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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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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?
Source: Mark’s post The Five Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made Over My 31 Years In The Self-Storage Industry
