As April comes to a close, our theme this month has been ongoing education. The last post in this theme is about a way to view your ongoing continued education. Not only in the industry, but in yourself as well.

I am convinced that the self-storage industry is evolving and changing at a rapid pace. Each year for example, the number of new leases signed from “internet” traffic increases in the range of 5% to 11% for us, depending on which facility we are looking at. I had resisted learning SEO (search engine optimization). I also had resisted learning how the back end of a website works, and on and on. When I got into the business, 80% to 86% of our new tenants originated from yellow pages. The last time I had yellow pages fewer than 2% came from them and each lease cost me over $3,200 to get.

I vowed never again would I resist learning something new.

What are you resisting?

I can tell you now what I am resisting. There is a new model of pricing that uses a computer algorithm that adjusts the pricing daily of each unit depending on the availability in our units and the sub-market where the facility is located. Similar to the rate programs that hotels and airline’s use. I am catching myself saying something like, “I will never use anything like that!”

Maybe I won’t, but I have learned that when I catch myself saying “never”, well…that is the space in which I can get left behind and have to play catch up.

I never would have learned about the new pricing model if I had not been attending industry ongoing education opportunities.

And lastly, I spend time, money and resources on my “mindset”. I have discovered that knowing something is good, but insures nothing. Knowing is the booby prize. What determines an entrepreneurs real success is their ability to self reflect and not run from and/or try to not feel what scares them?
If you are in business, if you have customers, if you have employees, if you owe the bank, don’t fool yourself…you have fears. You may not call them that, but what do you wake up worried about at 3 AM. That is a fear.

How do you relate to fear? Do you try not to feel it? Do you try to do something, anything, to be in action, so the fear dissipates? Why is being with fear hard for you?

If you are not learning something in this arena, or some other area of self development that is important to business (like moving from a sacristy mindset to an abundance mindset), you could be setting yourself up for failure. If not failure, at least on a hard and expensive road to travel.

I attempt to set up some type of ongoing training for myself at least once a quarter. I also have made a commitment to myself and my business to implement something new I have learned each quarter.

What does your ongoing investment in yourself and your business look like?