We hear a lot about innovation in the self storage industry.
At least for me, I immediately jump in my mind to new, shiny, tech solutions to running the business and interacting with customers, vendors, or creating deal-flow to analyze.
But, as I began to really think about and explore innovation in business, I see innovation has very little to do with all of that.
Yes, a Bluetooth smartphone gate control solution may be a product of innovation; it is not what innovation is.
In fact, innovation has been around for a long time.
Innovation
So, I looked up Innovation in a business context. Here are some definitions I retrieved.
“Innovation is the creation, development, and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.”
“Innovation, by definition, is the introduction of something new. Without Innovation, there isn’t anything new, and without anything new, there will be no progress. If an organization isn’t making any progress, it simply cannot stay relevant in the competitive market.”
Given our current world, in my opinion, as small investors in our current landscape of the self storage industry, we are either re-inventing ourselves at every level of our business today, or we are going out of business.
This includes, at least for us:
- How we find deals
- How we analyze deals
- How we organize our partnerships
- How we interact with storage customers
- How we interact with employees
- How we “run” the facilities
Every aspect of the business is changing for us.
It can be overwhelming.
So, because I am not that smart, I need something to fall back on. Something simple for a complex environment.
I began to look at what innovation really is, and I began to see it as a mindset. A wiliness to put aside what we know works, or at least has worked, in the past and try something new.
The Mindset of Innovation
So as I researched it, here are some of the common ways of being that I see people who I respect and would want to be like (at least in a business sense) seem to approach re-inventing themselves. Or, said another way, approach innovation.
People like Tony Robbins, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, for example.
Here are the traits I see they have talked about and demonstrated in their lives and their enterprises that have put them at a different level than the rest of us. I see four I want to talk about. Two in this episode and two next week.
My goal is to take these mindsets, these ways of being, and use them in our self storage business to help create an environment for true innovation to occur at every level of our enterprise.
- Hear New Voices
One of the things that annoy me about the self storage industry is how insulated we can be from the rest of the world. It is like we keep saying the same things to each other over and over.
I sure know I am guilty of this.
We go to the same conventions, see the same people, hear the same things year after year. Yes, this or that may have changed, or a new stat is out, or a new bell or whistle is now commonly being used, but fundamentally, we hear the same echoes from each other we have heard for many years.
For example, one of those echoes is square feet per capita. We know that, on average, it is most likely 7.5 square feet per capita per person. It may be lower in Minneapolis or higher in Dallas, but that is the metric we use.
Why?
Why is that the standard by which we measure supply/demand?
Or why not more or different metrics?
Beauty product retailers don’t use square feet of beauty supply retail stores in a defined market area as their metric for supply/demand.
They look at who actually makes up the population in a “market area,” their spending habits, how much disposable income available for beauty products, and then finally, how much current supply there is in the defined market area sucking up that disposable income for beauty supplies (a gap analysis).
We are beginning to explore not only how many people are in a market area and their average income, but who they are, their spending habits, and attempting to map this onto self storage spending.
This is not fully formed for our business yet, but I saw that if we can get outside our industry, listen to new and different ways others do business, we can perhaps take some of it into our business to help re-invent ourselves.
We can also do this at our enterprise-level, bringing in new ideas from different people.
How we run the business, how we create partnerships, how we bring in investors, no area today is out of bounds. In fact, if we are doing business as we did in the past, for me, it is suspect.
This is especially true in marketing. In my opinion, nothing has evolved faster than how we market. I have had to bring in mentors from other industries to help me because I was so tired of the same old “what works in self storage” conversations from vendors. The three-tier choice of monthly fees that change depending on how “aggressive” you want to be is an antiquated model I run from.
Listen to new voices.
- New Questions
The next trait I see in the mindset of true innovators is the questions they ask.
They ask different questions.
I learned from Tony Robbins, the quality of one’s life, or the quality of one’s business, is a function of the quality of the questions one asks themselves.
Many of us ask juvenile questions. Like “how can I make more money?” or “how can I find a good deal?”
Try this on. “What business am I really in?” or, “What business do I really want to be in?”
Don’t just take the first answer. Write down the first thing that comes to mind, Then ask it again and again. Go deep.
Then try asking, “What business do I want to be in?”
Do the same thing. You could be amazed at what you discover about yourself and your goals.
Asking different questions can truly lead to a new re-invented self and enterprise.
As mentioned above, I am asking, “Why is square feet per capita the gold standard metric for self storage supply/demand?”
“What are other metrics other businesses use?”
Here is a revolutionary question I have never heard anyone in the self storage business ask (maybe they have, I just haven’t heard it), “What do consumers really want from us?”
For the most part, we have told them what they need from us. At least, that is my perception.
I remember early in my real estate career. I was escorted into the office of the Founder and President of a publicly-traded pizza delivery business. I was helping their company find a new location for their commissary.
He was totally lost in thought, staring at a pizza delivery box. I sat there for what seemed like ten minutes (it was probably one or two). He finally looked up and greeted me.
I finally had to courage to ask what he was doing. He said he had asked the question, how can he make the delivery box better?
Years later, I found myself roiling the door of a vacant unit up and down asking myself, how can we make this experience better for our customers?
Then I remembered the pizza box.
Conclusion – Part One
One of the advantages of age is some perspective.
One thing I have learned over the years is in many cases, the questions are more important than the answers.
So rather than just layout four or more aspects of what I see as the innovation mindset, my suggestion is to sit in the inquiry for a while if you are willing to do it.
How can you bring in new voices, and what are some new and different questions you can ask?
Don’t rush to get answers. Just sit in the inquiry.
This is where the manic is, in the willingness to not know. The mind, or at least my mind, rushes to find answers to rid itself of uncertainty.
Sometimes, grace and magic happen in uncertainty.
It takes something to stay here, but give it a shot.
We will complete this exploration together next week as we look at two more mindsets I think can support us and make a difference in the innovation needed for today’s self storage world.
