Over the years, I have worked with a lot of people supporting them in getting in this fantastic business of self storage.
With some people, I have had to focus harder on one aspect or another depending on their strengths. But in essence, everyone I work with knows all I know between three and six months.
Some people succeed, and others don’t.
And they all know exactly the same thing.
What I intellectually knew, but didn’t realize until I worked with so many people, is that knowing what to do does not determine the level of success someone will achieve.
It is a person’s mindset that determines their level of success in life and in business.
We are discussing over the past four weeks the mindsets I see people who are successful have.
Let’s look at the fourth mindset I see. I have called it “The Leaders Inspire” mindset.
Stories
I have raised a lot of money from different investors. Most of the people I talk to at this level are and consider themselves, very sophisticated.
But it doesn’t matter.
Everyone relates to a story.
If I tell someone about self storage, how good of an investment it is, the cash-on-cash returns and the IRR’s; OK, they like it, but nothing exciting happens.
But when I tell them the self storage story and my story in self storage, how I worked with the REITS, saw what they were doing, etc….then they are really into the story. They GET why I am so excited about self storage.
As a species, we learned by stories. We sat around fire at night and told stories, myths, about who we are, and stories about what is important.
If you are part of a religion, you have countless stories you relate to that inspire you.
I have learned people want to, need to, be inspired to take meaningful action.
I have also seen good Leaders know this.
The best leaders I have seen are people who can inspire others with their story, then enroll them into supporting them in fulfilling their vision. In essence, make their vision your vision.
What does this have to do with self storage?
Everything.
It does not matter how big or small your business is or is going to be; you can’t do it alone. You are going to have to sell and motivate vendors, banks, partners, or employees to take action. This is what leaders do—the most effective way to inspire action.
Inspired action taken by you to motivate vendors, partners, or employees looks like them wanting to take action because they are excited, motivated, and want to participate in the future and vision you are creating with your facility and business.
In many cases, it is the difference between being able to buy the facility or not.
I remember meeting a seller of a project in North Carolina. I complimented him on what he had created and let him know I had what it took to do it.
Then I told him about what our partners and I are up to and how the work he had done would move us forward and help us achieve our goals.
All in all, we walked and talked about one hour around his facility.
He actually turned down higher offers because (I think) he wanted to do business with us. He was excited about what we were up to, and he wanted to support it while he achieved his goals.
Now I don’t always get to meet the Seller (most of the time, it is much later in the transaction), but in this case, being able to inspire and enroll someone in our vision made the difference.
No Man Is An Island
Even if you have no employees and no lender, you still have to deal with people as you run your business.
Your customers are people, and today, they have many choices when it comes to self storage.
Good advertising and marketing tells a story a customer can relate to and identify with.
“We are like you…we are locally owned.”
“We treat you like family, and we would not raise rents on our family every month or so.”
What is or will be your story?
Magnetism
Another word for what I am talking about is magnetism.
I wish they would teach it in school. Mostly, it looks like school is designed to spit out good employees (I guess another conversation).
But what I have learned is that success, making money, and access to capital is more about magnetism—being someone who attracts money.
Remember, money is just energy (the majority of money doesn’t exist in physical form). It is possible to organize ourselves in such a way as to actually be a magnet for money, people, and situations that forward our vision.
Note: If you haven’t read Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, do so now.
It is impossible to work enough hours to create wealth. If you don’t have the capital to start your storage business, my suggestion is to attract it.
The above is an entirely new conversation and one I am willing to have if people want to hear it, but for now, know one way of being a magnet for success is to be a Leader Who Inspires people.
Inspire Yourself
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, be someone who inspires yourself.
Think about it. How often are you inspired by who you are and what you do?
If it’s not often, change that.
No matter what happens in my life, I have created a self storage company from nothing, written a book about it, and helped many many people do the same thing I did.
No one can take that away from me.
I could lose everything, but that could never be taken away, and I know I can do it all over again if I have to.
That is inspiring to me.
What about you? I guarantee if you look, it doesn’t take much to see what about you is inspiring.
Began to relate to that as you go out and build your self storage business.
When you are confident about who you are, and you can authentically inspire others with your vision and what you are creating, there are no limits to the level of success you can achieve.
It is also a fun way to create your self storage business.
