemington Patrick Rossow – Fortitude Valley Sandra Anderson – Yeerongpilly

Peter Grimes Mona Vale 1 Timothy Race Brad Hampson Newstead Cameron Ferguson Fabiana Nunes De Assuncao

David Courtney – Kirrawee Michael Howard – Kirrawee Matthew O’Brien – Parramatta Nicholas Bachtis – Penrith Beverley Brooking – TSM NZ Stephan Wandl – Thornleigh Karen Bell – Ultimo

Port Melbourne Mark Montgomery Trudy Iacobucci Castle Hill Stephen Jansen Michael Baron Tina Glynn Rozelle Johny Vaman Shayn Wilesmith

Peter Grimes – Vermont Brendan Perry – Waterloo Philip Howe – Waterloo Benjamin Brown (Ben) – TSM NSW/ACT SCOTY – Most Improved Patrick Rossow – Foritude Valley Sandra Anderson – Fortitude Valley SCOTY – Special Distinction Sandra Anderson – Fortitude Valley

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KSS Enjoys a Team Effort 2011 Achievement Dinner Highlights

T he 2011 Achievement Dinner was a little different this year. With Sam taking more of a back-seat role, the Team stepped up and were more involved in the evening’s proceedings. This year the vibe was a little less formalised. The antics of Wayne and Andrew our hosts of the evening, brought an atmosphere of fun and

comedy to the occasion with Sam’s snapshots of wisdom still managing to highlight his love and passion for self storage. It was Bill’s first presentation after joining Kennards nine months previous and with a mix of nerves and jokes, he added new appeal to the Phone Sales Excellence Awards. The turn out of Team Members was great and everyone looked fantastic. I am always humbled at the effort everyone goes to, appreciating that some people work the day, travel and get glammed up, ready only to return to work the next day.

The night was enjoyed by everyone with a lot of team members staying late to catch up and soak up the events of the night. Our thanks to everyone involved.

Darren Marshall

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There are many examples of people who go the extra mile in the company. This year we received nearly 70 nominations for the Adding Value Award, which is a great reflection of the commitment to the customers, Colleagues and business that people have. Bronwen Ault - For Adding Value with her contribution as Training Hub Centre Manager. Consistently receiving glowing feedback from her trainees, believing strongly they have been set up for success for their future with Kennards Self Storage. David Bauze - For Adding Value with his outstanding contribution when conducting this years Skillbuilder training, as well as his ongoing positive influence as Queensland HUB trainer. Bev Brooking - For Adding Value with her infectious positive attitude and enthusiasm. She can be relied upon to support the New Zealand Team anytime, and make a positive contribution to performance of any centre she visits. Joanne Woodhouse - For Adding Value with her broad support activities and willingness to accept new tasks and extend assistance to all team members and areas of the company. Sandra Anderson - For Adding Value with her uncompromised commitment to Kennards Self Storage and our customers. Notably displayed in her contribution to support the team in the Queensland Floods. 7 Adding Value Awards this Year This years recipients were: Robert Todd - For Adding Value with his continuing strong contribution at Thebarton, setting an outstanding example in service and operations, while also filling in to conduct Skillbuilder training this year. Neville Arkinstall - For Adding Value with his support to team mates as Queensland TSM, going out of his way to ensure our centres are adequately staffed. His commitment and attitude to team mates and customers was particularly apparent during the Queensland Floods. Sam Kennard

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Customer Feedback...

“Everything was great at Warriewood, I had no problems at all, the staff were always friendly and helpful. The property as a whole was clean, loved the lifts, I was on a level above the ground level but it did not matter. It made the moving/storage process easy, thanks.” “ I dealt with Mark at Miranda and he gave excellent attention and information to me. Not only in the current short storage of a car, but relating to possible future house contents storage during house relocation. Very impressive, friendly advice.” I thought the service from the entire team at Napier was terrific! I first dealt with Clive at the Napier centre and he was extremely helpful and followed up with me as well. I was moving from Canada to NZ and he made the experience a joyful one. Thanks Napier team.” Ultimo – the removal of the old asbestos roof and replacement with new roofing is now complete. Ultimo is also getting a new office where we have kept as much of the original features as possible. Brookvale – the final stage of Brookvale is underway with an additional 219 units making up a total of 1496 units. Prospect – Progress so far includes the new driveway, ground floor slabs, concrete walls, roof and structural steel. Unfortunately due to the heavy rains in July we have been delayed to a November 2011 handover. Brisbane Wine Cellars – following the floods in Brisbane we rethought our strategy in Brisbane and decided to rebuild the Milton wine cellar on the top floor but also build two new cellars in Newstead and West End. All three are currently underway with an opening of late November 2011.

“I really enjoyed your premises at West End and the service and staff. Dean was extremely helpful and I even used your new EMU to move my stuff out! Thanks for the refund of unused rent and the free one month gift certificate, greatly appreciated. I am more than happy to use your storage facility in the future and will certainly recommend you.” “Dennis at Abbotsford Langridge St was fantastic and its pleasing to see that Kennards ‘get it’ that customer service is what the foundations are for successful retailing in Australia. Access and cost was also good.” “Highest level of customer service: friendly, informative, flexible delivery. I chose Kennards Preston because the storage unit was easily accessible , in both location and layout of units. The refund for time not used was also a great incentive.”

Kenya Aid is a small Australian charity involved in building a hospital in rural Western Kenya. Over the past few years they have managed to construct a hospital and fill it with some basic items such as beds, linens etc - and are now looking at collecting more items to store for an up coming shipment in 2012. Storage was proving to be a bit of an issue for Kenya Aid as they are collecting enough to fill an 8ft container. Kennards have supplied Kenya Aid with enough space at their Penrith centre, to enable them to store everything collected until it is shipped in 2012.

Property Development Pipeline

The Team at Prospect L to R – Sam Noyes, Lynda Walsh, Phillip Gallop, Mazen Trabolsi, Mike Lay, Tom Furness and Denis Morrissey Moore Park – since our late 2010 acquisition of Moore Park we have spent several hundred

thousand dollars on upgrading the centre including roof repairs, general tidy up and a new office. Miranda & Chatswood – smaller fitouts of 124 units and 125 units respectively have just been completed. Mt Eden - currently we have both a self storage fitout (87 units) and a new wine cellar under construction. Michael Macheledt

The Team at Mt Eden L to R – Feroz Brouwer, Shane Pearce, Andrew Kirkham and Darren Marshall

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Wine Training Review

I n August we took our Specialist” training. The training has been designed to give our teams a depth of knowledge of wine, wine cellaring conditions and sales. We want our teams to shine above our competition, by being well-versed in wine cellaring, motivated to develop their wine knowledge further and a desire to grow second group of team members to the Hunter Valley for “Wine Cellaring

their wine storage occupancy. Their knowledge on wine cellaring is a crucial component of our customers experience!!!

Lynda Walsh

It’s All About the Internet

like a local business. This means understanding the local subtleties of the market, customers and competitors. Recent initiatives throughout the Company have been embraced well. We have learned of local deficiencies to tackle and improve. Sam Kennard

I n 2007, approximately 25% of our customers found us through the Yellow Pages, prior to that it was even higher. For many decades, Yellow Pages were the primary and proven medium for us. It was indisputable, we could not afford NOT be in the book. The price of Yellow Pages advertisements increased relentlessly year after year. They enjoyed a monopoly. Just a few short years on and the rules have changed dramatically. In 2011, Yellow Pages represents just 8% of our enquiry numbers. They have suffered from the disruptive innovation of the Internet. Perhaps, Yellow Pages is the dinosaur walking toward inevitable extinction. As we all know, the new major source of customers is the internet. The Internet now represents 35% of our the local subtleties of the market, customers and competitors” “We need to think like a local business. This means understanding

enquiries. It has swapped places with Yellow Pages and in an incredible 4 short years. And, Google is clearly the search engine gorilla. Its simple search idea was a game changer to search engines. Previously, the ‘old’ search engines catalogued their

Enquiry Source History (%)

database into different classifications. Google was the disruptive innovator and proved incredibly powerful. The graph showing our enquiry source from data all our teams enter into StorMan illustrates the story quite dramatically. This emphasises the importance or our effectiveness online. Further, recognising the local nature of our business we must remain mindful of our local presence.

We need to think

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8 Questions... With Lee Porcelli

Lynda Walsh), the experience was much easier than I originally anticipated. The new building and systems make the work experience a very positive one and allow you to devote maximum attention to customers and sales. We understand that over the years you have had quite a few trips to Africa, can you tell us of your experiences there? My family relocated to South Africa approximately 15 years ago, when my sister married a South African. My sister and her late husband became one of South Africa’s leading furniture manufacturers. My parents have also been operating very successful, award winning Italian seafood/Australian fusion restaurants during their time there. I’ve travelled to South Africa on many occasions and Kristine and I were married there, on my family’s property in Zululand, where we had traditional Zulu celebrations as part of our ceremony, which was fantastic. We’ve been on safari many times, but never tire of this, as each experience is always different, unpredictable and thrilling in its own way.

memorabilia – such as old tin signs and pre-1930’s tin model cars, as well as mid-late 20th Century Australian art. My wife, Kristine, also shares my collecting enthusiasm and in our spare time, we like nothing better than finding items to add to our collections or to sell in our business. We live in a late Victorian traditional mountains home with remnants of the original garden – we love decorating our home and working in the garden, when time and weather permits. We have a dog called Charlie, a cat and a singing canary. Can you recall over the years, what centres you have worked at, in the order that they came about? Facilities I’ve worked at, in order, are Waterloo, Ultimo, Camperdown (Miller’s site), Tempe, Parramatta and currently Penrith. If you had to sum up Kennards Self Storage as a Team Member, what would you say? Overall, it’s a positive experience even during the tough times, such as the acquisition period, which was eased considerably with the leadership of team members such as Darren Marshall. I feel free to offer my opinions and ideas which are always taken on board by my fellow Managers and Supervisors. Also, the ongoing in-house training offered by Kennards has prepared me for any customer service situations which may arise. Over your 20 years with Kennards, what major changes have you seen?

Tell us about yourself? I have been working in the Self Storage industry for over 25 years,

commencing at Millers Self Storage and

continuing with Kennards after the acquisition of Millers. During this time, I have

owned several Antique businesses, whilst continuing to work in Self Storage on a permanent part-time basis. Previous to this, I worked for many years in the retail industry. I am passionate about antiques and old wares, as well as sports, in particular motor racing. Tell us about your Antique Business? My wife and I relocated to Blackheath 4 years ago to operate our Antique business in the Victory Theatre Antique Centre, which we’ve now had for around 6 years. Prior to that, I’ve operated businesses out of Antique Centres all over Sydney. Having been with Kennards for over 20 years now, what can you tell us about your time with Kennards and your experiences? During this time, I’ve seen phenomenal growth within the operation of the Self Storage industry, particularly in regard to technology and a major shift in focus to customer services which creates a more seamless and friendlier experience for our customers. I’ve also been fortunate to have always worked with great fellow Team Members, some of whom I’ve formed lifelong friendships with. What is your role with Kennards and what centre are you currently at? I’m Assistant Manager at our new Penrith facility which opened earlier this year. Tell us about your hobbies and family? Apart from my interest in motor sport, I’m also interested in furniture restoration. I collect early Australian motoring

Definitely, improvements in technology, with a major emphasis shift to customer

satisfaction within a competitive market.

Explain your experience being involved with the recent opening of the property at Penrith? Due to the procedural documentation in place and Head Office support (and, of course, working with Nick Bachtis and

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KSS Acquires Belmont Competitor

O n the 15th of September 2011, KSS settled on the purchase of All Storage - Belmont, an existing operator in the Newcastle area. This site is located adjoining the existing KSS Belmont centre and was operating in direct competition. This site was a logical acquisition given the terrific occupancy levels achieved in Belmont over the last year or two and the opportunity to integrate a competitor into our existing business. The All Storage site acquisition will add 2974m² of rentable area and 263 units. There is also further scope to add more rentable space should it be required.

Sam Noyes Assistant Project Manager has

suggested “the integration will be straight forward. We are simply going to knock down the dividing fence and add a few units to complete the intergration.” Integration works commenced as soon as the property purchase was settled. The new section is now fully integrated to Belmont. Simon DeGaris

Kennards Reflections T his edition of the Kennards Kourier takes us back to December 1997. ‘Doing 1,000 Things Well’ is one of the front page articles. Referring to a job well done and attention to detail, also not forgetting about the small things that all add up to make a great end result. The last line of this article sums it up - ‘Remember, the genius is in the detail.’ Inside this 1997 edition Kennards announces its first property bought in Huntingdale, Victoria, taking the portfolio to 18 centres. some feedback from customers listed - “Dear Sam, Storing with Kennards Wetherill Park was very good and above expectations. Easy access through morning to night. If we ever need storage in the future, we will be back and we will further recommend you.” On the back page of this edition in true Christmas spirit you will find a picture of Santa with the caption “Guess who stores his toys at Kennards Self Storage???” Sharon Dux Great positive feedback to Customer Response Cards is also mentioned, with

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Left: Bob Gay, Sydney Casual currently Assistant Manager at Parramatta, recently completed the 70.3 Ironman World Championships at Lake Las Vegas Nevada. The triathlon is a Half Ironman distance - 1.9km Swim, 90km Bike and 21km Run. Well done Bob!

Customer Feedback “I was very happy with Azam at North Melbourne, he was extremely friendly, personable, helpful and knowledgeable.” “Very impressed with the Thornleigh centre. The cleanliness of the centre won it for us, when we had a choice of 2 other providers near by. And the staff spent the time showing us 3 different sized storage options and let us decide in our own time. Also very impressed with how flexible your plan is, i.e. not locked into a 3,6,9 month contract is appealing.”

Left: Kennards Self Storage recent Billboard Advertising on the side wall of KSS Mona Vale, starring Joel McDonlad, Assistant Manager at Camperdown.

Right: This picture was taken at Warner Bros Movie World. Robert Todd, Manager at KSS Thebarton thought he would ‘spread the word’ while they were there! Robert and wife Rachel with daughter Caitlin (5), Marvin, daughter Chelsey (4), and their friend Ava (5). Above: Could this be the new ‘Kennards Mascot’! Nick at Penrith’s dog Polly!

Above: Shane Pearce, Manager at Mt Eden NZ, skiing with his KSS shirt!.

“ Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty and persistence” Colin Powell

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