$325K Below Ask on Self Storage Deal #1

Your first self-storage deal doesn’t have to be perfect… it just has to get done. 

In this episode, Joe Downs sits down with Dr. Jeff Richardson, a full-time veterinarian who closed his very first self-storage acquisition while still working 30–40 hours a week in his practice.  

Jeff walks through his journey from feeling intimidated by his first deal to becoming informed enough to negotiate with confidence, assemble the right team, and ultimately close Canton Self Storage at $1.875M. 

$325K below list price. 

From underwriting paralysis and hesitant LOIs to due diligence surprises involving termites and a hidden residential tenant, Jeff shares the real lessons that no textbook can teach. 

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

2:19 How did a full-time veterinarian break into self storage?
9:16 Why did self storage win over every other asset class?
21:19 How do you know when a deal is overpriced—and when to offer?
24:54 How did due diligence surprises lead to a lower price?

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GUEST DR. JEFF RICHARDSON

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Chapters

• 2:19 How did a full-time veterinarian break into self storage?
• 9:16 Why did self storage win over every other asset class?
• 21:59 How do you know when a deal is overpriced—and when to offer?
• 25:34 How did due diligence surprises lead to a lower price?

Transcript

Joe Downs (00:01):
What was the undoing of the rabbit business?

Dr Jeff Richardson (00:03):
Yeah, nobody wanted to buy the rabbits, so they continued to multiply. So yeah.

Joe Downs (00:10):
There's a demand problem. Demand. Supply was multiplying.

Dr Jeff Richardson (00:13):
That's right.

Joe Downs (00:14):
This is great. I love these shows because you never know where they're going to

Big Announcer (00:18):
Go. This is the Self Storage Podcast with the original self storage expert, Scott Meyers.

Joe Downs (00:27):
Everyone remembers their first kiss, first car, first home. But in self storage, your first deal teaches you something nobody can lecture you about. The difference between intimidated and being informed. Jeff looked at a property listed at 2.2 million and thought, "This doesn't work." Most people walk away at that point, but here's what separates students who close from the ones who stay students forever. Jeff kept watching it. Price dropped down to two million. He offered 1.88 million. They countered at 1.95. Jeff's ready to accept, and that's where Jack on our team stepped in and said, "Not yet, not so fast." By the time Jeff signed between negotiation and some creative problem solving around termite damage and a residential tenant issue, he landed at 1.875 million. That's 325,000 below list and 110,000 below where he was ready to sign on his first deal while still working full time as a veterinarian.

(01:30):
Today, we're going to talk to Jeff about how he went from intimidated to informed to inking that first deal and what he learned about walking the line between being too cautious and too aggressive and when you're staring down your first acquisition. Let me bring Jeff in. Jeff, thanks for joining us in the show. It's so awesome to be able to relive this experience with you. I hope you look forward to it as a good one because I think it ended up being a great one for you. But before we dive into Canton, what was Iron Storage, which I believe you're now calling Canton self storage? Is that right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (02:04):
Canton self storage.

Joe Downs (02:07):
I want people to know who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I've introduced you as a veterinarian, but where are you from? We already know what you do for a living.You're still a vet if you want to comment on that. What made you even look at self storage in the first place?

Dr Jeff Richardson (02:19):
Well, thank you for having me, Joe. I appreciate it. Look forward to the conversation here today and thanks for inviting me. Yeah, so been small animal veterinarian for 29 years in Georgia. And that journey started growing up on a farm in Kentucky. So hard work and entrepreneur mindset started very early in my life. First entrepreneurial venture I ever had was raising rabbits and that business flopped really bad. No pun intended. And

Joe Downs (03:01):
Wait, I got to stop you there. What was the intention of the business, the raising rabbits business? To

Dr Jeff Richardson (03:06):
Sell pet rabbits. To sell

Joe Downs (03:08):
Pet rabbits. So you

Dr Jeff Richardson (03:09):
Were going to believe that rats. I grew up a farm. Yeah. So the pig money was a lot better than rabbit money.

Joe Downs (03:17):
How did the rabbit business fail? Did you buy two males and try to maate them or something? What was the undoing of the rabbit business?

Dr Jeff Richardson (03:24):
Yeah, nobody wanted to buy the rabbits, so they continued to multiply. So yeah.

Joe Downs (03:30):
There's a demand problem and your supply was multiplying.

Dr Jeff Richardson (03:34):
That's right. This

Joe Downs (03:35):
Is great. I love these shows because you never know where they're going to go. All right. So you kept going as an entrepreneur, obviously.

Dr Jeff Richardson (03:43):
Yeah. So veterinary medicine was my calling, but I didn't know at the time that business ownership and running businesses and learning how to run businesses, that was really the journey. They didn't teach us that in vet school. Had to learn that with the help of other veterinarians and practice owners. So I had an excellent partner and we built up our veterinary medicine businesses up to about 90 people over 20 years and two animal hospitals and a large boarding facility, which leads into that journey of owning my own business, but also separately commercial real estate. So we had those entities organized separately and I just fell in love with commercial real estate with triple net leases, but also just the ... It was really, really fun for me to build my own business. And so that was really the beginning of all of it.

Joe Downs (05:08):
And the parallels, believe it or not, while they're wildly different businesses, veterinary practice or hospital to self storage, but there are parallels and that's operating businesses on commercial real

Dr Jeff Richardson (05:24):
Estate. Extremely active business. So very fast paced, a lot of moving parts, hiring, firing, and training staff and training young veterinarians coming out of vet school. And so I did that for a very long time and we were very blessed to sell the business, but I learned quickly that I needed to be a business owner. So that's just part of who I am, is owning businesses, but also owning commercial real estate.

Joe Downs (06:11):
Now, that might be a part of the story I didn't know. So you sold your vet practice?

Dr Jeff Richardson (06:17):
Yeah. So two other partners, one older than me, one younger than me. So it was time mainly motivated by the older partner. And so even though I wasn't quite ready, it was time.

Joe Downs (06:38):
Okay. So, but you retained them, I'm assuming you retained ownership of the real estate.

Dr Jeff Richardson (06:43):
That's right.

Joe Downs (06:44):
So now you have a tenant that operates

Dr Jeff Richardson (06:47):
And now I work for them.

Joe Downs (06:49):
And you work ... Right. I thought you were still employed as a vet. I didn't realize you sold the actual business. So

Dr Jeff Richardson (06:54):
You're an

Joe Downs (06:54):
Employee doing what you love.

Dr Jeff Richardson (06:58):
Yes. And not having to manage all the business ownership side, but just practicing. But that is still very enjoyable to me, but I need to own my own business. So I'm down to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays as a veterinarian, which has been nice.

Joe Downs (07:21):
So that freed up a lot of time, I'm guessing. And I'm guessing with that time you said to yourself, "This is great, but I

Dr Jeff Richardson (07:30):
Want- What's next?

Joe Downs (07:32):
What's next?" Right? Don't let me put words in your mouth, but I'm making logical jumps here. I'm assuming that what's next was going to include commercial real estate or an operating business on commercial real estate because you just had success doing that. How did you make the leap from that to self storage?

Dr Jeff Richardson (07:51):
Yeah. So lots of my friends, other professionals and friends, other friends and family have done real estate. And I watched a lot of people go into residential real estate and that's kind of a natural thing. Here I am a veterinarian, what can I do on the side? Oh, let's buy some rental properties. Let's do some multifamily. Let's do different things. So fortunately, with my experience with the triple net leases and realizing, hey, I do not want to be a landlord. I love the fact that these businesses are paying down my mortgage on this building and all I have to do is supply the roof and the utilities are going into the building. Anything that goes wrong is on them. So I knew I didn't want to do residential. I skipped over all of that, did a deep dive into all forms of commercial real estate.

(09:00):
Every kind of commercial real estate you can think of, I dived into and just kept narrowing it down and zeroed in on self storage because it's a business and real estate, and it just was a perfect fit for me.

Joe Downs (09:16):
So it was through, it sounds like an extensive search and you knew what you were going in. It's too bad you weren't using AI back then for that, could have short circuited the process for

Dr Jeff Richardson (09:30):
You. That's right.

Joe Downs (09:31):
But you knew going in what you wanted and your search, not artificial, but authentic search, drew you to your final conclusion was operating business on real estate, and that led you to self storage, which makes a ton of sense. I think a lot of people find self storage that way as well. Let's talk about your time in the business. So you made the decision to go self storage. It doesn't matter how you end up with, at this point, Scott Meyers, you did. You went through the education program. I know that myself and Jack and the Belrose team, we didn't really take over that education program until, I think it was we first started talking about it in March and maybe April is when we first met you. You were already in it for a couple months, but maybe we just pick up where you were when we first encountered you, because that was about six months from there.

(10:39):
Maybe the total timeframe was nine or so months, but the six months that at least my company was a part of, what was that like for you? And you could talk about all nine months if you want, but what was the beginning of that process for you? What was going through your head? What were you doing? What was your search like? How were you feeling every day? The reason I'm asking these questions is you're someone that's successful. You've closed on your first deal, you did it while you were full time, or at least part time as a vet, right? Full time landlord, part time vet, still pretty active though, I would think. And yet you were able to put together your own system, we'll call it, of prospecting and evaluating and searching for deals, and you were able to close in under a year on your first deal. What was that like, that whole process?

(11:44):
What were you doing and what were you thinking?

Dr Jeff Richardson (11:46):
Yeah. So the deep dive into all the different commercial real estate asset classes, I zeroed in on self storage and then did a deep dive into, "Hey, how can I do this faster?" I thought, "Well, I could probably figure out a lot of this on my own just because of my experience with some commercial real estate that I've done in the past as far as valuation and asset management and things like that. " But I knew that if I did it on my own, it'd probably take me about five or six years to get where I wanted to be. And also, like you said, still being a veterinarian, I was able to decrease my veterinary work down to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but it's still 30 to 40 hours crammed into those three days.

Joe Downs (12:44):
That's

Dr Jeff Richardson (12:45):
What I was thinking. It's kind

Joe Downs (12:46):
Of like a full time job.

Dr Jeff Richardson (12:47):
It's very long. I'm still considered full time. So I do have a pretty good gig there working full time, but three days a week. So I went from 60 hours down to 30 to 40, which did free up that time. But I knew that I needed to find some mentoring, some coaching, build some relationships with people who really knew what they were doing because I needed the confidence to purchase my first place. And so I went to the Academy November 2024 down in Orlando, and that's where I first met you guys. But like you said, you picked up full steam with the education side a little bit later. But so those first few months, I was just really having fun, enjoying the process. I loved the process of what Scott's team put you through, the books he had us read, the FMG class where we learned how to evaluate the properties.

(14:03):
My big joy was finding the deals, and I felt like I kind of know what I'm doing, but I need to find the deals and get that funnel going.

Joe Downs (14:17):
So what was your method? How were you doing that? What were you

Dr Jeff Richardson (14:21):
What were you doing

Joe Downs (14:21):
On day to day?

Dr Jeff Richardson (14:22):
I was learning Scott's process, but just from brokers, Facebook pages, things like that, I was spending so much time. I loved valuation. So I was working on those and learning. And honestly, I felt like I was doing everything that you guys teach us to do, but I never got to the marketing plan of sending out letters. And I did some phone calls, I did some visits within a radius of where I live, but I didn't even have time to get into a marketing plan with letters and emails and all that. There were so many deals coming in for me to just have fun learning that I didn't even get into that yet.

Joe Downs (15:18):
I could tell you're a deal junkie.

Dr Jeff Richardson (15:20):
Yeah. So I'm the kind of person who I really have to catch myself seeing the squirrels because I'm, okay, reel it back in. But yeah, just spending a lot of time doing that and enjoying learning on offering memorandums.

Joe Downs (15:41):
And then in the six months we were with you, I know you had what we'll call some near misses, right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (15:48):
Yeah.

Joe Downs (15:49):
Talk to me about a couple of those.

Dr Jeff Richardson (15:52):
Well, just thinking that it was a good deal, but a lot of those were people who thought they had a really good deal for somebody. And before I got into the education process, I would've thought those were good deals too, but just I would say I didn't waste a lot of time on that, but it's mostly those situations where people are getting phone calls and offers on their self storage facility and I wasn't prepared to educate them that, "Hey, this is not worth as much as what you think it is. " And so it was fun to really build some relationships with brokers who had already kind of done that work and helped these folks with their expectations of ... So I connected with some really good brokers and they learned my buy box and I was figuring out exactly what my buy box even was.

(17:10):
So that was fun too.

Joe Downs (17:11):
Yeah. And that's because you were out there putting in the work. You were probably, I know you were, you were on the calls that we had and the office hours and you were actually doing the work, doing the things that you need to do to be successful, which exposes you to the industry and the possible deals that are out there. And then that helps you understand what you don't want and what you do want, which you just referred to as your buy box, right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (17:43):
Yeah.

Joe Downs (17:43):
And that's just part of the natural process that we talk about all the time in the program was not worry about the buy box right now, it's worry about methods to market and get out there and see deals because getting in front of deals and opportunities will help you determine what you really want, where you really want to be. But that's a great segue into what you now call Canton Self Storage. Is it Canton Self Storage?

Dr Jeff Richardson (18:08):
Right. Canton, North Carolina.

Joe Downs (18:10):
Cantonselfstorage.com? Is that the

Dr Jeff Richardson (18:14):
Yeah.

Joe Downs (18:14):
Okay. Well, we'll give you a little promo there. But when you found it was called Iron Storage, and that pops up on your radar screen, talk to me, it was 2.2 million, 168 units, almost 21,000 square feet. Where did you find this and what were your first thoughts on this deal? It was in the intro, I said you passed on it or you passed on it, but you were watching it. So walk us

Dr Jeff Richardson (18:44):
Through- So it was on the market and it was, I liked the size. I kept watching to see

Joe Downs (18:55):
Why'd you like the size?

Dr Jeff Richardson (18:59):
Because of my working as a vet, my buy box was really, if it's within a one hour drive from here, I could do something smaller, but it needed to be large enough to justify third party management, full third party management. So it was big enough to justify that. And so that allowed me to cast my net really much more. So

Joe Downs (19:30):
It wasn't even about where it was located then. When you say size, it was big enough that it could also support third party management because it's not something you could do whether it was next door or not, right? That's what you're saying? Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. And then was this a listed deal?

Dr Jeff Richardson (19:51):
It was, yeah, Franklin Street.

Joe Downs (19:54):
Oh, right. And they factor her. Yeah. Okay.

Dr Jeff Richardson (19:56):
Yeah. So really, starting out in the beginning of learning the asset class, I was picturing, "Oh, I'm going to be my own boots on the ground. I'm going to find something within 30, 45 minutes of my home." But then learning about third party management and how that just allows you to really cast your net really broad. And so mine was pretty much Southeast. If it's in the Southeast, I can get to it within four hours. I mean, that would be perfect.

Joe Downs (20:30):
Right. I love that you were able to make that mental leap from, it's got to be near me to, it really doesn't matter.

Dr Jeff Richardson (20:38):
Right.

Joe Downs (20:38):
I mean, I've acquired 20. The closest is still an hour and a half away. I haven't been able to find something closer and it's okay. It works great. All right. So your first impressions of this, as you're watching this go from 2.2, you realized through your underwriting, you learned enough and knew enough that that was overpriced at 2.2. Can we agree on that?

Dr Jeff Richardson (21:03):
Right.

Joe Downs (21:04):
Okay. And then you continued to watch it and you watched it drop to two million and then that started to interest you again. Is that right? You must have underwritten it before and knew kind of where you were tapping out. Is that how we arrived at our first offer?

Dr Jeff Richardson (21:19):
Yeah. I had underwritten it just practicing, like I said, with lots of facilities and I had underwritten lots of Franklin Street properties because I really liked their OMs, so I was practicing on a lot of them and some other brokers, but that one just stayed on my list because it fit the buy box, just not the price. The price wasn't good. So when it dropped down to 2.1, and then I really started the conversation with them more, talking to them about it. And then this was about the time that I started having the confidence of, "Hey, I've got to start sending out LOIs." I mean, I haven't done one yet. It was weird. And so I had analyzed way too many and not sent out a single LOI. So I sent out two LOIs and

Joe Downs (22:25):
You realize that's like nails on a chalkboard for me to hear that.

Dr Jeff Richardson (22:29):
Oh, I know. I know. I sent out two LOIs and this was one of them.

Joe Downs (22:34):
So you're batting 50% 500, I mean.

Dr Jeff Richardson (22:37):
Yeah. So that

Joe Downs (22:39):
Was crazy. 500 and LOIs. I

Dr Jeff Richardson (22:40):
Mean,

Joe Downs (22:41):
Jeff.

Dr Jeff Richardson (22:42):
I've sent out some since then, but

Joe Downs (22:44):
All right. Remember the rule. If you underwrite it, send the LOI.

Dr Jeff Richardson (22:49):
Yeah.

Joe Downs (22:49):
You've already done the heavy lift.

Dr Jeff Richardson (22:51):
So that was five minutes. I mean, that was five months from going to the academy. So yeah, five months after the academy had that confidence and sent out the OI.

Joe Downs (23:09):
And I know you were intimidated before that. We don't have to get into that because you're a big, bad vet, but I think I know that you were admittedly a little intimidating through the process, which can be very intimidating

Dr Jeff Richardson (23:23):
Because

Joe Downs (23:23):
It's no, you've never done it. But you went from that to watching something drop in price to not for me to, let's make an offer. So you make that offer, I think it was 1.88, right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (23:39):
Yeah, that's right. Yep. I made the first offer, it was 1.88. And what was interesting about that was there was a lot of negotiating. We finally got a signed PSA, I think it took us 60 days to get that signed PSA.

Joe Downs (24:00):
And that was at the 1.95 number, right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (24:03):
Yeah, it was 1935 or something. But anyway, we got the signed PSA and then some things happened you alluded to later later had to ... I don't know if you'd call it a retrade. It was more of a negotiation of technically it was a retrade.

Joe Downs (24:27):
It is a retrade, but retrade, you're hesitant to say retrade because that has this negative connotation to it because there are people out there that put things under contract at the seller list price and then they retrade it with ... Because their intention was never to buy it at that price. It was just a box to seller into the last minute and then retrade it. It's a dirty tactic. That's not what we do here though. This retrade, this negotiation for a It's

Dr Jeff Richardson (24:53):
A new price.

Joe Downs (24:54):
What was negotiated in good faith based on what? What happened in this process?

Dr Jeff Richardson (25:00):
During due diligence, we discovered one building, which fortunately was the smallest building, but it was eight units that needed to be removed. So guess what? The price ended up at what I offered, so that was interesting.

Joe Downs (25:21):
I noticed that you ended up after renegotiating right back to where your first.

Dr Jeff Richardson (25:26):
So I guess I knew what it was worth.

Joe Downs (25:30):
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Jeff Richardson (25:31):
So that was fun to see.

Joe Downs (25:32):
It's usually worth in the range, right? There was nothing wrong probably with the 195 number It would've worked. If it would've worked without these unforeseen conditions that you couldn't have seen yet until you did your due diligence.

Dr Jeff Richardson (25:48):
And

Joe Downs (25:48):
Then once we did the due diligence, you found some termite issues, I believe, right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (25:52):
Yeah. There was just that one building. It was the only wooden building on the ... So it's two sites. The facility is two sites. And at one of the sites, there was one wooden building that had water damage, termites in it. So yeah, that needs to be removed. So we discussed it and came to an agreement, so worked out great.

Joe Downs (26:19):
And then we had a tenant living in the property as well?

Dr Jeff Richardson (26:23):
Well, yeah, that was interesting. There was a building that ... It used to be the office when the place was originally built. So the seller never used that building. It was just kind of a shed, basically a large ... It was like an outbuilding. And so he had never used the building, never done anything with it, but it was in really good condition. And I don't know why he didn't use it as ... He could have used it as a storage unit. So during due diligence, obviously we needed to get in that building and we discovered that someone had been living in it, but not while this guy owned it. It was before, from the previous owner, not from the seller that I was dealing with. So he had owned it for three years and had never gotten in that building, but it was set up like a little apartment in there.

(27:24):
And so anyway, he was happy to get it all cleaned out for me. It was no big deal, but that was an interesting thing in due diligence as well.

Joe Downs (27:38):
And then you ... So your attorney was part of your team?

Dr Jeff Richardson (27:46):
Right. Jason Mandel.

Joe Downs (27:48):
And you had your third party storage management company.

Dr Jeff Richardson (27:55):
Right.

Joe Downs (27:55):
Right. You had the brokers on your team. I'm trying to think. Remember, we didn't really focus too much on this, and I'm trying not to embarrass you, but I know that there was a level of intimidation about this whole process. And it's very natural for a lot of people to be intimidated because there's a lot of moving parts to this. There's a lot going on.

(28:18):
It's a simple and concept business, but there are nuances to it, right? Yeah. And I don't know if you realized it, but you were slowly building a team around you. You had your turn injust endo, you had White Label came in as your third party manager, you had the brokerage team helping you on the front end and through some of the due diligence negotiations that took you from where you agreed in principle at first in contract to then where you renegotiated. And then you had someone finance it for you. You want to talk about how you got this thing financed?

Dr Jeff Richardson (28:55):
Yeah. So I mean, I couldn't have had more confidence, honestly, building up because I had, like you said, a third party management company that had reviewed everything and told me how they would run it and how ... And I shopped that out, looked at lots of third party management opportunities, but Rod and Kristen were very instrumental in building my confidence And Rod and Kristen. When they came,

Joe Downs (29:27):
You had a site visit with Rod visited

Dr Jeff Richardson (29:29):
With

Joe Downs (29:29):
Me. Yep. That

Dr Jeff Richardson (29:31):
Was fun. And I saw the termites and the water damage, and Rod was like, " Oh yeah, no big deal. I mean, we'll get rid of this. "I mean, he's just positive. He was great, and I was already thinking," Oh man, I'm going to walk. "And it's like, " No, this is why we're here. We find this stuff. "Besides them though, the confidence of having LiveOak is the finance I see. I mean, they're not going to let me make a mistake. I mean, I'm sure.

Joe Downs (30:06):
Let's talk briefly about that. At LiveOak, I'm assuming you worked with Anne Mino, right?

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:12):
That's right. Yeah.

Joe Downs (30:13):
Okay.

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:14):
Yeah.

Joe Downs (30:14):
And what was that process like briefly? And then also, were you a 90% loan to value?

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:23):
Ended up being about 17%. So

Joe Downs (30:27):
You did 83 LTV, 17% down?

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:30):
Right.

Joe Downs (30:31):
To make probably for the DSCR?

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:33):
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Downs (30:34):
Yeah. Okay.

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:36):
Yeah. So that process went very smoothly. SBA and it went a lot faster than I was expecting.

Joe Downs (30:46):
Had you heard ... Well, actually, did you use the SBA when you acquired your veterinary real estate?

Dr Jeff Richardson (30:54):
Yeah. One of the businesses was SBA Finance. Well, the hospital, the actual building.

Joe Downs (31:02):
That was SBA

Dr Jeff Richardson (31:03):
Finance? Was SBA Finance. But yeah, what's interesting is when I called Anne and we were talking it out, it was really cool because she said, "Wait a second, you're a veterinarian?" That's how this bank started was loaning to vets. So the animal health industry and self storage are two of the lowest risk categories of loaning money. So it was a perfect fit.

Joe Downs (31:33):
That's why they're the number one self storage lender for SBA. Yeah.

Dr Jeff Richardson (31:38):
So I thought that was really interesting. A veterinarian that owns self storage, I think I'm onto something here.

Joe Downs (31:45):
I like to highlight that too, because when we get out of our ecosystem of self storage folks who we all know SBA is great, you go out into the ecosphere and people are like, "SBA, it's terrible. It takes six months to close your loan and the worst." And I blew up my deal. It's because you're not using a lender who specializes in the space that you're trying to get a loan. Depends

Dr Jeff Richardson (32:08):
On the bank you're using.

Joe Downs (32:09):
Absolutely. And working with live oak is like a dream. It's sometimes as easy as conventional.

Dr Jeff Richardson (32:16):
Right.

Joe Downs (32:16):
So I just wanted to point that out and see if you had the same experience.

Dr Jeff Richardson (32:20):
Oh yeah. It was wonderful.

Joe Downs (32:23):
Well, you're closed, you're an owner and you're still working full time as a vet.

Dr Jeff Richardson (32:27):
Yeah. Yeah. So the goal obviously is what started the whole process and what will continue to be my process is to be able to slowly decrease more workdays as a veterinarian and focus more on commercial real estate. So we're going to

Joe Downs (32:44):
Buy more storage.

Dr Jeff Richardson (32:46):
Oh yeah. And I feel like what I'm doing is planting trees that produce fruit. And then I have cash flowing assets that are also going to have a payoff at the sale down the road as well. So it's been awesome. Super thankful for the coaching, the mentoring, the relationships that I've been able to be blessed with through your team, but also all of Scott's team and Belrose and Scott's team. And also just the connections to the right lawyers, the right saved me. It just put everything in fast forward is what it did.

Joe Downs (33:34):
But the team is really everything. Thank you for the conversation, but it's

Dr Jeff Richardson (33:38):
Really key. Surrounding yourself with people.

Joe Downs (33:40):
Exactly. And that's what Scott built, and that's what we're continuing on with and it makes the difference. So hey, Jeff, congratulations on closing that first deal. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your real story, the intimidation, the negotiation, the termites, all of it. Really appreciate your time. And if you're listening and thinking, I want to be like Jeff, I want to close my first deal.Here's what you do. Head it over to thestoragemastermind.com. That's where Jeff learned the acquisition process and got connected with Jack who coached him through negotiation and built the team that got him to close. And if you want to see stories like Jeff's and go even deeper into the strategies we use, you could also go to YouTube and check out the Storage Mobile's Mastermind channel on YouTube. That's where I'm doing a YouTube 100 series where I dive a little bit deeper into a hundred different topics in self storage.

(34:35):
Links are in the show notes. I'm Joe Downs. Really appreciate Jeff again, you being here and we'll see you next week, folks.

Big Announcer (34:46):
Hey, gang. Wait. Three things before you leave. First, don't forget to follow the Self Storage Podcast and turn on your notifications so you never miss another episode. And while you're there, please leave us a five star review if you like the show. Second, be sure to share your favorite episodes and more via Instagram and don't forget to tag us. And lastly, head to the links in the show description and hit follow on Twitter and Facebook to get a front row seat with the original Self Storage expert, Scott Meyers.