PHOENIX–June 30th, 2016 – OpenTech Alliance, Inc. announced today that a couple of farmers have the storage industry buzzing. With a move that might have seemed backwards to most American farmers, brothers Jim and Richard Heidecker made a run at repurposing their farmland to harvest a new crop.
In a move to diversify, the Heidecker’s made the decision to transform a portion of their land to build Westside Storage, an unmanned 400 unit self-storage facility in the rural city of Willmar, Minnesota. While every US farmer is still up to their ears over the drop in corn prices, Jim and Richard have been smiling from ear to ear since the arrival of their first INSOMNIAC® Kiosk.
“The decision was practical, considering the forever volatile crop markets. In order to grow the company we needed to utilize the land differently to maximize our profits,” said Jim.
With little assistance, the self-service kiosk has led the charge to increase profits substantially. Over the last 3 years, the kiosk alone has completed 744 new unit rentals, and taken-in 3,155 tenant payments. In addition, the kiosk has also sold a total of 366 locks to new renters after paperwork and payment were completed.
In fact the automated storage business has gone so well that the brothers have already expanded to 3 storage properties (totaling 800 units) throughout rural-central Minnesota. Jim added, “Our storage business is up and running 24/7, and I’m talking to you now while on vacation. So the automated business model works very well.”
For over 30 years, the Heidecker Brothers have been farming, and their once thriving (sure to rebound) agriculture business has been transformed into a larger and more diversified company.
“OpenTech has enabled us to make a whole new living outside of crop farming. The kiosks have been a great investment. Without the kiosks, we would have storage units in the middle of a corn field along with a bunch of headaches,” said Richard.
Why We Do What We Do: Every day, OpenTech Alliance connects thousands of tenants with storage companies around the world. With over 4,000 daily transactions, the company’s automated products and services helped Storage Managers move-in over 100,000 tenants in 2015, generating over 100 million dollars in new sales revenue alone. OpenTech also owns a majority stake in StorageTreasures, LLC and operates www.storagetreasures.com, the largest online and onsite self-storage auction market place in the industry with over 950,000 bidders, 7,500 self-storage facilities and over 140,000 auctions held in 2015. OpenTech, Making Self-Storage Easier, So More People will Use It. For additional information, please visit www.opentechalliance.com or call an OpenTech Business Development Manager at (602) 749-9370.
Press Contact:
Mike Sawyer, Director of Marketing
OpenTech Alliance, Inc.
602.324.8655
msawyer@opentechalliance.com
NOTE TO EDITORS: OpenTech Alliance, the OpenTech logo, and INSOMNIAC are trademarks of OpenTech Alliance, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. INSOMNIAC kiosks are protected by U.S. patent number 5,946,660.
