Why Self Storage is a Smarter Move Than a 401k

What happens when a Navy vet and a sales pro ditch Wall Street and go all in on self-storage? 🔑

Scott Meyers welcomes back Rod and Christin Blunk, a dynamic husband-and-wife duo who went from 401k failures to self-storage success. 

They share how losing big in the 2008 crash sparked a mission to build real wealth—leading to over 400 real estate transactions and, eventually, a pivot to self-storage. 

From navigating the highs and lows of working together, to building a portfolio of owned and partnered facilities, Rod and Christin offer straight talk on due diligence, market trends, partnerships, and mentoring others in the game. 

Listen For:

1:12 How to pivot from traditional investing to self-storage?

6:00 What are the challenges and wins of working with your spouse in business?

14:00 What trends and opportunities are emerging in today’s self-storage market?

19:52 What due diligence mistakes do new self-storage investors make?

34:20 What advice would Rod and Christin give their younger selves?

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Chapters

• 1:12 How to pivot from traditional investing to self-storage?
• 6:00 What are the challenges and wins of working with your spouse in business?
• 16:13 What trends and opportunities are emerging in today’s self-storage market?
• 22:05 What due diligence mistakes do new self-storage investors make?
• 36:33 What advice would Rod and Christin give their younger selves?

Transcript

Announcer (00:03):
This is the Self Storage Podcast with the original Self Storage expert, Scott Meyers.

Scott Meyers (00:11):
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Self Storage Podcast. I am your host, Scott Meyers, and in today's episode we have two special guests, returning guests Rod and Christin Blunk. Rod, Christin, welcome back to the show.

Christin Blunk (00:23):
Hi, Scott. It's great to see you again.

Rod Blunk (00:25):
Glad to be here.

Scott Meyers (00:27):
Good to see you as well. Well, for a little background and context for our folks who didn't listen to the first episode, Rod and Christin came to us by way of the Self Storage Academy, and they were already active in the business and so they came straight into the Mastermind and just began knocking it out of the park and have been an incredible resource for so many folks and an incredible contribution to the Mastermind. And so we asked them to come on board with the team and join our mentoring team, and now they work with many of our students that are coming into our mentoring programs and showing them the ropes—how to find, evaluate, purchase, and manage self storage facilities. Both bring unique, unique skill sets where Christin brings everything and Rod brings—well—encouragement. I’m kidding, folks. Rod brings a wealth of knowledge on the physical aspect.

(01:12):
Rod is the one who's always on the plane, not always with Christin, but he is the one who goes out and assists with the due diligence, the site visits, but then also handling really the physical aspects. So they are an incredible husband and wife team that have gone on and done so many great things. And so we want to bring them back on the show to talk about once again, what is relevant today. As much as I think that this market is pretty straightforward because the self storage business is pretty straightforward, we just pivot and we make those normal adaptations depending upon what's going on in the economy. But for many folks, they're still on the sidelines waiting, wondering what's going on out there. And so once again, some folks—resident, in-house folks—that are not only in three facilities that they currently own, they're in four additional partnerships. You've got like three that are also in the funnel, one in development, and then another one that's getting closer to close as well, if I'm not mistaken. So these guys are absolutely on fire attacking the market, and so we wanted to give them a little bit of insight. So with that, Rod, Christin, I'll let you kind of fill in the blanks and then we'll go down the path of what you're seeing out in the marketplace right now.

Christin Blunk (02:15):
Yeah. Well, Scott, it's so great to be here and we've been so grateful for everything that's occurred since we've met you and have been a part of this. Just a little bit of background briefly in case nobody is aware of a little bit of our story. So Rod and I really thought we were doing all the right things. We both went to college, we earned master's degrees and we both built successful careers. Rod was a nuclear submarine officer, and I was in sales and, like so many people, we followed the traditional path. We were putting our money in our 401(k), we were investing in mutual funds in the stock market, and we believed this was the path to building wealth for us. And then 2008 came, and a lot of people in this room or in the rooms that we've been in lost a ton of money in the market crash.

(03:02):
And fortunately, we were still young at the time and didn't really need to touch that money. So we told ourselves that we're doing the right thing, we're staying the course, we're going to continue to put money into our 401(k) and work these jobs and we'll recover and it'll be fine and we'll be able to create the life that we want to create. In 2012, I finally had enough courage to look at our bank statements and our investment statements, and, well, it was quite shocking because we were still in the negative. And on top of that, I finally added up all the fees that we had been paying over those years and realized that, wow, something needs to change—that this is no longer going to work for us. Wasn't quite sure what that was, but I knew that there were a lot of people out there who were building businesses and creating wealth. And so Rod and I went back to the drawing table and we started educating ourselves and exploring opportunities, and that led us to residential real estate. So in 2012, we opened up an investment company in residential real estate. We flipped homes, we bought and sold homes, we rented properties, and we did private money lending—probably over 400 residential transactions within that period from 2012 till 2020.

(04:20):
We were working hard, we were enjoying it, but we were still trading our time for money. And then in 2019, Rod and I were hit with a major bump in the road and it forced us to stop and really analyze: are we on the right path again? And we recognized quickly that we weren't. And so that moment created urgency for us to find additional revenue streams and more of a true passive income that we were looking for. And that search eventually led us to self storage. And then Scott Meyers—we joined the Academy, started hitting the ground running. We joined the Mastermind, and not long after the Academy, we had gotten our first deal under contract. Shortly after we closed on our first deal, we had our second deal under contract, and that's where the ball kept rolling and it's really, really changed our lives and we're truly grateful for that. Rod, do you have anything you'd like to add?

Rod Blunk (05:14):
She keeps me busy. I’ve still got the W-2 job, and that's our exit strategy, but basically storage has been absolutely amazing because we had three girls—all of 'em are going to be going into college in one shape or form or other. And most kids, they always have those aspirations and opportunities, and one of 'em had an opportunity to become a physician’s assistant. Well, that's not cheap, but storage allowed us to pay for their colleges. And this is amazing in this time of day that, yeah, maybe I could have gotten out of my job, but it was really making sure that they're not burdened with a lot of financial debt. So it's been an enabler for us to watch them get their goals achieved and continue to grow. So it's just been amazing, and we're growing the legacy wealth from that even further.

Scott Meyers (06:04):
Hey, I'm going to take a deviation away from the next question that I had here for you both, but we've got a lot of folks out there that are considering doing this as a husband and wife, or one spouse that would love to bring their spouse into the business. Let's do a little bit of a dive—it doesn't have to be too deep—but let's talk about… you're already laughing.

Christin Blunk (06:28):
You a marriage counselor into this.

Scott Meyers (06:32):
Not it, not it.

Christin Blunk (06:33):
Where are we going with this—

Scott Meyers (06:35):
But let's talk about—and yeah, the challenges too. I mean, that's really what everybody wants to know considering, “Gosh, I'd love for my wife to do this,” or “I wish my husband would've taken an interest in this.” And we know that when two are aligned, you go farther together. So what has that journey been like? Let's talk about some of the ups and downs and what that looks like for you two working together. You do work very closely together in the business.

Christin Blunk (06:56):
We do, and there are pros and cons, just like with every partnership. So I think for me, I had more flexibility in the beginning. So I hit the ground running and it was me who was doing a lot of the work. Rod was still supporting the family. He still has the W-2 job, so his time was more limited than mine and I would always have him be a part of it. His skill sets are very different than my skill sets, which I think helps us be successful, honestly. And we hold each other accountable, but I was always out looking and doing things and he was kind of in the background and now he's gotten more interested and he's definitely taken a much greater role now than when we started on this journey five years ago. And so now it's really interesting because I'm starting to see him take the lead on a lot of the things that I was doing before, which is great.

(07:52):
And as you navigate this, you really start figuring out who's good at what and let's figure out what your gifts and your unique abilities are, and that's what you focus on. And then I'll focus on mine and then we'll fill in the gaps by surrounding ourselves with other people for the things that we fall short on. And I think that's kind of what led us to success. And there've been challenges—I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm going to. I'm a very direct person and probably more direct to my husband than I am to other people, and sometimes he gets his feelings hurt, so we have to navigate some of the emotional… I don't even know how to say this, but he's very good at it though.

Rod Blunk (08:37):
My therapy bill has gone up a lot since we started storage and working together really intensely. Just kidding. Actually, I want to just expand on—let's put it like this, Scott—Christin's the realist, Rod’s the optimist, right? But that team actually works really well together. I will push her to re-look at some of the stuff and challenge where it can be as opposed to saying, “Well, it's not there today.” I agree—well, let's stop saying that it's not there today, agree to disagree where we want to go with it and actually talk about it. And that's where you see a lot of the younger—like the husband/wife— even this past week I was with a father/daughter on a site visit—that opportunity to continue to say, okay, what do we accept as a potential risk for optimism? And what do we accept as this is truly realism of what it's going to be? And when you have that partnership, that partnership actually is much better ready to tackle what's going to occur and make things happen. From what I've observed, especially with us in the last four years—

Scott Meyers (09:53):
The partnerships that last—and what we tell our students all the time—is that two people that have the same skill set or no skills at all have no business being in a partnership. They really need to complement each other. And so that's what you mentioned, Christin, but then the partnerships that last, that stay together, that don't end up in a partnership “divorce,” because it is very similar to a marriage—not that close, but similar—but it's one in which we line out, we have the attorneys draft the agreement, the operating agreement, and it says, “Here's the roles and responsibilities of the partners,” so that we do that ahead of time. It's like the partnership business prenup that says, “Hey, if I'm handling marketing and development or operations and development and you're going to handle construction and due diligence and capital raising, then when you start to step into my lane, then you can just hold up the operating agreement.”

(10:39):
I mean, not literally, but figuratively, and just say, “Hey, get out of my lane,” or “Stay back in yours.” You can give some input to this.

Scott Meyers (11:32):
And that's usually when you set that framework up from the beginning and you recognize when somebody begins to overstep their bounds—that's not what you got into partnership for. Now, that may work in theory with a marriage, but I am also married to my partner and it's a little bit different. It is one bank account that it goes into at the end of the day; when it's partners, it's two, and you make these decisions and there's a little bit of risk, but when it's in the family, it's a little bit different. So what type of guardrails have you set up—or operating ground rules, if you will, or operating procedures, Rod, being in the military—that you have put in place in this partnership to make sure that you don't ever step those lines and that it truly stays, as much as it can, a business relationship versus a marriage.

Rod Blunk (11:32):
So as Christin said, it's led to some conversations. As a military guy, you get the thing—okay, you're attacking me. I could handle this, but some of my story that we don't go too much into… there’s a story behind this. I've come to realize that de-escalation and the ability to comprehend and listen more to the conversation that's there in real time and know, “Okay, you know what, I'm going to disengage, re-engage with a more thoughtful process.” I understand there's confusion, but if my immediate action is to defend myself or defend my decision—that has worked, and then that works in partnership. So we've had to work on this through our marriage—which has grown since some of our journeys—as well as just in working on, “Okay, I really love this,” and then there's these… She can get with three why's: why, why, why?

(12:30):
And if I don't really understand that, then maybe I don't really love this as much as I do. And that goes with not only our business aspect but in life. And so that has been very good for us to reflect and de-escalate because she loves to come at me—and I don't mean it in a bad way—it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom before I can finish. And so she has to work some too and I'll let her talk about… but I have to let her allow me to finish because I'm one of those guys that likes to talk out loud and that kind of annoys her.

Christin Blunk (13:05):
How do I even respond to that, Rod?

Scott Meyers (13:10):
You're just supposed to agree with him, Christin. That's how a good partnership in marriage works, right?

Christin Blunk (13:15):
Rod is a very passionate, emotional person and I am more black and white. I want to see the numbers, I want to make sure it works—set the emotions aside. And so we have to navigate through that and we've learned as a couple, as a partnership, and as somebody who's married as well—how do we navigate that? How do we really separate the emotions from what the true picture is telling us so that we know: should we move forward or not? Rod's great with numbers, he's great at problem solving, but if I can't see the path and it's not clear to me, then I shut down immediately and then he's trying to build that case back up for him, right.

Scott Meyers (14:06):
Well, it is interesting. I think the business and the market, they are also great teachers for us all. So as you've gone through this process then as partners, what are some of the wins and the challenges that have now shaped who you are now and how you approach your investing strategy and how you approach the market?

Rod Blunk (14:28):
You honest with a good one there? You want that one first, honey?

Christin Blunk (14:34):
You start. It's okay.

Rod Blunk (14:35):
So where the market is from my perspective is we're at a time where there's two things happening. One where we had high inflation and stuff like that, which caused a lot of folks to slow down. It caused us to slow down. We couldn't do our ground-up development because the numbers—it's math—the numbers just didn't work for us to carry it. So we had to—okay—let's refine our expenses and let's find some strategies we had to go out [and pursue]. Well, it's a shift right now. The inflation's coming down, the rates for borrowing money are getting better. So the mindset is, okay, we see the trend. We've gotten rid of some of the initial roadblocks—what is actually there in the growth and understanding the business? And that's where the mentoring, or just having done this for a while, is: okay, what is the market?

(15:28):
Tell me what's inside that market. It's saying, “I'm ready to grow,” or “I am growing and I'm starting to grow.” And you're seeing a lot of these trends that say, you know what, time is now—even if I'm going to spend a little bit more on my interest rate. A lot of these commercial loans will go either a three- or five-year flexible interest rate. That interest rate, if market continues like it is based on trends, should be dropping. So you've got a little bit more assumption of risk. But if you evaluate it on that assumption of risk, but you also evaluate what are my risk tolerances on the high end, you should be looking really hard right now. Now that's one side and that's all the financial. The other side of the market is: hey, people don't get younger. And what's amazing in the market is there's probably 16,000 mom-and-pop self storages that are going to come on market because they are at 60 to 65 years old.

(16:29):
They really don't want to own and operate anymore. They're like, you know what? I'm just ready to retire and go see my grandkids. Well, their kids are now saying, you know what, Mom, Dad, I don't understand storage. I think it's just something I don't want to do. I want something sexier. Okay, I like those kids. If they were my kids, I'd be upset, but I like 'em when they're somebody else's kids because it gives me the opportunity to tell the parents—or the owners of the story—just, parents, “Hey, look, I understand you're selling. I'm sorry your kids don't like it, but if you give me an opportunity I plan to grow with legacy wealth your facility just like you wanted; it will become a part of legacy wealth.” And to a lot of them—mom and pops—they like that. They like to see that somebody's going to take over their baby and really make it what they were visualizing in them. And the thing is, you let 'em know, “Hey, I've done these great things,” and now you have a friend—even though you'll probably never do business with the first person again—but you showed them that their dream came true. Maybe not with them, but it still came true.

Christin Blunk (17:35):
To add to that, I feel like what it showed us is the first one—you're kind of skeptical: does this really work? Can we really do this? And the first one showed us that, yes, it does really work, and yes, it can really help you build your wealth and become a better business owner. And so for me, it gave us confidence to be able to go out and rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat. And the more and more you do it, the more and more you grow, the more education you get. I mean, we learned—even in all of the residential properties that we did—absolutely every single one, we learned lessons through. And it's the same thing with every storage facility that we've taken down or had under contract that didn't close for whatever reason. We have walked away more educated and more knowledgeable just to continue to go out and rinse and repeat and build the wealth that we want using this vehicle. And so for me, it's the confidence and knowing that it does work. You’ve got to pipeline right, you’ve got to understand what you're buying. There is risk, but you have to mitigate that risk as much as possible.

Scott Meyers (18:47):
Well, so you've navigated that, you've mitigated that and done very well. And then as you stepped into the mentoring role—which I just absolutely love—it's just… to be able to utilize the wisdom that you've gained along the way to help other people is far greater than utilizing the wisdom to create your own portfolio, at least that’s how I feel, and we’re so appreciative to have you both on board to do that as well—to speak into the lives of our students, not only their investment lives, but also as models because they see what you've done and what you've built as well. But let's talk about… there are some commonalities in terms of the mistakes—or the potential mistakes—that these investors want to make before you grab them from stepping into something or making a mistake that could eventually even take 'em out. Let's talk about some of those common mistakes that you see some of these investors make where you have to either gently or forcefully come alongside 'em and kind of nudge 'em back up onto the path and make sure they're heading in the right direction.

Christin Blunk (19:52):
Well, I'll start, Rod, and then you can talk about the boots-on-the-ground piece of it. So—

(19:57):
Oftentimes if you're buying a facility from a broker or a savvy seller, the story that they put together isn't actually what's going on. And so it's your job in that due diligence time period to really validate and verify the story that they're telling you by really digging in and diving into all of the reports that they have to give you, doing all of the due diligence that you should be doing, and then also going to the actual facility and verifying it through your boots-on-ground work. It's your job to understand all of that and put that story together because you're going to be the owner and you must make sure that what they're telling you makes sense. And if it doesn't make sense, then what does that look like from you—from your perspective—from an operational standpoint and a purchasing standpoint?

(20:52):
Oftentimes, for instance, a few months before they put it to market, the seller may increase their street rates, and then they're basing their pro forma off of their street rates. And then when you get the rent roll, you're identifying that, “Oh my gosh, yes, they have these lovely street rates, but the people currently paying these rates—it's significantly different and significantly less.” So your overall gross potential rental income at that point in time is much less than what the broker's showing you. And so it's been a joy for us to come alongside some of your students, Scott, and show them how to actually break down a rent roll and how to read it and how to extract the information that's in there—that it's telling you—and what are you actually buying? Yeah, they tell you that you're 95% occupied, but really—does that include owner rentals or friends that don't pay, or people that are greater than 90 days that should have already been auctioned? You have to break down and really dive into this for you to get a clearer picture on what it is that you're buying. And you also verify that. Rod, I'll let you speak to this because you're the one that goes out on the site visits, and so what are you verifying?

Rod Blunk (22:12):
Oh, so we're verifying now—

Christin Blunk (22:16):
I don't know, are you?

Rod Blunk (22:19):
So yes, you guys are going to see my joyous face always showing up with a cup of coffee to start the day. It usually starts pretty early, and that's exactly what it is: now we're going to go and kick the tires—literally like we're buying the car, right? We're going to go kick the tires. So I typically say we're going to start…it’s probably about a two- to four-, could be six-hour depending on the size, process actually on site. And we look at the general things at first, right? Hey, has it got doors? Does it have a gate? How are the driveways? Is it gravel? Is it asphalt? Is it cement?

(22:53):
Are there locks? Are there cameras? Are there lights? Okay? We go through that and we'll talk about some of the nuances with that, but then we really start getting into thinking, “This is my facility,” because the very first thing I always tell anybody who's under contract, my thing is, look, hey, when do you start owning this? I like to ask 'em, right? When they get that PSA signed, “When are you going to start owning this?” And they're like, “Oh, we got about 90 days.” I said, “No, no, no, you're now owning it. Now you need to own this and go into the mindset. As soon as you're under contract, you're trying to figure out like the business owner—what's wrong?” That includes physical and that includes your financials. So I got to do all the physical. Christin jumps into the financials, and then we cross.

(23:35):
We ask each other—literally, I called her up after the site visit on Saturday—“Hey honey, I see these things. I'm not concerned, but what about you?” Because now I'm talking to somebody else who hasn't seen it. So anyway, I got to go do that. So I'm going to come back to that with the actual site. So now we're actually kicking the tires and walking through. So I try to say, is it a want or is it a need? When you go through the facility, you got to remember, we're in the business of owning boxes that people want to store their stuff in. Okay, does that box in that market need to be bright, shiny and beautiful and climate-controlled? Well, it depends, and that's why you have to know the market. But we walk around what you are buying and ask, is it a box that somebody can safely store their stuff in?

(24:25):
That's fundamental. So we make sure we cover that basis first, and then we start looking at, okay, how secure is that site? So now we start looking at the gates and the fences. Is the… [hinge] maintenance? Does it look like it's in condition? Can I get into it easily? Is the keypad—can I see the keypad? Can I punch the keys? Are there boulders to protect the keypad system? Those basic things are being able to operate the facility. It gives you confidence if you've got a guy on site, if you’ve got boots on the ground, if you have a software system that is controlling the access—all those things are necessary for you to have the confidence to run your facility, just like the current owner should be confident when he's selling it. So we go through that. Some things you start to find out—there are no bollards or the bollards have been hit and they're very loose, and it's not going to protect anything.

(25:15):
Well, that's the purpose of the bollard—but they've got to be put back in. So you start looking at that because if they have no bollards, then as we're walking around the building, it's a nice box, but this corner seems to be all dented because every time somebody comes around, there's no bollard out there and they like to hit the building because they like to “drive by Braille.” Very weird. A lot of people are driving U-Haul for the first—well, probably for the first time—and that ends up not so good for your facility. So those are the other things we look at. Now as we walk the facility, just like Christin said, I like to touch every lock. So I touch and I grab 'em. I specifically touch every red lock. Anytime there's a red lock, I touch it and I identify the size of the unit and I make sure that I have it written down so I can get an accurate count.

(26:05):
So Christin had said, “Hey, you may be 97% occupied, but are you actually getting 97% of the payments?” And recently a lot of facilities—yeah—they show you they have a high occupancy, but I'm counting red locks. And that's where that discrepancy in your due diligence—and the mentoring and understanding—becomes very much an intertwined event that you have to do: basically an audit. And that's why I say from the beginning of PSA, you're now the owner-operator. Put your mindset into there. What do you need to do to make sure your financials are giving you the math that you predict? So we walk through that. I write those all down. I also walk and look at any unit that's open because I want to see what's the condition. And the way I look at this and the way I tell the operator or the future owner is, “Hey, look, this guy—he's so excited—or they’re so excited to get your storage because storage is the best thing to store in. ‘I want to store my stuff in this box.’ Well, was that ever ready?” And then you see cobwebs and everything else—you're like, “Whoa.” Or you open up the unit, it says, “This one's already rented,” and it's got a bunch of junk still in it.

(27:15):
That owner that you're buying from—or the seller—they just didn't understand or weren't managing their property. Is it opportunity? Well, it's opportunity when you put in your mindset how you're going to manage it. So it's not something I'm like, “Oh my gosh, we shouldn't be buying it.” No, we're going to clean this up. And we hope to run into current people while we're walking through the site and say, “We're here, we're looking at doing things,” and we get to hear—just last Saturday, as a matter of fact—we heard what they didn't like, and that is one of the best things ever because then they get excited that somebody's coming in; they get excited to see that there could be possible change. Now, that depends on if they know it's for sale or not. So you got to understand if you're buying it from an owner-operator sale without a broker. But if it's public knowledge that it's for sale, then you can have that conversation.

(28:11):
It's not something that's not public out there because it's owned by a broker and it's advertised. So make sure when you're doing these things, you have that. So again, I'm giving you little tidbits as we go around, but you just got to know that when you go and operate—we need to focus a little bit more on that—and they'll see that and they're like, “Hey, they're proactive.” And it happens. So that's one thing. Now let's talk about some really interesting things. So when you go and do a site visit, you're thinking, “Man, this owner or seller—they're ready to sell this site.” You're driving around. I've driven several of 'em before people get there. Next thing you know, I find this furniture—and it happens, right? You have people moving in and out all the time. You're like, “Okay, I have some furniture.”

(28:54):
The site manager's going to come by and remove it. Well—why I'm bringing this up—the furniture I saw on this site visit had grass about halfway up the furniture and the property was recently mowed. So I'm like, well, the contractor mowed—and the furniture seems to be more active on the property than the site manager. So again, am I scared? No. Is it opportunity? Yes. If I'm going in as an owner, I'm probably not keeping the management—something to consider. So you look at that. We look at the locks, look at the locking mechanisms. Cameras—so this is kind of interesting. When you're buying a facility, you see the cameras, but sometimes you may or may not be able to see what the actual camera screens are. So first question I ask is, “Well, can you get a camera shot before we get there so we can verify that this camera is actually looking at the facility?”

(29:53):
Because sometimes when they go and look at it, I'm like, “Well, gosh, that must be a beautiful sunset that camera gets every night.” It's not looking at the facility at all, right? So we start addressing that issue so that when you get through it, you can make sure you can adjust those cameras. Lights—so when you do a site visit, it's during the day. When do you do a light visit? Well, do people think about them? They should. And everyone I try to get to, I try to make sure I get there to see it at night. And if I'm not staying over because the time doesn't allow me to, they're driving and sending me photos. So I say, “Yes, we may want to put some lights here, we may want to put some lights there,” just so that there's situational awareness. We look at the sign.

(30:36):
I mean, Scott, I couldn't believe some of these facilities I've driven to with some students—the sign's falling down. No wonder there's nobody buying. They don't know who to call. That's crazy. And I always say, look, if you're going to put up a new sign, you want the name, you want the phone number and you want the web address—a minimum. Okay? You could put all the OPEN signs and all the other banners around—I need that, because when they drive by, they're clicking pictures with the phone so they know where to click. So that's another thing. The other thing I like to do is I like to just sit back and see if the site is peaceful. And when I mean if the site is peaceful, I ask, do I hear road noise? Now, everybody goes, “Oh man, yeah, I like no road noise.”

(31:19):
Not in storage. Folks, you want a lot of road noise. That means people are driving by that site. They're either on their way to work or on their way home or they're commuting through there for some reason. That's giving you visual advertisement and it also shows you that they're more likely going to rent from you than, say, the one facility I went to where it was not even a two-lane road to get to it—I had to drive through a neighborhood. And when I got there, although it had, I think, 300 units, nobody's going to see it. Nobody's going to come by it—as opposed to the one that was this competition about a half-mile away on the four-lane highway—something to consider. So those are other things. Finding cars on the sites, talking to make sure how those cars are going to get removed, making sure that's written in the contract.

(32:08):
Just recently we were looking at drainage. Drainage is very important on a self-storage facility. And here's the kind of things—when I walk this facility, I'm looking at the doors and if I see that there's sand kind of going up to the doors and it's stuck, there's two things. One is the person's not been in there, which you’re like, “Oh boy, he hasn't been in there, he hasn't seen it. Has there gotten any water in it?” But also, why am I allowing water to get into the facility potentially? So I have to look at those things and talk to 'em about grading and gravel or grading that goes in here—or is it because the gutters are clogged? Or the downspouts aren't working right? Downspouts—they like to get hit by trucks, so you got to pay attention to that. We market, and we're taking photos of all this stuff. We come back and we regroup and we figure out, okay, let's make a decision. Is this a good facility or is it a bad facility? Let's go back to the basics. Are we buying metal boxes to rent storage? Yes. Do all the metal boxes—99% of these—do that? Yes. Okay, let's talk about the things that aren't identified that we should be either getting some type of seller changes in the numbers. And that's where that discussion is, because sometimes, guess what? Sellers didn't know either.

Scott Meyers (33:26):
And that always amazes me. There are plenty of things that we found that we presented to the seller and they were just hands-off, which is part of the reason why they're selling it—or handed it over to a manager who is a relative. And that person wasn't minding the store either. And so that is why we do our due diligence and that's why, Storage Nation, you absolutely have to go out and conduct a site visit. I don't know there was ever a viable investment strategy, but we know folks that brag about the fact, “Well, I bought this facility sight unseen,” and they think for some reason they're so busy and it's in other states that that's a good thing. Well, that's never a good thing. It's not a good thing for you when it's your own money or the bank's money or certainly if you're bringing any partners or investors in as well, which is why we go through this. Alright, so each of you in your own words—in 60 seconds—what would you tell your younger self before you got into self storage when you were just starting to look into the business?

Christin Blunk (34:20):
For me, I wish I would've done it sooner. I wish I wouldn't have let fear paralyze me for as long as it did. I wish that I didn't have to go through hardship to change my way of thinking and really just get educated and then start doing the work. Because you're never going to know everything. You just need to start, and the sooner you start the better off you're going to be. But surround yourself with people who can help guide you through this process so that you can minimize any potential mistakes or downfalls. There are always risks, but it's who you surround yourself with and taking action are key, and the sooner you do it, the better off you'll be.

Rod Blunk (35:05):
Wow. Alright. How do I beat that?

Christin Blunk (35:07):
Well, we love to learn the hard way, Rod, so I'm just trying to circumnavigate this for other people.

Rod Blunk (35:13):
Oh, okay. Fair enough. I would say as you start off, you don't know what you want to be in life and you don't know where you're going to go in life, but it's easy to fall in line with everybody, right? It's always easy to fall in line with everybody. I would tell myself I needed to read more. I needed to read about the people who are successful and how they build themselves in that way. And it's not just that—it is also reading about what I need to do for myself so that I don't get caught in the lemming mentality of jumping off the edge where I think, “Oh, my 401(k) is going to be there, guys.” No, if you listen to everybody who just follows the line blindly, you'll be blind. But if you go and be proactive and read about how the people who have really generated wealth and success [did it], and learn the little things that you change—and change your mindset—and read about it, you'll be thinking different ways. And as soon as you start to think different ways, then—like Christin said—find that room where you're not the smartest person. Never try to be in the room where you're the smartest person—

Christin Blunk (36:25):
You get… that would never happen for me, so I appreciate that there are a lot of smarter people out there.

Rod Blunk (36:32):
That's true. And when you start to get in there, step up the game to find the next room. You could still support those folks, but you're bringing them in their journey and you're going to show them there's other rooms. And that's a key of life—what next door? And Scott knows about “My door is open” for me to enable me to be a better person, better in life, better in wealth, better in impact. Am I going to move forward or am I going to be staying back with everybody else talking about the football game? I like a little bit of football, but guys, it's not as exciting as knowing that I can make an impact on somebody's life and change somebody's direction so that they can live the life they're meant to live. That is my 60 seconds. It starts with reading it, find the right group, and then grow from it.

Scott Meyers (37:20):
Well gang, once again, I thank you so much for your time today. And for the rest of you, Storage Nation, if you want to spend more time with Christin and Rod Blunk, they're going to be at our next—our upcoming South George Academy. It is in Florida, in St. Augustine, Florida, November 7th, 8th and 9th. And so they're going to share a little bit more about the background, their story—obviously more nuggets and pearls—because they're out there, as we said at the very beginning of the show. Here they are in the streets, in the trenches; they're out there, very active in the market, as well as helping out many of our folks to become successful self storage owners as well. So with that, gang, you have been spending time with the best in the business, with two members of our incredible team here at the Self Storage Academy. And so if you want to find out more and you want to make it down to Florida to meet them in person, selfstorageacademy.com is where you're going to go. We will put that link in the show notes as well: selfstorageacademy.com. So with that, Christin and Rod, thank you so much for your time today.

Christin Blunk (38:20):
Thank you. Thank you. It's been a true pleasure and I look forward to seeing you in a month. I think it's a month right now, isn't it?

Scott Meyers (38:26):
Just a month. It's exactly a month. So looking forward to it as well. Thanks, gang. We'll see you soon.

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