What is the most difficult thing you have ever done?
Mine is learn guitar (not just chords but really learn it), meditation, and the Fifth Habit of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Seek First To Understand, then Be Understood.
Man it is hard.
It is hard because humans are not wired that way. Not at all.
Our mind never stops. Always talking. Judging and taking whatever is heard, putting it in a compartment so it can be dealt with and related to.
Problem is, we never actually hear anyone. We just hear our own thoughts about what someone is saying.
No wonder buying self storage can be hard, there are wars, and my wife gets mad at me a lot because of this method of reasoning. People don’t really hear people, they just hear their conversation about what people are saying.
I have learned that if you really want to win at the game of life and the self-storage game, if you can truly get, I mean get how the world is occurring for another person, and in turn help them get what they want, you can achieve whatever you want and need, and life just works.
That requires quieting your internal dialog and just getting, the emotion behind the speaking, what is really being said, and what the real concern is that’s driving what someone is saying.
Behind everything said is a concern. Something a person has their attention on that gives purpose to what they say and think. It is usually not in the view of the speaker, but it totally drives what they are saying. Get that, talk to that, and solve that puzzle piece for someone; you can achieve anything you want.
In the Book, Creating Wealth Through Self-Storage, in the transaction discussed throughout the first part of the book, the Seller had a conduit loan with a high amount of defeasance on it (pre-payment penalty) and said if he was going to sell the property, we had to assume that loan. It had 5.5% interest and a large gap between the sales price and loan balance. I wanted the facility but absolutely did not want that loan. However, it was over $250,000 in cost to pay it off.
But I got what was driving the Seller, and it was not really the $250,000, although no one would want to pay it. What was in the background really driving his speaking was his concern about his wealth; his legacy being eaten up by all the taxes and cost of doing business. This was one thing he felt he did have control over and by God was not going to pay.
It was nothing specifically that he said, but because I had been practicing not to talk to myself mentally when others talk, to just listen and “feel” what they are “feeling” as they speak, I got this. I really picked up on a feeling when he talked about his fear of what would happen if Obama got elected (the transaction happened in late 2008).
As I watched a debate on television one night during that election cycle, Obama did very well. I experienced the “feeling” I knew the Seller must be experiencing that moment, then it hit me how to motivate him to pay the pre-payment penalty on a loan I did not want to assume. It also meant the deal would happen for him, because I was about to walk away.
The next day I called and just suggested, that he talk with his CPA and determine if he is better paying off the loan now and taking all his money and paying 2008 capital gains, or waiting and paying what was surely to be much higher capital gains if Obama gets elected.
We put a new loan on the facility at much lower interest, thus allowing me to pay his price.
That is perhaps a bad example, but an example of how this habit can really make a difference in growing your self-storage business through hearing and listening not just interpreting others words.
Imagine what life can be like if you use it with the people you really care about.
It is a lifelong practice, and I have a long way to go. Just ask my wife. But I am getting better.
This week, practice being quiet and really listening to people as they talk. Really get their world and what is driving their speaking.
Grow your self-storage business this way, and you will have something powerful indeed.
