As a young man in the early 90s, Chad Coker embarked on a series of Christian mission trips not just to spread the good word but to help rebuild war-torn areas, assist with healthcare and construction efforts, and set up schools for children. His journeys took him from Southeast Asia to the Balkans, South America to the Caribbean. So, when he started in self-storage, he already had a world of experience under his belt.
“I helped repair huts that were the size of 10-by-15s,” says Coker, easily putting his past experience into self-storage terms. “I was ready for anything.”
After concluding his mission trips, Coker took on a series of jobs, from cashiering at a Christian bookstore to working as a data analyst at Experian. Each experience has lent itself to his self-storage career in one way or another, though his faith has always been a foundation.
“I don’t like to be overly preachy,” laughs Coker, “but I think my faith has always guided me in life and this business too.”
Coker’s self-storage journey has always been grounded in Tennessee, and his first foray into the industry was as a property manager and trainer at iStorage, one of the many brands owned by the National Storage Affiliates (NSA) storage family. However, he got started during a difficult period for everyone. “It was the height of the pandemic, so maybe not the best time to take on a new career,” laughs Coker. “But self-storage can be relatively contactless, so I wasn’t too concerned about Covid like other front-line workers may have been.”
Coker quickly found success, and as the pandemic waned, he was offered an Area Operations Manager position with the flagship property NSA. “I went from managing one facility to 10,” says Coker. “Then they bought three more properties, and suddenly it was 13 total. You could say I was sort of thrown into the deep end. But I was up for the challenge.”
To be successful, Coker says putting together a solid team was critical – and it was something he was tasked with almost immediately. Luckily for him, he had plenty of experience in that department, previously rounding up volunteer teams for his church. He also has his own philosophy on leadership, and it’s one that has served him well. “People often buy into a leader before a company’s vision. My job was to get them to buy into me, and then I could get them onboard with the vision.”
To do that, Coker says it was a bit of a balancing act. “You can’t be everyone’s best friend, but you need to have a relationship with them,” he explains. “Barking orders isn’t going to work, but going out for drinks with them every day isn’t a good look either.”
He says that to avoid either scenario, his strategy was simply to bond over commonalities. “I’d learn things about them, and I’d share things about myself. That’s how we bonded and developed mutual respect for one another, which built a successful team.”
While Coker looks back at his NSA work fondly and says it was “extremely rewarding,” he was also open to new challenges. So when opportunity knocked on his door in the form of Millan Enterprises, he pulled it wide open. The company was founded by U.S. Air Force veteran Leo Millan, an entrepreneur with a successful track record in startups, traditional real estate investing, development, and franchising. Millan had gotten involved in the burgeoning self-storage business, with two Clarksville, Tennessee-based facilities, Prime Storage.
“I’m originally from Portland, Tennessee, where there’s less than 10,000 people. Now, I live in Gallatin, Tennessee, with a population of about 50,000. So Clarksville was like New York City to me. I mean, there’s a Monkees song about it!”
Coker says that the two facilities serve a diverse clientele, from military members at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Tennessee/Kentucky state line, to college students from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. “We also have a lot of tenants that run small businesses, and non-profits too,” adds Coker.
Although Coker doesn’t use his job position to preach, he believes that his faith plays an important role in his day to day work. “I give people the benefit of the doubt, and always try to be kind,” he says.
This quickly becomes apparent when a customer walks in and Coker puts the interview on hold to give her his undivided attention. It turns out she has been a few weeks late on her payment, and she’s grateful that he’s allowed her to keep her unit and make a late payment, which gave her time to take care of bills that would keep the lights on at home first.
“You have to be kind to people,” Coker says, returning his attention to the interview after she has left. “A lot of people using self-storage are going through one of the 4 D’s – death, divorce, dislocation, or downsizing – and they’re struggling. I want to make their experience as pleasant as possible. You can’t let people walk all over you, and I won’t stand for that, but if they just explain their situation and they’re honest about it, I’ll work with them.”
Coker recalls the time he had another gentleman come in who was going through a divorce. He needed space fast, however he didn’t have an alternate contact, something Prime Storage requires. “He was a bit discombobulated, and understandably so,” explains Coker. “I provided an ear, put him at ease, and helped him to think of someone who could be the secondary on the lease, because he had no one. We came up with a former co-worker of his, that’s all it took. After that, I was able to get him into a unit that day… He still comes back just to talk on occasion, and that’s a beautiful thing. That’s building relationships within the community.”
While Coker’s missionary days may be behind him, he and his wife Heather-Ashley continue to spread the love. Together, they have adopted two children and are fostering five others.
Despite all the good he does at work and home, Coker remains modest, waving away any praise. “Honestly, my wife is the superstar. She’s doing a lot of the work raising the kids. I’m just keeping the roof over our heads with my self-storage work.”
And it’s an impressive body of work from one very impressive man.
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Brad Hadfield is the website manager and a news writer for MSM. This story is from our free quarterly publication Self-Storage Now! SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE NOW