Day 34: How to Find and Evaluate Self Storage Markets: Complete Deal Sourcing Recap

All right, welcome to day 34 of the Storage 100. I think I'm recording. I hope I'm recording. Let that be the least of our worries. Uh, whatever. Um, and we've sorted out the tech issues, folks. Hopefully, hopefully. Um, Maybe I should have saved that for the end. I don't want to jinx it. Okay, here we go, uh, for the live recap of Section 2 where we focused, uh, it was a long section by the way. That was the longest one of the 106 days we're gonna do. Most are gonna be about 14 days. Um, with the holidays we kind of had to stretch it out here a little bit, uh, to 19 days. So it was a long section. Um, and, um, hopefully, um Uh, you're, you're, you're still raring to go like I am. Um, but yeah, that was a, it was a, that was a good bit of material. We focused on sourcing deals and market research, uh, which is the foundational work that separates the dreamers from the dealmakers. Um, and where the real talk about getting off the sidelines and into the game, uh, actually happens. So what else do we do? We covered the math behind finding deals, the science behind picking the right market. We talked about the numbers game of marketing for deals. Um, what else? I think I was— I mean, we obviously covered a lot more than that, but that was some of the highlights. Um, all right, so let's jump in and recap it all again. And when we're done, we're— or when I'm done, um, I'm not, uh, not only, um, uh, going to take, um, questions and answer your questions in the chat, um, but I do have, as promised, a special guest with me tonight, one of the, uh I'll say, uh, well, he's younger than me, so I'm gonna say young, um, but he's not young as in young in the business, but he's one of the top young— younger, uh, these are all compliments, Frank, if you're listening, uh, younger brokers in the industry, um, who's, uh, worked with a lot of our students at the Self Storage Academy, um, and he's just been a tremendous asset not only to, um, folks we refer him to or, uh, folks that, uh, work through him Um, but, uh, but to us as well. So super excited that he, uh, agreed to join me tonight. Um, anyway, all right, here we go. Let's, uh, get ready to solidify your action plan. But before we do, a little reminder about the difference between being busy and being productive. Being busy is scrolling LoopNet for hours and feeling like you're doing something. Being productive is making offers. And The deal funnel is the most important piece of the math you need to internalize. It's not luck; it's a volume game. Remember the hundred to ten to three to one ratio? Hundred leads gets you one deal. You can't control the conversion rate. Some sellers just won't sell, and that's okay. They will someday. But you absolutely can control the volume you put. In at the top of that funnel, if you want two deals this year, you're going to need two hundred leads. Volume is the only variable you can manipulate. So how do we generate that volume? Well, before you start filling that funnel, you have to make sure you're fishing the right pond. This is where our market research wins come into play. We focused on the big three. If you remember, supply. demand and zoning. If your market has less than 7 square feet per capita, you've got pricing power. That's the green light. You need positive population growth. Remember, people moving in means storage is needed. And the golden ticket, if you recall, in development is the buy-right zoning status. Data beats gut feeling every time, folks. Every single time. Don't forget to check the zoning first. All right, I hope this is— I hope you've been watching the videos and paying along. This is— they're following along. This is just the recap, but I'm highlighting the things that were the most important. All right, so now that we know where to look, let's talk about how we find the actual properties. So we rank the sourcing methods because you trade time for money and you need to pick your poison. So cold calling is the S tier. Because it's high effort but has the highest reward. You're talking directly to the owner. This is where cold calling for off-market deals here, right? Then you've got the direct mail, and that's your A tier. It's low effort but still yields a medium reward over time. But that's all about the follow-up, and we're going to cover that soon. The bottom of the list is LoopNet or CREXi and maybe brokers, and that doesn't mean they're bottom And as in bad, it's just low effort but low reward because everyone else is already looking there. So you have to decide if you want to spend your time or your money to get to the owner first. But there is one method that combines the best of both worlds. If you recall, the Google Map hack, and this can be how you find the deal before it ever hits the market, right? So remember, you're gonna go on Google, search storage near me, pick a city, drop a pin, whatever it is, an address, Storage room, me, and then you switch to satellite view. And then— I'm sorry, you put in storage light. Yeah, you put it and switch to satellite view, and then start looking for the telltale signs that others miss. You're looking for those open areas. So you see the white rooftops, you see the rows of RVs. Try to get them in one picture. Not exactly white rooftops, best I could do. Uh, I should have had AI to fix the picture. What was I thinking? I got a podcast that talks about AI, I'm not even using it. Um, in either case This is going to tell you where the existing storage is and where the potential infill land might be. And remember the story I told you, I don't know how many days ago, about when I go out and driving for dollars, when I'm in these markets and Google Maps, oftentimes you'll drive by facilities that aren't even on Google Maps. Those are the crème de la crème. I mean, that's literally the pot of gold under the rainbow. All right, now in— now we're using technology Right? And we're using it as a satellite spy. Everyone's got it, but people aren't doing these simple things to get ahead of the competition. So Google sees what others miss, and that's how you find the hidden gems. Deal finding is making the calls using a great script and getting to the closing table. So you can use Google— the Google Map hacks to find the owners, but you need the words to cut through the noise. So if you use a script like this, this 30-second opener is your pattern interrupt. You're not a broker looking for a listing— no offense, Frank— you're a local buyer looking to add one more facility. And that creates scarcity and forces a choice, right? With the, the concept, are you open to an offer or you're holding on forever? If you can nail that 36— 30 seconds in your script You're going to earn the right to play the follow-up game. And remember, be personable. You're making a relationship. This isn't a, a, a quick, you know, call like you're selling something and trying to get information, you know, as quickly as possible. This is a, this is a play the long game. Imagine you're calling this, this facility to talk to this owner to try to become their friend. That's how you want to approach this. Not— you don't want to sound like you're calling to sell something, right? I was— it's a funny story. I was getting a slice of pizza the other day, and I, and I kind of know the owner of the shop. And the guy behind the counter, I said, hey, is Vince here? And he said, yeah, who wants to know? And I said, uh, I'm just asking something. He said, hey, Vinnie, someone's here. And I can hear him from the back. He said, he said, what's he selling? I said, tell him, tell him he owes me money. And then we came out, we laughed about it. I said, which is worse, someone calling that you owe money to, or someone called to sell you something? He said, probably to sell you something. Don't sound like you're selling something when you walk onto the lot, or when you call. Don't sound like you're selling something. Create a relationship. Try to earn their trust. Try to find a bridge. It's critical to this game. All right. So now you got the perfect script, and now you know how to use it. But what happens when they say no? You have to play the follow-up game, and this is where most people quit, and that's why they fail. Persistence pays in this business. We know that 80% of deals happens after the 5th contact. A lot of times it's even way longer than that. You can't rely on your memory for that either. You need a CRM that's going to work for you, and then, and that CRM then becomes your brain. The last deal we just closed in my company was a 3-year-old relationship, and all the notes were in the CRM. It's critical. It's critical for reminding us when to, when to, you know, use a track a touch point. You know, call me in 6 months doesn't mean call me in 6 weeks. It means call in 6 months. Or I'm at the point where I make a deal with owners. I won't call you in a year. You say, you say maybe next year, fine. I'll make you a promise. I won't call you for a year if you promise you'll call me if you decide to sell before that. And they agree. And I actually had a guy do it about 6 to 9 months ago. We didn't get the deal because he wanted too much for it. We couldn't make it work, but he honored the commitment because nobody makes those commitments. So use it to track the touch points, make commitments, and stand by them. When you get the no, that just means not yet, and you can bridge that. When you get the maybe, well, now you know you're getting a little closer. Now you know you got something to talk about. All right, and you got to keep showing up in the right ways and at the right intervals until you get the deal. They'll eventually get tired of managing it, or life happens. There's always the D's— the death, divorce, disability, disinterest, right? You want to be the first one to get that call, so make a pact with them. Make a deal and honor it. And that doesn't mean you can't drip with a letter or an email or a note or just saying hello, call you in 6 months if it's been 6 months. Get creative. I highly encourage you to get creative. That's what stands out. All right, uh, right, let's take a few minutes now to answer your questions about sourcing because we've covered a ton of ground here in section 2, from finding the leads To calling them and following up, and again, this is just a recap, and I want to spend more time with you answering questions. So, with me to help answer any questions, you have from the broker standpoint Frank DeSalvo. And all right, I do. I I'm gonna do a quick intro here because Frank, what's up, Frank? What's up? He doesn't need a long one. Uh, because Frank DiSalvo is one of the real ones in self-storage. Um, he's a leader on Franklin Street's national self-storage platform, a great broker, a great friend, and someone who's generally, um, generally well connected across the industry. And more importantly, he actually shows up for people. Um, he's worked with a ton of our students. He's respected by operators coast to coast, and he knows this business inside and out, from acquisitions and sales to development and site selection. Uh, if you spent any time around serious people in this, um, business like I have, you've probably heard Frank's name. We hear a lot. Frank, thank you so much. Great to have you on the Storage 100. Um, uh, folks, go ahead, Frank.

No, I was just gonna say it was worth showing up just for that intro to hear that. I mean, you're making me blush.

We worked harder on that than anything. Um, so folks, uh, thanks for watching. Now it's your turn. So what questions do you have for sourcing? I saw some questions popping up in the, uh, chat. Um, continue to drop your questions in the chat right now. Um, we can talk cold calling, direct mail, zoning issues, market data. Um, ask us anything. This is your chance to get clarity before we move on to the next section, uh, which starts tomorrow about evaluating deals and due diligence. Um, and I want to make sure you have everything you need to start finding these off-market deals. So fire away. Um, first question I have here is an insult. From a Cowboys fan who knows me, and I'm not even gonna waste my time. Although then he comes back and says I'm a legend, which is a lie.

But, um, it's like a big weekend coming up here.

This is—

yeah, this is where the trash talk starts right now.

Ah, yeah, as a Birds fan, it's, uh— I don't know.

I almost put as my background, like, Frank DiSalvo, managing director. I almost put Frank DiSalvo, go Patriots.

I was like, I feel like it's starting off on the wrong Well, at least I wouldn't see you until the Super Bowl, so I don't mind that.

That's true.

And I like your young quarterback. Um, me too. All right, Frank, um, while, uh, do me a favor, maybe we could help while people are thinking of questions here. How, how did you get into self-storage? You've been in business a decent amount of time. How, how did you, uh, stumble into it?

So I, yeah, it's a great question. As you were going through some of the, the talking points that you guys are reviewing, this is exactly what we did when I got into self-storage. Um, I was in New York City, I was working for a hospitality group, I was working in restaurant operations. The, uh, smaller family office that backed that hospitality group also invested in multifamily, um, in the Southeast, and they were just getting into self-storage. In the Southeast. Almost, it was kind of a happenstance where one of their investors happened to own a self-storage facility. It was 2015, 2016, around then. So it was still pretty alternative asset class at that point. And they had the multifamily experience, they had the multifamily management arm already, and they were basically like, well, maybe we can pull this off and use some of our multifamily management experience to start running self-storage. So when I came on, we were still relatively new and the asset class itself was still relatively new. And I did, Joe, like exactly what you guys are talking about right now. We had a database. It wasn't as advanced as what people are using now with Salesforce, or we have an internal thing called Frankie. We just use Google Sheets, but it updated in real time. We would call the owners, we would map them out. The best properties, I agree with everything that was kind of said, even some of the broker stuff. You're going to get— more often than not, you're going to get better deals, higher reward from an off-market relationship that only you were looking at. Because when you think about it, that means you and maybe that seller's talking to 2 or 3 other people behind the scenes, but the entire market isn't seeing it, right? Part of what we do on the broker side is say, all right, we have the market at our disposal. We're going to price it as if we have the entire market, not as if we just have one buyer. So we price things a lot lower. And if you think about it, When you become a seller, that is what you want. But as a buyer, sometimes depending on where you are, um, you want to really spend that time and look for those off-market opportunities. So we fully encourage that.

Um, you know, that's— can I interrupt you? That's so interesting. I wasn't even thinking about— because I'm not a broker, so I never put your hat on. You know, we need to know how to work with you as a broker, but I've never stepped in your shoes. I mean, sometimes I try to think about your shoes, but It occurred to me as you were saying that it's probably not surprising that what I'm teaching and preaching here about how to try to source off-market deals, that's actually what you do for a living.

Yes. Right?

Yeah. So, you're doing the same thing. You're just trying to get the listing, not buy it and own it. But the approach is the same, right? They're always off-market for you. They're never on market.

Yeah. It's exactly the same. And that's why it was so easy after 3 years of off-market sourcing deals and networking with brokers and doing everything that you guys are doing on the acquisition side, why it was so easy to make that transition into brokerage. Because a lot of the day-to-day tasks were exactly the same. We were calling owners. Some of them we had contacts with already, some of them we didn't. They were new people. We were still underwriting the deals. We were tweaking a little bit on the marketing side. We were, we were shifting our pitch. Kind of going back to what you were reviewing earlier, it was like, hey, we want to do a BOV to show you what your property is worth on the open market. We're going to promise kind of a higher number versus, hey, would you be open to an offer on your property? And one of the things you mentioned I actually really liked, and I wrote that down because I will use it now, is when somebody says, hey, call me back in a year, what I usually do or what I usually tell our guys to do is call them back in 9 months or 8 months, because usually something happens before a year and they won't remember. They get a lot of calls, stuff like that. They won't necessarily remember, hey, that was the day. We write it down. That was the day we talked to them. But I actually really like that approach where you said, hey, if you promise you will talk to me before you do anything, then I promise I'll call you back in 1 year. I think that's a different approach. We talk a lot about in our business about soft selling, right? You said, hey, you don't want to come off like a sleazy car salesman. You don't want to be pushing it too hard. The initial intro call a lot of times is to get the owner contact, establish a relationship. If they're open to sharing financials, that's great. If they're open to an offer, that's great. But that very rarely happens for us as well on the broker side. Usually it's establishing a connection and then it's— I can't stress that enough. You won't see results until the 5th. If you do this and you call each person one time, you're not going to see results. And that, I think, opens up another topic why it's so important to be running through a list of facilities you really want to buy, because then you're able to hit those people 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times versus a scattershot approach where you're like, hey, there's 50,000 facilities. I'm going to call everybody once. Well, now you're only making that contact once. You're not establishing enough of a relationship. to eventually buy their $4, $5, $10 million deal that they've spent 20 years of their life turning into a successful business. These are really the really good deals out there, the mom-and-pop deals. These are really big decisions for these people. And when we were on the acquisition side, it took a very same thing, Joe. We've got stories about 2, 3-year relationships that eventually came to, and it just happened to be we had the relationship when they were ready. It wasn't like we convinced them Now is the time to sell. Um, that is a tricky thing for even brokers to do. I mean, there was a, a part of the market in like 2022 where it was like, oh, you should really think about it. 2021, you should really think about it. Now is a great time to sell. But most mom-and-pop owners are going to decide when they are ready to sell, and as long as you're in front of them, I think you have a really good, um, chance of getting that call.

Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. I've been preaching this for a while, um, and I know our students are, are the are out there doing it, um, I wish they would get out on the street and actually drive for dollars more because I think they'd have more success. I realize it's hard time-wise, but frankly, to me, it's still the best way to do it. Um, what does your team do? Do you guys, uh, and I know you, you cover a huge area, I get it, but, um, do you typically drive for dollars or is it more cold calling? And let me ask you a, um, a I was gonna say follow-up, but you haven't even answered, so I'll ask you a preemptive question before you answer that question. I know you're out in Vegas right now because you've got a meeting set up. Will you be driving for dollars while you're in Vegas?

In Vegas, I won't be. Um, there, there's a couple meetings I have where to come out here and sort of pop into random facilities. It probably wouldn't be the best use of my time because this isn't an area of the country that we're actively working on opening up. I'm out in Vegas, but a lot of the facilities we're talking about out here are actually East Coast opportunities. We will do that in the markets we have mapped out on the East Coast.

Fair point. I forgot you're more of a— you're kind of more of an East Coast base.

Yeah. I mean, we're working there. We don't quite have the manpower, but we also, you know, in an area like Georgia or Florida or North Carolina, we could pull up the database and be like, all right, who do we know nearby? Or who can we drive? And we've been trying to get in touch with this guy for a while. Let's go and pop in. But I do think that hits on a really important point that I was hinting at earlier is if you're going to drive for dollars, you're now— I can make 50 to 100 cold calls in a day. Let's say 75. If I'm driving for dollars, I can probably only stop at 10 facilities in a given day effectively. So again, it then comes back to narrowing down what facilities do you really want to own because you're taking higher quality shots, but you want to make sure, like if you're cold calling and you get a cold call opportunity, you're like, oh, I don't even really want to buy this deal anymore. If you're driving for dollars, I think it's really critical to make sure that you're not going to get as many shots. You want to make sure that what you're targeting is really fitting your buy box. That's the way we look at it on the broker side.

That's so interesting to hear you say that as a broker. I would've thought that any listing, any potential listing is a good listing, but I think you make an excellent point. If you're trying to buy for yourself, I'll use a ridiculous example. I'm not stopping at a CubeSmart or a Public or an Extra Space typically. Um, because there's, there's, there's less than 1% chance I'm going to be buying that facility. Um, but I will stop at, um, well, let me back up. Um, when I say driving for dollars, as our students know from our, from our classes and, and, you know, our pod calls, etc., office hours, that we don't just say, hey, just get in the car and go drive. Uh, there's some pre-work done in that where when I say drive for dollars, I We start with picking a market, you know, a week ahead of time, making some phone calls, trying to establish an anchor, uh, site to visit. You know, you get one person to say, yeah, okay, I'll meet you. You know, typically what I'll tell the students is you say, yeah, I'm gonna be in Franklin, Tennessee next week to visit my aunt, whatever.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and I love this town. I've always wanted to buy a facility there. Um, uh, you know, would you ever consider selling? And if not, can I just come visit yours anyway? When are you typically there? However you want to get that first appointment, that's kind of a— that could have been a real appointment or it could have been kind of a fake appointment. Like, hey, I'm just visiting a guy who didn't—

we do that a lot. Yeah, we set up an anchor meeting and then we're really going at that point.

Right. Yeah, I always have an anchor meeting whether it's a real one or not because then that gives you And I guess you could just do this anyway, but it gives you the opportunity for the next call to say, "Hey Frank, I'm meeting with Dave Storage. You know next Tuesday. Was wondering if you're going to be around. I'm in storage. I love storage. I love your market. I'd love to come meet you. You know maybe buy your facility someday whenever that day comes. Or heck, I might buy Dave's and we'll be you know." friendly neighbors. Um, are you around Tuesday after I meet with Dave? And, and, you know, usually it's very receptive, I'd say. Sometimes it's, nah, I'm not interested, I hate Dave, you know. No, I don't say that, but, um, I'm not interested, I'm not doing that, or, you know, I'm not there, or you can come but I don't, you know what. Or I've even had people tell me flat up, nah, don't bother. And I still go. Because it's— and I say this to our students all the time— it's so easy. If you just think about social media and all of the social problems we have from social media, it's so easy to go on a rant or to call people names on social media because you're— you're— they're faceless, right? And a lot of times with handles, you're— you're nameless. It's a little harder but really easy still on the phone to just say, no, who are you? Screw you, hang up. That's super easy. It's faceless. But when you're there in person, it's not faceless.

Yeah.

It is real. And people are not mean in person when you walk on their storage facility. First of all, they think you're a customer, potential customer. Are they sometimes disappointed when they find out you're not? Sure. But unless you're selling, you know, advertisements in the Yellow Pages, you know, if you, if you're, if you come across as just a genuine person like we've been talking about, you've, you know, yeah, sure, they still may not be interested, but it's not— what I'm trying to explain is that there shouldn't be any fear in it. I think people have this fear about, oh, I can't just walk out there.

Well, why?

They're not going to bite your head off. And I know it sounds ridiculous because that doesn't really resonate because parents have said that to kids for generations. They're not going to bite your hand off. So that— so it has no meaning to us anymore when somebody says that. But literally, they're not going to do anything to you. They will not assault you. They won't even call you names. I've only had one person sort of physically start gesturing and moving me out of their office. And that was the guy who made me promise not to call him for a year and then called me.

Got the opportunity.

Yeah. That, that conversation went from, I'm walking you out of my office because I use— you feel like you're selling something and I'm not selling my facility, to complimenting his, his facility and the, and the, um, how brand new it looked even though it was 6 years old. And then he started telling me about— he used a different gauge metal on the On the, um, you know, on the— in the build. And I don't, frankly, 12-gauge, 8-gauge, I don't know which one's supposed to be thicker. I think that this— I think it's the opposite. I think the smaller the number, the thicker or something like that. But whatever, he used a more durable metal for the siding, and, um, and I noticed it, and that's all it took. Because I wanted to— this is the perfect segue into my next question for you. Um, And the next thing you know, um, he was— I was like, oh, and by the way, he had this— and he did, he had these really cool bright LED flat lights over the door and on the end of each building. I was like, by the way, since, since he loved that I complimented him, I was going to keep going. And so I started talking about his LED lights. He's like, oh yeah. And that, by the way, that was the trigger because he was like, oh yeah, the guy— see that building over there? See how light lit up he is? Because it was like starting to get dusk. He's like, yeah, that guy, he came down here and he saw my lights and he wanted them, so he went and did it. He was like— so he's like the man around town with the lights and the LED lights. So it was just that stroking of the ego about what, a sighting and lights, right?

Yeah.

That turned that whole thing around. And now I had a relationship with him and, and a promise. If you don't call me— and frankly, Frank, I, I don't even think I wrote that one down. I forgot. When he called me, he's like, hey, it's Bill at 515 Highway Store, whatever. He's like, remember? And I'm like, yeah, sure. Nope. And, uh, he's like, well, you made me a promise. Not— and by the way, when he said the name of the facility, thank God it was the highway because, because we own one on that highway. And I remember it was down the street. I'm like, oh, that's, that's one. Yeah, all right, we're in Georgia. Um, and because if he had said like Billy Bob Storage, I would be like, I, I'm—

Yeah, yeah, you gotta like listen to those cues. How do I find this quick?

Yeah, not even in front of the a computer. I'm just on my phone. And, um, I think I was actually at like a mastermind. I think I was at a storage mastermind meeting. Um, so I'm on my phone in the hallway and, and he's like, yeah, you may— you kept your end of the bargain. It had been like 6 months. He's like, so I'm calling you first and, you know, whatever. And again, the deal didn't work out. But segue into my question, don't you think— because this is what I've found in my 7 years in the business and And, you know, on the street, you know, interacting face-to-face with sellers. And we've acquired 20, we've got more in the pipeline, we probably lost 20, you know, you know how it goes. So I've been in 40, 50, 60 various transactions or almost transactions dealing with the sellers and then, you know, hundreds more. So I've had a lot of interactions. And I tell our students this, But it's commercial real estate. We're buying a business on commercial real estate. But to the seller, 99% of the time— you could disagree if you want— doesn't it feel like they're selling their baby? It's, it's more like a residential transaction in, in my experience. And that's why the relationship is so important.

Especially when we're talking about mom-and-pop Sellers.

Um, you know, I'm sorry, I'll clarify with that. In my world, it's mom-and-pop, not—

Yeah, but I think that's— it pertains to a lot of what we're looking for. And when we talk about driving for dollars, I would agree with that. Like, I'm not going to drive and pop into a facility that's CubeSmart managed. I'll probably meet that guy at SSA or one of those events or at a mastermind. I'm not going to meet that person on site. Um, but I totally agree. And one of the things we do, which you kind of just hit on, was When we go and visit a site, before we talk numbers, before we talk business, before we talk financials, we say, hey, walk us around the site and show us what you've done here. Show us what you've built. Show us how you manage it. We'll ask 50 questions. And every seller, like their kids, like their babies, to your point, they love to talk about them. They want to tell you all about that. And it's helpful for us because it's always new knowledge. And if we do sell the opportunity, now we have the full backstory. But I think it's even more helpful for the seller to get comfortable sharing numbers, talking reality. Like, this is a big decision for any mom-and-pop seller. It's not as big of a decision for an institutional group, right? They may own 100 of these and they may not have been to the site nearly as often, but a lot of these mom-and-pop sellers, they're there every day. They're spending just as much time there as they are at home. So this is a huge decision for them. And going back to walking in on facilities, we used to bring— I agree. I don't think people are mean face-to-face, but if you really want to win somebody over, bring them coffee. We used to bring muffins to people. We pop in and say, hey, just wanted to stop by. We're brokers in the area. We're happy to run a valuation for your facility. We know we spoke 6 months ago. One of the things you hit on, Joe, which I think is Good to address too is like one, or at least an issue I had early on cold calling, somebody would tell me I'm never, ever, ever selling. And I would mark them in red in my spreadsheet and then I wouldn't call them back for too long. And I had to get comfortable calling that person back and establishing a relationship beyond that. That's not a— in my experience, it's just never like—

When you're new.

A definitive answer.

When you're new, I, I've had those too, and I've crossed them off because, ah, you know, and because, because you just— it was— it's a hard rejection.

Yes.

And we're human. You're human even though you're a disgusting, gross broker. You're still a human being.

You got more in you. Yeah, yeah, that's it. This guy—

you're still a human being with feelings, Frank. And I—

Yes, yes, contrary to popular belief, yes.

I've built a house with you. I know this.

That's true.

Yeah. There's a heart inside of that. Yeah. Yeah.

We were integrated.

Fan of a broker. And, uh, and I'm human too. And rejection sucks. But if you think about it, when we were told that, when we were young and naive, young, young in the business and naive, we, we wanted to just accept that defeat. by the excuse, I'm never selling. Think about how ridiculous that is. I— it's not— they could never sell, they could hand it down to their kids. But as an industry vet, you and I both know how ridiculous that statement is, right? How many— what percentage of the I'm never selling sell? 90-plus, right?

Within— yeah, within 10, you know, I think 9 years I've been in the business now. They've all sold, right? Like, all the people that told me in the original, you know, what they're really saying is they've all sold.

What they're really saying is, I don't need your BS today. Yeah, right. I don't need to deal with you today. I've got something else going on. I think it'd be fun— like, I would today— I haven't had anybody say that to me recently, but if— I promise you, I'll make everyone a promise here— when I get that I will call them out on their BS, but I'll do it in a fun way that further builds the relationship. I'll do— I'll— I don't know, I'll have to feel it out in the moment, but I'll do it in the moment. You could call back 6 months, a year later, and be like, oh, I'm never selling. Like, yeah, I know, I know, you told me that last year, and we both know that's BS. So what you're— what you're really telling me is you're still not selling today, and that's totally cool, Mr. or Mrs. Whoever. But I am going to be in town next week, and I would love to— I'm looking at a facility, and I'd love to stop by and see the facility I'm never, ever, ever, ever going to be able to buy, if that's okay with you.

Yeah, I'll put it on my dream— I'll put on my dream board.

At the very least, you know, maybe you and I could shake hands, and maybe you'll realize I'm not the worst, worst person ever, and Should you change your mind someday, maybe you and I could— like, you could have fun with the conversation to help them realize how ridiculous that is.

If you're cold calling all day, you have to. I mean, this is what we do. And again, granted, not as much as when I started because the cold calling then becomes relationships like we have, relationships we have with it. It becomes client relationships. But if you're cold calling all day and that's how you're sourcing deals, which again is the higher reward tier, which I totally agree with, you have to get comfortable and have a little fun with the rejection. And I think when we made that switch, when I made that switch and Dave made that switch where it was like, what'd they say? Call them back. We got to mess with them a little bit more. And again, it's not like messing with them malicious. It's teasing. You're never ever going to sell. If you're telling me I call you in 100 years from now, you're still going to own this thing, it's going to be dust. You got to have a little fun with it, and that's how these guys open up. I think when you start out, it's like, all right, I'm a little buttoned up. I'm going to take this and I'm not going to have fun over the phone. When people say stuff like that, that's how you kind of break through. And again, Joe, to your point, hey, next time I'm in town, you said, do we drive for dollars? And we don't drive for dollars as much as we used to in the sense where we just pop into somebody we don't know. But we do do what you were talking about earlier, which is, hey, I've spoken with you 5 times. You've told me you're never going to sell, but we're going to be in the area. Can I pop by and meet you in person? We can take you out for coffee, beers, lunch, whatever. We have a lot of those relationships with guys and they're very valuable relationships for us. We've never transacted with them, but they tell us what's going on in local markets that we're active in. So it's really good intel.

Yeah.

And then they tell us if somebody's selling or That's a really big thing, whether we're— whether you're a broker or whether you want to know that, you know, as a buyer. If you own something in the market, hey, I've had to do this, you know, or these guys are coming into town, or that, that group is building, right? You want to know about the new developments in the area. So those are all important contacts to have, even if they don't sell. But they— well, again, everybody does it, actually.

Um, I know the markets you're in. Those are also the markets that I'm in a lot, so you don't need to do more of that. You could just stay back in your office, you know, live the— live the—

live the cushion. Listen, I'm on the other side of the country right now. You leave the driving to us.

Okay. Uh, Frank, listen, uh, thank you so much for, for joining, uh, me tonight. It was, you know, super awesome that you could, um, spend your time. I know how busy you are, um, so I really appreciate, um, and I know the listeners and, and watchers, um, Will, will appreciate, um, especially the folks that didn't get to see this. I think they're gonna be upset they didn't get to ask any questions. Um, and we had a little bit of a shy crowd tonight, but this is also the first time that I was actually able to get the, the everything working, and now no one has questions. Um, that's all right. Um, Frank, again, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate you. Um, and folks, um, that, uh, actually, I think I need a little help from support here because Because I don't think, uh, my screen— there we go. Thank you very much. And thanks again, Frank. You, Frank, um, I'd give— I'd ask everybody for a round of applause, but can't see anybody. Um, all right, so that wraps up section 2. You've now got the leads, you know exactly what to say to them. That was awesome what Frank, um, I mean, the knowledge that you— hopefully you enjoyed the back and forth there, but the knowledge that Frank just imparted on us was Awesome. Especially from that point of contact, whether you're on the phone or, um, you know, you're in person. And in person's my favorite way. Like, I can't, I can't beat that horse enough. I don't beat horses, but you know what I mean. Um, it, that, that those ideas hopefully got some, some, some of the juices flowing to understand how you can talk to, to sellers. Um, you can talk to brokers the same way, right? This is really, frankly, how you talk to everybody. Right? Just try to, try to build relationships with people, uh, and, and, and don't, don't read their reaction to you as this permanent, you know, don't ever let— don't ever call me or lay your eyes on me again. It, it really probably has more to do with their day, what's going on, where they are in the life cycle. Even if they're not having a bad day and they're just a cranky person, just Call them back in a year, right? Or, or try to have fun with them and make them a promise. You can even make them a promise that, um, that they don't even agree to. Anyway, you got the tools to find the deals. Uh, I could talk about this all night. Uh, next up, we will dive into Section 3, Evaluating Deals and Due Diligence. Um, and this is where we're going to turn those conversations that we want you to have— and now you know how to have them— into contracts. All right. If you like what you heard tonight, or at least what Frank said, go ahead and hit the like button, um, and subscribe of course if you haven't already so you don't miss the daily drops. And of course the live presentations like tonight, where again I'll have more industry vets on who are experts in these sections and the, you know, the topic sections that we're recapping. Uh, and then lastly, share. And I know you think it's for me, but it's not. It's for you. If you've been following along, you've heard me say this a few times, it's really for you when you share. You're letting people you know in your network that you're in the business. And that's really going to matter when you find a deal and you're looking for capital partners. So, share YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever you want. You want your entire network, colleagues, business partners, friends, family members, you want them to know and know often that you are in self-storage, you are researching self-storage, you are in that game. Because when you do find that deal, you don't want them thinking, uh, oh, I guess he— you got a storage deal? I didn't know you had interest in storage. Oh, you must be new to the business. Is that really what you want them thinking? Or do you want them thinking, oh yeah, you know, Joe, Dave, Frank, whatever, he's been sharing storage videos for— or stuff for posts or whatever for years? Even if it's a couple months, that's what happened for me. It was literally a couple months. People were like, oh yeah, you're, you're the storage guy in my network. I'm like, well, it's only been a couple months, but cool. So, um, that you're sharing for you. So, um, it's a simple thing to do. It's free, it's for you, and it's for your future. And who knows, maybe you have a friend who's been looking at the self-storage space for a while. And of course, when you do, they'll thank you later.