It really takes a lot to be successful in any business today, especially in the self-storage industry.
I really think my Grandson Jackson is being trained to be successful in life. He is in the second grade and his school district has taken on teaching the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to the children from kindergarten through high school.
The concept is to create leaders, people who can effectively lead themselves and others through the maze that the future is going to throw at them, and be effective at whatever they take on.
I have grown my self-storage business within the framework of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is a fantastic structure in which to overlay your professional life, especially when growing a self-storage business.
The first of the seven habits is “Be Proactive”.
If you ask Jackson what the first habit “Be Proactive” means, he will say, “It means I am in charge of what I think and do”.
Hopefully that will really get ingrained in his being. I still hear him blaming others about what he does and how he feels sometimes; but it is sure a lot farther than I was at seven years old. In reality, it is a lot farther than many adults.
It is true however, that you, not anyone else, is going to be responsible for getting in or growing your business!
It is not how much capital you have to get started (I had very little when I started), or market conditions, or how hard it may be or not be to get financing, or even how expensive self-storage is today; nothing can stop someone who is willed to move forward. Someone who has it in their bones that “They are in charge of what they think and do” or who thinks “I am responsible for what happens in my life”.
Nothing.
What I have noticed about proactive people is that they are taking action. It goes something like this:
1. They have a goal. A clear, measurable, exciting, scary goal.
What is your BAHG (Big A_ _ Hairy Goal)
2. They take action.
3. They stop and see if the action moved them in the right direction.
4. They pivot and move in another direction most of the time, and take action.
5. They stop and see if that action moved them in the right direction.
6. This process goes on until success is achieved.
7. Another BAHG is created.
8. They repeat steps 1-7.
My observation is that proactive people in life do nothing more than this. It may sound silly or simple, but I am not kidding. Look at any successful person. They literally failed themselves into success. In other words, in moving in a direction that did not work for them, it did not occur to quit when that direction failed. They simply changed direction and tried again.
I purchased a couple of self-storage facilities where I was a very large percentage partner and quickly ran through my money. I had to stay small (not a bad move, it just did not excite me as much) or figure something else out.
I next formed partnerships one at a time to buy more, where I had less ownership, but could own many more facilities. That worked until it didn’t. The market got hot and I could not move fast enough to keep going that way.
I now have reformed (since the book Creating Wealth Through Self-Storage came out) and have a new structure where we are pre-funding an acquisition LLC to purchase self-storage in specific markets under certain acquisition criteria.
We will do that until we either:
1. Reach the goal; or
2. Have to do something different.
What I have seen from “Proactive People” is that they don’t have to know how something is going to happen. They just know that they can figure it out. Who they are for themselves is “I can learn, or get people around me who can learn what is necessary to win.”
I am going to let you in on a secret right now.
It has never been easier for the “not that smart” to make it big in life and self-storage.
The reason is smart people or organizations that know what they are doing, will shortly not know what they are doing, because everything changes so fast today.
If you can develop the habit of just taking action and moving forward (Being Proactive), then pivoting, and doing something different to move forward, you will outlast the smart people.
This web site and the training we are offering is designed to support you in being proactive in the self-storage industry.
It has never been clearer to me that I don’t have all the answers. I will share what we have done, what worked and didn’t work, and the pivots we are taking in today’s market.
So even though we may not be seven years old and already have had two years of training in the habit of “Being Proactive”, it is never too late to take it on and get in sync to grow your self-storage business.
P.S. We are in the final editing phase of The Self-Storage Quick Start Academy’s first on line training course How To Buy Your First Facility.
One of the many actionable tips you will see is what websites we use to find self-storage for sale and how we set up auto notifications, so we get immediate notification of facilities that come on the market.
We will also show you ways that we have found off market facilities or opportunities to purchase.
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