Short answer: Looking back over 31 years, Mark found his biggest mistakes were personal-development issues rather than storage decisions: avoiding conflict with partners, not following his own advice on a deal, not running the business by the LLC agreement, and being too accommodating to investors. His conclusion: work on yourself first to grow your business.^[1]

The lessons #

• Leadership and partner management. Mark tends to avoid conflict and surrounded himself with strong-willed partners. When their decisions hurt the business, he sometimes waited too long to step in. Outside leadership training helped.^[1]
• Not following his own advice. He got excited about a deal where the landowner contributed land, missed that sign rules had changed so the facility couldn’t be seen from the expressway, and assumed marketing could overcome lower household incomes. Lease-up took far longer than planned; the project was eventually repositioned and sold.^[1]
• Not following the LLC agreement. A partner hired a family member for a job the operating agreement didn’t allow sponsors’ families to be paid for. An investor who knew the agreement better noticed, and rebuilding that trust took a long time. Treat the operating agreement as the rulebook you actually run by.^[1]
• Being too “investor friendly.” In one syndication, agreeing to an investor board led to an oversight structure that consumed time with reports and justifications that added little.^[1]

Mark shares these so others can avoid them; legal questions about your own agreements belong with your attorney.

Related answers #

• How does mindset affect success in the self-storage business?
• Should you raise money for a self-storage deal from partners or investors?
• Why does visibility matter so much for a self-storage facility?

Sources #

Each numbered note above links to the post of Mark’s it comes from.

1. The Five Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made Over My 31 Years In The Self-Storage Industry, Mark Helm, June 5, 2026