People of Kent: Keep Calm easyStorage Is Here

Kent now has its very own easyStorage service thanks to Ian Stringer, an accomplished businessman who’s starting the Kent easyStorage franchise, covering places like Rochester, Sevenoaks and Maidstone.

Ian is familiar with franchising, having not only started his career as a banker but having run a cleaning franchise for 19 years, a business that’s in the process of being sold to new owners. He also has an Amazon business which now pretty much runs itself, calling for just a few hours a week of his time.

He became a fan of the easyStorage difference when Thames Valley franchisee Alex Glass attended the same training course.

To begin with, it looked like there was no easyStorage franchise available to him, but when someone who’d signed up for that particular franchise territory pulled out, suddenly there was a real possibility.

Thanks to COVID, Ian had to attend his ‘Discovery Day’ online, but he was still impressed enough to move forward. The strong brand and impressive management team appealed. Notably, Tim Slesinger, CEO, has experience of storage in 37 different countries and cofounder and Franchise Director Nigel Dawson understands franchising incredibly well.

The rest, as they say, is history. Although the franchise is already operational and can handle storage customers, the official launch of easyStorage Kent will be in January. He knows there’s a demand. Neighbouring easyStorage franchises have been helping service Canterbury customers already.

To start with, Ian will be doing most of the van driving, joined by several agency workers to help him with some ‘muscle’. He’s looking forward to the day when someone else takes on the van driving and he can focus entirely on the business side of the franchise.

Having always lived in Kent, Ian enjoys the fact that he’s on home territory. He grew up here, married his wife here, and they’ve had twins here, one boy, one girl. The twins, now 15, have already had a run out in the easyVan. Apart from loving the sunshine-like colour, they were surprised by just how high the vans are (to be able to accommodate easyPods for storage).

It’s clear that Ian is not just an astute businessman, but a strong family man. His wife used to work as a project manager but now works in design and technology at a local school, which made life looking after twins somewhat easier as they grew up.

Ian enjoys a game of pool and loves hill walking. He’s also taken up gardening, which he was initially reluctant to mention as it’s something ‘older people’ do. I beg to differ! He also enjoys sport, especially football as a season ticket holder at Tottenham, but mostly from an armchair - unsurprising given the busy business life he’s leading.

He’s loving having joined the easyStorage ‘family’. He was at the easyStorage Academy with three other new franchisees in October, all with similar backgrounds and lots in common. He’s been the first of the four to get his operator’s licence but modestly suggests that that’s because he’s already been running business premises.

He then attended the recent easyStorage conference, which was all about learning, meeting other team members and perhaps just a little partying.

Ian is very clearly a capable, accomplished businessman, with great values. To have successfully run the businesses he’s run has taken hard work and persistence, especially given setbacks caused by COVID related supply chain issues - and cleaning being almost impossible to do remotely. Any parent will be able to imagine the hard work that bringing up twins entails. Yet he’s not remotely boastful. He’s a fabulous, accomplished, successful, steady hand with a clear idea of both his own strengths and where he will eventually need extra help in future.

We wish him – and his family - every success with this new adventure.

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For a no obligation quote on self-storage in the Kent area, there’s a price calculator here: https://book.easystorage.com/

Not only does easyStorage come to collect, and later return, your belongings, they can also pack for you!