New Podcast:
Quote I love: “Two is one and one is none.”- Navy Seal mantra
My boys and I recently went “camping” in the woods near our house. The highlight was setting up the tent and drawing a map. If you follow it - you will see Jawbone trail leads to the 100 Acre Woods, and onto the Dangerous Woods. One of the best parts of having kids it that is lets you become a kid again yourself. I treasure these times with my boys, coonskin cap and all!
Back to the show…..
Redundancy is hard. Redundancy is expensive. In good times, it makes sense to go as fast and as light as possible. The hope and expectation is that everything will work according to plan. In the military when lives are on the line, it becomes important to think in a deeper way. Redundancy is expensive from a time and dollars standpoint, but if we want to fulfill our vision of becoming a world class self storage company, this is where our efforts are best spent. I am starting to think through all of our systems from hiring, on-boarding, construction management, due diligence, daily operations, and reporting.
Questions I am asking myself:
Where are these systems fragile?
What if one key person were to become sick or unreachable?
Would information be lost and if so at what step in the process?
How do we use the wisdom of the past, with SOME of the tools of today?
How do we grow from nine team members to eighteen to thirty-six? What challenges might we run into and what systems might break in the process?
What practices best maintain the physical and digital real estate over the long term?
I am creating First Stop Storage University on Teachable.com in an attempt to answer many of these questions. This will provide our team members with our core processes or “how we do it here”. The next step will be to ensure procedures are followed by all after team members have time to weight in and offer changes. Weigh in equals buy in.
Most popular question: “How are interest rates effecting your business?”
Interest rates are affecting my business a great deal. It is difficult to buy an investment at a 6% return and pay 7% on a loan to the bank. I am no mathematician, but those numbers don’t work. We are seeing the velocity of deals drop down to more normal levels and real estate related work such as appraisals are decreasing their turn around time. Most would agree the Fed was late to the party and will likely stay late as a result. But the higher interest rates are curbing inflation which is a good thing. I am glad to see more “reality” being injected into the system. We will continue to stay principled when it comes to price and location in hopes that opportunities will come our way. We are planning for a little turbulence in the coming 12-24 months, but I am confident there are smooth skies ahead.
It was short and sweet today. If you enjoyed this today, please forward it to another curious friend. I love your replies to The Real Deal. I read every single one, and I try to respond as often as I can.
www.pearsonpartnerspe.com