An Unlikely Start in Storage
Melissa’s path into self-storage was somewhat unexpected. She answered a blind ad for a marketing position and, after meeting Alyssa Quill and Jay Hoke, the founders of Storage Asset Management (SAM), she saw opportunity.
“I’ve never used self storage. I technically still have not used self storage either,” Melissa admits. “I didn’t know anything about the industry, but I thought it was fascinating and something that I could make an impact on.”
That fresh perspective proved invaluable. Today, as Chief Marketing Officer at SAM, Melissa oversees marketing and multiple departments for a company that manages roughly 580 locations across 37 states under about 103 different brands. SAM is unique as the only third-party management company that solely manages properties without owning any.
The Question That Changed Everything
One of Melissa’s first questions at SAM became a pivotal moment for the company. It was 2014, and she wanted to know why customers couldn’t complete an entire rental from their phones.
“I am a person that if I want to do my mobile pickup order from Starbucks, I don’t want to have to wait in line,” Melissa explains. “So I wanted to figure out how I could do that for storage.”
By the end of 2014, SAM launched the ability to rent a unit online. The achievement speaks to the company’s culture, which Melissa describes simply: “Innovation is first. We think of an idea, then try to figure out how to do it.”
Scaling Innovation Without Ownership
Managing technology across 580 locations presents unique challenges. For SAM, those challenges multiply because they don’t own any of the facilities they manage.
“It’s hard to scale if you owned all of them, but then we manage them so we don’t own them,” Melissa explains. “Some of the upgrades are dependent on the owners who actually own the facilities.”
The solution? Building platforms in the background that drive consistent standards across all properties. SAM implements unified website platforms and uses AI in their advertising, creating a foundation that works regardless of property ownership.
This approach has been particularly impactful for their Storage Sense brand, which encompasses close to 300 facilities. But Melissa is equally proud of bringing these capabilities to smaller brands in secondary and tertiary markets, helping them become market leaders in their areas.
From Yellow Pages to AI Pioneer
The evolution Melissa has witnessed tells the story of the entire industry’s digital transformation. When she started at SAM, the company still had a few yellow page ads. Soon after her arrival, however, the company became a technology pioneer.
Even today, as many companies are just beginning to explore artificial intelligence, SAM’s marketing team has been using it for almost four years, well before ChatGPT became a household name.
That early adoption gave SAM a head start. Now, Melissa’s Director of Marketing sits on the company’s AI committee, and other departments have become champions of using AI for personal productivity. SAM is actively working on showing up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI-powered search tools. Instead of optimizing for “storage city state,” they’re adapting to conversational questions like “I have a one-bedroom apartment. Where’s the best place in York, Pennsylvania to store that?”
Advice for Women in Leadership
When asked what advice she’d give to women trying to break into leadership roles, Melissa’s answer is grounded in her own experience: “Don’t be afraid to ask why. Why are we doing this and why are we not doing that?”
She also emphasizes building your network both inside and outside your company, finding resources like podcasts and blogs to stay current, and staying curious about trends.
Making Impact
From a solo marketing role to leading a team of 17 in the marketing department alone, Melissa has built multiple departments within SAM. But the metric that matters most to her isn’t headcount.
“When people come up to me at shows and they’re like, ‘Oh, I sat in your session last time and I remembered this and this really helped me,’ that warms my heart,” Melissa says. “I want to make sure that I’m providing impact. I tend to be quiet and don’t talk a lot because I like to add value, and that’s really important to me.”
Looking five years ahead, Melissa hopes SAM stays part of the industry’s thought leadership, driving change in operations, hardware, software, and marketing while staying current on AI and providing value for clients.
From someone who never used self-storage to a leader shaping how the entire industry approaches technology and customer experience, Melissa Stiles proves that sometimes the best innovations come from asking the simplest questions.
Melissa Stiles is Chief Marketing Officer at Storage Asset Management, where she oversees marketing strategy for roughly 580 locations across 37 states.
About This Series
This profile is part of Storable’s Women in Technology series, where we spotlight the trailblazers reshaping the self-storage industry through innovation and leadership.
Want to share your story or nominate a woman leader in self-storage technology? Contact us at [email protected].
