by F. Andrew Taylor
Kevin and Laura Fairchild were already successful in their careers in the medical industry when they started working for Storage West. Transitions in the industry and their companies led them to look more seriously at the repeated offers they’d gotten to join the 40-year-old company. “We used to store our holiday decorations at Storage West,” Kevin explains. “Now we’re brand ambassadors for the company.”
The long-time couple began working the Las Vegas stores 14 years ago while waiting for the new Eastern Avenue store to open. They ran that store for more than a decade but when they started doing expos for the company it was obvious they’d found their true calling.
“We did one expo and right away it got into our blood,” Kevin says. “We started doing more and more of them. It got so we were working so many hours in a week, between expos and running our store.”
In an age where companies seem to be willing to do anything to cut the budget and keep staff costs down, the higher ups at Storage West decided that it was worth it for the company’s bottom line to transition the Fairchilds into full time promotion as their first brand ambassadors.
Storage West has grown to 56 locations in four states. They have 13 locations in the Las Vegas Valley, but a few of those locations are so close to the Strip and the convention centers that they’ve become deeply associated with the convention industry.
Clients who rent a unit with Storage West can receive packages and deliveries for free. That can result in some serious savings on shipping there as opposed to onsite at a convention center. Some clients have found that storing booth equipment that is used in annual conventions in Las Vegas is less expensive than shipping that equipment every year. They also sell moving supplies and have a free moving truck. These are among the reasons Storage West is the only storage company recommended by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the only one listed on their website.
The Fairchilds have been so successful as brand ambassadors that the company is sending them out to each of the states where they have locations so they can pass along their knowledge. “We’re working on little teams for each area,” Laura says. “It will be three people, so it’s not the same person for everything and they can all try it out and see if they like networking.”
Networking is what the Fairchilds do best. They are ambassadors for six different chambers of commerce in the Las Vegas Valley, including The Henderson Chamber of Commerce, The Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, The Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Nevada, the Latin Chamber of Commerce of Nevada, the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce and the Urban Chamber of Commerce, Nevada. They are on the board of the Water Street District Business Association. They attend breakfasts and networking events, working with charities and for the community.
“We do everything from ringing the bell for the Salvation Army to working for the Blind Center and Operation Christmas Child,” Kevin says. “We have our own mixer on the fourth Tuesday of every month that we call ‘Just Connecting.’ We want to empower professionals and get people to really know one another, because people are more likely to recommend someone for a job if they feel they really know them and like and trust them.”
They feel that younger people in particular need to work on their face-to-face communications skills because they spend so much time conversing via text. Conversely, older people may simply be shy. At their events they have everyone introduce themselves first and talk about themselves, giving a little biographical information, like relationship status and hobbies. They have speed-networking with the intention of helping people get to know each other on a deeper level.
“I can meet a half-dozen financial advisors, but not really know them,” Laura explains. “With networking, that can change quickly. I want to make sure that when I recommend people to each other that they’ll connect and work well together.”
The number of business people, community leaders and politicians who know and respect the Fairchilds is impressive. They count C level executives, mayors, council members and even the governor among their friends and contacts.
“Two years ago our company sent our boss (Don Willis, director of sales and marketing) out here to get testimonials about the company,” Laura says. “When he asked people, ‘When you think of Storage West, what do you think about?’ most of them said ‘Kevin and Laura.’ People know us everywhere we go here.”
The company is banking that the Fairchilds can bring that kind of recognition to teams from other areas and along with it, the close personal relationships that can build business.
For more info, visit storagewest.com.
This story originally appeared in the January/February issue of Exhibit City News, p. 56-57. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/ecn_flipbook_janfeb2019web?e=16962537/66750078
