Today we’d like to introduce you to Judy and Jerry Ryckman.
Judy and Jerry, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My husband Jerry, after being diagnosed with bladder cancer at the age of 65, was unexpectedly terminated from the Law Office he had worked at for 45 years. We had a son in college and a daughter in law school.
We needed to generate a quick income. It was one of those “necessity is the mother of invention” moments.
Fortunately, we had invested in a large commercial building in the San Fernando Valley many years ago. After leasing it to various tenants, the building at that time was vacant.
Our first concept for Valley Auto Storage was to make it an extremely fancy and high-end storage facility with epoxy floors, temperature controlled, video and all sorts of fancy, white glove services.
Well… it didn’t turn out that way in the end. After much trial and error, we realized that there were many more car owners with regular cars looking for inexpensive and simple storage, than there were owners of fancy collectibles.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s been a pretty smooth road with only a few bumps along the way. Jerry and I started and maintained what is a simple mom and pop operation. I handle the sales and business operations. My husband handles the physical operations. We have no other employees. I believe our clients have responded very favorably to our caring, direct, hands-on approach of operating our facility.
The struggle we did experience centered on us having initially branded our business as pricy, high-end storage with all the bells and whistles. We realized we hadn’t done our due diligence and had made incorrect assumptions. Thankfully, we finally realized that it made much more sense to brand and market Valley Auto Storage as a discount operation that was affordable to the majority of people looking to store vehicles.
Once we lowered the leasing rates, the demand for space increased substantially. We did do some things right, though. We put up a website right away. The importance of employing very talented people to brand us and get us up and running on the web and guide us as to the various search engines cannot be understated. Since the very beginning, they have been responsible for bringing the customers to us. My husband and I have been responsible providing top-drawer services at discount prices.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Valley Auto Storage is known for discount prices and outstanding, friendly, professional and personal services. We are now seeing large numbers of repeat customers, which mean so very much to us.
We provide indoor and outdoor auto storage at a rate that is pretty much unbeatable in all of Los Angeles. We’re usually full with hundreds of cars. We arrange for transport to and from our facility.
A large number of cars that are stored aren’t operable. They just sit in our facility waiting to be sold or restored. We’re always rooting for those husbands who we hope one day will find the time and the energy to restore their dream cars. On the other hand, there are fancy, collectable cars, too. We have the entire range of cars we take care of.
People are attracted to a good deal, but what keeps our customers happy is the level of service. On Yelp, we have about 30 five-star reviews. That’s all. No 4’s or 3’s. We treat our customers the way we want to be treated. We’re reasonable in our costs and I think customers appreciate that, especially at a time when, generally speaking, consumers are paying more for less across most industries.
We are proud of our reputation. We can’t overstate the importance of a good reputation. It’s everything. In this day and age … the so-called “information age”, it’s so easy to offend customers and if you do, they’re more than ready to go to an online hub like Yelp and complain. The fact that we have nothing but five-star reviews means a lot to us, because doing things right is what we’re aiming for.
We want to be reasonable with our customers and in our pricing. We want to be accessible and make things easy for customers to drop off their cars and pick them up and get reassurances and so forth.
In spite of our great search engine rankings and our Yelp reviews, much of our business is return business and referrals from satisfied customers. That’s how it should be. That’s how a small business should operate. By word of mouth. That’s how it was done exclusively before the Internet came along.
As far as what sets us apart, I can’t say exactly. Maybe it’s because we’re a small “mom and pop” business. It’s just my husband and me.
Customers and prospects are always going to talk to us and see our faces when they’re at the facility. Maybe it’s the personal touch. And maybe it’s because we don’t raise our rates very much. Some may not think its smart business to keep prices down, but we’re just not the type to think about bumping up prices at any and every opportunity. We’re looking down the road a long way. We want to stay in business and grow the business, not turn people off.
What were you like growing up?
I am a Valley girl all the way, born and raised. I went to Valley College and became a legal secretary which is how I met my husband.
I had worked hard raising two children. My daughter Carley took the Bar exam last February and has just started her career as an attorney. My son Jesse got into Cal Berkeley on the strength of his grades and walked onto the Cal swim team. While at Cal, Jesse was on two national championship teams. He’s currently working as a financial analyst and investor.
I’ve always enjoyed helping people and working with people. I enjoy people, period, so it hasn’t been a surprise to find myself in a service-oriented career.
I wasn’t necessarily a car buff but Jerry was, so it’s been a natural thing, really, to be around cars and talk cars with our customers. I’ve come to appreciate about cars what our customers appreciate. I’ve always liked to have fun and Valley Auto Storage can be very fun. Jerry and I enjoy this work tremendously.
Pricing:
- .$185 per month for indoor car storage.
- $135 per month for outdoor car storage.
Contact Info:
- Address: Valley Auto Storage
9800 Eton Ave.
Chatsworth, CA 91311 - Website: http://www.valleyautostorage.com
- Phone: 1 (818) 389-6799
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
Scott Diehl Photograph
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Mike
August 20, 2018 at 14:43
THEY LITERALLY LOST MY CAR! HORRENDOUS, UNINSURED COMPANY, AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!
An absolutely abhorrent company and without question the worst service I have ever encountered in my life. I left my car with them for several months and when I called to pick it up Gerry told me he no longer had my car and didn’t know where it was, all the while I had been paying him storage fees the entire time (which he has refused to return to this day). Instead of accepting responsibility for this, Gerry has thought of every possible person to blame other than himself and claims he doesn’t have insurance to pay for it. He and his wife run without question the worst, most negligent excuse for a company I have ever come across. If you are considering going there, don’t. Message me and I’ll gladly pay for your storage anywhere else on the planet to save you from the nightmare that is Valley Auto Storage.