I wish I could tell up front who has what it takes to stick with it and get in the self storage business.
I know it has never been more challenging to get started in the business than it is today. Prices are still high, lenders are tough, and due diligence periods are short.
If you have no development or building experience, building new or expanding an existing facility can be daunting.
You will have to learn new skill sets as you get into this business. But that is true of any business.
Not everyone needs to be in the storage business.
I know that. There is nothing wrong with anyone who doesn’t like the business or doesn’t want to be in self storage. My wife thinks I’m nuts and would never be a business owner.
I understand that not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur or a business owner.
Some of us are definitely not cut out to work for other people for very long.
It’s not that we are bad employees. It’s just there is a hole, an emptiness, inside that stays there while we are helping someone else or a company fulfill their mission. We know that we could create a vision for ourselves and spend our time fulfilling that mission rather than someone else’s.
Once we reach that realization, for many, there’s no turning back.
When I understood how self storage worked and how perfect an investment type it is, I never turned back.
It may have been easier in the 90’s or early 00’s to get in self storage, but not by much.
Back then banks had no idea what self storage was. It was considered a “specialty use” product and many banks stayed away from it. There was no SBA loan for self storage.
Additionally, I had no money or borrowing power.
Still, I knew that self storage was “IT.”
I figured out how to get myself into the business.
Then I spent the last fifteen years helping others learn how to get in the business. First as a broker selling self storage to other people, then as an author, consultant/coach, and creator of training material.
If you want to cut your path in life, and especially if you have a real estate background or have owned another type of investment property, you can see the simplicity and beauty of self storage.
With that simplicity and beauty comes the ability to create real wealth and steady cash flow unlike any other type of investment.
Now when someone asks me to help them, I am attentive to see if they are someone that resonates with that concept.
But it takes more than understanding the wealth building possibility of self storage.
Who will stick it out and who won’t is something I wish I could tell upfront. My instinct tells me that there is a way but I haven’t found it yet. Maybe part of my job is to help instill what it takes to persevere.
This is something I have been contemplating as I increase my skills at supporting other people who want to start a self storage business.
I am clear it is not having the knowledge of what to do. In fact, it could be people who get stuck have too much knowledge.
If you don’t know that it’s supposed to be hard, you simply do it.
At this point in my development as a coach/consultant, I’m starting to believe that habits, how we navigate life, are what is needed. To get past all the barriers that self storage, or any new business, put in front of us we need ingrained strategies to come out the other side.
I am clear we all have an idea of what it will look like to get in the self storage business. However, it is never like what we picture in our heads.
I thought when I get to where I am now, closing in on my $60 million portfolio game, it would be easier to get loans.
Someday I will write about the deal from hell I am currently involved in. No matter where you are in your development as a business owner or entrepreneur, it never plays out in reality like it does in your head.
And that can be a good thing.
It is the friction we go through to start or grow our business that gives us what it takes to succeed. The habits, the skills sets and the way of being in the world are learned through dealing with this friction.
Let’s look at some habits, or ways of being, I think it takes to be successful in business, especially self storage, and life itself.
I’ll focus on four of them:
If you’ve followed me at all you’ve heard me say that to be an entrepreneur or self storage owner you must have the ability to live a life of self-reflection and self-awareness. You need the ability and willingness to break yourself up to get to the next level.
I know you know successful people who are completely unaware of what’s going on with themselves. I know them too.
For every rule, there is an exception.
But one of the joys of living the experience of creating a business where nothing existed before is who you become as that business is being created.
Here is the good news. None of the habits or ways of being I have listed are habits that anyone can’t cultivate.
No one is born with them.
One person does not have more natural ability to generate clarity than another.
You don’t get a “God-given talent” of self confidence.
Today I would like you to consider something, even if it goes against what you currently think and believe.
You are not born with any inherent qualities.
Yes, I know you have certain genes and people have different IQs and different interests. That’s not what I’m talking about.
We were a blank slate when we were born. Where we lived, when we lived, who we lived with, our experiences all affected the story we made up internally about who we are. That is how we “became who we are.”
In reality, you and I are no certain way other than what we have said we are. That internal conversation about who we are usually started when we were small children. Small children believe everything they are told as fact.
Perhaps that’s not our experience all the time.
“I am shy,” or “I am an introvert,” or a deep-seated believe like “I have failed in the past so I will fail here too” …these are not real.
You are not shy. Shy is not a thing. An introvert is not a thing. Being a failure is not a thing.
It is a perception of yourself that you created, have acted out, and it appears to you as if that is who you are and always will be.
It is not.
In reality, you are no particular way other than what you believe you are.
So yes, you can learn and practice new habits and ways of being, that will generate new experiences. These habits and experiences can generate new stories you tell yourself about who you are and what is possible.
Then when you go through something like looking at 25 deals without finding one you can make an offer on, you’ll tell yourself something different than “it can’t be done.”
After you hit three lenders who say “NO!” you won’t stop. You’ll go to the fourth because your internal story has changed about what that means.
What stops people now are the habits and internal stories they tell themselves. It feels like it is something external that is stopping us: the market, where the industry is now, or the current lending environment.
There will always be something you can see as an obstacle you can’t overcome.
If it is not that it’s hard to get a loan or prices are high, it will be some other challenge.
That is just life. There are challenges, friction, as you move from point A to point B.
I invite you to create a story called something like “It is the friction that gives me the strength I need to succeed in the self storage business.”
That is a lot more empowering story than most we can say to ourselves and is just as valid.
We’ll take a few episodes and explore these habits. We’ll explore what actions we can start taking now to incorporate them into our lives.
The goal here is not to learn about them but to create practices that turn them into unconscious habits, that change the way you live your life. Then you are not thinking about them, it becomes who you are in the world.
Please believe me, this is more important than knowing how to analyze a facility or how to put a lending package together. Yes, you have to know how to do that, but remember, investors, bankers, partners are not working with the numbers or the paper, they are working with YOU.
Who you are and how you are being in the world is the critical factor to success.
And who you are and how you are being in the world is created by you and by the habits and beliefs you currently have.
Let’s make sure those habits and beliefs are supporting you as you create True Wealth In The Self Storage Business.
Next week we will explore why we start with the Business Plan or Strategy. It supports you in creating clarity.
Once we have that, we can then take clarity to a very deep level, that alters what we see as possible for ourselves and our lives.
That is the work we will start in the next episode.
