How To Buy Your First Storage Facility (Full Course)

If you're serious about buying a self-storage facility, I'm going to tell you the cold, hard truth. Most people don't fail because they can't do it. They actually fail because they don't know what to do next. You see, they bounce around from YouTube video to YouTube video, to book, and podcast. And they might even go to a couple of events. They download spreadsheets. They analyze just completely random deals with no specific road map or game plan in mind. And then six months go by, and they're exactly in the same place: busy but not moving.

And that's exactly why I created the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System. This isn't just another course. It's a complete road map that is designed to move you from interest to storage ownership. And inside this training, I'm going to walk you through step-by-step: How do you define and create your buy box blueprint? How do you find and create a deal flow machine? How do you analyze deals confidently so that you can make offers and move forward? How do you structure the funding, get the financing using other people's money, make offers, close deals, and then build systems that really create time freedom and financial freedom?

The entire training is a little bit over 9 hours of implementation-focused content. And if you apply exactly what I'm going to show you in the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System, you're going to leave with far more than information. You're going to have a system. And if you want the calculators, the templates, the trackers, the tools, and resources that I use in my storage business and that our Storage Wins community members use that go with this training, head over to cashflowmaps.com. Create your free account. It's 100% free. You'll have access to not only the training but all the tools and resources that are not included in this video. But with that being said, this is the entire training, the full 9 hours or so. So, with that said, I'm excited to introduce you to the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System. Let's get started.

Hey, I'm Alex Partardo. Welcome to Cash Flow Maps. I am a self-storage investor, operator, and coach. But here, I am your guide from the side, not the sage from the stage. Now, you have probably already done what most people will never do, and that's take action. I'm excited for you because I know what's on the other side of this, and that's more freedom, more clarity, and a business that doesn't rely on tenants, toilets, or trash.

Now, by the time that we're done, you're going to have a step-by-step road map, what I like to call in this video your game map, to be able to find, fund, and close on your first self-storage facility. So, for that, I welcome you. I congratulate you, my friend, because this course is basically your treasure map, just fewer pirates and a lot more profit.

Now, speaking of profit, before we jump in, I think there's something really important that I need to share with you. And let me just put out there that this is not the sexy part, but it 100% matters. You've probably seen a bunch of disclaimers before, but I want you to really hear this one because it sets the tone for everything ahead. Now, I'm going to read something because I'm not that smart to remember all this, but I think it's really important that you hear me loud and clear. So, here we go.

As stipulated by law, we cannot and do not make any guarantees about your ability to get results or earn money with any of the ideas, information, tools, or strategies that we share. Nothing in this program or in any of our websites is intended to be a guarantee or a promise of results or future earnings. All of our programs are intended to help you be successful and profitable, but they do require desire, dedication, and hard work from you. So, to be crystal clear, the success that I and others have experienced as a result of what's shared in this training does not guarantee that you will have the same. Your success depends on you taking action and on what you learn.

So, while reading books, watching videos, and attending trainings like this will never make you wealthy or successful, you need to take ownership, accountability, and responsibility for your success. Right? Only taking action will help you get what it is that you want. So, don't let your learning lead to knowledge, or you'll just be another statistic, another failure. Let your learning lead to action. In fact, one of the things I share with our Storage Wins community members is we need to have an attitude of progress, not perfection. And we need to take massive, imperfect action.

All right. So, now that all the lawyers are happy and that's behind us, let's get to the good stuff. Now, I think it's important that before we dive into this, you just hear a little bit about my origin story because years ago, I was a burned-out wholesaler. I've been in the real estate game since 2005. And the irony is, is that I got into real estate because I wanted to experience more freedom. I wanted cash flow. I wanted cash. I wanted to experience all the benefits that real estate provides. And yet, I ended up playing the wrong game.

For about 14 years, I was a wholesaler. I would wholesale residential properties. And I wholesaled north of 750 deals, but it was many, many years ago that I just started to feel burned out. I'd been wholesaling a bunch of houses, but the problem was that every single month, I was starting from zero. And I felt like I was chasing the next deal, wondering if this is what real freedom was supposed to feel like.

And I remember I had a really good conversation with a friend of mine who owned a self-storage facility. And when I looked behind the curtain, I saw something completely different. I found exactly what I had been looking for when I first decided to get into real estate in 2005: steady cash flow, no employees, being able to run the business and automate it and run it remotely from anywhere in the world, not having to deal with tenants, toilets, and trash, having to deal with evictions, and really just experiencing real time freedom.

And that conversation, in many ways, changed my life because on the back of that, I was able to build a business and now a community around helping others experience the same freedom. And look, just so you know, some of you watching this and listening to me right now are already part of our Storage Wins coaching community, which means you've already chosen to go deeper with me and my team on a weekly basis. And for you, this course is your foundation. It's the road map that everything we coach on is built from. And for those of you who are brand new and just getting started in this journey, welcome once again. I'm so excited to be able to guide you through this process and this incredible asset class because this is where your path begins.

Now, wherever you're starting from, just know that you are in the right place, and I'm extremely grateful to be able to guide you on this journey, like I just mentioned. So, today, look through our Storage Wins coaching community and just our company. Our mission is simple: that is to help you buy your first storage facility, create real cash flow, and live free. But this isn't about me. It is 100% about you. I'm here to shorten your learning curve, and I want to guide you to your first winning deal.

Now, as you can see here, this is the Storage Wins Triangle Model, and it's a framework that ties everything we do inside of Storage Wins together in something we call Cash Flow Maps. Now, let me go ahead and walk you through it so you can see the big picture and you see what's up ahead on the road ahead. At the center is your goal, and that is to buy your first storage facility within the next 6 to 12 months. Okay? So, that's the big storage win. It's your reason for being here.

Now, most people will never get there because they hit the same three roadblocks again and again. And those are the three reds that you see. It's deal fog, which basically means like, "I don't know what a good deal is. I don't even know where to start. Where do I begin?" And as a result of having deal fog, they get stuck before they even try to get started. The second one is no money. It's the limiting belief that because you don't have cash or connections or access to capital, that you can't go out and possibly buy a storage facility. And the third is wrong deal. And I hear this all the time. It's, "Hey, Alex, I'm afraid of making a big mistake and losing a bunch of money." And I totally get it, which is why we've addressed these three common roadblocks and obstacles inside of our Storage Wins Triangle Model.

Now, the greens. Each red has its opposite green, and that is the milestone that gets you moving forward. So, in order to move past deal fog, you need deal discovery, and that's seeing clearly and recognizing great opportunities. What does a good deal look like? To overcome no money, you need to have a mindset of fearless funding, knowing every path to finance a deal and having it with confidence. And then to avoid getting involved in the wrong deal, you need to understand what a winning deal looks like, and that's properly structuring it so that you can create a true storage win.

Now, the blues are, think of this as your projects. It's the how-tos. Okay? These are the specific systems and tools that make each green real. So, in deal discovery, we have something we call the Buy Box Blueprint, the Deal Flow Machine, and the Deal Filter System. Now, I'll talk more specifically about this in this video. But in fearless funding, we have the Funding Options Map, the Capital Connections Network, and the Fearless Funding Formula. And then in winning deal, where it all comes together, we have our Closing Playbook, the Facility Fast Start, and the Facility Freedom Method.

So, that is the Storage Wins Triangle. Again, remember the yellow is your goal, the red are the obstacles, the barriers, the things getting in your way. The greens are the milestones to help you overcome those obstacles. And the blues are the specific how-to, the projects. Now, if you master these three greens: deal discovery, fearless funding, and winning deal, you'll do what most people only dream about, okay? And that's buy your first storage facility within the next 6 to 12 months and start creating real freedom.

Let me just take a step back for a second and let's zoom out. Let's think big picture here. Think of this as a big mall map that says, "You are here," right? The difference though, if you ask my wife, my family, they know that I hate malls. I don't like shopping, not even for myself. So, don't worry. We're not going to be wandering past a Cinnabon or a food court in a way to find freedom. This map is going to show you the most direct path and route from where you are today to your first storage win. Okay?

Now, let me first, or I should say, let me next address who this is for and who this is not for. Super important. This program is built for action-takers. It's designed for anybody, whether you're an experienced investor or you're starting fresh with a drive and a hunger to succeed. If you're looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, that's not who this is for. So, if that's you, go ahead and ask for a refund. Stop watching because you'll waste the rest of your time. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, okay? I want to be super clear and transparent about that. But if you want a proven road map and a guide who's walked the path, you're in the right place. I can assure you that.

So, let me now give you an overview of the journey, right? Let me preview the map ahead so that you know how to get the most out of this program. Module one is where we're at right now, and that's "Start Your Journey." Okay? So, we are in the game map video, and in the next video, we're going to talk about how you can embrace the opportunity, not just from a mindset perspective, but how you can get the most out of this program and the coming modules.

Module two is all about deal discovery, and that's where we're going to get into your Buy Box Blueprint and the market map so you know exactly what to look for and where to look for it. In module three, we're going to talk about deal flow. And that's specifically, we're going to talk about our Cash Flow Maps method, the off-market edge, and how you can get deals off-market, not having to rely on brokers. We'll talk about the direct contact blueprint because one thing I can tell you for certain is that conversations lead to conversions, conversions lead to contracts, and contracts lead to cash and cash flow. So, we'll cover that in the direct contact blueprint. We'll talk about how to set up your deal flow machine and how to get others to run it for you. And then we'll also talk about the deal filter system so that you know, hey, what is a good deal and what's not? What deserves more of your time, energy, and attention? And what is a, you know, "pass go and collect $200" type of thing.

Now, module four is all about our fearless funding module. And that's specifically, we'll talk about the Funding Options Map, the Capital Connections Network, and the Fearless Funding Formula. And then module five, to round this out, we're going to talk about how do you win the deal? And specifically, we'll get into our Closing Playbook, the Facility Fast Start, and the Facility Freedom Method.

Now, once you get through those five modules, you'll unlock the Amplifier Training Series. And this is advanced bonus sessions, case studies, behind-the-scenes strategies. Now, this training, I want you to understand, is split into two main parts. You've got the core training, which is module one through module five. And then you have the Amplifier Training, or another way that we call them is "AMP Sessions." So, think of it this way: the core training gives you everything you need to get your first deal done. The AMP sessions amplify your success with deeper tools, real-world stories, when you're ready for that next level.

Now, this is super important, and I understand that there's going to be some of you, hopefully not very many, that don't listen to me here. Do not skip ahead, okay? Follow the sequence. Each lesson builds on the next, like roads on a map. So, imagine if you were to, if you actually had a map in front of you or a GPS, and you jumped too far ahead. You're likely going to miss some turns, or you're going to take the wrong turn, right? You're going to end up lost in the weeds. And so, follow the path. It's been mapped out to get you your first facility as quickly as possible and safely, provided that you're willing to plug in, do the work, and follow the road map.

Okay. Um, now, if you ever need any help, we've got you. Our team is here to make sure that you're never stuck. Um, now, if you want direct feedback, accountability, and you want to learn alongside other storage investors, like-minded people that are here to give and serve as much as they're here to take and extract and learn, then that's where we have our Storage Wins Community and Coaching Program. That's where we work together every single week to apply these principles to your real deals in real time. So, you'll find a link somewhere near this video when the time is right. But look, everything you'll learn ties back to one mission, and that's helping you buy your first storage facility to create consistent cash flow and live free.

So, what I think is important you understand is that this is not just about money, okay? It's about options. It's about legacy. It's about freedom. Now, I might not know your individual story, but chances are you're looking for more freedom. You want money as a vehicle to be able to do the things that fuel you with your loved ones and give you more options, give you more time. So, if that's you, again, you are in the right place.

Um, now I want to go ahead and just foreshadow what's coming here. Um, and I want you to know where we're headed. Because I think it's important to reconnect with why this matters. Because the one thing I know for sure is that whenever you decide and commit to do something, somewhere along this journey that we're on, right, of Cash Flow Maps, somewhere along this path, we're going to be met with resistance, with obstacles. Any journey you decide to go on that you decide and commit, the universe will throw roadblocks or curveballs in your way. Okay? So, I think it's important that you understand why you've decided to invest in yourself and take the time to do this.

So, in the next video, we're going to "Embrace the Opportunity." And what that means is that we're going to talk about vision. We're going to talk about possibility and how you can stay focused so you can actually finish what you've started here. Now, before you move on to that next one, a few quick steps. Number one, I want you to download your Cash Flow Maps Mind Map. The link is probably right below this video or somewhere on this page. Number two, I want you to block off 60 minutes to go through the first module within the next 24 hours. Why? Because we want to build that momentum. Okay? We want to start to stack the small wins so that eventually we can get to that big storage win. And that's going to require you to commit to this. Don't just let this be another course or training that you invest in but that you don't go through, because then it's not going to help you. Okay?

Okay, so block off the next 60 minutes. I want you to put it into your calendar at some point in the next 24 hours to finish module one, which is this video you're watching right now, and then the next one, which is "Embrace the Opportunity." And then lastly, I want you to head over to the Storage Wins Facebook group. Um, you're going to see a link below, and I want you to, once you get accepted into the group, which is our free private Facebook community, I want you to do a post and write, "I'm in. My game map is ready." And then here's what I want you to do: I want you to tag me, Alex Partardo, and then #cashflowmaps and #storagewins. That way I can see it. I can celebrate with you. I can go in there and comment. And that is going to help spark momentum. Okay? It builds community energy. It shows others that you are taking action. And that is what this journey is all about. It's about taking massive, imperfect action.

So, uh, again, welcome. I am so pumped to be able to be your guide and have you now as part of the crew. So, uh, welcome once again. Congratulations, and I will see you on the next video.

Hey, my friend. Welcome back and welcome to the first video of the second module of the Cash Flow Maps course. This is where we get clarity before we dive in and start getting active. So, clarity before activity. And in this session, we're going to talk about something that has completely changed my storage journey, and I believe it's going to do the same thing for you. It's something that I call the Buy Box Blueprint. And this is the foundation that helps you stop chasing everything and actually start finding the right deals that fit you and specifically what you're looking for.

Now, before I show you how to build this, let me tell you a quick story that I think is really going to frame this in its proper context and perspective and really share with you and help you understand why the Buy Box Blueprint is so critical to your success in storage. When I first got started in self-storage back in late 2020, I was kind of all over the place. I was looking at deals in 10 different markets. I was on LoopNet, I was on Crexi, I was on Facebook. If it said "storage," I was literally clicking on it. And quickly, I felt stuck. I felt overwhelmed. I didn't really have direction, and I realized that I needed to put some blinders on. I needed to create a framework, at the time what I called my "storage avatar," and I now call the Buy Box Blueprint, that was going to be my guiding map. It was going to help me focus on not just the types of facilities I was looking for, but the markets, the certain attributes that fit my goals and the reason I got into self-storage.

So, I built a simple checklist. It was a document that basically said exactly what kind of deal I was looking for and where. And that checklist became, like I mentioned, my first version of the Buy Box Blueprint. And not long after that, a really good friend of mine that I was working with at the time, that was helping me early on in my storage journey, he texts me and he said, "Hey, Alex, check your inbox because I think I found your first deal." I'll never forget it. This was, I want to say, late March, early April of 2021.

Now, to take a few steps back, the reason he sent me that text message was because I got crystal clear on my Buy Box Blueprint and then I started sharing that with everybody in my network and in my ecosystem. I literally started planting seeds. And the reason I did that was because I had clarity, and that clarity gave me confidence to be able to share with people, "Hey, this is exactly what I'm looking for. This is the size. This is the type of strategy, the type of facility, in the type of market." And so that is the reason I was able to get that text message. I became top of mind for him.

Now, to buffer my point, this is somebody that is pretty well known in the space and could have gone to probably 50 to 100 other storage investors, people that already own storage facilities, but he thought of me because when he saw the deal, it literally matched exactly what I was looking for. And I remember when I opened the email, I quickly realized, probably within 10 to 15 minutes, "This is pretty much what I'm looking for, and this is going to be the facility that I end up buying."

Now, I didn't just jump into it. Obviously, I went through the due diligence process, and that ended up being a 43,000 square foot facility in Mississippi, which was my first deal. And I didn't find that deal because I was lucky. I found it because I was crystal clear, and because other people knew exactly what I was looking for. And that's what I want for you.

So, here's the thing: every world-class operator I know, the best of the best, our Storage Wins clients, we all use some form of a Buy Box Blueprint. Okay? Because this is what keeps you focused. It gives you confidence, and it allows you to remain consistent, focusing on what it is that you're looking for. Imagine having a map. Let's say you want to go travel to Europe, and the map leads you to Asia. My friend, you're not getting to Europe, right? If you've got a map that's taking you to Asia, you're going to Asia.

And today, I'm going to give you the framework, and I call it MAP IT. Okay? And MAP IT is actually an acronym, which is a map to find the right deal for you. And this is based on five simple pillars that define exactly what fits inside of your Buy Box Blueprint. And the acronym MAP IT: it's M for Market Metrics, it's A for Asset Profile, it's P for Profit Filters, I for Investor Lens, and T for Transaction Dynamics. It's fitting, obviously, this is the Cash Flow Maps course and acquisition system, so it makes sense that the Buy Box Blueprint is going to be built around the MAP IT acronym. And I'll walk you through each one, and you'll see them pop up on the screen as we go.

Quick pause for just a second, and we'll get back to the training. But I want to make sure that you don't make a mistake that I see a lot of people make pretty often. Don't just sit here and passively consume this content and watch the entire training. If you actually want to implement what I'm teaching, go create your free Cash Flow Maps account right now. Head over to cashflowmaps.com, or you can just click the link in the description below. You're going to get access to the calculators, the templates, the trackers, the worksheets, all the tools and resources that go along with the training. That way, you can follow along and implement as we go instead of just trying to take screenshots and reinvent everything yourself. So, with that said, let's get back to the training.

Let's focus in on the M, right? What kicks it all off, which is, to me, the Market Metrics. And this is where your strategy begins. It's the foundation of your map. Now, you've got four main types of markets in storage, in my opinion. You've got primary markets. And primary markets are, think of big metro cities like where I live in Miami. Think of Dallas, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona. Tons of competition. You've got higher prices. Usually, it's dominated by REITs. REITs are the Real Estate Investment Trusts. These are the storage facilities that you have likely driven by and seen all the time, depending on where you live, like Public Storage, Extra Space, CubeSmart, Life Storage, U-Haul. Those are the primary main REITs. Generally speaking, I'm not looking to be, I'm not looking for mom-and-pop storage facilities where I have a REIT or somebody like a Public Storage right down the street. Usually, the REITs are looking at big primary markets that have millions of people.

In some cases, they can certainly be in our second market, which are secondary markets. Secondary markets are solid cities. Think 250,000 to 500,000 people, all the way up to maybe a million people, depending on what source you're going to. It's going to vary, but think 250,000 to a million people. It's still very active, but you can find opportunities there with local operators.

You have tertiary markets, which is where I tend to focus the majority of my time, energy, and efforts. This is my favorite zone. I think 10,000 to 75,000 people or so. You know, 10,000 to 100,000, give or take, and maybe even a little bit more depending on how you define it. You've got fewer competitors. You've got a lot more mom-and-pop facilities. And often times, these mom-and-pop facilities are not treating it like a business from an operations perspective, and that can present a lot of upside for us and for you who's learning how to be a strong operator.

All right. Then you have rural markets. Think of, to me, rural markets under 5,000 people. They can work out if you buy the right one at the right price and terms, and if you manage them lean, but you've got to be really, really selective. To me, rural markets can present some risk, right? Because in some markets, you just don't have that many people. And so, where are your customers going to come from? Rural markets can present some challenges. I'm not against them if you can find the right ones that fit your Buy Box Blueprint at the right price or terms, but generally speaking, I like tertiary markets. Think 10,000 people to 75, 80,000 people or so. Those are the ones that I target. And then I will also take a look at secondary markets. If the deal really, really makes sense, I'll look at a rural market. But I have never spent time looking for storage in a primary market like Miami, which is my backyard. You would think I'd be searching for storage in my backyard, and I don't.

Number one, because this is a primary market. Number two, because I run these remotely, the unmanned facilities, which means we don't have an employee on site. So, what difference does it make if it's 50 miles away or if it's 300 miles away? As long as we run them with the right systems, the right team members, the right processes, then we're good to go. And that's exactly how we run them.

So, now, beyond population size, there are going to be a few key metrics that I want to encourage you to keep top of mind. One of the things that I think is really important that you understand is that you can be the best storage owner-operator in the country, and if I put you in a rough market that population is declining, people are leaving the area, there's more supply of storage than there is demand, you're likely going to struggle. However, let's take the alternative. Let's say you're a mediocre storage owner-operator. Let's say maybe you don't even really know what you're doing, but I put you in a great market where the population is increasing, where you have a very healthy medium household income, where you have a lot of renters in the area, which are going to need more storage, and you have more demand for storage than you have supply, then, my friend, you're going to thrive. You're going to do well.

So, those are some of the things we look at. I ask myself: Is the population increasing? Is it stagnant or flat? Or is it shrinking? I look at the medium household income, and I like to be north of $50,000. Ideally, really, I like to be north of $60,000 a year in medium household income. I take a look at the renter ratio, renter to homeowner. I like a high renter ratio. And then I take a look at something called the supply index or the square foot per capita, which is really just a fancy industry term to basically say, what is the net rentable square footage of storage available within a given 3 or 5-mile radius? Just an equation that we take the total net rentable square footage of storage, or we take the total population divided by the net rentable square footage of storage. I think the national average, they say, is around seven. So, it's just a piece of the puzzle. I don't put a ton of stock into the supply index or the square foot per capita. However, you definitely want to be looking at the supply versus demand in whatever market you're looking in. How much available square footage of storage do you have in a given 5-mile radius relative to the population and the people that are going to be potential renters?

You can find a lot of this data for free. Census.gov, City-Data.com is another source. Obviously, you can leverage Google, you can leverage ChatGPT or other AI tools. If you want to go deeper, there's actually a paid service which I use and I'm a fan of. Now, again, it does cost a little bit of money, but I think it's worth it because it gives you a lot of data, a lot of valuable information. It summarizes it for you. And I actually have an affiliate relationship with them. So, if you go to storage.com/trackedIQ, there should be a link below this video where you can check that out. You'll get a discount, I'll get a little bit of money. So, just full disclosure there. But you certainly don't need that. Okay? When I got started, I didn't pay for any tools. I just leveraged the free resources that I had, and that's probably what I would recommend for most people, even though I do personally use Tracked IQ. That will show you the supply, the demand. It'll show you any new facilities being built. It'll show you if there's homes being built in the area, and it can be worth its weight in gold.

All right. Now, let's move on to the second part of this MAP IT formula, and that's the A, the Asset Profile. Now, once you've picked your market, let's talk about the type of facility. So, in my Buy Box Blueprint, I was crystal clear that I wanted mom-and-pop operated facilities. I wasn't looking for Class A multi-story buildings, which are what REITs build and what REITs are looking for. For me, the sweet spot when I got into storage, the sweet spot was, I was looking for, in terms of size, I was looking for 20 to 60,000 net rentable square feet of storage, I should say.

Now, why wasn't I looking at smaller facilities, 8,000, 10,000, 12,000 square feet? Well, I came into storage with the belief that it was going to be basically the same work, time, energy, and effort to work on a small deal as it was to work on a bigger deal. And I was looking to step into cash flow. And I wanted some equity upside as quickly as possible. And I wasn't necessarily scared to jump into a little bit of a bigger deal, partially because I had guidance and I had people around me that were helping me. And that's huge. That can be everything in your journey. That's why you might have been watching this and have chosen to take the next step with us in our Storage Wins coaching community. But even if you didn't, right, I think it's really, really important that you develop a Buy Box Blueprint that you feel comfortable with.

So, I have Storage Wins coaching clients that have bought smaller facilities, 7, 8, 9, 10,000 square feet, because it fit what they were looking for. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's perfectly fine.

>> Hey guys, this is Casey here. Um, doing a quick little walk-through of the storage facility that we purchased. Um, wanted to say thanks to Alex and the Storage Wins community. Um, it's a bit of a fixer-upper, but it's got good bones. There's definitely some uh, some things inside some of the units that need to have some repair work done, but um, this is it. So, um, wouldn't be able to have this place if I hadn't met Alex. Uh, joining the Storage Wins community has been huge for sure. Um, I got a lot of good guidance from members of the community. Um, this was definitely, uh, something that I, uh, out of my normal to buy something like this, but something my wife and I have wanted to do for a long time. So, as you can see, the fence is in some rough shape. We're up in the high cascades of Oregon. So, um, this is a quick little, gives you a quick little idea where we're at. But again, uh, huge thanks to Alex and the Storage Wins community. Um, yeah, we, we wouldn't have been able to do it without everybody. Uh, we're super pumped. Uh, this is a huge step for us.

Hey everyone, Mario here. Um, you might be wondering what a guy from Miami is actually doing in the Midwest or upper South. I'm not really sure what this is, but um, I am currently under contract on my first self-storage facility. Um, incredibly excited. It's been a hot but fun couple hours over here on site, uh, taking a look, doing my due diligence. Uh, just met with a roofer. Um, but honestly, can't be more excited for, uh, for this journey. Um, want to thank Alex Partardo, the Storage Wins community. Honestly, you know, I was hesitant at first to join the group, but um, you know, powered through. Uh, there were some tough moments and some tough months where not a lot of activity was done, but I really refocused here in the last, uh, four to five months and really started building relationships within the network and the community, um, and was able to go under contract on my first deal. So, this is a 40-unit deal, should be really, really good from the beginning. I'll show you guys a little bit of it right now, but super excited. Again, thanks to the community, and I am signing out. Let's go.

I don't want you to think that just because I was looking at facilities that were between 20,000 and 60,000 that you need to aim that large. You can certainly start smaller. You might even want to go bigger. Just kind of depends, right? Everybody's different. And that's the beauty of you being able to develop your Buy Box Blueprint based on your specific goals, your situation, and what you're looking for. So, if you're just getting into this business, an 8 to 10,000, 12,000 square foot facility could be a great first step. Lower barrier to entry. It feels for some people less daunting or overwhelming. In some people's minds, it tends to lower the risk because obviously the price point is a little bit different. So, it really depends on your goals, your comfort level, the season of life you're in, and what you're looking to accomplish with your first and second storage deal.

I will say this: when I first built my Buy Box Blueprint, I decided, I should say, that I wanted to target mid-size facilities. That's exactly what I found. So, my very first deal I landed was right in that range, 43,000 square feet. Now, remember, I was looking for 20,000 to 60,000. And it just reminds me that what you focus on expands. Had I gone into storage saying, "Hey, I'm looking for a 5,000 to 15,000 square foot facility," chances are that's exactly what I would have found. So, define your asset profile. What size? What condition? What type of ownership? How much improvement are you comfortable taking on?

I know that for me, I wasn't looking for a heavy turnaround, right? I wasn't looking for major capex. Capex is basically the renovations and repairs, the money that we need to put into a facility. Capex is short for capital expenditures. For me, I've rehabbed homes. I've done a bunch of fix-and-flips. I hate them. I don't like them. I'm not great at them, which is why all those years I was so focused on wholesaling. So, I knew going in, my first and probably second and third facility, I wasn't looking for a ton of renovations. Now, the good news about storage is we rent space, right? We've got three brick or concrete walls with a metal garage door and a metal roof. I mean, it's there's not a whole lot to it, which is one of the reasons I love this asset class.

So, let's move on to the P in the MAP IT formula, and the P is for Profit Filters. Here's where most new investors make a mistake. They start with a price in mind. And sometimes I hear like, "I'm looking for storage facilities under $500,000," as an example. And by doing that, I think they cut themselves off from potential great opportunities. And they do it because they filter it based on their current financial situation. They think to themselves like, "There is no way that I can qualify for a million-dollar storage facility. And even if I could, I'd be too scared to take it on because of the potential risk, or at least the risk in their mind."

And here's the truth: is that you can likely buy a facility that's a little bit outside of your comfort range. And I don't know what that might be for you. Maybe it's a million-dollar facility. Maybe it's a $2 million facility. The key is the numbers have to make sense. It has to be in the right market. You've got to follow the right process and make sure that you're getting involved in the right deal. And there's various ways to stress-test that. We'll be getting into that in module three in something we call the Deal Filter System, that essentially shows you what makes sense and what's worth digging into, whereas the things that maybe you should pass on, and what deserves your time, energy, attention, and how do you evaluate these opportunities. Right?

So, I've done this several times. Like, in fact, every single storage facility that I have purchased, every single one of them has been without using my own money. Now, hear me loud and clear: I didn't say you don't need money. I said it doesn't need to be your money. So, literally, every deal I've done has been structured differently: from SBA, which is Small Business Administration, to equity partners, to private lenders, to seller financing, which is one of my favorite ways. And we'll talk about those in our fearless funding section in the Funding Options Map. That's coming up. Do not jump ahead. Stick with me here. We'll go step-by-step. But here's the point: don't just look at the sticker price. Look at the structure.

In this section of the worksheet, write down what is your ideal purchase price range, just as a guideline, but be open that it might fall outside your range. Don't worry about the how-to right now. Just have an open mind and an open heart. My very first storage facility, I bought for just under $1.6 million, and I needed $350,000 to get into that deal, which I didn't have. I didn't have $1.6 million. I didn't even have $350 grand to get into the deal. But that didn't stop me. I knew I found the right opportunity. I knew I was buying it right. I trusted my process and my numbers, and I brought in an equity partner, somebody who got some ownership in the deal in exchange for the money that I needed, and I was the sweat equity. I found the deal. I operated it, and we'll talk about that more in this course.

But so, think about the kinds of returns that you want, right? Are you looking for a 10% return on your money, 12%, 15%? So, think about what you want to get out of it. Value-add, right? Value-add opportunities like finding facilities that the rents are below the average of the market rents, where maybe they don't do any marketing or they don't have any technology and automation in place. Value-add could even be expansion where you get to build storage or drop in box wells, which are basically portable storage units. And you do so because the market indicates that there's more demand for storage than there is supply. So, those are just a few things to consider when it comes to what we call value-add opportunities. And then think about the type of financing that you might be open to. I just touched on some of them: seller financing, SBA, private money. You've got small local banks in the area. These could be savings and loans, those types of banks, a bank you've never heard of. So, remember, this is all about filters, not limits. So, suspend any limiting beliefs that you have around this section.

Moving on to I in our MAP IT formula, and that's the Investor Lens. This is the section that most people skip, but it's what gives you the blueprint meaning. And here's what I mean by that: your investor lens defines what you actually want out of this business right now. Think about this: everybody's in a different season in life. You might be struggling. Maybe you're in winter. You might be thriving. Let's say you're in summer. We're all in a different season. I have coaching clients that are in a 9-to-5 that they're looking to exit as quickly as possible. And so, for those people, they're focused on generating income fast. So, wholesaling a storage facility or flipping their first deal could make sense. And we'll talk about in the amplifier section. I don't want you to skip ahead in the amplifier training. We'll talk about wholesaling and the opportunities there, because just like I wholesaled single-family homes, and you may have as well, you can wholesale a storage facility, and I've done that several times, and the profits can be very, very healthy.

So, analyze your situation. What season of life are you in? There's others that I work with that make good income, but so they're focused on long-term wealth and they want to build their net worth and just have maybe a legacy asset that they can pass along to their children. Maybe that's you right now. There's others that it's, "Hey, it's cash flow. I'm looking for $10,000 a month as quickly as possible, net cash flow, or that could be $20,000 a month, or whatever the number is for you." There is no right or wrong, but you've got to be clear about what is the priority for you today. I'm not saying you can't have cash, cash flow, and also be building your wealth at the same time, but you might not be able to have it all at once at the same time.

So, when you think about generating an income from storage, and that could be through wholesaling, that could be through buying a value-add facility, stabilizing it, improving the operations, increasing the revenue and the net operating income, and then selling it and getting a bunch of cash. That could be a strategy for you if you're looking for cash within the next, let's say, 12 to 18 months.

Maybe you need cash in the next 6 to 9 months, in which case wholesaling a facility might make a lot more sense for you. Okay? So ask yourself where you're at and what it is that's most important. Okay? Are you chasing cash now and equity can take a backseat, right? Meaning the upside that you get on the facility or freedom long-term, maybe that's what you're chasing. What's your situation when it comes to the time that you have? Do you feel like you have a little bit of money or what's your situation in terms of access to capital? Uh, and by the way, as an aside, I'll just preview that I truly believe that for most people, and when I say most, I'm talking the majority. All of the money you'll ever need for your storage deals is found in this amazing device right here, and it's called a smartphone, and that's in your contact list. We will get there, but I just want to plant that seed with you.

You also have to ask yourself, what level of risk am I comfortable with? Once you define all these things, your buy box is going to become more personalized and it's going to become more powerful. It really is that important. And then finally, the last piece of this map is how you'll move deals from idea to reality. This is your action engine. So, I want you to ask yourself as you're as you're watching me, as you're listening to me, where are my deals coming from? Are they coming from brokers? Are they coming direct to owner? Meaning, you're going directly to the owner of these facilities? Are they are you building out a network of property finders and people that are going to be bringing you deals? There are numerous ways. In fact, in our Storage Winds community, I teach 17 different ways that you can find off-market deals. Uh, you can certainly go on market as well, which I've done. Uh, there is no right or wrong unless you're trying to do all 17 at one time. That's not what we want. So, I usually have people focus on one, two, maybe three lead generation methods that I hold people accountable to uh using every single week. I'd rather you go an inch wide and a mile deep because every business is going to require a steady flow of leads. That's something that we'll we'll cover in module 3 in the deal flow machine section. And I think about how am I going to track and follow up with these leads? And and we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but I just want you to understand what comes in each phase of this map it formula. Uh, I also think about my exit strategy. In fact, I just had a a coaching call uh earlier today where he's looking at a facility that there's not a whole lot of upside in terms of equity. Meaning like when he goes to sell this 3 or 5 years down the road, there wasn't a whole lot to play with there, but it was super healthy in terms of cash flow. In fact, year one, this thing was generating about $104,000 a year in net cash flow. $104,000 a year. So, whatever that is, what is that? 89 grand. I think it's about nine grand a month. What would 9 grand in net cash flow a month potentially do for your life? All right, that that's one facility. Now, am I sitting here saying that's most facilities or every facility you find is going to be that? No, of course not. But he's been working at this and he's been generating leads and he's been having meaningful conversations with storage owners. He's been evaluating and underwriting deals and making offers and now he's presented with a great opportunity.

So, look, in my case, 100% of my storage deals have come from relationships. I truly believe relationship capital is the most valuable capital that you can foster and raise. It's not private capital. It's not money which comes and goes. It's relationships. I want you to be relational, not transactional. And that's why I emphasize building what I call relationship capital or relationship currency because every broker, every owner, every conversation, that's potential deal flow. So focus on serving and giving and helping and adding value. And part of this is being crystal clear on your buy box blueprint. That's going to give you confidence. That's going to give people that you work with and talk to, like brokers and owners, that's going to give them confidence. Wholesalers, let's do this as we as we start to put a bow on this particular video. We've just talked about how you can build your your map it formula, right? Your market, your asset, the profit, the investor lens, and the transaction dynamics blueprint. So now I I want to turn this into a little bit of a workshop and I'm going to give you a little bit of homework here, but don't tune me out. This is super important. Don't skip this step. Here's what I want you to do. Download the worksheet below and I want you to fill it out. Literally take 30 to 60 minutes max. That's all it's going to take you, maybe less. Fill it out. And then I want you to post your map it summary inside of the Storage Winds Facebook group. Use the hashtags #cashflowmaps, #mapit, and #storagewins and then tag me. The more clarity you can get about your buy box blueprint and then you sharing that with others, you want to enter the conversation that's going on inside their minds. And you want them to think of you when they come across a facility or a market that fits what you're looking for. So that's going to be your first micro win. It's going to give you clarity. It's going to give you confidence. I just need you to step in and commit. Okay? Remember this. This isn't just paperwork. This buy box blueprint. Think of this, as corny as it may sound, think of this as your treasure map to freedom. You know exactly what fits inside your buy box. And by the way, this can evolve and change as you grow and mature and learn more about this business, as you start to build your portfolio. So, in the next video, we're going to take that clarity and we're going to start to turn it into consistent deal flow. So, I will see you there.

Hey, my friend, welcome back. If you have already completed your buy box blueprint, awesome. I salute you. If you haven't, however, I'd actually encourage you to hit the pause on this particular video and go do that first because that is super super important. It's critical because it gives you the what. Now, in this video, we're actually diving into the where. The theme is actually going to be how to evaluate markets for demand. We're going to evaluate the competition. We're going to see what kind of growth and then there's going to be a specific action item that's going to be important for you to act on so that we can build on before we move on to module three and actually start getting into some of the juicy stuff, which is the deal flow machine, the deal filter system. So again, if you've already built your buy box, fantastic, because now we're going to turn that clarity into a real map. And this is where your buy box blueprint meets the real world and where the right market can make or break your deal. Let's start with this idea because it's so important that you understand this and that you hear me loud and clear. You can be the best storage operator in the world. Literally, you could be the best person in the country when it comes to managing, owning, and operating storage. But if you are in a bad market, if you are in a market that is oversupplied with storage and there's just not enough demand, or it just doesn't have strong demographics that we're going to talk about in this video, trust me, you are going to struggle. Now, on the flip side, to buffer my argument, and hopefully this resonates with you, you can be a mediocre storage owner operator. In fact, you can be completely brand new, still learning, but if you're in a great market with strong demand, limited competition, you can win and you can win big. Okay? You are going to thrive. That's how important this market map is. And we're going to evaluate markets for demand. We're going to look at the competition. We're going to check out the growth in the area so that you can start to stack the deck in your favor.

Now, look, for some of you, starting local, I think makes perfect sense, especially if you live in a tertiary or a secondary market, like we talked about in the previous video, and we'll touch on that here as well. If you're in a primary market like I am in Miami, uh, or if you're in a just a big metropolitan city, it it's going to be tough. I necessarily recommend that you spend too much time and energy looking for storage in a big primary market, a big metropolitan city with, you know, millions of people. Uh, prices are very high. It's uh run down, owned and dominated by a lot of the REITs like Public Storage, Extra Space, CubeSmart, and the opportunities are going to be more scarce. But if you live in a smaller city or town or even you're within an hour or two drive distance from one, then I would actually suggest and recommend that you start there. The other thing you might want to consider is if you travel frequently to a particular city or region. Maybe you have friends and family in another state that you visit often. Uh, or maybe you vacation in a certain part of town or a certain uh state at a certain aspect of the year and you'd love to own some storage there, then that can also be a great fit. Look, this is your business. So, build it around your vision. All right? You can design a business that works around your goals and your vision, not the other way around. And I see too many aspiring storage investors and even seasoned entrepreneurs do it the wrong way. They hustle and they build a business without really taking into account their vision, their goals, what they want their life to look like. Cuz remember, this is a business that yes, we provide a valuable service for our customers. Uh, clean facility, safe facility for their for them to store their belongings and their valuables, but this business needs to work for you. Otherwise, what are we actually doing?

Now, if you are coming into this with the intention of wholesaling because you're looking to generate some cash, you don't necessarily need to love the market. You just need to know how to find a really, really good deal, put it under contract, and pass it along to a buyer at the right price or terms. And there's going to be a section in the amplifier training where we're going to be talking about wholesaling storage. Please, please, please, I almost didn't mention that because I don't want you to stop this and skip ahead. I want you to follow the process here. Trust the process as they would say. So, let's go ahead and quickly break down the four main market types and the different tiers in self-storage. We touched on this in the previous module, but I think it's important that you just have an understanding. Primary markets are your big metros, Miami, Los Angeles, areas like that, right? Lots of competition, high land and construction cost. Uh, it's dominated by REITs like I mentioned. Secondary markets are more the midsize cities and that can be let's say 250,000 to a million people. There's some REIT presence. You can find some some solid mom and pop opportunities there. My personal favorite tertiary markets. Uh, think 10,000 to 75,000 people roughly give or take in that area. These are smaller, often overlooked cities where you have uh most of the facilities are still owned and operated by mom and pop owners. They're undermanaged. They're not really treating it like a business in many cases. And and that to me is where the opportunity lives and exists. And then finally, you have rural markets. Uh, I would say rural markets typically under 5,000 people. They can work if you buy them right and if you manage them really lean, underwrite them or evaluate them, I should say, conservatively, but you got to be really selective uh because the demand can be thinner because you just don't have as many people there. So, it might come with a little bit more risk. I do have some coaching clients that have bought facilities in rural markets and they're doing really, really well with them, but they understand how to buy them right and how to operate them lean. That's really important and that's something we'll talk about in in upcoming modules.

Now look, once you've identified your market type, I want you to focus on four key metrics and do not skip these because these are important. You want to look at the population trend. Ask yourself and you want to do the actual research. Is this market and city growing? Is it stable or is it shrinking? Right? It's declining. So you want to see are are people coming in? Are jobs coming in? Are companies, manufacturers coming in? I if you see growth, if you see new housing starts, right, developers in there, you see a lot of construction, that can be a very, very good sign. Um, in fact, I would say it is a good sign. Now, when it comes to construction, we'll talk about this in the supply and demand section. Definitely want to be aware if there's any new construction when it comes to self-storage because that can absolutely impact your ability to bring in new tenants, raise the occupancy, generate more revenue, and ultimately make more money, right? Uh, net operating income. That's what this is about. Uh, so population trend, right? Ask yourself and do the research and I'll share with you a document, a market map resources document that's going to give you all the different links that you can actually go for free to check on the population trend to to evaluate is this city or market growing? Is it just pretty stable or or flat or is it declining? In some cases, you also want to evaluate number two, the median household income. I like to aim for a baseline of $50,000 or greater. Really, ideally, I'm looking to be $60,000 or greater. The higher the median household income is, I believe, the better because you want the households in the area to have disposable income. My first facility, I bought in a market that was really, really rough. Uh, I didn't follow what I'm teaching you here in terms of the demographics. And fortunately for me, I did very well because I bought it right. You know, you you you make your money when you buy. You just realize it when you sell. However, it came with a lot more management headaches. It was more management intensive, and that didn't fit my vision, which is why I ultimately ended up selling a portfolio in a particular part of Mississippi. But you you definitely want to look at the median household income in that area, okay? In that three or five mile radius, which is super important. And then I look at the renter ratio because the more renters in the area, in all likelihood, the more demand there's going to be for storage in that area. So you want to look at the home ownership versus the renters in that market. And then last but certainly not least, okay, supply versus demand. This is where we calculate what we call in the industry the square feet per capita or it's also referred to in some circles as the supply index. It measures the available net rentable square footage of storage relative to the population in that same radius. Three or five mile radius is what we typically look at. I'll give you some some rules of thumb that you can look at. But when it comes to the the supply index or the square foot per capita, let's actually just take a a couple of minutes to dive in a little bit deeper there because understanding supply and demand is really important. If if you want the actual formula, you're taking the total net rentable square footage of all the storage facilities in that 3 mile radius or in the 5 mile radius. If you happen to be in a rural market and you want to expand that out to 7, even 10 miles, you can do that. But if if we're looking at facilities in a tertiary or secondary market, then we want to be looking at a 1, a 3, and a 5 mile radius. And what we're doing is we take, let's just take a five mile radius for for the sake of this example. We're going to take the total net rentable square footage of all the storage facilities in that five mile radius and we're going to divide that by the total population in that same area. What many consider to be the national average or the standard in the industry is you want that number to be below 7. So let's say for example you have 100,000 net rentable square feet footage of storage in a 5 mile radius and you have 10,000 people in that market. Well, if you take 100,000 divided by 10,000, that's going to give you a square foot per capita of 10. That is a little bit on the higher side. So, what we look for is markets that have a square foot per capita uh below 7. That generally speaking, that means it's an under supplied market. That means you're going to have more demand for storage than you have supply. Why? Because you just don't have enough net rentable square footage of storage relative to the population. If the number is, let's say, between 8 and 10, it's probably competitive or it could be competitive, but certainly don't panic. The number is 10 and up, right? Then we just got to dig deeper. It doesn't mean it's a dealbreaker. Look, I have bought storage facilities, and I have plenty of clients that have bought storage facilities where the number was higher than seven, in some cases, higher than 10. My very first facility, I think the square foot per capita was almost 13, and it still performed because of in some cases it could be location visibility, lack of REIT presence like no Public Storage, no Extra Space. So this is one piece of the puzzle. It's an important piece, but it doesn't necessarily make or break a deal. We got to look at the full picture here. And this is again an important piece, but it's not the only thing we look at. So don't make the mistake of doing these calculations and saying, "Oh, it's it's a square foot per capita of nine, so there's no deals here." That's not what I'm saying. Think of this as a metric. Think of it as as a compass. It's guiding you, but it's it's not necessarily a rulebook.

Now, here's what I would like to do is um I want to jump into Google Maps for a quick demo. And let me see if I can get my tech to work with me here because there's a few things that I want to share with you here. And I think it's going to be really, really important that you understand at least initially in your journey here. How do you go out and manually figure out what the approximate net rentable square footage of a facility is? I want to go ahead and preface this part of the of the training by saying this is great for a virtual assistant, right? And we're going to have a module dedicated on how you can leverage virtual assistants to help you in your storage business. So, I don't want you spending a lot of time going out there measuring storage facilities. Hear me loud and clear. But I do want you to understand that if you just want to get an idea of the total net rentable square footage of a facility or the or the competitors in the area, this is how you do it. So, if you go to uh Google Maps, you can just Google Google Maps or go to maps.google.com. Um, I brought up uh, in fact, let me just go ahead and and do this so I can show you from ground zero here. So, uh, you can type in any city and state. Okay? So, like I happen to own a storage facility in Fernandina Beach, Florida. So, I type in Fernandina Beach, Florida. I'm going to click on nearby and I'm going to type in self storage. You could also do self storage near me. It doesn't really matter. Uh, but all these red dots, this is what's called the Google Map Pack. Okay, these are all the storage facilities that Google was picking up. And I like to be in satellite view. And what you do is you just zoom in here. And you're going to find a storage facility like this one right here. Okay. So, I'm going to go in here. And you see how this storage facility has three long rectangular buildings. So, let me see if I can rotate this here a little bit. Okay. I think I like this view a little bit better here. So, I'm going to zoom in a little bit here. Now, what you're going to do is I like to on the corner, I like to right-click and then you're going to click on measure distance. Now, for me, it's right-click. For you, maybe it's something different. But essentially, you want to click on that measure distance tool in the corner. And then all you're going to do is you're going to click, click, click, click, and you're going to see how it gives you the approximate square footage. So, I'm going to click here in the corner. I'm going to click here in this corner. I'm going to click again a fourth time. And then I'm going to click to round it out exactly where I started right here. And then you can see here it says here total area 16,828. This is an approximation. It's it's going to be somewhere super, super close to that provided that you're clicking in the corners. 16,828. So what you would do is you would write that down or you would put it into a Google spreadsheet and then you're going to do the same exact thing for this building and the same exact thing for this building. You're going to add up all three and that's going to give you the total uh approximate net rentable square footage of the area. And this is what you could do for every facility in that market. So, I just wanted to take a few minutes to show you how to do it. I don't think it's going to be a good use of your time to to be doing this. Uh, but I do want you to understand that there's a free tool that allows you to do it. For me, I use a tool called Tracked IQ. Okay? And let me go ahead and and stop sharing my screen here. Um, so I use a tool called Tracked IQ because it simplifies it. It basically just gives me what I need with typing in an address and a couple clicks of a button. And I just I much prefer doing that. Now, hear me loud and clear. That is a paid tool. Um, I do have an affiliate relationship with them. If you go to storage.com/tracked IQ, you can check it out. Um, I if if you end up getting that service, I make a couple bucks uh at no cost to you. But you certainly do not need that. Hear me loud and clear. The first I think three and a half years that I was in storage, I didn't really pay for any tools. I was just leveraging the free tools I had and and I bought and I bought, managed and wholesaled several facilities during that time. At this stage for me, it just simplifies the process and it gives me a lot of the valuable data that I need. So, just want to go ahead and and share that.

Now, a couple of things that I want you to know when it comes to the supply and demand. All right. And and by the way, like I mentioned, we're going to have a market map resource guide that is going to give you all of the the websites and the links and all of the resources that I'm about to share with you. But inside there, you're going to find free tools like census.gov where you can uh research a lot of this demographic information. city-data.com. Obviously, I just mentioned Google Maps. I would even recommend that you check AI tools like ChatGPT or if you're using Claude or Gemini, anything like that can be really helpful when you're researching a market. Now, again, I don't want you to spend so much time trying to find and research the perfect market. In fact, I have coaching clients that when they come into our community, we provide them with a list of mom and pop storage facilities and we do it by state, which is insanely valuable because it took us so much time, energy, and attention to build it. A lot of money as well. And so, we encourage them to start leveraging our uh deal machine process to just start contacting them and start having meaningful conversations and start evaluating deals and making offers. All things that I'm going to teach you and you're going to learn here in the cash flow maps course. I've been more of a ready fire aim, right? So, I fire, I start making calls and I figure it out along the way. And then when I get something on the hook, when I get a fish on the hook, then I'll start diving into that market. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that's what you should do. In fact, at the end of this, you're going to see that I'll go ahead and foreshadow. I'm going to encourage you that I'm going to want you to pick three to five markets to initially start your search. Okay? Because as you start analyzing markets, I want you to filter them through your vision and ask yourself, would I actually want to own or visit even a facility here? Does this area match my buy box blueprint? Now, keep in mind, don't discount a market just because you don't necessarily want to go there because I only visit facilities when I'm under contract to perform due diligence and when I close on the facility for I spend 2 to 4 days there setting things up and making sure that the facility is set up in a place to thrive and succeed. And then we manage and own and and operate it remotely. I'm here in Miami and the facilities are miles and hundreds of miles away. Uh, so we run the unmanned model. I don't necessarily have to have an employee there. And that's likely how you're going to run these facilities. So, if you live in a good secondary or tertiary market, that could be your best launchpad. If not, pick areas that make sense strategically that have strong growth, uh, affordable land, healthy median household income where, uh, you can, it's got manageable competition, it doesn't have a lot of REITs, uh, there's there's job growth, and you see the population increasing, and a lot of the tools that are you you're going to find in the market uh, map resources document, uh, you're going to be able to essentially do all the research within those tools.

Here's your homework, and this is where clarity can become extremely powerful. I want you to choose three to five markets that fit your buy box blueprint. Number two, download the market map resources guide and use the tools we just covered. There there might be a few of you that even want to jump to to check out Tracked IQ. For most, you can leverage just the free tools and resources in the market map resources guide. And then I also want to encourage you that you now are you already should have your buy box blueprint. And then once you establish your three to five markets, go into the Storage Winds Facebook group and share that with people. Say, "Hey, here here's my buy box blueprint and here are the markets I'm looking at." But I want to I want to just share something that I think is very important. I've just taught you now the importance of doing market research on something we call the market map. And and this truly is a map. And that along with the buy box blueprint and and you're on on solid footing. You got a solid foundation, but understand that when you look at a market, it's kind of like an octopus. It's got all these tentacles and you could start here, but you could end up over there. And sometimes in researching a facility, you're going to find another facility and another market. Be okay. Like be be fluid. Be like water, as Bruce Lee would say. Don't be so dead set like, I'm only going to look at this little area. Um, expand, be open, and understand that sometimes you're going to be looking at a facility that maybe is in a market that you maybe don't want to own and operate, but if you can get it at the right price or terms, that can be a great wholesale opportunity for somebody. So, um, go in into the Storage Winds Facebook group. uh share your buy box blueprint. Share the markets that you're open in. Or even maybe for you it's, hey, I'm I'm interested like my family and I, we love to go to to Georgia and North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. So, we'd like to own storage in some of those markets. And I might just say, "Hey, I'm looking at the southeast part of the country." And and that's okay. But I do want you to have a dialed in buy box blueprint. I do want you to pick three to five markets to initially plant your flag uh based on competition, based on supply and demand and a lot of the demographic data that we just talked about. So when you share that in the Storage Winds Facebook group, I want you to tag me uh Alex Partardo and then use the hashtags #storagewinsflowmaps and #marketmap. All right? so that we can filter through and we can find you, we can connect with you, we can collaborate and uh and we're cheering you on here. So, that is going to be your micro win for this particular uh video. And this is going to round out module two and you're going to start to build confidence and now you're going to exactly know where to look right when we start building your deal flow machine, which is what we're going to be talking about next in in module three. So, uh, hey, once again, uh, I'm pumped for you. I'm excited that you have invested in yourself. You know, there's times where, uh, we're going to be met with resistance or we're going to be met with adversity or challenges. Go back to your why. Remember what you documented, uh, in module one in the embrace the opportunity section, like, why are you doing this? Go back to that if things get challenging. Uh, the only way this doesn't work for you is if you quit, if you stop, or you're just inconsistent. So again, I honor you for investing in yourself and for wanting to go through this. We've now covered the first two modules and we're going to be transitioning into module three where we're going to talk about how do you find these deals? How do you build your deal flow machine? So I'm excited for you. I'm pumped and I look forward to catching up with you on the next one.

Hey my friend, welcome back. If you've already completed your buy box blueprint and you have built out your market map, amazing, awesome. I salute you. You now know what kind of deal you want and where you want to buy it. So now is the time to uncover the next piece and that's where those actual deals live because I always say something uh to coaching clients here in our Storage Winds community that clarity without consistent activity is not going to move the needle. And in this module, which is module three, and now we're getting into deal flow. This is the first video. We're going to be diving into the market edge and this is where the real storage deals live. So, here's the thing. My goal here isn't to overwhelm you with tactics. It's to show you the landscape. And that's going to be the the three main channels where most profitable storage deals are found so you can see how this all connects before we start building your your deal finding system. So, we're we're going to get tactical starting in the next video. I want to get you up here 30,000 foot view and I want to just have you survey the landscape. This is going to give you a really, really strong foundation and understanding. So, let me first start this with a story that really shaped how I think about deal flow. And this applies no matter what asset class you're into. Obviously, you're you're here and so you're interested most likely in buying your very first storage facility, possibly if you're already part of our Storage Winds community, your second, third, or even fourth deal. But I remember back to my very first storage deal and even my third one, both came from the same broker. Well, in fact, my first deal came from a wholesaler who was a friend of mine and I built the relationship and because I had my buy box blueprint really dialed in, he shared with me the first deal. Now, when I went under contract to buy that facility, which was a 43,000 square foot facility in Mississippi, I had an opportunity to meet the broker who had that deal as a pocket listing. And we're going to talk about that here in coming up in the second channel. Right now, we're talking about the first, but this particular deal that I went under contract on was not yet on the market. And when I flew out to Mississippi and I was performing my on-site due diligence, which is something we'll talk about in a later module, I had the opportunity to meet with him and spend a couple hours with him as we walked the facility. And I just got to know him on a personal level. I learned more about him. We started building a relationship. And that is really the theme of this entire video. It's all about relationships. and about relationship capital. You need to be relationally driven, not transactional. And because I built a relationship with him and because he came to know me as somebody that followed through and I I actually did what I said I was going to do, I ended up closing on that facility and I continued to maintain contact with him. I continued to build a relationship with him. I let him know that I was not a one-trick pony. I I wasn't going to be a one and done, but that I wanted to continue to do business with him. And even if that didn't mean that I could buy a facility from him, maybe I could connect him with other people that could be buyers for him. So, I was always seeking to be a go-giver, which is one of my my favorite books behind me, The Go-Giver. You haven't read it, slight plug, definitely read The Go-Giver. I absolutely love it. But anyways, I built a relationship with him and about a year and a half later, I'll never forget uh he gave me a call just kind of randomly and he said, "Hey, Alex, I know you bought this 43,000 square foot facility from us about a year and a half ago. How would you like to own an additional 37,000 square feet of storage just 3 miles up the road from where you bought the first one?" And I was like, "Okay, you've piqued my interest." And that deal took, I don't know, I want to say about 8 months or so to put together for a variety of reasons. But here's the point. That second deal I bought was also a pocket listing, meaning it wasn't on the market. Nobody else knew about it. He called me because of the relationship that was built and because he viewed me as somebody who could get the deal done and performed. That all happened because of relationships. I made it a point to build genuine relationships, not just with him, but with everybody, with wholesalers, with lenders, with other storage investor owner operators. I didn't just reach out to brokers and send an email and say, "Hey, add me to your list or here's my email." I actually picked up the phone. I followed up. I stayed curious. I stayed in touch. And that's how I was presented with opportunities. And I since have sold that 80,000 square foot of storage. I sold that portfolio and fortunately did did very, very well. And I think the big thing that I want you to know is that you need to build relationships with people. You want to be top of mind so that when they get an opportunity, they think of you. And understand something, and this is something I share with my coaching clients inside the Storage Winds community, is that having meaningful conversations with storage owners and brokers is what it's all about because conversations lead to conversions, conversions lead to contracts, and contracts lead to cash, and cash leads to cash flow. That's the heartbeat of deal flow here. It's not about chasing listings or chasing deals. It's about building relationship capital. It's about building trust, positioning yourself as someone who's going to follow through and execute, and that is when opportunities start to find you.

So when when you just take a step back and you look at this business again from a 30,000 ft view, every deal is going to come from, I think, one of these three main channels. And and this is something I call the deal flow spectrum. Think of it like like three lanes on a highway. You don't need to drive on all three at once, but you do need to know how each one works. And then I'm going to recommend that, and there's going to be a call to action at the end of this video, is that you focus and you just pick a particular lane. You can't make a wrong decision here and I'll help guide you as to how you can pick that lane. But let's actually start talking about that first lane, okay? Or otherwise said, channel one. And that is the direct to owner outreach. And to me, this is where there's hidden gold. This is where I believe the biggest opportunities are and the best terms and deals usually live. Now, I'm talking about mom and pop owners who aren't listing these facilities with brokers. They might be thinking about selling. In some cases, they do want to sell. In other cases, they haven't thought about selling, but when you build a relationship with them and you show them what's possible, it piques their interest. And then they go from not thinking about it to thinking about it. And I've actually bought and worked with owners who were not really thinking of selling, but they ended up selling. They're usually, in my experience, they're older. They're in their 60s and their 70s. Uh, the majority of time these mom and pop owners are just tired and they're getting ready to retire. They they want to simplify life. They want to spend time with grandchildren or they want to travel. They just want to slow down. They don't have the the energy and the bandwidth to want to continue to operate these facilities. And in many cases, they're not even really treating it like a business. And they might not have had any conversations with anybody about selling these facilities. The ones that I love, and we're going to talk about this in the next video of this module, is facilities that might not even have a website. You would be shocked and surprised how many businesses, cuz a storage facility is an actual business. It just has the benefits of real estate. Just one of the many reasons I love this asset class. But a lot of these facilities don't have websites or they have a website that looks like it was built in 1999. There's no automation. They have no marketing in place. They have uh little or no Google reviews. And if they do have Google reviews, it's sometimes it's under four stars, which is not great. One of the things I like to do, and again, we'll talk about this in the next video, is I always go to the contact us page, and I oftentimes see a personal email like at yahoo.com, gmail.com. Believe it or not, I've even come across emails that at AOL, like super, super old school everywhere, especially in tertiary markets. So, when you reach out directly, whether that be by phone, by text message, uh, it could be direct mail, it could be even like showing up, which is how I've had coaching clients, in fact, I have one coaching client who has bought three deals. He bought three deals in 11 months by doing that very thing, like simply like picking up the phone, calling, and then showing up. And it's something we call driving for dollars. Now, this is how you separate yourself from others where you're not going to be competing with dozens and dozens of other buyers. You're having a conversation that can lead to potential terms deals, what we call seller financing or creative financing, or simply just buying it at the right price. You know, that first deal that I bought in Mississippi and the third deal, I didn't necessarily want to be in that market long-term because it didn't fit a lot of the demographics we previously discussed in module 2, but I knew I was buying it at the right price. And my plan was to uh increase the value of the facility by increasing the the occupancy, raising the revenue, raising the net operating income, and then the value is determined and driven by what we call the NOI. Don't worry about that for now. We're going to be talking about that in the the deal filter system coming up here at the end of this module. Do not skip ahead. Continue to follow the process here. Trust the process. But one of the things we're going to dive into here in this module is having these meaningful conversations and connecting with these mom and pop owners in something I call the direct contact blueprint because to me the hidden gold is found in conversations. All right? It's found in the relationships. And that's really what the the point I want to drive here.

Now the second channel I've already done a little bit of foreshadowing. I've planted a few seeds along the way. Dropped a few breadcrumbs if if you've picked those up. But channel 2 is where I would loop in brokers, wholesalers, and again, relationships. And this is something I call the connection channel. This is the middle lane between on-market deals and off-market deals. It's where brokers and wholesalers often know about deals before they even hit the market. And I again in channel one, I mentioned how my first and third deal, those were pocket listings or sometimes people refer to them as shadow inventory. It's opportunities that the public or the market doesn't yet know about. And the only way you get there is by building meaningful relationships. And the only way you build those meaningful relationships is by having meaningful conversations. Hopefully, you're seeing how this all works and and comes together. But brokers and wholesalers often times know about deals before they hit Crexi or LoopNet or the MLS in in some cases uh or they ever hit the internet because they are constantly talking with owners on a daily basis. Most brokers that I know that I've built a relationship with might pound out two to 300 cold calls a day. I mean that they just prospect like machines all day. And so they have a finger on the pulse. They know when a storage owner is thinking about selling, considering it, when the time is right, cuz they're constantly in front of them, pounding the phones. Um, and there's something that we can draw from that. By the way, some of those owners in some cases are just testing the waters, right? They just kind of want to see, hey, what could I get for my facility? Uh, they might say, "Hey, listen. If you have a buyer, bring me an offer." Right? I've heard that before. And this is where you taking the time to build relationships with these brokers, with these wholesalers can really pay off because think of every conversation you have as a seed that you're planting. But just like a like a really good farmer doesn't just plant the seed and then goes on vacation for a year, nothing's going to happen, right? You got to water it. And the way that you water relationships is by being yourself, by being genuine, by being authentic, by adding value and contributing without the expectation of wanting something in return.

Now, hey there, time out. Now, you're not watching this because you're trying to become really good at watching YouTube videos. You're here because you want a different outcome. You probably want cash flow. You certainly want more freedom. And you want to own storage facilities and build something that changes your life and your family's future. Otherwise, why are you here? Why are you even watching this and listening to me? Well, that's exactly why I built the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System. So that if you haven't already, I want you to head over and create your free account at cashflowmaps.com. You can also just click the link in the description below and you're going to get access to not just the training neatly organized, but all the tools, the resources, the templates, the calculators, everything I use in my storage business and what our Storage Winds community members use. So before you keep going, make sure that you create your free account or set some time to do that later. And with that said, let's uh let's keep rocking.

here. Obviously, you're reaching out to these brokers and wholesalers because you want to do deals. Like you want deals. You want to transact. And so don't be shy about that. They want that. That's how they get paid.

But what I mean by giving without the expectation of something in return is I just want you to give selflessly and contribute and add value and trust that the laws of reciprocation are going to tip back in your favor. And if you do that and you follow up with value and you just stay in front of them, not in an annoying way. Okay, I want to be clear about that. You you don't want to be the annoying pest. You want to be the welcome guest. Okay, there's a really really big difference between those two.

And I can't stress this enough because the best deals in my career and in my experience have come from people who remembered me when the opportunity showed up. Not about who you know. I think it's about who knows you and who thinks of you when they have something worth sharing. And it's not only about them thinking about you, but then you have built you have a reputation and you've built enough trust and confidence in them that they believe you can get the deal done. All right?

Do not feel overwhelmed by this. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. This doesn't happen overnight. And that's okay. Right? We we set the goal and the outcome and the desired result we want. But we need to focus on the the daily, weekly, monthly activities and the actions. That's why we call our community storage wins because it's about those micro wins that when stacked and done consistently that will lead to the big storage win.

So, I've mentioned already this channel also includes wholesalers. Same thing, building relationship with them as well. They could be a a really good deal source for you because these are people that are their goal is to just find most of the time offmarket deals. Um, and they may or may not have the capital or the confidence to close it. Maybe that's just their business model where it's more of a churn, right? what I did in the single family house business for 14 years where we just grinded out deals every single month. And and the good thing about that is that they can make a lot of money and as you're going to learn in the amplifier session in the instant payday video, it's you wholesaling storage facilities can be very lucrative. It's not uncommon for these to be six figure deals, which is pretty amazing because how many of those do you need for it to completely turn around your financial situation?

So the point here is whether we're talking about wholesalers or or brokers, you got to think long term. You got to build enough credibility and trust and confidence that when they have a deal or an opportunity, they're going to think of you and bring it to you first. I always share with coaching clients that when somebody thinks about storage or they drive by and see a a storage facility, you should be the first person that they think about. And if not, you're probably not talking enough about it. you're not planting seeds, dropping breadcrumbs, sharing with people what you do and what you're looking for. So, do not underestimate this second lane or this second channel because it your reputation can really start to multiply and produce a lot of fruit in the future. All right? But the thing is, you got to think long term and you just got to be committed to building those relationships on a daily basis.

Now the third channel or the third lane is onmarket deals and this is the deals that hit loopnet or krexy which think of loopnet and kxy as like the commercial multiple listing service right in residential we have the MLS in commercial a lot of the onmarket deals that brokers are listing uh where brokers represent the seller those hit loopnet krexy co-star and there there's some others out there but those are public listings they're they're visible they're out there there's a lot of competition There's a lot of people chasing them, looking after them. And and honestly, in my experience, a lot of the deals are not going to make sense. At least when you first look at what's called an offering memorandum and OM, a lot of the numbers are are going to be based on pro-forma, meaning here's what the deal could do if it were generating more revenue. If you did X, Y, and Z. However, do not underestimate deals that are on market just because they don't look like deals.

You know, one of my a broker that I built a really good relationship came on one of our storage wins community calls and he talked about how, hey, I don't care how low the offer is. We need offers to present to our sellers, which basically is their boss, the people that hire them. So, we'll talk about this more in an upcoming video, but do not be afraid to just make offers because this business boils down to meaningful conversations, analyzing deals, making offers, going under contract, and closing. If we were going to simplify this whole process, that's the road map.

So what I like to share with people is when it comes to Loopnet and Crexy, it's not that you can't find a deal on there. You can for sure a lot of the deals on again on paper don't make sense, but think of that as like your practice field. That is where you have the opportunity to analyze onmarket deals to get the reps in the repetitions. It it builds your speed. It sharpens your eye for what we call underwriting, which is an industry way to say just analyzing or evaluating a deal. It helps you recognize opportunities faster. And every once in a while, you're going to spot a hidden gem. Maybe it's a a stale listing where it's been on the market for for months and months and months. Maybe you catch broker and the owner at the right time. It could be a facility that that just was maybe it doesn't have photos or maybe there's there's something incorrect about it. There are opportunities there, but you likely have to go through a lot of them and find those hidden gems. Uh sometimes the deal isn't bad. It's it's just the way it's presented and and that's where you can step in and win. So don't don't discount this channel. I prefer offmarket strategies, which in in the next couple of videos, we'll be diving heavier into that. But I certainly as as I've shared with you earlier, my first and third deal were because of the broker relationship. a broker had the deal that others didn't know about.

And look, here's the here's the big takeaway. Here's the big insight that I want you to take from this. No matter which lane you choose, every great deal flows through people. Every single deal, somebody has had their fingerprints on that deal. And so, you don't need to be the smartest person in the room. You don't need to even be the most consistent or curious or connected because deals don't appear out of nowhere, right? They move through relationships. And one of the things that I I think I've come to realize is that you don't necessarily find deals. Sometimes you got to create deals. Sometimes you can find them, but most of the time I think you got to create them. And part of that creation process is the relationships that you build with people. And that's what I mean when I say the market edge. That's why this video is called the market edge. It's not luck. It's not timing. It's positioning. It's in making deposits into other people. And the more meaningful conversations you have, the more you're going to realize that momentum creates opportunity.

Look, I I have a a perfect example. I just had literally like within the last month and a half, I had a a new but I had a a new coaching client join our community. In fact, he joined on well, I won't date it, but he recently joined.

Hey guys, this is Jeremy Veloc >> and Maryanne Veloc, >> husband and wife. No, we wanted to uh actually just talk about a fantastic experience we had with um Alex Partardo and Storage Wins Community. So, I was flipping through Facebook a few months ago and Alex was on there talking about self storage and I have been a full-time real estate investor for roughly 21 years, primarily in the single family home space. I have never bought a storage facility, although I have tried in the past. Um, when I came across Alex on Facebook, God said to reach out to him because he did want me to do self storage. And I did reach out to Alex, which I think he was a little surprised um that I reached out to him. I've known him for about 15 years or so. Um, however, it was a fantastic experience and the community is amazing. Alex is fantastic and he took away the scary parts of self- storage like the management piece of it, how to find the deals, um all the information that we would have fallen short or probably stumbled had we not been a part of that group, >> how to evaluate a deal, which is really important. That was all. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Gary Keller talks often about standing on the shoulders of giants, and I absolutely would say that is true with Alex and the community. So, we just wanted to give him a shout out, and we would highly recommend him, highly endorse him. And we did buy and close on our first storage unit. It was 105 uh sorry, 185 units, roughly 33,000 square ft. and we were in the group 35 days. We actually got the deal when we started with the group and we closed about 35 days later. So, um I just want to share our testimony for him because it was fantastic and we just appreciate the group so much. And one thing I want to add is Alex teaches us to make massive imperfect action. And that was probably one of the most powerful things that he shared because nothing we do is going to be perfect. But if we don't take massive action, we won't get results. And so I love the community and all of the learning and we feel 100% supported and we're just happy to stand here and tell you how great Storage Winds is. >> Absolutely. So if you are on the fence or even considered investing in self- storage facilities, I would highly recommend Alex and I would highly recommen recommend the community storage. >> Thanks.

>> 31 days later, literally I we counted on a calendar 31 days later he was under contract on his first storage facility and it happened to be a cool flat round $1 million purchase contract on a storage facility. no experience in storage, had never done this asset class and he got the deal from another member in the storage wins community. Why? Because as soon as he came into the community, I got them connected and he started planting the seed. He started building relationships and that is where opportunities and doors can open up for you.

So, um I want you to take a think uh take a minute and just think about which of these three channels fits your personality. What do you think could which one could be your lane or your channel, right? Ask yourself, are you drawn to direct outreach and and finding those hidden mom and pop opportunities like I am? Do you just naturally build relationships and see yourself as a connector and you're maybe you're extroverted or or that energizes you? Or do you want to just start by analyzing onmarket deals and not having to do some of the work and energy it takes to find these offmarket, but you just want to see what's available and you're just going to like go through them. There's no wrong answer here. Just the right next step.

One of the things I always share with coaching clients is what is your right next step? And sometimes I think we just tend to over complicate things and we know what the next step is but it feels uncomfortable because there's fear or you've never done it before and that is likely what you need to be doing because the moment you decide where to start focusing that's where the fog starts to lift. That's where where things just become a lot more clear.

So, now that you understand where real deals live and how every opportunity moves through people, uh, we're ready to turn this clarity into consistent activity. And now is when on the next video where we're going to start to get tactical here. I'm I'm going to share my screen and we're going to start diving into some things and and things are going to get exciting here. So, uh, in the next video, I'm going to walk you through the cash flow maps method. This is the exact step-by-step system that helps you consistently find and track deals every single day, every single week, every single month. Because I I don't want you out there chasing listings. I want you building relationships. I don't want you to wait for an opportunity to come fall in your lap. Often times, we need to go out there and create it through consistent action and through consistent connection. Because again, I said this earlier and I'll say it again, conversations lead to conversions. Conversions lead to contracts. Contracts lead to cash. cash leads to cash flow. I need to come up with a like a 5C naming system or something. But that's what I call the market edge and that's how you can get your first or your next storage win. That's how you win in storage.

So, with that being said, uh I appreciate you taking the time to go through this. Again, I commend you and honor you for investing yourself and for taking the time and energy, but don't just be that person that watches this and then doesn't take action, doesn't do anything with it. So, nothing for you to do right now other than to start thinking about which one of those channels and then on the next one just come with an open mind, open heart, ready to roll up your sleeves and dive right into this. All right, we are rocking and rolling.

Welcome back. Now, if you've been following along by now, you've already built your buy box blueprint and you have your market map. And in the last video, we talked about the market edge. So, you know what kind of deal you want, where you want to buy it, and you understand big picture where these deals live and where we can source them. Now we are going to start to bridge the gap and we're going to start to actually talk about how you can find the right facilities and this is where the sauce starts to get formed. This is what we call the cash flow maps method and that's where this comes in. It's the same exact process I use. Uh, it's what I've used to purchase multiple facilities. It's what I teach our storage wins coaching clients and what they have used to buy a lot of facilities. And this is what we do to uncover mom and pop storage facilities that are hiding in plain sight. And here's the best part. You don't need some fancy software. Uh, you don't need a website, a paid data, or any type of tool to start. All you need is internet access, right? Cuz we're going to be accessing Google Maps. So, you need Google Maps, a little bit of curiosity, the desire to want to uncover these opportunities and cash flow maps, and the system that I'm about to share with you.

So, by the end of this video, uh, you're going to know exactly how to start building your first list. And it's what I call my initial top 100 and then ultimately the top 300. And think about building a list and a database of mom and pop storage facilities in your buy box blueprint in your target market. And we're just going to build a list of mom and pop storage facilities. And then in the next videos and modules, I'll show you how to market to them. I'll show you how to how to generate the leads and those conversations. But let's take one step at a time here.

Now, every single deal, I don't care where the deal comes from, it could be from a broker, it could be from a wholesaler, it could be direct to owner, it could be from any marketing channel that we're going to be discussing here in the cash flow maps course and in this system. Um, eventually those deals are going to get looked up on Google Maps. So, the cash flow maps method works no matter where the lead is originated. Okay, that's really, really important that you understand that. Think of this as the heart of the system. It's where we're going to start to look for and uncover all the opportunities, not just storage facilities, but the market, what's going on, and everything else. So, think of of Google Maps as your X-ray machine. And Cash Flow Maps is the secret sauce, the system that's going to show you how to use this X-ray machine when others don't understand it. Now, this lets you look beneath the surface of of any market and spot opportunities that others miss. And what I'm going to first do is I think it's going to make sense for me to give you the big picture. If you haven't noticed already, I I like to first talk big picture so you understand the process and then I'm going to get into the tactical. On this video, I'm going to get into the particulars. I'm actually going to show you what I do on Google Maps so that you can replicate it and start to build your list and have some success. So, I'll first walk you through the overall process so that you understand what we're looking for and then I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and I'll show you exactly how I do it.

So, big picture, you don't have to do this. I just want you to hear me out and then you can follow along. After this video, I'm going to give you a few action items that I'm going to want you to move on so that you can start to build this muscle and understand this system and this process, which I believe is very simple. Anybody can do it. I've taught it to numerous people who have had success with it. So, um we're going to open Google Maps and then I'm going to type in a particular city or a particular state in the country. And for you, I'm going to recommend that you start with your target market that you identified in your buy box blueprint and in the market map that we did uh in module 2. So once we identify a particular city and state, what we're going to do is we're going to type in we're going to click on the nearby button and again I'm going to show you how to do this in just a few. We're going to click on the nearby button and then we're going to type in self storage or self storage near me. And when you hit enter you're going to immediately see a cluster of red dots. That is what is called the Google map pack. So each dot represents a storage facility that Google is recognizing and picking up. Now one thing that I think is important for you to know is that doesn't necessarily mean that is all of the storage facilities in that area. In fact, if you can find a storage facility that doesn't have a Google My Business listing, it's not on the Google map pack, that can be a hidden gem that maybe others haven't uncovered. It's kind of the equivalent of driving in a neighborhood and seeing a house that just got boarded up and maybe others aren't aware of it or it's kind of like the hidden gem. Think of it that way.

But before we even get there, once we see the Google map pack and we see all these little red dots, we're going to zoom in and we're going to start to explore one of the markets from your market map and and you're looking for independent operators. We're we're looking for the mom and pop storage facilities. In other words, as we build our initial top 100 list and then eventually our top 300, and I'll I'll walk you through how you do that. We're going to skip any of the REITs. Remember that REITs are real estate investment trusts like public storage, Extra Space, Cube Smart, Life Storage, U-Haul, KO Storage, right? Those are REITs. And then there's private equity that have multiple locations. We're not going to really get into that for now. But if it's a beautiful looking facility, what I would consider a class A facility, a filter for many people is like, would you want to store your stuff there because it's just a beautiful facility. It looks freshly painted. It's very well lit. It's just nice. It's multiple stories. Those are not the facilities that we want to add on on our list. We're looking for the mom and pop storage facilities. And you'll quickly be able to spot this. And in fact, once I share my screen and I walk you through this process, you're going to understand what we're looking for. So, I'm going to actually provide you with our cash flow maps lead tracker, which is a simple Google sheet that has the column that has the the name, the address, the phone number, the website, the email, the notes, and everything we look for. All right? So, that way you can you can start to build your list on that particular tracker.

So once we've identified an area, we're going to make sure that we're in satellite toggle view in which is in the I believe it's in the lefthand corner depending on if Google has switched things around. I'll show you here in a few. And this is where you can actually see what the properties look like from above. So we're we're basically with our cash flow map system. Think of this as an X-ray. We're scanning for the the long rectangular buildings that kind of look like concrete caterpillars. Honestly, we're looking for traditional drive up storage, metal roofs. You can quickly with just a few reps, you can quickly start to see, hey, what is a storage facility and what's not? Again, we're going to avoid the REITs. We're going to avoid big multi-story buildings. Those are are usually the the institutional players. That is not what we're looking for. That's not who we're looking to contact.

And before we start evaluating each site in detail, I always like to first zoom out and just get a lay of the land. I want to see the overall landscape. And what I'm thinking through as I'm looking here is like, can I spot any trends? Like, what's going on in the area? Do I can I spot any like brand new subdivisions or developments or commercial projects? Are there any uh Walmarts or what type of commercial real estate, retail, anything like that can I spot? If there's a Walmart, if there's a Starbucks, if there's anything well-known like that, then chances are there could be some growth in the area, right? Because Walmart and these big businesses like they do a lot of market research and you can trust that a Starbucks or a Walmart Super Center is not getting put in a market that is is dying or declining. Generally speaking, there might there might be some anomalies and some one-offs, but for the most part, I'm just trying to get a lay of the land. Okay. Can I spot any visible growth or or construction? I'm not diving into any any details or specifics. I'm not looking up for city permits to see if there's any new construction of storage. Like that comes later once we start to get serious about a deal. Right now, I'm just building awareness. I'm just trying to get I keep saying a lay of the land because that that's what it is. I'm just I'm surveying the landscape, so to speak.

And one of the biggest checkpoints I look for is traffic visibility. Like I'm starting to look at the facilities. Where's the main artery, the main road or the main interstate? uh are there I like to see facilities as close to that as possible which are the ones that are tucked away. If a facility sits on a near or a busy main road then that's a good thing. Why? Because they get a lot of visibility from daily traffic. And checking the traffic count is something that we can we can always do later once we start to get serious about a particular deal or market. And the kind of daily driveby exposure oftentimes just equals free marketing. And that could be a steady flow of rentals in business for you. If it's hidden behind trees or tucked away somewhere in some back road, it could still work, but understand that you're probably going to need to budget more for marketing to have really, really good signage, very well-lit facility. Uh you're going to have to invest in online marketing probably to fill it up, which are things that we typically want to do anyways. But don't get it don't get me wrong, we still want that uh organic traffic coming from just driveby. Uh now the the quick zoom out kind of gives me and it's going to give you some context before we start to zoom in and that's where we've looked at the market as a whole and we're actually going to start to zero in on each facility and and just kind of do a scan using a system that I call the storage scan. And storage is actually an acronym. So before I share my screen, I want to give you a a quick overview of what we're looking for in this storage scan. And I think it's it's pretty unique and and think of the word storage and how it's spelled out. And that is going to be the way that you remember, hey, let's just do a a quick sevenstep check that tells you in minutes whether a facility has potential, whether a facility is mom and pop operated, and it's worth adding to your list or not.

Now, I will say before I dive into the storage scan, I'm going to want you to be more broad as you build your list and then you can always start to like as you hone your craft, as you start to understand the cash flow map system better, then you can start to get a little bit more hyperfocused, you can start to add more filters. I would rather you be a lot more broad initially and then you can start to hone in and and once you find your groove and what I mean by that is for the most part I'm going to want you to add most facilities in your market map and in your buy box blueprint except the exceptions I should say are the REITs and the private equity or institutional type facilities. Those I do not want you to add. Anything else I pretty much want you to add. Okay.

So now let's dive into the storage scan. The S is site as in website. So I always look to see, do they have a website? What's the condition? If they do have a website, what's the condition, the layout? Is it clean? Is it visible? Is it functional? Does it look like it was built by a high schooler way back in 1999? I mean, you would be surprised on a couple different fronts. Storage is a business and I've said this before. It's a business with the benefits of real estate. And the majority of our customers come from online. And that's in order to have an online presence, we got to have a website. Think of that as like your home. And imagine running and operating a business where a lot of the customers come from online because of your online presence and then not having a website. That's like having a house with no roof and no door. It It's crazy. And then sometimes people just live up in really old beat up looking houses that need a lot of love. And and sometimes that's the equivalent of these old school looking websites. I was recently on a website where like you you literally saw and and I'm dating myself here, but like when the internet became a thing in like the the '9s and you know the the Internet Explorer E was like circling rotating at the top, I was like this is wild. But that's exactly what we're looking for. To me, that represents opportunity. When I was in the single family space and I would walk into an old beat up house that smelled like cat urine and it was like a hoarder's house, I wasn't disgusted. I was like, there's an opportunity here. Clearly, there's there's distress and this person needs help. Um, so the S is for site, as in website.

The T is for traffic. Is it located on a on a near or major road, an interstate, a highway? Does it have good visibility? or like I mentioned uh earlier, is it tucked away? Is it is it hard to get to? We own a storage facility in Florida that is just off of a main road, but it's it's kind of in the inner streets and it doesn't have the best visibility unless you turn on. And so we've had to invest a little bit more money into online marketing, some grassroots marketing. We would have not had to have invest as much money in marketing had that been on the main road.

O is for online presence. So, uh, not only do they have a website, but what is their presence? What does that look like? Okay. Do they have, and we'll talk about a few other things that factor into the online presence, but the R, and R to me is kind of a a two-prong R, right? The R can be two different things. R is for reviews. So, how many reviews do they have? What's their average rating? If I see typically if I see anything under 20 reviews, that's not a whole lot of reviews. If I see anything under four stars, that's an indication that they're not a strong operator. There's probably some customer service issues. There's things that are making the customer base unsatisfied or dissatisfied, I should say, with with the facility. Are there any complaints, right? And so, you can start to kind of scan the reviews. Uh the other R is for rates, meaning like can you can you go to their website and and do you see their rates? Can you rent online? uh are they running promotions? Those are all indicators of the level of sophistication an operator. Are they sophisticated or unsophisticated? Do they look like a strong operator or do they look like a mom and pop that's just kind of winging it? And you know, it's that's all they know or they don't have the energy or their bandwidth to want to really treat it like a business and dial in the operations. So, we've covered S for site, T for traffic, O for online presence, R for reviews and/or rates.

Uh A is for appearance. So, I always go to Google Street View, and I kind of virtually drive or walk up and down the street and I'm I'm looking at the facility. Do they have a sign that is faded and beat up and like one of the the phone numbers is like off or peeled off? What's the general look of the facility? Does it look like a place where I might want to store my stuff? Does it look clean? Do they have cameras? Do they have lighting? Do they have a gate? I'm just getting a sense for the appearance and I'm kind of judging it honestly. I also look at do they have photos on their Google My Business. Many facilities don't even have photos. Like literally the photo is just the Google Street View. And that's lowhanging fruit. Those are little things that give you a strong indication that, hey, this is not a dialedin operator because they would know that pictures sell, right? There's a saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. And spending a couple hundred bucks, two, three, 400 bucks to have a professional photographer take quality pictures of your facility can pay itself back in spades. It it can be a multiple return on that small investment. Sometimes I see facilities that have like pictures that you can tell it was taken with an iPhone 8. You know, it's like blurry. It's like crappy looking pictures. So the A is for appearance.

G is for the Google listing. And the Google listing goes back to do they have a Google business profile? Is it claimed? Is it accurate? Does it have their hours of operation? Does it have their phone number? Right? So a lot of facilities don't even know. A lot of uh facility owners, I should say, don't even know that they can just go and claim their Google My Business profile for free. They don't even know that. And again, to me, that is lowhanging fruit. And it's critical that when you buy your first facility or your next facility that you have your Google My Business profile. Okay? Very, very important.

And then finally, the E in the storage scan is email or their contact info. So, one of the things I always like to do is when if and when they have a website, I will go to their website. I'll judge the website, right? Does it look professional? Does it look clean? Is it is it visually appealing? Is it easy to navigate? I will always, inevitably, go to the contact us page. Now, here's why I want you to go to the contact us page. Many times, not always, but many times, you're going to see an email address on that contact us page. And if you see athotmail.com or atgmail or atyahoo or believe it or not sometimes I come across an AOL like super super old school that is another strong indicator that it is a mom and pop operator. Any and all of those factors and you want to add them to your list for now. The only facilities I do not I want to be clear. The only facilities I do not want you to add to your list are public storage, extra space, cubes smart, anything that looks like it's owned and operated by a REIT andor an institutional player. One other pro tip is when I go to a website, if if I see that they have a locations uh on the menu bar, if I see locations, oftent times that means that hey, this is a player that they own multiple sites. Maybe it's in that general region, maybe it's across different states. for the most part, I'm I'm not really adding those to my list. And some might say, "Hey, that's a mistake." But I I'd rather go broad, but also narrow, if that makes sense. Like, and I think you can have the best of both worlds. If you want to be really really conservative, just add everything to your list. But I don't want you going crazy spinning your wheels either.

So, uh, now here here's what I want to go go ahead and do here is I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. And if you just give me a moment to make sure that I can get the tech to work. We're going to actually go in and I'm going to apply everything I just shared with you. We're going to do it in actual real time here on Google Maps, okay? So that you can see exactly how I go about uh using the storage scan and what I'm looking at. And so hopefully you're able to see my screen. I'm I'm just on Google right now. So uh if you go to uh maps.google.com google.com or let's just say I forgot that and I'm just going to go Google Maps and I'm going to click on Google Maps right here. And then I'm going to go ahead and let's say that right now I don't have my market map in front of me or I don't have my target markets. You are likely going to have your target market. So what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to go ahead and put the the state of Kentucky and then I'll start to narrow down. All right. So I'm going to go to Kentucky and then let's pick a market in Kentucky. Now, I'm not going to take the time to do any research on the demographics and all the things that that you learned earlier. Uh, for the sake of of time in this video and for the training, I'm just going to zoom in and and one of the things I like to do is I like to pick towns that are in between secondary or primary markets. What do I mean by that? So, Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville is a a pretty big city. It's probably a probably a secondary market. Uh Lexington, another bigger area. Uh obviously you got Nashville, Tennessee over here. So I'm going to see if I can find something in between Louisville and Nashville. All right. I'm going to see if I can find something in here. So it looks like this. I'm probably going to butcher this. Somebody from this area is going to laugh at me, but Lfield Leechfield. Whatever it is, uh it doesn't really matter. I'm just going to go ahead and pick this market. And I don't know this market. I've never I've never pursued storage in this area. It's the same concept, the same framework. So, what I'm showing you now here, you can do anywhere.

So, here's what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and click on So, now that we've picked uh Lichfield, I think it is Kentucky. I'm going to click on nearby and we're going to type in self storage. Or you can do self storage near me. Either one works works fine, I believe. Um, and so here's what we're going to do is you see all these little red dots? these little red dots is the the Google map pack. So before we go over here, again, what I like to do is before I start diving in here, I just want to get a lay of the lands. So I'm going to survey the landscape. I'm going to I'm going to come over here and I'm noticing there's a lot of storage in the area, and I'm instantly trying to pick up and see, okay, well, one thing I I don't see is I don't see any public storage. Let me just do a quick scan here. I don't see public storage. I don't see extra space. I don't see Cube Smart, uh, at least for now. Uh, and that doesn't surprise me because there's probably the the the population in Lightfield. I haven't looked it up, uh, but it's probably not that big. Now, I do see a U-Haul neighborhood uh, dealer, but that's okay. I mean, look at that. Only one one star. So, for now, I think this this example is going to work great. If I saw a bunch of public storage, cube, smart, extra space, life storage, then I probably wouldn't be looking for storage in this area. I'd be looking on the outskirts. I might, like, let's say there was a bunch of those REITs or institutional players here. I might be looking over here in these markets because remember in storage, it's very hyper local. So, we're typically looking within a a 5m radius because storage is all about convenience for most people. If you live in Lichfield, you're not driving, let's just assume it was an hour to get to Short Creek. You're not driving an hour to go rent your stuff at Short Creek. No, you're going to look for storage in and around where you live, which makes perfect sense. So, I'm just going to get an uh a general lay of the land. And I see there's a lot of green land here, right? Uh I I do like the fact that I'm I'm tucked away in between Louisville and Nashville. And I happen to know Nashville, obviously, you probably know this, has exploded. There's a lot of growth happening, uh, north and south Nashville. And so, uh, that could potentially represent good opportunity for us in terms of the market. We'd have to drill down a little bit deeper. But for now, what I'm going to do is now that I've kind of gotten a general sense, what I like to do is I like to just do a quick scan. And I don't want you initially to spend too much time on this, but sometimes and and I've trained virtual assistants on doing this is like just getting a general sense like can you spot like clearly this this 62, Interstate 62, like that's a major artery and so is this one right here, South Main I think it is. Can we spot any construction or development? Right. And I'm not going to take the time to do that, but I'm I'm just kind of getting a sense. oftentimes you can spot like developments because you'll see a bunch of roofs that are all the same color and you can see the pretty neighborhoods and and that can be a really really good thing. Okay? Cuz that that means that there could be some growth in the area. So what I'm going to do from here is I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to on the left hand side these are all of the storage facilities in this area. And I'm just doing a quick scan and and let's actually start with the storage scan.

So the the S in storage scan is a site as in website. Well, you see here how Westside has a website cuz you see it right here. Storage Solutions of Kentucky. They have a website cuz it's right here. But check out Midway Self Storage. No website. No website. So Midway automatically I'm adding to my list. Now I'm not. By the way, I would also add Westside and I will also add Storage Solutions of Kentucky. And I'll tell you why once I get there. But for now, let's just focus on S, the website. No website here. Look at store. No website. Look at Triple L and B LLC. No website. AK Storage and Car Wash. No website. Just Property Storage Units. No website. I mean, this is it's wild how many storage facilities in this area don't have websites. All right.

Now, let's actually do something since we're on the website topic. And I probably should have done a little bit of this work prior to hopping on here, but let's just take a let's take a peek at Westside Keeps Safe Mini Storage. And let's click on the website. All right, this could not have worked out better for this example. I promise you, I didn't know this. I had never clicked on this site. This is not uncommon. They have a website, but it doesn't even work. Let me let me give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's my internet. Maybe it's something. But I'm going to go ahead and click again. the site can't be reached. Do you think that's a pretty strong indicator that it is a mom and pop operator that is not Oh, okay. So, it popped up, but check it out. The same example still applies. When you look at this website, does this look like a modern website? Does this look I mean, look how old school this website is. They literally have I think it's a PayPal. I don't know if this is a pay pay now. PayPal button. police support our troops, which is amazing. But I mean, just you can just tell this facility was built probably 15 to 20 years ago. Like literally probably it was built 15 to 20 years ago. Um, they have the list right here, by the way. 10x10 for $45. That's really really cheap. You may not know that. We'll get there. Trust me when I tell you that's cheap. Now, I also see 3.17 review uh stars, only seven reviews. And they're actually like putting that front and center. I can tell you with certainty, this is a mom-and- pop operator. This is somebody that is not super dialed in from an operations perspective. And now, look, that doesn't mean they're a quote unquote motivated seller. That doesn't mean they're looking to sell. It just means that when you learn this cash flow map system, you're already going to be a step ahead of 99.9% of others out there that have no idea how to pursue these opportunities, no idea how to how to structure them, how to evaluate them, and then how to own and operate them, and you will. Um, so that's the exciting stuff that's coming. But this facility would absolutely hit my list. And I think it's a perfect example of looking at a a facility that does have a website, but that clearly is just not a nice looking site. It's not visually pleasing. It's just I would be willing to bet almost anything that if I were to call these phone numbers, these are probably mobile numbers and I'm most likely going to reach the owner. So, we could continue to go on, but the S is for is for site.

Now, the T is for traffic. So, let's actually let's use the same example here. And let's let me see if I can spot. So, here's well, let me see if I can spot exactly where this facility is located. So, let's see here. Okay. So, I'm I'm in the street view. All right. And the street view typically this is I'll get to the A in appearance. So, for now, let's not actually look at that. But here's what I want to do. This is the site. And okay, so it looks like it's right on top of 62. So on the Google on the Google uh on the cash flow maps lead tracker that would be a positive. That'd be a green that hey it's close to a major road. So that that's a good thing. Online presence, we just

looked at the online presence. In fact, let's go here and let's see. They have a bad online presence. Their website is terrible. Let's see here. Let's. They do have a website, but it, well, it didn't work initially, but then we got there and we saw what that looks like. Uh, I don't see any pictures. You see photos and videos. There's no pictures here. So, not a good online presence. Uh, reviews, not good reviews. Anything under four stars, no bueno. Not good. The fact that they only have seven reviews, also not good.

In fact, let's take a quick peek here. Let's take a look at something here. Take a look at this. The last review I'm seeing six years ago, two stars. Five years ago, five stars. Okay, so they got a five star. Four years ago, three stars. And then you can actually start to read what the reviews are. But either way, this is not good. One star, one star, six years, and they don't even respond to the reviews. That's the crazy thing.

So, we got we looked at the site, we looked at the traffic, we looked at the online presence, we looked at the reviews. Let's actually look at the appearance. So, let's go into the Google Street View. And right out of the gate, it just looks very industrial, right? Looks like a mobile home right next to it. Uh, now granted, this image was captured May of 2023, so who knows? I'd love to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that, hey, maybe maybe they've they've put some money into it. But typically what I'll do is I would drive around. I I'd get a sense for the facility and for the area. Um, I think we're we're coming we're going the wrong way here, but I I would just take a take a look on the Google Street View and get a sense for, hey, how how does a facility look? Does it does it look beat up and run down? Uh, what's the general what's the general just kind of view, right? Uh, and I think we're back to where we started. So, looks like it's right here. So, that's what I would look at.

Uh, Google listing. I would look at, do they have a Google My Business listing? Okay. Uh, and then we talked about email contact. Let's actually go here and see. I don't see email, but they have a phone number. So, let me just click here. Check availability. Check this out. Perfect. I'm glad I clicked there. So, to check availability, you have to email them. So, they don't even have a system online where you can rent. And check this out. Preston selfstootmail.com. This is exactly what I'm talking about. These are the types of opportunities that we are looking for. These are the types of opportunities that we're looking for. Okay.

So, um, let's actually go back and let me see if I could because we got a little bit sidetracked here and somehow we ended up on bright. So, let's go back to self storage here. Let me go back this way. Okay, here we are. So, now we're now we're back to storage. And all of these facilities you're going to go ahead and add to your list. Now, in an upcoming video, I'm going to talk to you about how you can have a virtual assistant do a lot of this busy work for you. For now, I want you to get into the hang of doing this yourself. Uh, because you're going to start to just get an eye for what's a mom and pop facility. What are you're going to get a chance to practice the storage scan, which again is is site, traffic, online presence, reviews, and rates. Uh, S the A is the appearance. uh Google Street View, do they have photos? The G is the Google My Business listing. Do they have that claim? Then the E is email or contact info. So, you get an opportunity to do that.

But as I scan down here, I'm asking myself, are these sophisticated operators in this market or are what we would call unsophisticated operators? Meaning, if I was to buy a storage facility in this market, I'm pretty confident that I could be the market leader. And once you go through the cash flow map system in this course, you're also going to feel the confidence that if you were to buy a facility in this market, you could be the market leader. In other words, you're not you're probably not going to have a whole lot of competition, per se. And that's just a sense I'm getting from what I'm seeing in this market. In fact, some of you watching this might decide to pursue this particular market. And if you do, please, please, please, if you get something, if you get something anywhere, let me know, okay? Because I want to hear about your success. I want to hear about your wins.

So, um, hopefully that helps you in terms of understanding the cash flow maps and how you can use Google Maps to go ahead and start looking for for these opportunities. So, here's what I want to do now as we start to kind of wind down here. Now, is going to be your chance to go ahead as I as I start to kind of get my screen back up here. Now is going to be your chance to implement this system yourself and start to actually find facilities that fit your buy box blueprint that match your market map because I want you to take what we've learned here. I want you to implement the storage scan method and I just want you to get some practice going and and starting to actually build your list. Okay? And now you're going to find somewhere on this page, probably in the resources section, you're going to find the the lead tracker. Okay? And the lead tracker is a simple Google spreadsheet that you're going to be able to uh document the the name of the facility. You're going to document the uh the address. And this is simple copy paste. By the way, I'm going to want you to have a virtual assistant or somebody else doing this for you. But initially, I want you to go ahead and go through this process because again, I want you to just get the reps in and get sharp in terms of knowing what to look for.

But you're going to start to build your list. And when you're serious about a specific facility, that is when you're going to pick up the phone call. And once you know that the storage owner is interested in selling or they're open to an offer, that's when you're going to you're going to go through our deal filter system, right? And that we haven't gone through that yet. that's in an upcoming video on how do you evaluate these opportunities and and what to do there. But once you know you got something you're working on, that's when you're going to start to dig into the city. You're going to contact the building department to find out, are there any open permits for any new self- storage construction, anything in the pipeline, you're going to start to dig into a lot of the demographics of the market. Because if there is new supply of storage coming online, that can absolutely impact your ability to increase occupancy, raise rates, grow revenue. And so I want you to use the Google Maps save list features. So you can also save facilities that you see to tag facilities as maybe like a hot, warm, cold system. That that's a pro tip right there. You can keep any notes or any contact information that you find. You can use the Google spreadsheet. Maybe some of you have a CRM. If you have a CRM that you're comfortable with, great. But I don't want you spending time in a CRM. I don't want you building out a custom CRM, anything crazy like that. That those are distractions. Uh that is not going to get you closer to your first deal and to cash flow and for you to build wealth. Uh I want you connecting with people, evaluating deals, and ultimately making offers and getting deals closed.

So, um, look, if if you want to dive deeper into market data, again, you can use tracked IQ. I do have an affiliate relationship with them. If you go to storage.com/tracted IQ, that can help with a lot of this market research. But that's it. That's the cash flow maps method. Now, you know how to scout markets, how to identify mom and pop facilities, and filter out all the noise. So, here's where you get to roll up your sleeves and you get to implement what you just learned. Your next step is going to be simple. I want you to take this from insight to action. And you're going to find a a link below this video or somewhere on this page where you can download the cash flow maps lead tracking uh spreadsheet. And think of this as your your master tracking system where you get to control center for the deal flow and and contact information and follow-ups and all that good stuff. We're going to keep it super simple, nothing sexy. We want to keep it like easy peasy, okay? because uh there's been a saying that simplicity scales, complexity fails. All right.

So, inside here, you're going to be able to track the facility name, the address, and the phone number, email, and contact information. And it's it has the storage scan where you can even rate, and you know, you can do a a green for hot, a yellow for warm, a red for cold, or a blue for cold, whatever works for you. But here's your first goal is today I want you to identify and add 25 facilities that you find. That is your micro win for today. And for the week I want you to add 100 facilities to your list. That might sound like a lot, but if we went back to that Google and that Lichfield market, I could easily probably add 10 to 15, right? Within 10 to 15 minutes max. So, this one sheet is going to give you um instant visibility to your pipeline and and you're going to start to make progress. Now, once you've added your first 25, I'd love for you to just share that in the storage wins Facebook group and tag me. Uh use the hashtags uh #storagewins, #cashflaps, and #storagecan so that I know what level in the course you're currently at. and let us know if you have questions and we're here to support you and and build a relationship. I I can't see I can't wait to see I should say the progress that you're making. And in the next video training, we're going to actually start to take those leads and turn them into real meaningful conversations. I'll walk you through the direct contact blueprint so that you can actually start connecting with owners, building trust, uncovering true offmarket opportunities. um, you're going to understand uh how to have that conversation, what questions to ask. Don't freak out. I I realize there there might be someone watching this that instantly is getting butterflies in their stomach or that makes them feel uncomfortable. Trust me, it I'm going to simplify this for you. I'm going to let you know exactly the framework and how to have the conversation. I have actually found that conversations with these storage owners is a lot easier than with quote unquote motivated house owners or uh single family owners.

So, with that being said, uh take massive imperfect action. Your first goal is to add 25 facilities to your lead tracker today. Within the next 7 days, I want you to have gotten to 100. And within the next 30 days, I want you to get to 300. Now, we're not going to stop there. We're going to always continue to build, but that's going to give you a solid targeted list from your market map that's matching your buy box blueprint and then you can start to filter and hone in. So, thanks for coming along on this ride and journey. Trust me when I tell you, if you just take massive imperfect action, if you have an attitude of progress, not perfection, you will win. You just have to execute. You have to believe in yourself. You've already made a a decision and a commitment to invest in yourself, and you've gotten this far. Let's keep going. But the most important part is take what you've learned here and let's actually apply it. Let's implement it. That's exactly what I've done to win in storage. That's exactly what our storage wins community members have done and are doing. Uh, and that's what I want for you. So I'll catch you in the next video.

Hey my friend, welcome back. If you have completed your market edge video and the cash flow maps exercise, amazing work. now identified your markets. You have hopefully built your top 100 list and working towards your top 300 list and beyond because we don't want to stop there. But that initial win is building your top 100 within the first week and your top 300 within the first month. And so now you know where mom and pop opportunities live. Now it's time to to take the next step and that is actually connecting with people behind those properties, right? It's what I call having meaningful conversations with these mom and pop storage owners and understands that everything in this business at some point is going to involve having a conversation and it's very difficult to build relationships with people if you don't have conversations, right? That humans are wired. We're we're meant to communicate, right? We're not meant to be in isolation. Why do you think if you think about prisons across the world, uh isolation is a is a big form of punishment. And so we are meant to connect with people. And you might be thinking to yourself, "Hey, I am an introvert. That uh terrifies me. That scares me." It's okay. I got you covered. And so, we're going to talk about that here in this particular video. Because look, all the spreadsheets, the Google maps, all the data in the world is not going to move the needle unless you start having real meaningful conversations. That's what this video is all about. that's giving you the confidence and equipping you so that you are ready to reach out and actually start having conversations with these storage owners. Um, I always say and something I share with our storage wins community and my coaching clients is that think of the five C's and that's conversations lead to conversions, conversions lead to contracts, contracts lead to closings, closings lead to cash, and cash leads to cash flow. So, I think that might actually be six C's. And I'll even throw a seventh one in there. C for confidence. Right? The more conversations you have, the more confident you're going to get, the more confident you get, the more it's going to lead to conversions, contracts, closings, cash, and ultimately cash flow. Those are the the five C's of the deal flow. And in this video, the direct contact blueprint is going to give you everything you need to be able to take action and start having your first conversation. And you might be thinking to yourself, Alex, I am not ready to have a conversation with a storage owner. I am telling you, you are 1,000% ready. You have invested in yourself through the cash flow maps course and you might even be a part of our storage wins community and you did so before you probably even felt ready. So perfection doesn't exist. We're not waiting for the stars to align. We're going to take massive imperfect action. That's one of the things I said from the very beginning and I am going to continue to encourage you to take that leap of faith. pick up the phone no matter how uncomfortable it feels. But before we even get there, let me just set the frame and let me give you some tools. Let me equip you and hopefully give you some confidence.

Quick timeout because I want to point something out. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they look at storage opportunities randomly. A deal here, a broker email there, one conversation. There's no consistency and eventually everything turns into a a mess of notes, screenshots, and about 47 different open tabs. That's exactly why I built Cash Flow Maps. So, head over and create your free account at cashflowmaps.com. You can also click the link in the description below and you're going to get access to the lead tracker, the calculators, the templates, and all the tools that help you organize your deal flow and actually start building a system. All right, let's jump back in.

Let's talk about first why this works and why it's so important. Most people freeze at the idea of cold calling. And I don't even know that I like the word cold calling, right? Like, who likes a cold call? I I don't really like to receive cold calls. H and so you might have a mental hang-up with that. But look, here's the truth. Don't look at it as cold calling. Let's reframe this. You're connecting with another business owner because a mom and pop storage owner, that's what they are. They're a business owner. And most storage owners are actually some of the easiest and friendliest people to talk to. Generally speaking, every now and then, of course, you're going to have the exception to the rule. You're going to come across somebody who's rude or or not the the friendliest person. So what? who cares next. That is the mindset I want you to have. In fact, if you haven't come across those people, you're probably not making enough calls. Okay? So, these mom and pop storage owners, they're business owners, and they they're proud of what they've built or they're proud of what they manage and own. And and they're often running their businesses by themselves. And that represents a big opportunity for us who we're not going to run it by ourselves. We're going to run it with a solid boots on the ground team member with systems and automation. We're going to have marketing systems in place and we'll get to all that. But they are not as accustomed to getting calls from people who truly understand storage. At least if you compare it to the single family world where residential homeowners are getting bombarded with cold calls and door knocks and direct mail and and everything in between. When you think about a self-storage owner, it's a fraction compared to single family. Okay? And that's I think that's what makes this particular strategy, the direct contact blueprint so effective is that number one, it it just takes time, energy, and it starts with a decision and a commitment. So it doesn't really outside of whatever you pay for your mobile phone bill. Outside of that, it it's free. So you don't have to go spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on this. And think about this, you are not chasing deals, you are creating them. One of the things I've shared is that people refer to finding deals. And I have come to believe just in my experience that most of the time you're not finding deals. You're actually creating them. And you're creating them one meaningful conversation at a time. So your goal isn't to sound perfect or polished. Again, perfection is not what we're striving for. In fact, we're striving for the opposite. Massive imperfect action. I'll continue to harp on that. And so don't feel like you need to be polished or don't feel like you need to be ready or have a certain number of reps in. You're going to get better through the reps and the repetition. Okay? I just want you to be yourself. That should start to like take some of the pressure off. Let's remove the pressure valve on the cooker here. You're not calling to get something. You're calling to understand something. And that is their business, their story, and maybe even their motivation if they might have an interest in selling you their facility. And that mindset shift alone can change everything. So, don't think of it as a sales call. Don't think of it as a cold call. Don't think of it as you trying to buy their storage facility on that phone call. You're just trying to gain a better understanding. Okay? And if nothing else, you make a friend. You might learn a thing or two about somebody who already owns storage. And that is not uncommon. In fact, with coaching clients that I have helped buy their first storage facility inside of our storage wins community, that's often been the case is that in fact, I literally have a somebody who joined our community. And within 31 days, now I I share this with caution because this is not the norm. This is an anomaly, but 31 days after he joined, he put his first storage facility under contract for a million bucks. By the way, he doesn't have a million dollars. So, don't suspend your beliefs about, oh, I don't have a million bucks, Alex. But he took massive imperfect action. And here's the best part of the story. He has already built a connection and is starting a friendship with this seller. He spent 4 hours with him and his wife at the facility. He had some type of event on his farm and the seller and his wife came and participated and they're already super super bonded. That's because he understands how to build relationships. He understands how to ask good questions, which we're going to talk about in this video and really get to the heart of what the seller is after.

So, let's figure out how to open the conversation. How do we start the call? Well, my belief, and this is based on on just a lot of years of experience and thousands and thousands and thousands of calls that I've made throughout the years, within the first 10 seconds, identify yourself. you know, share your name, why you're calling, and speak clearly, calmly, and confidently. Another three C's for you, clearly, calmly, and confidently. And there's a lot of I'm not going to give you some magic script. In other words, I I want you to understand and have just more of a mental framework because here's the thing, there's no magic words despite what you might see on some other course or YouTube video or podcast. There's not a magic script, right? And I think when sometimes people try to follow a certain script, it doesn't sound like themselves. And yes, part of that is because they're not rehearsing it. They're not practicing it. But oftent times it's just not the words they would use, how they would communicate. So I want you to find your lane. I want you to find your path and just be yourself. Don't try to be me. Don't try to be somebody else. And so I like to just call and say, you know, hey, my name is Alex Partardo. I realize this is random and out of the blue. By the way, I'm addressing what is already in their head. Who is this person or why are they calling? Um, I'm actually calling because I came across your storage facility on Google, by the way. Looks like a really, really nice site. Usually, as a side note, I'll find something to compliment them on. Uh, came across your facility online and and just wanted to reach out and I've tested different things. Again, figure out what works for you, but I've I've done things like, "Look, I realize this is this is probably a shot in the dark, but I was just curious if you've ever thought about selling your facility or if you might consider an offer for your facility." That is one approach which is more direct. An indirect approach which can also work depending on your style, depending on your flavor and what resonates with you is, you know, same opening, identify who you are, why you're calling. Hey, I came across your facility. My name is my name is Alex. I came across your facility online and just wanted to reach out and and see if I could learn a little bit more about the business. You see, I'm I'm looking to buy. In my case, when I started, I I would tell people, "My wife and I are looking to buy my first storage facility, and I'd love to connect with an experienced, successful storage owner." Right? That's it. No pressure, no pitch. You are just being curious. You're being yourself. You're being humble. Uh I, as I'm recording this video, I'm standing shoulders out, communicating with confidence. I want you to do the same thing. Don't be sitting down. Don't be hunched over because the energy comes across in your voice. So, I want you to smile, by the way, when when smile when you talk because it does naturally tend to change your tone and energy for the positive. And here's the goal. Make it feel like a normal conversation with a neighbor. Okay? I I talked about complimenting their facility. Hey, I'm I'm looking at this thing. It looks like it's right next to the Dollar General or I I might reference a landmark so that they know I'm looking at it. Say, it looks like clearly you've taken a great care of this place, or I love the visibility you have on the main road. find something that you can compliment them on. Now, if the facility looks really mismanaged, a lot of deferred maintenance, it looks like it needs a lot of work, then I wouldn't say don't be disingenuous. Don't say, "Hey, it looks like you got a beautiful facility." But you can always typically find something to compliment them on. Okay? And then you can even transition by saying exactly what I just said a minute or two ago. It's like, look, I'm actively looking to purchase a storage facility in this area. And I was hoping if I could get a little bit of guidance from an experienced owner like you. Very simple approach. It's genuine. It's real. And I think if you get comfortable with the opening, the rest of the conversation will naturally just take its form. It'll start to flow. And whenever you get stuck, fall back on acknowledging what they say and then bridging it with another question because that's that's your role here. It's the way that you start to build a relationship is you get to know the person. You ask questions, but you got to be careful. Don't do it in a way that it feels and sounds like an interrogation. Okay? That's really, really important. So like if I ask you a question and you respond, I don't want to just ask another question and then you respond and I ask another question. It just feels like a cold interview. And that's not what we're doing here. We're we're looking to connect uh establish a dialogue, start to build some rapport here. I think people just tend to over complicate it to be honest. But once you've opened the conversation, I think your next goal is to continue to focus on establishing a connection. And you do that, like I just mentioned, by asking open-ended questions that invite them to share more about their story, the facility, uh things like, "Hey, I'm curious. How'd you how'd you even get into the storage business? What do you like most about owning a facility? And and what's been the biggest challenge for you lately when it comes to owning and operating your storage facility? Sometimes I'll ask, "Hey, listen. If you could have a magic wand, like what would your ideal scenario with your facility look like?" And as they talk, just listen. And typically I'll have like a notepad or I I now use an iPad, but I I'm just taking some notes and I'm I'm listening not just to what they're saying, but I'm listening to what's not being said. The way they're communicating, their tone of voice, something that they say that might not sound important, but actually is. And really, all I'm doing is I'm just trying to understand who they are and how they feel about their business.

Here's a super super important thing and I'm gonna I just touched on it, but I I don't I think I want to underscore it. I want to highlight this because it's so key. Don't just listen to the words coming out of their mouth. Listen to also what's not being said. Pay attention to their tone, their pace, their attitude. I was having a conversation with a storage owner not that long ago and you know, it was a regular normal conversation. All of a sudden, he started talking about his uh what was it? it was his gate and how the gate was giving him a lot of issues. And all of a sudden his tone shift and he started to get not aggressive but just like you could tell he was perturbed. He was annoyed uh with this gate. And so I just jotted that down. I said, "Hey, is is there any tell me a little bit more about that?" And I just got him talking about that. After that, I said, "Is there anything else like that that's that's not ideal or that's causing you some issues?" And so those are things those are little pain points. Those are things that that owner wants a solution for. And that solution might ultimately be to sell the property, right? We don't know at this at this point yet, unless you've just come out and asked at the beginning of the call, but um take listen to how they're communicating. Do they sound proud of the facility? Is there a level of frustration with something like I just alluded to? Are they tired and burnt out or curious? These are are little signals that often tell you more than the actual words themselves. So, I just want you to be mindful of that. Be cognizant of not just the words coming out of their mouth and what you're hearing, but how they're saying it. what's their general attitude and tone and just take some notes. You know, sometimes I'll connect with an owner and they mention, "Oh, I just got back from vacation or oh, I'm going to be traveling this summer or I have grandchildren." Most people will just kind of like not really actively be listening and they won't even catch those little things, but I'll write that down. Why? Because next time I connect with them, I'll bring up the grandkids. I'll find out when they got back from vacation. Hey, what did you love most? What did you enjoy? Was it an epic adventure? where are you going to next? Right? I'm seeking for ways to connect with them and I'm doing it in a genuine way. I'm not just like asking questions in order to like make them feel good, right? Like no, I'm genuinely looking to get to know the person and I think that's really really important because those little details can help you reconnect later and it you're just building trust over time, right? It's been said that people will do business with people they know, like, and trust. And that's that's honestly been my experience as well. And remember in in storage, relationships, that's your greatest capital. Relationship building is your greatest form of capital. If you get nothing else out of this, but you walk away with a belief that, hey, I need to invest in the right relationships. Uh, trust me when I tell you, you're going to have a return on investment 100fold. So, focus on building relationships with the right people, not storage owners, brokers, wholesalers, other storage investors. That's why it's so important to surround yourself with the right people and be in the right community.

But moving on here, I let's start to transition. Once you've built some connection, now it's actually time to learn a little bit more about the facility itself. And I'm going to preface what I'm about to say with a caveat that sometimes people are not about connecting and answering your questions and they if they're open to it, they just want to kind of jump right into it. So you have to feel out the other person and their personality type. And so sometimes I might transition with like, hey, listen, just so I understand a little bit more about your business and your storage facility. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about the facility? Right? So I'll ask for permission, right? Make them feel that they're in control. But remember, the person asking the questions is actually the one in control of the conversation. So make sure that you're listening 80% of the time and only speaking 20% of the time. If you're doing most of the talking on these phone calls, you're probably doing it wrong because when you talk, you don't learn anything. When you listen, you get to learn and you get to understand them. And that is your goal here. So now, before I share with you the different things you can ask them about the facility, understand, and we're going to get to to this in the deal filter system, which is how do you quickly analyze or evaluate what we call underwrite a deal? Really, if I just had their monthly revenue or their annual revenue, I have enough to come up with a value for the facility and a potential offer. Ideally, I can get the revenue and I can get the unit mix. The unit mix is how many of each type and size unit they have. In other words, if they have 5x5s, 5x10s, 5 uh 10 x 20s, 10 x30s. How many do they have? Okay, I have 10 5x5s and I have 15 5x10s and I have three 10x 20s and I have one 10x30. That's the unit mix. So, if I can get the revenue and the unit mix, for the most part, that's all I need, especially on an initial conversation.

Now, if you feel like you've just built a connection with a person and that person's talking, ask them about their current occupancy. Hey, what what's your current occupancy right now? See what they say. If you hear anything north of like 93% in my opinion, that's actually a good sign. That means you're not charging enough. Sometimes I I'll talk to storage owners and they will brag about being 100% occupied, but what they don't realize is that if they're 100% occupied, they're probably leaving money on the table. They could be raising the rents and generating more. I always seek to be 85 to 90% occupancy. I think that's a real good sweet spot. Find out about their rental rates. If they do have a website and you happen to see that while you're talking to them, ask them, "Hey, are your current are the rates that you're showing on your website, are those current or have you updated those?" And then in terms of the condition of the property, there there's a couple things I always uh key in on, and that's the roof. The roof is going to be one of your biggest expense line items if you have to replace it or even repair it. So, what age is the roof? In fact, one of our storage wins community members in our private online forum just asked this question. It's like, hey, when it comes to capex, what's referred to as capital expenditures, what are the questions to ask? And I always ask about the roof. What age is it? When was it last replaced? what was the last repaired or have there been any repairs? Are there any leaks? And so understand that if you're going to buy a facility, you need to know how much shelf life that roof has. Are you going to need to put a brand new roof on all the buildings in the next 5 years? Well, guess what? That could cost you a hundred plus thousand. And you're going to need to account for that. All right. I always find out about the lighting and the cameras. If there's a gate, I'll take a look at the pictures and is it a manual gate? Is does it have an operator? I like to find out about their management style. Are you running it yourself or do you have a a manager or a third-party management company? Usually, I find that they're managing it themselves, which is why oftent times their expenses are so low. We'll talk about the expense ratio more in the deal filter system. Whenever I look at a property, I see is there additional land and room for expansion. So, these are just some of the things, but here's the biggest thing. You don't need every detail right now. Do not feel like you have to interrogate them and and ask them 57 questions. You're nibbling at first. Hey, tell me a little bit about your facility. Let them talk, right? What can you tell me about the fac? Just let them talk. Oftentimes when they talk, they're going to reveal a lot. And then depending on what they share with you, then you can get into more particulars. What's your current revenue right now? Like what' you do in revenue last year? What's your current year-to- date revenue? What's your unit mix? And then you can start drilling down into occupancy and things of that nature. So, if you can just get the revenue in the unit mix, I think that's a win, especially to give you the ability to be able to analyze the deal, underwrite it, and even make an offer. And so, don't get stuck trying to collect everything. Remember, this is about momentum. It's not about perfection. This is not a a a data call. It's you're just having a conversation and you're getting some some information. You're getting to understand them, their facility, their story, and their situation.

So once you understand the basics, it's time to explore value and potential pricing and stay curious, right? Don't be pushy. You you want to stay curious and say, "Hey, Mr. Seller, just in an ideal world, what do you think you might want for the property? Notice my language is general and vague, not aggressive and pushy. It's like, hey, in an ideal world, what would you want for this property?" And then listen and see if they give you a number. Okay? Mirror it back. So, let's say they say, "Hey, I want 1.2." Got it? So, you'd want around 1.2 million. And then just pause and bite your tongue and don't say a thing because silence can be your best friend in these situations. Most people are very uncomfortable with silence in a conversation and they'll try to fill it with stuff they don't need to be saying. So, mirror it back. Ask the question and then just bite your tongue. And if they hesitate, like just don't say anything. Bite your tongue. Trust me, they will say something. And when they do say, "Hey, listen. If we could pay your price, and and I'm not sure that I could, right? I'm not saying we can. Would you ever consider taking payments each month instead of all at once?" In other words, seller financing, right? Some type of terms offer. Hey, if I could if I could meet your price, and I'm quite honestly I'm not sure that I could, and I I'll mention more about that in a second, but if I could pay your price, and I'm I'm not sure that I could, would you consider taking payments over time so you get the benefits of cash flow without the headaches of management and ownership? Right? So, I'm inserting a benefit there. And then I'll just listen. That's how I naturally introduce seller financing. We'll we'll talk about that more later, but I just wanted to kind of preview that. But notice what I said there. if we could pay your price. So, I'm kind of leaning in a little bit, but then I'm doing a takeaway and I'm not sure that I could. I'm taking a step back. All right. So, whenever you build relationships, I I recently had I shared this on one of our Storage Winds community calls. Think of if you are in a relationship with somebody, if you're married, you have a boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever the case might be. Think of the first time that you met that person and you went on a date. Imagine if when you met them, like you were leaning in the whole time and you were like getting in their face as you were talking to them. Like, naturally, what is that person going to do? Well, that person's going to take a step back. It's like, hey, you're invading my private space. Think of a conversation with somebody that you're just meeting the same way. You don't want to be too pushy and you don't want to be leaning in, but you want to kind of have one foot in, one foot out. And that's how you get people to chase you and and you attract people and you don't chase them. Super important. Sometimes I'll ask a question like, "Hey, what what would make this a good deal for you?" or hey, if you did decide to sell this, what do you think that might need to look like for you from a price perspective in terms of timing and the timeline? Like, tell me what's important to you. And often times that question or a series of those types of questions can really reveal their ultimate motivation, which is far more important than their asking price. Right? Sometimes people get so hung up on price that they miss everything else around the deal. Price is just one aspect of the deal. And oftentimes I say I will pay their price as long as I can dictate the term or the terms. And that could be the interest rate, the down payment, the length of the note. There's a lot to get into there. We will. But most importantly, I just want you to understand that people often times they get to this point and then they drop the ball by ending the conversation without a clear next step. Never ever ever do that. One of the things I learned from a gentleman who you may know, probably know, gentleman by the name of Alex Hormoszi, uh, super successful entrepreneur. I learned something from him called BamFam. B A M F A M. Bam Fam. And Bam Fam is you always want to book a meeting from a meeting. Book a meeting from a meeting. BamFam. So before you hang up, um, lock in a specific next action depending on how that conversation went. Hey, would you be would you be open to me just taking a look at your deal, seeing taking a look at your facility, seeing what I can come up with in terms of in terms of an offer, and I'm not sure if this is going to be the right fit for me. Again, I'm taking a step back, but why don't I why don't I run some numbers and why don't we reconnect uh later today or tomorrow or in the next couple days, depending on the seller's personality type and how the conversation went. Um, I always like to make sure I get their contact information in terms of their mobile number, email. I like to find out if they prefer to communicate by text, by phone call. Uh, everybody's a little bit different. So, I'll tend to lean on how they prefer to communicate to eliminate any friction and make it easier for us to continue the conversation, continue building a relationship. And then, don't forget this one, because I have gotten leads and I've bought deals just by asking this one simple question at the end of the conversation. Hey, by the way, do you own any other storage facilities or might you know anybody that has a facility they would consider selling? Now, look, am I saying the success ratio of this question in terms of them saying yes is high? No, it's not. But every now and then, they'll say, "Actually, I'm I'm I'm thinking of I'm slowly selling my portfolio." And now, boom, now they have other um other assets that they would consider selling. or you know sometimes I've heard have you spoken to like Sally at ABC Mini Storage just a couple of miles away. So sometimes they'll give you little clues and now you can hop on Google you can do your cash flow maps method you can call same exact thing and rinse and repeat and that single question has has unlocked some deals for me throughout the year. So every single conversation should end with clarity and purpose. We don't know what the next step is.

So, let's as we start to put a bow on this particular video, um I want to talk quickly about mindset because this is where success really starts. And I don't care if we're talking about the direct contact blueprint or if you want to call refer to it as cold calling or storage or anything. Everything starts with mindset. Mindset is most of the game. Okay? Now, remember this. You are not cold calling. You're connecting. Replace one C for the other. This seems to be like the video with the with the with the theme of C's. Replace cold calling with connecting. You're building relationships. You're just connecting with another human being. So, do not be intimidated or feel intimidated just because they own a storage facility. I heard this once and it kind of stuck with me. It's you you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. So, every no is simply a not yet, right? If you think of the word not yet, it has no in there. So, every no is just a not yet or not right now. Your goal is not to close the deal. Just like if if you're in a relationship or if you've dated people in the past, your goal probably wasn't to get married the first time that you met that person. Just like your goal isn't necessarily to close a deal on this first call. You just want to collect a little bit of data. You just want to connect, find out about the seller, their story, the facility, their situation. Start building a relationship. Plant some seeds. And then with the followup is how we water uh the seeds that we plant, right? And if and if you do this consistently, that's when things can happen. Okay? You start to develop confidence. Um you communicate with confidence. In turn, people have confidence in you and they start to trust you and then you develop a reputation. Opportunities begin to find you. You become like a magnet. All right? I've experienced this myself. I've

worked with others and coached others who've experienced the same exact thing. So remember, you're not selling, you're sorting. Think about sorting between who's ready, who's ready later, and who might know somebody who's ready.

A coach of mine years ago told me, "Alex, whenever you speak to somebody, they're either a buyer of real estate, a seller of real estate, a potential lender, or they know one of the above." All right? So think about that moving forward. You're just one meaningful conversation away from a completely different life in business. And so just seek to connect with people. And that's how you build relationship capital, which is, I've always said this, I'll continue to say it, the most valuable capital that you can raise or build.

So look, um, as we wrap up here, here is your challenge for this week. I want you to pick up this incredible little magic device, okay? Pick it up and use it because, uh, a friend of mine calls this money goggles. If you just understand where to spot the opportunity and you pick this thing up, you can create money. You can build your future and have everything you want. But you got to push past that initial fear or discomfort that you might have. So pick up the phone and make your first 10 calls. The quicker you can do this, the better.

In fact, before you even move on, I would love for you to take what you've heard me share today, and I trust me, I get it. You're thinking, you're thinking to yourself, "I am not ready." Do not overthink it. Don't wait until everything is perfect. Just follow this framework I've shared with you. Be curious, be human, be yourself, push past that initial fear that you may have, and just be consistent. All right? And then start to track your conversations inside of your cash flow maps lead tracker. Um, you can even add a column and start to track your contacts and make sure that you're documenting notes in there. Or if you have a CRM, a database, a customer relationship management system, whatever you want to call it. Uh, and when you have your first meaningful conversation, share it inside the Storage Wins Facebook group and use the hashtag #win #directcontactblueprint and then tag me, right? So that I could celebrate this win. And it might feel and seem like a very, very small win to you, but it's hard to achieve the big win without stacking the small wins. And that's what this is all about. Remember, you are not chasing listings. You're creating opportunities because I started this video with this and I'm going to end this video. Remember the five C's: Conversations lead to conversions. Conversions lead to contracts. Contracts lead to closings. Closings lead to cash. And cash flow. So you don't have to be perfect. You just have to start. This is how you create momentum. This is how you start to build confidence and how you start to win in storage. So that is your action item. Pick up the phone right now, if possible. Start making some calls. Okay? You already, through your market map, through your buy box blueprint, you already know how to go out there and within a minute locate mom and pop storage owners. Pick up the phone, go make the calls, and let's start to turn your list into your next storage win.

Alex Part here. Welcome back. And we're going to continue to build on everything that we've been doing in the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System. And we just talked in the previous video, the Direct Contact Blueprint. And hopefully, you've already started to have meaningful conversations with mom and pop storage owners. And I want to continue to encourage you to lean into that. And I want you to put the reps in and put the time in so that you understand how to connect with mom and pop storage owners, what questions to ask them, how to build relationships. And I want to go ahead and plant this seed. And I wanted to include this in module 3, Deal Flow, because at some point, you're probably going to want to scale because, look, there's only one of you. And I want you to understand how to create consistent leads and consistent deal flow that doesn't always depend on you doing the work. And this is something I call the Deal Flow Machine because when you build this right, you wake up to new storage leads waiting for you without you having to be the one rolling up your sleeves, getting on the phone, having conversations. And this is not hype, it's leverage. Because every successful storage operator I know, no matter who you can think of, they all have one thing in common: they've built systems with people around them so that the business continues to move whether they're at their desk, their home office, in front of a computer, on the phone or not. And that's what we're going to start to build together here.

Now, I want to go ahead and preface before I launch into this training and into this video. You may actually feel like you're not ready for this yet. And I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Why? Because I want you to get comfortable. I want you to have so many reps and have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of calls behind you before you get to the point where you're just going to abdicate this. Unless you have a 9-to-5 job or you have another business that's your priority and you're building your storage business on the side. And so you need to leverage somebody else. And then if that's the case, then I encourage that. But I think it's always easier to train somebody and then hold them accountable when you understand the process and you know what you're doing versus just abdicating that responsibility to somebody else. And then you don't really know how to manage them, how to train them, if you're doing it right. Um, and so I want to go ahead and first talk about the mindset shift. And because when you're first getting started, it is super normal to wear all the hats, right? You're doing everything. You're researching markets. You're connecting the Direct Contact Blueprint that we just talked about. You're having conversations, meaningful conversations. You're following up. We haven't gotten there yet, but eventually you're going to be evaluating deals using our deal filter system. You're going to be making offers. And like, before you know it, you're spinning all these plates. And it can feel at times like you're buying yourself another job.

Now, I will say that right now, for a lot of people, you're in a season where you need to roll up the sleeves and put the reps in so that you understand the process. I think that's really important that you understand this before you start to get people to help you with certain things. Unless they, you know, you're going to put them through the training and they just have a certain aptitude where they get it, they want it, and they have the capacity for this. Something in the Traction world that they call GWC: they get it, they want it, and they have the capacity. Well, the moment that you bring on even one capable virtual assistant or a team member, somebody who you've trained, somebody who's dependable, who's reliable, that is aligned with your goals, and they understand the big picture and why you're doing this, you start to shift from what Michael Gerber in The E-Myth talks about, you know, the technician to essentially the operator, right? The entrepreneur. You're no longer just working in the business. Now you're starting to build the machine that works for you whether you work or not. And I think that's what a lot of people want. It's a business that works for them because that's the purpose of this business. It's meant to help you buy back your time so that you can do the things with your loved ones that are important to you. And that's the mindset, okay? You're not—I don't want you to think about just outsourcing tasks. You're buying back your time so that you can focus on $10,000 an hour activities and up, like negotiating deals, building relationships, raising capital, deal structuring, etc. Joint ventures, like that is the activity I want you spending your time on, not necessarily on always like building a list and doing the technician work that a capable, trained virtual assistant or team member can help you do.

So, I want to talk to you now about something I call the Deals Engine Framework. Okay? And the first D, right, the D in Deals is: Define the role. So I want to talk to you now about how we can go out and find the right person. And I'm recommending a virtual assistant to help you with two things: to help you when it comes to research, when it helps you when it comes to marketing. And I would consider research and marketing, I'd kind of put those in the same bucket. And then even finding the right virtual assistant that can do outreach, that can have the meaningful conversations on your behalf. In fact, we have somebody in our Storage Wins community who has wholesaled three storage facilities to other people in our community, and he has built a system. He's got a virtual assistant that is out there building his list, doing outreach, right? Picking up the phone, having meaningful conversations with storage owners. And then when he identifies somebody that is interested in selling their facility, he schedules an appointment for this other person in our community. Then he gets on the phone to put the deal, take the deal over the finish line, get it under contract. And if it doesn't fit his buy box blueprint, it becomes a wholesale deal. So, just this year alone, he's generated, I want to say, close to $200,000 in profits from three storage wholesale deals, and it was all driven primarily by his virtual assistant. His virtual assistant did a lot of the heavy lifting.

So, now let's start to dive into this. Now, there are two primary virtual assistant or VA positions that every storage investor should know, and I just touched on them. The first is the research virtual assistant, and this is somebody who's out there researching markets for you. They're building your storage list of prospects and mom and pop storage owners. They're out there finding the mom and pop facilities. They're gathering contact information. They're updating your Cash Flow Maps Lead Tracker. They're sending emails when they go to the contact us page. They're filling out web forms. Like they're constantly moving things forward so that when you're sleeping or you're working or you're hanging out with family, your list and your prospect list is continually being built and you have people doing some outreach. And that leads me to the second one: an actual outreach, like following the Direct Contact Blueprint and go actually somebody out there that's going to be making outbound calls and connecting with people on a daily basis. Making sure that they're nurturing the warm leads and that they're essentially queuing up the warm hot sellers, the people that have raised their hand and said, "I'm interested in selling." They're actually scheduling an appointment for you or they're—depending on if you have a phone tree system—they're clicking a button and passing that along to you. So, those are the two types of virtual assistants that I think are pretty common. In some cases, when people graduate and they find a really good team member, you can now have an acquisitions person. But I find that this is not typically a virtual assistant. I would recommend that for now, if you're considering hiring a virtual assistant, they help you with research, marketing, and then outbound calling or any type of like outreach, emails, contacts, things of that nature.

Now, inside of our Storage Wins community, we actually have some specific training that walks people through this, and we're actually going to take one of those resources, which is—and we're going to actually make it available. So, somewhere on this page in the resources section, I want to encourage you to download that document because it'll help you. You'll find a ready-to-use job ad and post for that role. And look, here's the secret sauce. In the post, I ask every applicant to send me to do something to jump through a hoop. Why? Because whenever I post a job ad, I don't want to create another job for myself. I don't want to read resumes. I don't want to have to like learn a bunch of stuff about people that may or may not matter. So, I typically ask them to do one or two small things to help them filter themselves in or out. As an example, I might have them send an email and in the subject line, I would have them put the word "STORAGE" in all caps. And if they don't do that, they automatically disqualify themselves. In some cases, depending on the role, I might have them send me—especially if I'm going to do outbound calling, I want to see how they communicate. I'll have them send me a three-minute video explaining a little bit about themselves, their interest, why they're interested in joining the company, why they're interested in this position, what they feel they can bring. And that way I get to see how they communicate. Do they have a thick accent? How do they carry themselves, etc. And that step alone filters out probably 80 to 90% of low-quality applicants. It just instantly shows you who pays attention and who can follow directions. And that's the kind of virtual assistant I want. Somebody who's smart, capable, reliable, can follow directions, is a quick learner, just has a certain work ethic about themselves.

And look, in terms of—cuz I have a coaching client inside the Storage Wins community that I remember he had, he was concerned. He's like, "I don't think I have enough work for this virtual assistant." Well, like three to four months later, he just doubled the virtual assistant's hours. And it's been a complete game-changer for him. I think the VA now is putting in about 30, 35 hours a week where he initially started with like 10 to 15. So he doubled to tripled the virtual assistant's hours. So trust me when I tell you that you can have plenty of work for the virtual assistant. Especially if you're following the blueprint here. If you're following the Cash Flow Maps system that we've laid out for you, then your virtual assistant should always be building your list. They can always be doing any type of outreach. And then I oftentimes get the question like, "Hey, Alex, what should I pay a virtual assistant?" Generally speaking, you're probably going to be anywhere in the $4 to $10 an hour range, depending on their experience, depending on some different factors. But I will tell you that the $6 to $8 an hour range, or $6 to $10 even on the high end, if you found the right person, that can be worth its weight in gold. So that's the—that's the D in the Deals Engine Framework, which is number one is you want to define the role. And again, we have a resource for you that's going to help you.

Now, the E in the Deals Engine Framework is you want to evaluate candidates. And where do you find them? Now, there's a million places you can find virtual assistants. If you just do a Google search, an AI search on ChatGPT or any AI tool that you use, you're going to find numerous places. I like a couple different ones in particular. OnlineJobs.ph is best for loyal, long-term hires. These are people in the Philippines. I like working with Filipinos. I think they have—they're very friendly. They have a strong work ethic. Now, with anything, obviously, you got to interview them. You got to make sure it's the right fit. There's different experience levels. You want to be able to communicate with them and see how they communicate. How's their accent, especially if you're going to have them doing outbound calling. I also like Upwork, which is great for short-term or trial projects. And you can find somebody even long-term on Upwork. And there's agencies out there, and I have mixed feelings on agencies. Often times agencies will charge you premiums. They'll charge you—it could be a placement fee and their USP, their unique selling proposition, is that, hey, they're trained or we're going to train them for you. And again, I have mixed feelings. I have some friends that have some agencies and I think by and large they do a good job, but it's going to cost you. And so if you're not willing to do the work to find the person or you just don't have the time and energy, maybe an agency makes sense. I don't typically recommend them just because they can be very, very expensive. Like they might charge you $10 to $12 an hour and then they're making a spread on you, which is okay if—I don't mind that if they're finding—if they're finding the right virtual assistant, but I often find that you have to train them anyways. So don't abdicate the responsibility of just assuming because they're trained. You still have to train them on your process and your ways and what you're looking for. So I think you're just better off going direct and finding the right person. I've had virtual assistants that have been with me for years. So, when you find the right VA, again, it could be worth its weight in gold.

Now, when you interview these virtual assistants, I always like to ask—there's always two or three things I always ask. One of the things is, "How do you stay organized with repetitive tasks?" Because they're going to be doing the same thing day in and day out. And I want to make sure that they're of the mindset, they have the disposition where they actually like that. They like structure. They like, "Hey, here's what I need to do." And they're also able to think on their own and they're a strong communicator. I always ask sometimes, "Hey, tell me about a time where you had to follow a daily process." And I'm looking for clues that tell me that this might not be the right person. And otherwise, these questions are meant to see if they're going to disqualify themselves. I always like to find out about how reliable is their internet. I have them show me their internet speed, their working setup, do they have an environment that is conducive? Because often times when you work with virtual assistants overseas, they have power outages and the internet goes down. And I've had virtual assistants that ghosted me for like over a month. And it wasn't because they wanted to ghost me, it's because they were in a part of the Philippines where like the power would go out for weeks and months on end and they had no way to communicate. So you want to find out about that. Um, if you're hiring a cold caller, I would always have them record at least a 60-second audio clip so you can hear their fluency, their tone. Sometimes I even roleplay with them like on the spot. And they might not know a thing about storage, but I want to see how they're able to adapt and think on their feet even when they don't have a script, a framework, and the tools. I always hire for attitude and coachability because those are things that you can't really give them. They either have the right attitude and mindset or they don't. They're either coachable or they're not. I'm not looking to take somebody who's not coachable and try to make them coachable. That's not a fit. I'm not looking for real estate experience because I can train that, but I can't train character.

So, moving along here in the Deals Engine Framework. The A is for automate workflows. And here's your Cash Flow Maps Lead Tracker and some of the resources that we're giving you here come in because I just want to kind of give you a bird's-eye view of a workflow example. And number one, let's start with the research phase. And this can be—they spend two to three hours a day on this. And this is they're out there finding new facilities in your buy box markets using Google Maps, using Facebook Marketplace. And as an aside, in the Amplifier training session, there's going to be a section in there called "Accelerate and Dominate" where I get into other ways, other marketing channels for you to go ahead and locate these mom and pop storage facilities. So, don't skip ahead now. Please continue to follow the training here, but once you get to the AMP sessions, you'll find in the Accelerate and Dominate training some specific ways. And you can use that to teach them. Doing Google searches, jumping on Facebook Marketplace, Facebook storage groups, there's a variety of ways, the rent gap sniper method, which again, we're not going to talk about here. That'll be in the AMP sessions. Uh, but really what you want them to do is just collect information. They're a data collector. Collect the name, the address, email, phone number, website, Google review data. Have them fill out your Cash Flow Maps Lead Tracker. Note any poor websites, broken links, missing online presence. Again, you have that Cash Flow Maps Lead Tracker. So, give them access to that.

The second part of this is outreach. And outreach, you can use the Direct Contact Blueprint framework that is a resource in the previous video and make sure that they're taking notes. Make sure that you can just look at a lead and understand where it's at and what phase it's in. And then, I think this is super important that people miss the boat on this, is the reporting phase. Is at the end of the day, especially the first 90 days of you working with somebody, have them send an email updating you on their progress. "Hey, what went well for the day? What questions, concerns, or comments do they have? And then what are they going to be focused on the next day?" And I think it's super, super important that you track certain KPIs, right? Like how many—if they're calling, how many outbound dials, how many meaningful conversations because I think that's what really matters. How many appointments were scheduled. So figure out what are the important KPIs, key performance indicators, that you can track, measure, and hold accountable to. Very, very important. You can keep it simple with Google Sheets. You can use WhatsApp for communication. Loom for creating any type of videos and SOPs and training and things of that nature. If you want to time track, there's something called Time Doctor. I don't—I've used it in the past, but I don't—I trust my process that when I find the right person, I don't want to be looking over their shoulder, but it is an extra layer of accountability. But really, what you want to do is you want to try to automate the inputs, not necessarily the outcomes. So, have them focus on the daily actions that they can control, not necessarily whether a seller calls back. Right? That's probably not going to be a KPI that I track.

But moving on here in the Deals Engine Framework, the L is for lead and manage. And understand that hiring a virtual assistant is not a set-it-and-forget-it move. You still need to lead them. You need to coach them. You need to hold them accountable. And each VA, at least when I—when they work with me, they have some simple KPIs that I just touched on. How many—especially if they're doing on the marketing side, like how many new leads per day? And I want to see a minimum of 25 per day. If they're calling, how long did they call? How many dials? What is the—how many meaningful conversations, which is really the big one I look at. And you can track, you know, there's any number of ways, but you can absolutely use the Cash Flow Maps Lead Tracker. And then once a week, we always do a 10 to 15-minute check-in. "Hey, what's—what are some wins?" We start with the wins. "What are some challenges and things that you need help and support in? And then what's the focus moving forward?" And make sure that they're tied back to the purpose and the why. And it's more than just money. One thing that I like to do is I like to praise consistency. So praise the things that you want more of. Same thing if you're a parent and you have a kid or you have a little one, you—for us anyways, we want to encourage and praise the behavior and the activity that I want more of. And when you recognize progress, your VAs are going to give you their best work. Um, I do like to bonus them if I end up closing a deal. Now, understand that they have zero control if we end up buying a deal or not, but I want them to know that there's this carrot at the end of this long stick that if one of the leads they generate ends up turning into the deal, I'm going to bonus them. And that can be even $1,000, which $1,000 to an overseas virtual assistant can be a lot of money. Understand that. So, make sure that anyone you work with, I don't care if it's a virtual assistant or a high-level COO, that they feel that they're part of the right culture, a community. Sometimes I see people treating virtual assistants like that's just outsource work, whatever. They don't include them in like team meetings and things of that nature. No, they're just as much a part of your team and they're an important part of your team. So, treat them as such. Say thank you, share results, celebrate wins. Loyalty, understand, is a two-way street.

All right, so moving on here, the S in Deals stands for scale and simplicity. Once you've had one virtual assistant running smoothly for a few weeks, you can start to duplicate that system. And here's a pro tip: If you find a really, really good virtual assistant, it's that whole "birds of a feather flock together" and you're looking to grow. Find out if they have any other people like them, any other friends that are looking for work. Now, you still—just because they're referred and recommended, you still want to take them through your process, but it's—I have found virtual assistants that way. So, here are three ways to grow. Number one, you can clone the role by hiring a second virtual assistant to now either assist that person or just do additional research, additional cold calling. I have a friend of mine that has at least two, if not more, virtual assistants that are making outbound dials every single day and they're generating leads as a result. I like to try to promote from within whenever it makes sense. And maybe your virtual assistant can elevate into something else depending on their aptitude, depending on their skill sets, depending on their goals. And then you can start to elevate where eventually, maybe if you want to step out of the acquisitions role, which I don't recommend at this stage for you, you can possibly find the right person to do that. So look, filter all of this with your goals and your vision, right? Like you may not have a goal to build a big team and that's perfectly fine, but I think a virtual assistant, the right virtual assistant, can help you buy back your time and take a lot off of your plate that isn't worth you spending your time. Okay? Because every—every 10 hours of repetitive work should be at least in a standard operating procedure. That's how it starts to compound. One of the things I like to do is teach and train a virtual assistant on a certain process. Most of the time I'll have an SOP for that, but if not, I'll have them create the SOP or I will train them once on a video and then we'll convert that into a playbook or a standard operating procedure. And the amazing thing is that these days with AI, you can feed it a transcript and you can have it knock out just an incredible standard operating procedure or playbook for you. So that's how you start to build this deal flow machine where whatever it is that you're doing, I always ask myself, "Can I automate this? Can I delegate it? Can I outsource it? Or can I delete it?" Sometimes we do things that just—we do it out of habit, but we don't necessarily have to do it.

So, here's your action plan: Download the resource and you might want to figure out, hey, maybe you're not at the time where you want to hire a virtual assistant, but give yourself a deadline and say, "Hey, I'm going to continue to do this work and maybe 30, 60, 90 days from now is the time to place an ad on OnlineJobs.ph or Upwork or any number of places and start to bring on a virtual assistant that can help you with your marketing, can help you with your research, and maybe even doing outbound dialing for you." So, this is one where it's not a one-size-fits-all. You really have to determine where you're at in life and in your career, in business. Do you have a full workload and you have family and kids and you know, you're just—if you're not going to be consistent putting in the time, energy, and effort, then find somebody that will and then start to generate those leads. But at the end of the day, you're going to have to sacrifice something if you ultimately truly, truly want to have success in the storage business. You want to close your first deal, you want to generate cash flow, build wealth. There's going to be an exchange of time, energy, and so don't shy away from that, but lean into it. So, with that being said, I want to encourage you to start thinking about building your deal flow machine and see how fast momentum starts to build when it just doesn't rely on you.

Welcome to the Deal Filter System video. And this is actually the last video of the Deal Flow module 3. And by the end of this video, you're going to be able to look at any storage deal and know within minutes if it's worth your time. Now, I want to be clear about something. This is meant to take you from confusion to give you confidence and clarity. So, this isn't meant to go full deep dive underwriting where we're looking at everything from like every little line item of expenses and everything. This is the Deal Filter System. It's a simple five-minute process to see whether the deal deserves a deep dive or not. In fact, I've gotten coaching clients that are so good at this that within one to two minutes, they're able to determine, "Hey, let's dive deeper," or, "Hey, let's just pass on this." Now, again, the goal is to build confidence and speed. We're going to filter fast. We're going to find the truth in the numbers, and we're only going to focus on where the returns justify the work.

So, here's step one of this process. And step one is more about zooming out. You know, now that you've been equipped and you have your buy box blueprint, right? You understand your market map, the MAP IT framework that we talked about in module two. I want you to ask yourself here, before you even touch a spreadsheet, before you look at the numbers, is like, when you look at a deal, does it fit your buy box blueprint with regards to market size? What's the story of the mom and pop? Like, where is their potential value-add? Do they not have automation or marketing or a website? Remember we talked about the storage scan. Those are some of the things I just want you to think through. But if you just want to look at any storage facility and just determine within a couple of minutes if it makes sense to dive deeper or not, I want to introduce you to something I call the Filter Framework, which is very on-brand considering that this video is called the Deal Filter System. Well, this is the Filter Framework, and this is just a simple mental model that I put together that helps keep you focused and consistent.

Now, I'm just going to quickly touch on what each letter of the Filter Framework is, and then I'm going to specifically dive on one area, which is the T, and that is where we're rolling up our sleeves and we're quickly looking at the numbers. So, the F is: Find the facts. And I want you to start with what's real. You may or may not have a lot of information, but if you just have the revenue, if you can estimate the expenses, and we'll talk about that here, you can just quickly get to the truth. So, it's just like, "Hey, what are the facts here?" The I is: Investigate the market because demand drives value. And it's important that when you're looking at a facility, especially one that you want to actually purchase to own and operate, you need to understand what's going on in that market. What's the median household income? Where's the population? You have to know if there's demand for storage, like the supply and demand, or what's called the supply index. Is the market shrinking and contracting or is it growing and expanding? Super, super important that you understand what's going on in the market. Now, if you're just looking to wholesale, it's probably more about price and/or terms, getting the right deal that has enough meat on the bone so that you can find the right end buyer for it.

The L in the Filter Framework is: Look for leverage. Okay, where can we move the needle? Are the rents below market? Do they not have any fee income like tenant protection, late fees, auction fees, admin fees? Is there no website? So, where can you potentially go in as an operator and increase the value of the facility? Now, the T is for: Test the math. And this is where we're going to spend the majority of our time and energy in this particular training. And this is where you really discover what the facility is truly worth based on income and based on something called a cap rate. And don't freak out. I don't want to throw too much industry jargon your way. I'll easily explain what a cap rate is. And I don't care if you failed math or if you are the worst when it comes to numbers. I've made it super, super simple and easy for you. So don't freak out on me. The E in the Filter Framework is: Exit strategy. You know, one of the things I learned early on from a mentor was, before you even buy a deal, you have to understand the exit. Okay? So, think about this ahead. Is this a facility that you want to hold for cash flow? Do you want to do a cash-out refi in 12 to 24, 36 months? Do you want to stabilize it? Meaning, you want to increase the occupancy, generate more revenue, increase the overall value of the facility, and then sell it so that you can capitalize on all that value you created. Um, because clarity at the end of the day really is going to shape how you're going to buy it. When I bought my first and third storage facility in Mississippi, I knew that it wasn't a facility that I wanted to hold on to long-term for cash flow because I just didn't want to be in that market. It was a facility I intentionally bought to increase the value to turn around and sell it within 18 to 36 months. And that's exactly the strategy that I executed on.

The R is for: Ready to offer, comma, refine, or reject. Okay, ready to offer. In other words, you're ready to go ahead and send an offer via an LOI, a letter of intent. And we have a specific training on how to put together an LOI in the Amplifier training section. So, don't skip ahead. I just wanted to make that known. You're ready to make an offer. You need to refine some things, or you're just going to go ahead and reject once you've reviewed the numbers. Okay? If it fits, you move forward. If not, you refine it or you cut it loose. And momentum beats perfection every day and twice on Sunday.

So now let's really hone in on the T in the Filter Framework, which is: Test the math. I need you to understand that unlike the residential world where the value of a single-family home, the value of a house is determined by comps, comparable sales, in storage and in commercial real estate, the value of the asset is determined by the income that that asset generates and produces. So when we have something called revenue, right? That's all the gross rents, that's any fee income. So that's the gross revenue minus expenses, which are the expenses it takes to operate a storage facility. And I'm going to talk about that and elaborate a little bit more in just a few minutes. That gives you the NOI, the Net Operating Income. So now understand that revenue minus expenses gives you the NOI. That doesn't take into account debt. In other words, if you went to a bank and you got a loan, you have something called debt service. That doesn't factor debt service into that equation. It's just the gross revenue minus the expenses that it takes to operate that storage facility and that business gives you the NOI, the Net Operating Income. The value of that asset, in other words, the value of that storage facility is determined by the NOI. If you increase the NOI, the value of the facility goes up. If you decrease the NOI, the value of the facility goes down. So, it's really, really important that you understand that in storage, we're not going out there and checking comps. We're not checking comparable sales. We are looking at the NOI, which is the Net Operating Income that that asset produces. That is what drives the value. And you're going to see here because I have a Cash Flow Maps Cap Rate Calculator and Offer Range Calculator that you're going to get as part of this course, which is going to make things really, really easy for you.

Now, in storage, the operating expense ratio, generally speaking, is between 35 and 40% of the gross revenue. So, what does that mean? Let's say that a storage facility generates $100,000 in annual revenue. A facility generates $100,000 in annual revenue. It's going to take between $35,000 and $40,000 to operate that facility, the expenses it has, taxes, insurance, your boots on the ground, if you have a manager, things of that nature. Okay? Utilities, etc. So, 35 to 40%. Now, a couple of things that you should know. If it's a larger facility, then it could be a lot closer to that 35% number. In other words, as a general rule of thumb, the larger the facility, the lower the operating expense ratio. The smaller the facility, the higher the expense ratio. So, I like to be between—when I evaluate deals, I usually plug in 37 to 40% operating expense ratio. If you're in a rural market, right, then expenses could run heavier, or if you're in a smaller market, because you just don't have the economies of scale. You're limited there. Uh, so just as a general rule of thumb, for every dollar of revenue that a facility produces, it's going to take about 35 to 40 cents of that to operate it. Hopefully that makes sense.

Now let's transition into this fancy word, cap rate, which you may already know what that is. You may have heard it. You may have no clue. And you're looking at me like I have 17 heads. Here's the best way I can simplify it: The cap rate is just the expected annual return if you bought the property all cash. So, what is the return that you would get on this investment on this asset if you bought the property cash? Now, don't worry. I'm not expecting you to go buy these properties cash. I'm not assuming you have the cash to go buy these properties. So, forget about that aspect of it. Just understand that cap rate is an expression of value. If a facility cost $500,000 and you bought that facility for $500,000, what is the net return on that investment? That is the cap rate. So, let's take a simple example. If you see a facility and they're advertising it as a 10 cap, right? That means that you would earn 10% of your purchase price each year in net income, assuming it was an actual 10 cap. We'll talk about pro forma and we'll talk about how brokers tend to inflate the numbers and for you not to fall into that trap. So, we'll definitely touch on that. But all the cap rate does is it tells a story about the risk profile. It tells a story about the market type. And one thing that I think is important for you to know is that the higher the cap rate, generally speaking, that's going to come with more risk, but it's also going to come with a higher return. The lower the cap rate comes with less risk in theory and a lower return. So if you're in a primary market like a big metropolitan city like Miami or Los Angeles, right, the cap rates, what they say trade for means what they sell for is a lot lower in those markets. It could be, you know, years ago it was properties were trading at four caps. It could be five or six caps right now. Now, in smaller markets, like a tertiary market or a rural market, the cap rates tend to trade higher, and that could be in the 8 to 12% range. So, that's why when we analyze most deals, 8 to 12% is really kind of the range of both sides for the most part.

So, I'm going to go ahead and I want to share my screen and I'm going to introduce you now to the Cash Flow Maps Cap Rate Calculator and the Quick Offer Range Calculator. So, check this out. I think you're going to really enjoy this and find this very, very interesting. Okay, so there's a couple different ways that you can go about this. Remember how in the previous video we talked about like if all I had was the revenue, either the monthly revenue or the annual revenue, then that's enough for me to make an offer. Well, check out how simple this is and how easy I think we've made it for you here. So right here, all you have to do is if you get the monthly gross revenue on a storage facility, all you have to do is put it into this cell that's highlighted yellow, and it is going to automatically spit out an offer range based on as high as a 12 cap to as low as an 8 cap. So, in this particular example, let's say we were on the phone with a storage owner and they were generating $15,000 a month in annual—and I'm sorry, $15,000 a month in gross revenue. Then our offer based if we were looking at anywhere between an 8% cap rate and a 12% cap rate would be somewhere between $900,000 and $1.35 million. Now, if you get the annual number, it's just one extra little step. All you have to do is divide that by 12 and then put that number into here. Okay? That way you get the monthly revenue. So let's say they tell you it's $120,000 in annual revenue, or $100,000 in annual revenue. You divide it by 12. And that number is what you're going to put into the monthly gross revenue number here. And that gives you a range.

The other thing you could do is sometimes we don't have the revenue, but we have the square footage of the facility because we're able to go on Google Maps and we're able to use the measure distance tool and we can get an approximation. Well, if we can get an approximation on the net rentable square footage and we know that in that market, we look at the storage facilities within a five-mile radius. We look at the websites and we determine that on average a 10x10 goes for $70 a month in this hypothetical example. Well, what's 10 * 10? That's 100 square feet of storage. If they're asking $70 and most facilities the rent is $70, all you're doing is 70 divided by 100 is 70 cents a foot. So, if you just plug in here in the yellow the approximate net rentable square footage and then you figure out what the price per square foot is, it'll automatically give you a projected annual net operating income. Okay? And that's based on a 40% operating expense ratio and based on a 15% vacancy rate. But here's—this is really where I want to take your attention to. Here is the cap rate calculator. So, I like this definitely more than this one. This is useful if you don't have any information, but all you do is you have the size of the facility and then you can look at the competitors to determine what is the average price per foot. This is helpful if you have the monthly revenue number. But here's where this can be extremely valuable. When you're talking to a storage owner and let's say, let's continue to use this $15,000 number and let's say they tell you, "Yeah, our

"facility generates $15,000 a month in revenue." Well, all you got to do is go to this line item here, which is tells you $15,000, which is $180,000 in annual revenue. Okay, this is going to automatically calculate the expenses.

Now, if you want to adjust it to a 35% expense ratio, all you have to do is right here in this cell that's highlighted yellow, change it to 35% and it'll automatically update this expense column. If you want to put 37%, 39, 40, even if you wanted to put 45%, it would do the math for you. So, let's go back here to 15,000.

And you can see that right here based on it'll give you the value of the facility based on a 12 cap, an 11 cap, a 10, a 9, an 8, a 7, a six, all the way to a four cap. So remember earlier when I said the the lower the cap rate, the the lower the risk, but also the lower the return. Well, the lower the cap rate, that means it's more valuable. The higher the cap rate, it's coming at a at a lower price. So, what does that mean? When we buy storage, we want to buy at the highest possible cap rate. When we sell storage, we want to sell at the lowest possible cap rate.

Here's a perfect example. Check this out. If a facility generated $15,000 in monthly revenue or $180,000 in annual revenue, at a 12 cap, the facility is worth $900,000. But check out the the value at a 4 cap, $2.7 million.

So, this offer range calculator just quickly when you're on the phone with somebody or when you have the annual the monthly or the annual revenue, all you have to do is determine what expense ratio you want to use depending on the size of the facility, depending on the market like we talked about earlier. And then right here, it'll give you a range based on a certain cap rate. Now, I will say that a lot of facilities these days are probably trading in like the 8 cap, 7 to 8 cap range, but I think it's it's extremely critical that you understand that when you make an offer, make an offer based on the current numbers. Don't make an offer based on the what brokers will will refer to as the proforma, which is the future value.

In other words, oftent times you'll see on a broker's OM, the offering memorandum that they'll show you the actual numbers and they'll show you the proforma. And the proforma looks really, really sexy and it looks intriguing and the numbers look great, but that is based on if you were to increase the rents, if you were to reduce expenses, if you were to add fee income, and they're expecting you and wanting you to pay for the value that they haven't created. So, I don't want you to make offers based on the proforma. I don't want you to make offers on what it could be worth. I want you to make the offer based on the current NOI, the current net operating income. And this cash flow maps cap rate calculator is a great way for you to determine more or less what's this facility worth today based on the income it's generating. All you need to do is figure out what the monthly or annual revenue is and then figure out what expense ratio you want to apply and the cap rate calculator will do the rest for you.

Okay. Now, if you have the monthly revenue, now let let's cross check this. So, you might be thinking, "Hey, Alex, why two different calculators?" Well, one is the offer range calculator and the cap rate calculator. So, this just gives you a range so you kind of know if you're even in the ballpark when the seller says, "Hey, I'm looking for a million dollar." Okay. Well, are we even in the range? But let's let's cross check it and let's let's do the math.

So, this is saying $15,000 in monthly revenue, which means that at a 12 cap, this facility is worth 900,000. At an 8 cap, it's worth 1.35. So, let's take a look at this. 12 cap is right here. All right, this column. And let's look at the row for 15,000 which is row 34. So boom, there it is at a 12 cap 900,000 which is exactly what we have here. Offer at a 12 cap 900. Let's look at the offer at an 8 cap. So at an 8 cap, we're going to go right down here. 1.35. There it is. $15,000. So here, let's let's go ahead and highlight this row. 1.35 is column M, which is at an 8 cap. So the math checks out.

So use this tool when you're on the phone, when you're when you're doing your direct contact blueprint, you know, you're doing outreach, whether that's from any type of marketing channel, cold calling, direct mail, whatever it is. All you got to do is get a few key pieces of information and then you can quickly determine, hey, are we even in the range? What's what's a property worth?

All right, so let me go ahead and stop sharing my screen now and share with you guys a few more things that I think is important. Now, I've I've shared with you with just the information you have, you can already determine what the value of a facility is and with with either the quick offer range calculator or with the cap rate calculator. We talked about proforma. All right.

Now, when you look at proforma, that's the wouldbe and oftent times they will bake in lower expense ratios. So, if you ever see 15, 20, 25% expense ratios, kind of a red flag, right? If you're talking to a mom and pop storage owner that has 15 or 20% operating expense ratios, that makes sense because they're the ones probably managing the facility. They're doing all the work themselves, but you're not going to do all the work yourself. You're going to have a boots on the ground team member or or if it's a larger facility, you might choose to go third party management. So, you're going to have expenses that mom and pop storage owner is not going to have. And you need to be able to explain that to them.

Often times with proformas, there's a gap and a difference between the physical occupancy and the economic occupancy. Now, what's the difference between the two? The physical occupancy is, hey, there's a customer that actually has their stuff in a unit, but they're not paying. It's physically occupied, but it's not generating any revenue. The economic occupancy is the percentage that that the facility would generate if it were 100% occupied. Let's say we have a 100 unit storage facility and it could generate $50,000 in annual revenue. Let's just say for simple math, but it's only generating $25,000 in annual revenue. Well, that's a 50% economic occupancy, right? It's only generating half of the revenue it could generate. Now, it could be 100% occupied. All 100 units could be full. But if it's only generating 25 grand when it could generate 50 grand, it's 50% economically occupied and 100% physically occupied. There's a big difference between those two and it's important that you know that.

Now, look, with all that being said, I got I got one more calculator, right? And it's really like the street rate gap that I'm going to talk to you about. But I just want you to be 85 to 90% confident. You you don't have to be 100% confident. In fact, there hasn't been a storage facility that I bought that I was a,000% confident on every single number. There's going to be some assumptions that you bake in, but you want to mitigate against the potential risk. You want to run it through the deal filter system. You want to verify income and expenses and then the market, the demand. You want to verify all that and you want to go through your process and feel really, really confident. But when we look at deals, I never buy a deal based on the best case scenario. I always look at a deal through three lenses. What is the worst case scenario? What is my likely scenario? And what is my best case scenario? I'll never buy on the best case. I usually buy on the worst case because if I can make the numbers work on the worst case scenario that I know that everything else is gravy and upside and I'm likely going to achieve my likely scenario. If everything breaks right, that's that's a cherry on top, right? That's the dessert. But I'm never ever buying on the best case scenario.

Now, the last thing I want to share with you, and this is super important. I want you to look at something I call the street rate gap. This is where essentially we're looking at the spread between the current rates and the market rents. So, I'm going to give you a simple six-step system. Number one, I want you to search all of the storage facilities within a five mile radius of the subject facility that you're looking at. And you can quickly pop this into a Google spreadsheet. And really for now, all I want you to do is focus on two unit types and sizes. I want you to look at the 10x10s in the area. And I want you to look at the 10 by 15s in the area that when you calculate the average of those, you'll have a really really strong and firm indicator of what the market price per square foot is.

So, as an example, let's say that we have two 10x10s and let's say that those we have one 10x10 that they're charging 60 and the other 10 x10 at another facility 70. Well, we can assume pretty safely that the average price per square foot is 65 or the average rent for a 10 x 10 in that market. If one is at 60 and one is at 70, you take the average that's $65. Now, let we we'll look at the 10 x5s. Now if you take 10 * 15 that's 150 ft of storage. Now let's say that a 10 x 15 is one is at 70 and the other one is at 80. So that's 75. All right. Now in this case if we take $75 and we divide that by 150 ft of storage. That's going to give us the price per square foot which is 50. And so when we take the average of those we're going to now get the market price per square foot. And we want to be able to compare that to the subject facility.

So like let's say the subject facility, the 10 by10s, they're charging $40, but they should be charging 65. And let's say the 10 by 15s, they're charging $50, but they should be charging 75. That is a gap. That gap represents value for us. That means that if we were to buy this facility and we go in and all we did was raise the rents to match the average of the market street rates, we're instantly creating value. That's exactly what I did at my Florida facility when we bought this several years ago. We bought it on 90% seller financing and the rates were literally half of what the average market rates were. So, as an example, the 10x10s, I believe at the time that we bought it were at 40 bucks, but the average of the market was around $80. So, when we bought the facility, we were literally able to go in and double the rates, and we just added significant value and equity to our facility just by bumping the rents and generating more revenue.

When you compare to the subject facility, I I want you to figure out multiply the difference by the total rentable square footage to see what the revenue lift is. If all of a sudden we took our 10 x10s from 40 to 65, what revenue would that generate at $65? Figure that out. Same thing. What if we took the 10 x5s from I think we said 45 or $50 and we bumped it to 75, which is the average of the market. How much revenue would it generate?

So, let's say in the hypothetical, the facility is currently generating $100,000, but if we went ahead and we increased the rates, it would take our annual revenue to $120,000. Well, now at $120,000, apply the same operating expense ratio, which is either 35 or 40%, whatever you're using, and divide it by that number. So, we have revenue minus expenses gives us our NOI. The NOI divided by the purchase price gives us the cap rate. Or another way to do it is the NOI divided by the cap rate gives you the value of the facility. I'll give you an example. $100,000 and we were to divide it by an 8 cap. Okay? We'll take $100,000 and we will divide that by 0.08 or 8%. That gives us $1.25 million in value. But let's say we can take the NOI from 100,000 to 120,000. The NOI, not the revenue, the NOI. Well, all of a sudden, remember the value at an a cap on a $100,000 of NOI is 1.25 million. Let's see how much more it's worth if we can just increase the NOI by $20,000 annually. So, we'll do $120,000 divided by the same 8 cap or 8%. And now that's 1.5 million. So, we've added $250,000 in value from 1.25 25 to 1.5 just by increasing the NOI $20,000 in a year. So you see how it has a multiple effect on the value and we're able to generate more income. That's the beauty of self- storage where you can't achieve that with single family. When single family, if you generate an extra $100 in rent, it's not adding hundreds of thousands of dollars of value to the property. But in storage, when we can generate more NOI, that's the name of the game. increase occupancy, generate more revenue, try to reduce expenses as much as possible, and generate the highest NOI possible that drives the value.

And then from there, step five is decision time. If the numbers make sense, we'll then graduate to go further deeper on the underwriting. That's where we're starting to look at the different expense line items. And the deal filter system isn't about perfection. It it's about progress. We want to filter fast. We want to focus deep. We want to keep building momentum. And this will give you the confidence to be able to make offers to be able to put offers on an LOI to be able to even verbally, you know, hey, Mr. Seller, I'm I'm based on the the net operating income, based on the income the assets producing right now, I'm likely going to be in in this range. Would it even make sense for me to put that offer in writing and put the ball back on their court?

Now, I subscribe to the thinking that pretty much if they're open to selling, you should make an offer. If you don't make an offer, it's the equivalent of trying to play baseball and not stepping out on the field. All right? So, you can here's what I'd like for you to do. I want you to practice this now. I want you to find three deals. Find three opportunities. I don't care if it's a deal or not, but I want you to get comfortable running the numbers through the cash flow maps cap rate calculator and the offer range calculator. And then even filter it through the street rate gap. So now go to the facility, look at the facilities in the market, start looking at the 10x10s and the 10 x5s to figure out what is the market price per square foot and determine, hey, this is the current revenue, but this is what the revenue could be if I was to buy it and just raise the rents. There's other things we can do like fee income, you know, like tenant protection, auction fees, late fees, all those things just generate more revenue and help us increase the value of the facility.

All right. So, download the cash flow maps cap rate calculator and offer range calculator and and remember one thing, deals aren't really found. They're created and you could be one deal away from freedom. So, that is my plea and my call to action is download that resource, find three deals, start running it through it, and just start getting comfortable. Just start seeing, hey, what's the monthly revenue? What's the annual revenue? Pop it in there. and and even if you didn't have it, you could simply do it on your on your phone. I mean, it's that simple.

So, I look forward to now that we've wrapped up module three, I'm looking forward to hopping into module 4. Congratulations, you made it. Once you watch this video, you would have completed the entire cash flow maps acquisition system. You've learned how to define your buy box, how to set your market map, how to find and fund these deals, how to close like a pro, and how to stabilize your facility in the first 30, 60, and 90 days. and ultimately close with confidence. Now, here comes the part that most investors will never master and that's just turning a simple deal into freedom. Okay? And the video, this particular video is called the facility freedom method because it's where you're going to go from operator to owner. And from being the one who might do everything to being the one who designs the system that does everything so that the facilities can continue to generate revenue for you, make you and earn net cash flow while you're sleeping regardless of what you're doing. And so that you can if you can run one facility remotely, then you can run multiple facilities remotely.

And as we close out module five, which is about winning the deal, I want this session to feel like a celebration and a little bit of a reset because this is the beginning of the next level for you. So before we get tactical, there's something I want to remind you of. And I've said this numerous times already in the cash flow map system. I say this a lot inside of our storage wins community, but this business rewards progress, not perfection. It's all about having a mindset where you're going to take massive imperfect action. And I want to encourage you with something. Don't ever feel like you need to have every single answer before you make a move. Right? But trust that if you take that first step and then the next one, the next one, you're going to start to build momentum. And with every phone call, every system you create, every relationship you build, that's going to compound and grow your confidence.

So, as we step into this final video, before we even get into the amplifier training sessions, which we got a lot of goodies in there for you, remember that what I said from the beginning, and I'm going to repeat it now, and this is going to be a book ends. Clarity creates confidence. Confidence is what starts to create that freedom. Okay? So, the facility freedom method, the way that I've designed this video is built on three simple pillars. Number one, it's about systems which create consistency. Number two, people create leverage. And number three, rhythm creates results. If you can master these and your storage business is going to start to run without you and it can grow without you because you have the right systems in place, you have the right people and and understand that really in the first pillar, which is systems create consistency, freedom begins and starts with structure. If something I want you to have the mindset that if something happens more than once, it deserves a process and a system. Think about all the tasks that you and your team do repeatedly either on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. And just to throw out a few things like when a tenant moves in or a tenant moves out or a tenant is late, a unit becomes vacant, okay, and your boots on the ground now has to go in there and do a unit cleanout, you know, update the system. Any type of marketing, bookkeeping, reports, like all those deserve systems and it deserves a process and and you can document them. You can record a simple Loom video. These days we have incredible and powerful AI tools like chat GPT or claude or all these other ones, right? Grock. Well, you can leverage these tools to help you design a standard operating procedure, okay? A system, a checklist, a structure. And the goal is that anybody on your team could step in and execute that with or without you. Because systems don't ultimately remove you from the business. I I think what they do, the way that I like to look at them is they end up multiplying you. And when your system runs smoothly, the facility becomes far more valuable. Not just the value that you create, but to the business, right? The enterprise value, the way that banks and lenders are going to see it, potential buyers, partners, etc. Okay? Cuz like I said before, freedom comes from clarity, not complexity. A mentor of mine years ago told me something I'll never forget. He said, "Simplicity scales, complexity fails."

Pillar two, when you think about people that create leverage, that's the next step. It's all about delegation. Okay? But it has to be about delegation done right because you don't get freedom by doing everything yourself. You only got 24 hours in a day. So the way that you're going to build that bridge and ultimately get to freedom, it's not just with the systems, but then it's the people that run the system. It's by empowering others to do it with you and for you. And an example of that, your boots on the ground. How does he handle cleaning out units? How does he maintain the grounds? The call center, how do they deal with with customer support issues? Virtual assistants, if you have one, how do they manage the data and handle the marketing and the follow-ups? The bookkeeper, what is what is the cadence, the rhythm? What is the process to do the books? Management company, if if you're working with one, how do they handle the day-to-day operations? What is your communication with them? Everyone in the business needs clarity. And I like to use a a simple framework that I learned years ago, which is what, when, why, and measure. Okay? So, what's expected? When is it due? Super, super important. Why does it matter? And it's important that this is a big one because if you don't get buyin from your team and your team members, then it's probably not sustainable. If they don't understand why it matters, they might not think it doesn't matter or it doesn't matter that it's due on this particular day. And then ultimately, how are you going to measure success? Like I said in the last video, what you measure and track will grow and expand. So, how are you going to measure and define success and understand that delegation is not about abdicating your responsibility? I've made that mistake before and it's bitten me in the butt. It's about creating accountability. So, if you haven't yet, make sure that now now once you're done with this video, you start to go through the amplifier training where like in as an example in the amplifier training sessions, we have a dedicated video on how you can find and hire your local boots on the ground team member. And anybody you hire, it's it's an extremely important team member. I don't care if it's a virtual assistant, a boots on the ground, a call center, a third party management company, or anybody in between.

Super super important. Rhythm uh pillar three I should say it's about rhythm creating results. Freedom isn't about just checking out and it's like hey I'm going to go to Tahiti I'll be on a beach for for 9 months and I'll check back in. Okay, it's you need to establish a consistent operating cadence and and what does that look like? And if it's not you, it's got to be somebody. Maybe that's an a partner or a chief operating officer. But when it comes to like weekly touch points and the cadence and rhythm, you want to make sure that you're communicating and you have at least a weekly meeting with your boots on the ground. All right, I like to review the reports, occupancy reports, revenue reports, delinquencies, moveins, moveouts, all those types of things on a weekly basis. Bi-weekly, I meet with my thirdparty management company. That's in our case. Monthly, I'm meeting with my bookkeeper. We're doing revenue rate management. Again, I'm looking big picture month over month at the reports. Quarterly, I'm looking at the reports as well. I'm also thinking about how are we trending from a net operating income perspective. Capex being in tune with like what needs to be done and getting ahead of things. Uh growth goals, right? Every business has should set goals and it's like, okay, this is where we were last year. This is where we are now. How do we get to that next level for us? How do we be the market leader in our particular 5, seven milei radius, whatever the case might be. Owners do not just do business, okay? They lead through the metrics, having the meetings, having the right systems and processes, having the right team members. Uh, one of the books behind me, which is a great book I highly recommend by Jim Collins, it's called Good to Great. And I think the way I would summarize that, it's about having the right people on the right bus and in the right seat. So, one of the things I I share with coaching clients is you want to be a student of sales, marketing, and leadership. If you can get good at those three things, you will never starve. I don't care what you do and what business you're involved in. Storage is no different.

Once you start to build this rhythm, you're going to start to see something pretty awesome happen. You're going to be less reactive. You're going to have more clarity, more confidence, more control without necessarily having to do more work. Why? because the systems and the processes and the people that run these systems and processes are doing most of this for you. All right, so look, as we start to bring this to an end here, I I want to talk about like what does freedom really mean? Because for me, it's not just about more time, more money. It's just it's freedom of choice. It's the choice to spend your time with who you want and how you want. The choice to work with certain people you like and respect. the choice to step away for a period of time knowing that your business is going to continue to grow and th and thrive. And I think ultimately if you're watching this and you've gotten to this point, that's why you're so committed to storage in the first place because it's a business that can serve your life, not a life that serves your business. And that's one thing that I learned from a a coach of mine years ago. It's about creating a vision for your life and then building a business that supports and enhance that vision. where most people do the reverse. They pack their calendar with meetings and all this business stuff and then they don't have time for life. That's the beauty of self- storage. It it's a business that can give you your time back if done properly. And if you've gotten to this point, you now have the road map. You have the system to do this. All right.

So, look, here's what I want to encourage you to do. Couple final things. Now that you've completed the cash flow maps acquisition system, your next step is to go and amplify everything you've learned. And that's why we have designed the amplifier training sessions, okay? Where we go deeper into certain topics like finding and hiring a boots on the ground team member. We talk about different marketing channels to generate more leads and find more mom and pop storage facilities. We talk about the instant payday. It's like, hey, if maybe you need to generate a chunk of cash and you can find these facilities and wholesale them or you can scale from one facility to many without losing freedom. Uh, and then we're going to talk about something that's been foundational to my success. I mean, this has meant everything to me, and it's coaching and community. Because look, you can have the best road map in the world. And I believe you have that now with self- storage, but if you're trying to do this alone, progress is going to be a lot slower and at times it can be a lot harder. And that is the main reason I created the storage winds coaching community. This is where we walk alongside you to help you find your first or your next storage deal, help you get across the finish line. Because what you ultimately get, it's not just a clear road map that's customized to your particular goals and the resources that you may or may not have, but we give you and equip you the tools and resources to be able to execute with confidence. We give you ongoing coaching and guidance, accountability, and support. Here's the best part. All of that with the right people, like-minded individuals who are seeking the same thing you're seeking in many cases who have already achieved their first, in some cases second, third, even fourth storage deals. So, there's just a healthy mix of experience in there. And for me, finding the right coach, being a part of the right community, that has meant everything. There's no way I would be where I'm at right now if it wasn't for the right people pouring into my life and surrounding myself with just like-minded individuals who are a few steps ahead or in some cases many steps ahead of where I'm going and where I want to go. So the the first video I want you to watch in the amplifier training section is what we call the freedom path and this is about the storage winds coaching community and we'll share with you exactly how the ecosystem works how you can plug in and accelerate your path to true freedom.

Now look I have outlined and designed you to have everything you need here. But if you want to move faster with the right people and you want the support and the guidance on a frequent basis and you want access to deal flow, in some cases access to capital because of the organic relationships that are built inside of our storage wins community, I would encourage you to click the link somewhere on this page. Definitely watch the freedom path and the amplifier training sessions and then you can continue to build and go from there. Look, either way, you've got the map, you got the framework, you have already started to hopefully build momentum. Now, it's time to execute. Because if you have spent the last 7 to 10 hours with me or whatever it's been, but you don't execute, you don't put into action what you have learned, then it's all for nothing. then yes, you have a lot more knowledge than most people have, but what good is that going to do you if you don't take that massive imperfect action that I really think has been the theme throughout the whole cash flow maps training? And it's it's kind of the foundation of our storage wins coaching community. It's having that attitude of progress, not perfection. It's staying consistent. It's knowing and trusting that you're not always going to have all the answers, but hopefully now you have this this road map. And I I would say hopefully you decide to surround yourself with like-minded individuals who can give you the support and the guidance and the answers when you inevitably sometimes just get stuck and you don't know what to do because we don't know what we don't know and we might not have that experience. Remember something life and business they were not meant to be done alone. So understand that your freedom is a lot closer than you think. So my invitation to you is to learn more in the amplifier training session with the freedom path and let's go build it together.

By now you have already defined your buy box blueprint, mapped out your markets, started having meaningful conversations with storage owners. We are building momentum. You're analyzing deals. You now understand the funding options map and and you're starting to see how everything is coming together based on everything we've talked about so far here in cash flow maps. But now it's time to talk about something that will completely, I believe, change your life and your business. And that is how to build relationships that lead to money. Because look, here's the truth. Capital does not chase spreadsheets. It chases trust. And this is the second piece of our fearless funding module. And it's all about capital connections. And something I call the capital connections network. But understand that this is not going to develop and happen overnight. You need to be very mindful, thoughtful, and intentional about building out your capital connections network. So, believe me when they say Rome was not built in a day. So, let's think long term here. But if you just start being very intentional, and I'm going to share with you exactly what you should do, your mindset, how you should approach it, then you're going to have all the capital you could possibly ever need for your storage deals.

So, look, you you've probably heard me say this before, but every storage deal I've done, every single one has come through a relationship. It hasn't been through luck. It hasn't been through paid ads, not through some secret marketing hack that doesn't exist. It's through people. It's from investing into people and investing into relationships. So, when I talk about relationship capital, what that's what I really mean. It's the equity that you build in people. It's the trust, the connections, the goodwill, and and eventually, especially when you do it without expecting something in return, that can bridge over to the financial capital that you need. Particularly when you develop a reputation where you always show up and do what you say you're going to do. And that is so important. I want to continue to harp on that because if you miss that, and if you're doing this with some agenda in mind, just because you want capital, then people are going to see through it. And while you might generate some capital and you might get some money for your deals, it's not going to be sustainable over the long run. All right? And I want you to think long term here. Don't think transactionally. Think relationally. And look, relationship capital to me is really one of the few capitals that really compounds forever. All right? Markets fluctuate. Interest rates are going to rise and fall. But but the relationships that you build today can fund your next 10 to 20 deals. It can fund any deal you ever want to be in part of. Okay? And this is what starts to change your life. And that's why relationship capital, I've always said, is the most valuable capital that you can raise. All right? And not that long ago, I I did a talk to some of the most successful storage investors in the country. And the title of the talk was how to raise the most valuable capital to grow your life and storage business, and it's relationship capital.

Now, every investor that I know tracks ROI, right? And that's the return on your investment. But I want you to start tracking a different KPI. One that I think is equally as important if not more and that's ROR and that's return on relationship. ROR think of that as the value that you create by giving to people by contributing by connecting and essentially just showing up and serving others. Okay? It's not about what you take from them. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's about what you give them. So I want you to just pause for a moment and ask yourself, who did I follow up with this week? How did I show up? Who did I connect with? Who did I encourage without asking for something or expecting something in return? Whose candle did I light? And remember what I just said about the candle because I have something I want to share with you a little bit later on in this video. But when you make those daily deposits into people's lives and into their businesses, you're going to be amazed how fast the withdrawal starts showing up. And that could be in the form of deals. That could be in the form of introductions. That can be in the form of just connections or capital. I mean, so many doors and opportunities open up for you. Why? Because it's my core belief that when you show up and you give and you're genuine and you're authentic, the laws of reciprocation are always going to tip back in your favor.

And years ago, and I I don't remember the first time that I that I saw this, but there was a a video that I think I saw on Instagram or Facebook, and it was a professor standing in front of a class, and he had this big glass jar on a table. And you've probably seen this. I would encourage you to YouTube it or find it because it's probably got, I don't know, probably over a hundred million views, if not more. But imagine a big glass jar and on the table he had he had golf balls. He had pebbles and he had sand. And the golf balls he explained are the big things in your life like your family, your faith, your health, your relationships, right? It's the most important things, the things that you truly truly value and treasure. It's not the material things. So the golf balls or maybe in the video you see it as rocks, big rocks. Those are the important things in your life. And relationships is one of those things. Then come the pebbles. The pebbles. Think of the pebbles as your business, uh, the deals you do, you know, your house, things like that. And then finally is is the sand. The sand are all the little distractions, all the other stuff, the the the small stuff that just fills up your day and fills up your life. Well, imagine, in fact, he he illustrated this. He started filling up the jar with the sand first, and what happens? The sand filled up the jar, and then he started putting the pebbles. And by the time he put the pebbles, the jar was completely full. There was no room for the rocks. There was no room for the golf balls, which represent the big things in your life. So now he had another jar and he started with the rocks or the golf balls first. And he put up all the rocks and boom, it filled the jar. And then he grabbed a bag of pebbles and he poured the pebbles. And guess what? The pebbles found their way in the nooks and cranny. And then he poured the sand. The sand continued to find its way in the nooks and cranny. And what the takeaway, the the key lesson was put the big things in your life first in the jar. Your faith, your family, your health, your relationships, and then everything else is going to fit around it. And so many people are putting they're filling up the jar with the sand first. And then what's interesting is I I've even seen a variation where at the end where it looks like the jar is completely full, he grabs a cup of coffee or he grabs a beer. And I either one can work and then he pours the liquid. He pours the coffee or in if you want if you rather have a beer than a coffee, then he pours the beer. And then he goes, "And with all that, you always have time for a friend. You always have time to connect over a cup of coffee or beer, whatever, whatever floats your boat."

Quick pause here because this is really important. I can tell you from experience in storage that one mistake can cost you a lot of time and sometimes a lot of money. and missing something in due diligence, analyzing a deal incorrectly, overlooking a market issue. It happens more often than you think. And that's one of the reasons I created cash flow maps is to give you the actual tools, the templates, and the frameworks that remove a lot of the guesswork. So, if you haven't already, create your free account at cashflowmaps.com or you can also click the link on the description below. Grab everything that goes along with this training. So, with that said, let's jump right back into it. And that's the relationship of found of relational capital. It's prioritizing people first. And when you put people over profit, profit tends to follow. All right.

Now, I want to share with you. I want to start to map out your capital connections network. And these are the way that I think about it. These are the five relationships that are going to help you find fund and close more storage deals. Number one is mentors and coaches. Mentors and coaches have completely changed my life. I won't share the detailed story here, but I got into real estate late 2005. I think I did 10, 11, 12 deals, single family deals my first year. And I thought I had things figured out and I viewed coaches and mentors as an expense, not an investment. Then 2007 rolled around. I decided to buy my first luxury fix and flip. Long story short, between myself and a partner, we lost $102,000 right around the time that the financial collapse in 2008. And I've always said I've done close to a,000 deals in my career and I've always said that is probably the best deal I've ever done. Losing 102 grand. You might think why would that be the best deal you've ever done? Well, because ever since that happened, I knew that if I had a mentor, a coach, somebody in my corner that had been further along in the journey of me, I would have been able to read the tea leaves. I would have I would have never gotten involved in that deal. And ever since then, I've had a coach or a mentor in my life. All right? These are the people that when I was in the foxhole, they jumped in with me or they were I was in the foxhole and they were up top surveying the land and communicating to me and sharing with me, hey, here's what's up ahead in your journey. All right? And it's how you operate safer, smarter, faster. To me, having the right coaches and mentors is like the ultimate insurance policy. And so, I highly encourage you that if you don't have people like that in different areas of your life, storage is no different. then find that person. And and I'm biased, but that's exactly what I do. And I've always believed you need to have one hand up to a coach or mentor and one hand down pulling somebody up. All right? So, that's number one.

Uh number two is peers and partners. And look, peers and partners, for those of you who are in our storage wins community, those are your peers and partners, your your accountability partners. Maybe it's a mastermind that you're a part of or a community that you're a part of. But when you find people who share your values and they understand the value of collaboration, it just becomes inevitable. A lot of doors and opportunities opened up. I mean, I I think about my partner in my Florida facility. I used to coach him and we built a strong relationship and we ended up doing a joint venture on a direct mail campaign and we got a great deal out of it. We ended up partnering on that deal and that's the one that we I negotiated 90% seller finance with great terms and that has led to other opportunities to work together. And there's countless examples inside of our storage wins community of members wholesaling deals to each other, members lending money to each other or becoming equity partners in deals and collaborations. And that's because that's the kind of culture we have in our community where we make 1 plus 1 equal 11. And if you don't have that in your life and in your business, you need to find that. It's really, really, really important. And in the, by the way, in the amplifier session training, we're going to have a specific video so you can learn more about how you can start to to level up and surround yourself with the right people. So, just as an aside, don't skip ahead, but I just wanted to plant that seed with you.

Number three, you have lenders and private investors. Okay? These are individuals, not institutions, who have money that they're looking to put to work, but they're looking to first evaluate or underwrite, per se, the operator, and is it somebody they can trust? My very first storage deal, 43,000 foot facility in Mississippi, which you've heard me talk about, that 15% that I needed to get into that deal and get it over the finish line, that came from a friend who I had built a relationship with, $350,000. I think it was closer to $365,000 actually that he put into that deal. Not because I had a long track record in storage because I didn't. This was my very very first deal, but because he believed in me. He trusted me. He knew I I I did what I said I was going to do. I had a plan. I wasn't just winging it. And that trust turned into capital and into a partnership and then turned into healthy substantial profit, which was pretty amazing. And that's happened countless times.

Number four, you got brokers and connectors or brokers and wholesalers. These are these are the people that control the deal flow. And when you build authentic, genuine relationships with them, you're going to you're going to start getting calls about properties that never hit the market. It's exactly what happened to me with my third deal in Mississippi. The broker that I had built a relationship with on my first deal knew that I performed. We started to build a bond and a connection and

He called me before anybody else knew about that deal. Ended up buying that deal several months later, sold that deal and did very well with it. So, you got brokers, connectors, wholesalers, the the think of the ones that hold the purse strings when it comes to the deal flow. And I want you to be and that's what you're going to learn here in the amplifier session is additional ways that you can market for off-market storage deals and then you can hold the purse strings as well. So, again, just future seating there.

And number five, community and masterminds. You you need to network with a group of like-minded people. Community changes everything and that Storage Winds is a perfect example of that. It's where your future partners and friends and investors are going to come from. In many cases, lifelong friends. These are the people that are going to challenge you, that are not going to tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. They're going to support you when life kicks you. And they're going to call you out at times when you need to be called out when you're not doing what you said you're going to do. When you call out your non-negotiables, but you're not doing your part in following through, they're going to be walking alongside you, lifting you up. Remember, every single one of these relationships is a door. And the stronger that connection, the wider the door is going to open.

So, as we continue to move on here, before you ever ever ask anybody for money, you need to build that trust and credibility. And this is where you've heard me talk about the buyer info sheet or what you know it could be called, we call it a secret weapon, which is essentially a resume, a credibility package. And it's not about bragging. It's just about giving the person clarity and confidence about who you are. Showing people that you're that you're real. You're serious. You're prepared. You got things. You've thought about this. You've invested in yourself. You're part of a a coaching program, a community. You have a coach and a mentor. It outlines your your bio, your story, your buy box blueprint, your criteria, all in one or two page, just a clean document that communicates, hey, I'm about my business. All right? And when you show up prepared, people naturally start to trust you inherently, even before they they know who you are because it's been said, you know, that people are going to form an opinion about you within the first 5 to 10 seconds of meeting you. So, make sure you're showing up as the best version of yourself because re relationships, it's not about luck. It's about being yourself. It's about being genuine. It's about being intentional about investing in relationships.

And and you can think about it as a system. So, I want to I want to introduce you to the capital connections network flywheel. All right? And and what that means, and this is just a five-part system, but number one, initiate. So, I want you, even if you're an introvert, even if it's a little bit awkward and uncomfortable, I want you to be the one to to reach out and make the first move, right? And that could be picking up a phone, that could be sending a text message or that DM, that can be walking up to somebody and and meeting them. Look, I I was recently in Los Angeles at an event and and there was a guy that that was there. I'm in Miami, mind you, and I'm I'm in LA, but I live in Miami and and I go to this gym called Lifetime. And and there's this dude that's a speaker and an author. and I saw that he was there and I just I just walked up to him, introduced myself and now we've started to build a friendship. Every time we see each other at the gym, we talk and connect and I'm not expecting anything from him. I just wanted to connect with the dude and build a relationship and and when you do that enough, the right doors are going to open up for you. Okay? And it's my belief that God puts the right people in your life that are meant to lift you up and sometimes that you're meant to lift them up and he'll close the doors of the people that are not meant to be in your life. Okay? So, you really need to attract your tribe, but you got to take the first step and initiate.

Number two, give. One of my favorite books is The Go-Giver. Highly, highly recommend that you read that book if you haven't. But seek to contribute and add value first. Share valuable information. Make introductions and connections. Send encouragement. All right? Lift people up. If if you get a feeling in your gut and you think about somebody, pick up the phone and call them or send them a video text. Hey, just thinking about you, man. What can I do for you? or if you really want to go above and beyond, look them up on social media. You can probably figure out what they value or what's important to them and then go do something. I I I can't tell you how valuable it is and and and how meaningful it is when somebody just like they know that I host the Storage Wins podcast and so they'll leave me a fivestar rating and review. They'll leave me a really solid review and then they'll text me, "Hey man, I just left you a rating and review. You know, love what you're doing or whatever, whatever, whatever." It's like, man, thank you. Thank you even just for taking two minutes to think about me and do that because it helps. All right, so think about how you can contribute to others.

Number three, deepen. And deepen is just like followup and and be you want to be the welcome guest, not the annoying pest, right? But you want to be consistent, but you got to be mindful of how you're coming across because people are busy and they have things that they're responsible for. So you don't want to be the one blowing them up every single day either. So just trust your your gut. Use some discernment there. All right.

Number four is document because what you what you track and measure grows and expands. So what if you were to track your outreach and just building relationships with people? What if you what if you had a system to keeping track of their birthdays? Imagine this. What if which by the way this I don't have and it just hit me right now that I should have this. But what if you tracked their kids' names and their kids' birthdays? Because what do people what's most important? I'm not going to say to everybody, but I would like to thank everyone. Like if they have a family, their family is probably at the top of their list and they love their family and they'll do anything for their family. What would it say about you if you remembered their kids' names and their kids' birthdays? Think about that for a second. How powerful would that be for the dynamic of the relationship? So track track details, even goals. Sometimes I'll ask people like, "Hey, what's most important to you right now? What's what's the big domino that if you accomplish that, everything else takes care of itself?" And then I'll make a mental note and I might follow up in 3 months later and say, "Hey man, I was thinking about you. How's it going with this?" Or, "What can I do to serve you in this department?" It's just about intentionality.

Number five, leverage. Because when when trust is earned, then you can start to explore deals and opportunities and you can naturally and organically it's going to the conversation is going to probably evolve to potential collaborative opportunities. So keep spinning that flywheel. Momentum is going to build eventually. You're not going to have to chase opportunities. In fact, I don't want you to chase opportunities. But we want opportunities chasing us. And oftent times because I share and talk a lot about storage, I have opportunities coming to me. And it's not because I'm special. It's not because I got everything figured out because I don't. But you can have the same results.

I want to just speak for a few a few minutes. Like if you ever feel awkward about networking, if you're an introvert, you're shy and and it's just difficult for you. Like look, even though I'm an extrovert, like I get it. There's times where I want to be an introvert. So I totally understand. There's something that I heard that I learned called the NESW conversation compass. And I I forgot where I learned this or heard this. So, I'd love to give credit to whoever came up with this, but think of NESW and N is for needs. And that's like when you think about people like hey, and I just touched on that like what kind of projects are you most excited about right now? Like what's your focus? What's got your time, energy, and attention? So, figure out what are their needs. E is for experience, and it's just getting to know them. Like, how long did you get into storage? What got you interested in storage? What did you do prior to storage? just questions, open-ended questions where you get to learn more about their experience, their expertise, all that kind of stuff. S is for synergy. Hey, where where do you think we could complement each other? And this is really the formula, the 1 plus 1 formula. It's how do we make 1+ 1 equal 11, not 1+ 1 equal 2. And often times you can uncover that by asking questions, getting to know that person and what their unique genius is. What is their genius zone? and starting to think about how you can compliment them. And then the W is, this is not going to surprise you cuz I love this word win. The W's win. What would make insert the blank a massive win for you? When you when when you're looking for a deal, when you're looking for a partnership, when you're looking for insert the blank, what would make that a big win for you? And it's kind of like a a futurepacing picture perfect type question. And look, don't think of this as a script cuz it's not. It's a compass and it it keeps the focus where it belongs and that's on the other person, not on you. So, if you're struggling right now, ask yourself if everything is pointed inward, if it's all about you because if it is, that's the problem. It needs to be pointed externally and it needs to be about them.

So, think think of your think of your network as a pyramid, right? The the bottom the foundation the bottom layer of that pyramid is think of it as like new contacts and you reaching out to people. In fact, one of the things I learned from a mentor years ago was reaching out and making five new connections a week. And look, do I make five new connections a week? No, I can't say I consistently make five new connections a week. But for sure, I make at least one new connection a week. So, pick what if it's three for you if five feels like a lot. What if you were so laser focused and intentional about making three to five new connections every single week? Think about, do the math. how many that so let's say it's it's 5 time 52 weeks out of the year right you're talking over 250 new contacts a year think about that if my math is serving me so it's just that's super powerful like and and remember when you think about just one relationship away from a completely different life and business that's incredible the middle layer of this pyramid is the the consistent relationships the people that you stay in contact more frequently hopefully for you that's storage brokers uh lenders ers, mastermind community members, people inside the storage wins community. And then that top layer is that's the smallest circle. Okay, that those are the legacy relationships, partners, private lenders, lifelong friends and allies. That circle or I should say that tiny little pyramid at the top of the pyramid is going to be a lot smaller. And your job is to move the right people up that pyramid through consistency, by building credibility, by just being generous, right? by outgiving people.

How can you compete? In fact, when I had the opportunity to be the MC at a at a big event of 300 plus of the top real estate investors, authors, speakers, podcasters, course creators, community leaders. I had an opportunity to to be the MC. They had asked me to do that. I had never done that. And one of the things I talked about was how do you compete when it comes to generosity? When you meet somebody, how can you outgive that person? Think about how important that would be. And look, you don't need thousands of contacts. You you just need a small group of the right people who trust you deeply and vice versa.

So, I I want to start to kind of wind this down here. And hopefully this Capital Connections network training and video has been valuable for you because if you take nothing else from this, but you really you really just lean on this, everything can change. I mean, this is that one big domino for you. So, let's talk about your weekly rhythm, okay? And this is what what you can think of as like your your top five outreach. Like what if what if you made this a habit to reach out to three to five new people every single week. What if once a week you chose one person and or you could do two or three people if you're so inclined? What if you sent a handwritten note? Let me see if I can find it here. Check this out. I got this little thing right here. Just a little card. It came with a small little gift and a friend of mine who I won't call his name out, but he handwrote. It wasn't a small little, it was like, you know, it was a decent amount of writing. I was like, man, how cool is this? I can't remember the last time I received a handwritten note. What if you sent this along with a personal video message once a week? What if every single week number the third one is you followed up with two existing contacts just to stay in touch? Okay, a mentor of mine has some something called his top 40. And these are the top 40 people that he wants to stay close to, people of influence, people that he wants to be connected with long term. And every single day he picks two people and he reaches out to them. And so imagine every month and a half to two months he's going through the list and going through the list and going through the list. That is strengthening the relationship because he's being very mindful and thoughtful and intentional about reaching out to them. And he's not doing this and asking for anything by the way. In fact, he never asks for anything. I love that framework. So we talked about following up with two existing contacts. That's a way you can do it. What if you shared a a valuable piece of information or you made a connection or an insight? You listen to a podcast and you think it could help that person and so you send it to them or a YouTube video or even this course like hey this this has helped me tremendously like I I bought it for you. Here you go. Right? Something like that. Think about that. Like those are the types of things that most people won't do. So and then the last one is just post an update about your journey. like share with people when when we think about social media, ask yourself, are you using social media for the good or is social media using you? Think about that. Powerful question.

So, look, these are these are five small steps that if if you just did these each week, that's over 250 new connections a year. Super super valuable and powerful. Each one of these could lead to your next deal, next funding opportunity, or even more importantly, it could be a lifelong relationship, lifelong friend. So that is the currency of of real networking. It's not about greed, it's about generosity. So ask yourself, how can I outgive? How can I compete when it comes to generosity? Maybe it's connecting a couple of people who need to be connected. Maybe it's giving someone feedback or encouragement, sending a quick video or a thank you note, or just writing to them, right? Because every generous act is a seed. Every generosity, when you think about generosity, it compounds. It just compounds and compounds and compounds. So, I've shared this before, but when you talk to people, don't try to hard close them. Try to heart close them. Don't hard close them, heart close them. Because when you lead with that giving spirit, you're you're not just attracting capital, but you're attracting your tribe, the people that are going to be in your foxhole.

I want to end this with a story that I shared on stage one time and and it's called the candle principle. There are going to be times in life and in business where you're going to be going through the winter season where life kicks you in the gut, you get knocked down, you're going through it, you're in the eye of the storm, whatever analogy you want to use, and it feels like it's never going to end. And imagine if you were holding a candle and you were in the eye of the storm and it just blows out your candle and you're down and out and you're just feeling like crap. If you've done everything I've shared with you, you have an army of people around you that have candles lit bright that all they do is they go like this. They light your candle and they lift you up. But here's where it gets really, really powerful. What if you were meant right now to be the one holding a lit candle and looking for people whose candle has been blown out? And that can be family, that could be your community, that could be friends, that could be your peers, that could be people in your in your mastermind or your or your networking communities, right? What if every day you woke up and regardless of the season of life you were in, you were holding your candle and you're like, "Hey, my candle's bright. Whose can I light up?" Think about that for a second. How could you add light to the world? As cliche as that might sound and in return, by lighting people's candle, your flame gets brighter and darker and stronger. So hopefully that resonates with you because I know it connects with me. Like I feel that in my core and that's what I want you to do.

So look, in wrapping this one up, here's your challenge this week is follow that flywheel framework that I shared with you and go back and and watch this and listen to this again. All right, reach out to five new people this week. Follow up with a couple people in your existing network. Think about whose candle you can light. How can you be of service? How can you be of value? Don't ask for anything. Show up. Give. Strengthen your capital connections network and good things are going to happen in the future. All right? It's not going to happen overnight and it can't be transactional. It has to be relational because capital follows connection. When you invest in relationships, you're not just building a network. You're building a foundation for freedom, for wealth, and and impact that's going to have ripple effects for years and even decades. All right. So, it starts with one simple question. Whose candle can I light today?

Welcome to the final video of module 4, the fearless funding module. And look, at this point, you've already learned where the money comes from with the funding options map. You've learned who the money comes from with the Capital Connections Network. And now we're going to start like bringing it all together. We're literally starting to like stack the momentum and put all the pieces together here. So, in this final piece, what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you how you can confidently ask for the money without fear, without any weird awkwardness, and without feeling like you're begging. Because the truth is, you're not really asking for money. You're actually presenting an opportunity. Because when you understand the process, you realize that this is not a favor you are doing people. You're offering up an opportunity based on what they told you they want and what they told you they're looking for. So, this isn't selling. This isn't really asking for money. It's not certainly not begging for money. And here's the thing, most people I find freeze when it comes time to talking about money. And sometimes that often times I would say that comes from their from their past, from their upbringing. You know, the whole money wasn't doesn't grow on trees and things that were instilled in people at childhood. And that may or may not be you. Regardless, this module is going to shatter all that. Okay? Because the second that you start secondguessing yourself and you start the inner critic like comes up and you start asking yourself like hey what if what if they say no to the opportunity or what if I sound pushy or I sound like a snake oil salesman like that's when you start to doubt yourself but that comes because you're not confident about the deal and the opportunity and you haven't prepared. Okay, raising capital to me it's not about persuasion. It's about partnership. When you truly believe in what you're doing, when you know the deal inside and out and you're confident in your plan and the whole cash flow map system, everything we've been talking about here, everything that we go through inside of our storage wins community with our coaching clients, it's you understand that you're not asking for money. You're inviting someone to participate in something that can help them reach their goals based on what they've already shared with you. And more on that in a little bit. That's the shift that I really want you to make here. And what I want you to understand is you're essentially going from fear to opportunity and service. Okay? You're you're helping people get what they want. And for many people that's consistent, predictable income that's secured by a recession resistant asset class and that's self- storage. Okay? So confidence, understand confidence does not appear out of thin air. Right now it is a decision, but confidence is a byproduct in my opinion of preparation. And when you've done your homework, when you know your numbers, you know the exit plan, you know the strategy, you understand the market, the supply and demand, everything we've talked about, you understand how you're going to get this thing funded and over the finish line, then you can speak to them with confidence, clarity, and with a calm type approach. Okay? Understand what I've always said. Preparation breeds confidence. Confidence is going to bring you clarity. And clarity is going to give you the permission to move forward and simply just have an a conversation and make an invite.

So before you ever present an opportunity, I I always tell our Storage Winds clients to take the time to understand the potential investor, the lender. What are their goals? Why are they even having a conversation with you? What do they hope to accomplish? Right? Are they looking for steady, predictable cash flow? Are they a high income earnner? They want to offset their earned income and and lower their taxes, right? And and maybe in a case like that, you can offer them more depreciation. And when you understand what they want, are they after equity growth? Are they after tax benefits? Are they after cash flow? When you understand their top one or two priorities, then when you find the right opportunity, you can you can present it with confidence because they're the ones that told you what they want. I had a conversation with a a storage client, and he shared with me how he had this dentist that had a bunch of money tucked away in a self-directed account, a Roth IRA, I believe it was, and he didn't need cash flow today. He just wanted that that growth over time. And so, he was able to get money from him and not even have to pay a monthly return. In fact, he was after the back end. Then so they were able to structure a win-win because he understood that he didn't need the cash flow for him. It was just about long-term growth. If you're dealing with a lender, for example, who who often times for many wise, smart lenders, they're first concerned about a return of their capital and only then are they thinking about how are they going to get a return on their capital. And that insight shapes how you can communicate and how you can approach the conversation. And I often times like to drop plant seeds, drop breadcrumbs along the way. When an opportunity presents itself, it's not the first time I'm presenting a deal to them. I've already had a conversation with them. I've already built a relationship. And when you align the opportunity with their goals, you're again, you're shifting from asking to presenting an opportunity and serving. All right.

So now I want to I want to shift here and I want to I want to talk through the framework that I call the fearless funding formula. And it's a a five simplest step process that you can use in any conversation, presentation, investor meeting. And we're talking about story, strategy, structure, scarcity, and then secure. And each step is designed and meant to build trust and momentum. So let's start to unpack it here with the story. And the story to me starts with with the why and sharing with people. We talked about way back, I I think in module two about the buy box blueprint and we talked about the importance of planting seeds and and sharing with people what you're looking for and what's a deal to you and and and let them know, hey, I I've been focused for x amount of time on finding mom and pop storage facilities that are undermanaged where there's a value ad opportunity in a growing market. And after going through numerous opportunities, we finally found one that checks every single box we've been looking for. Strong demand, great visibility, ton of upside, insert whatever makes sense for that deal. But then here's the thing, who really cares about your why? Although I think it's important that they have that context, that you know what you're doing, and that you communicate with confidence and clarity. But here's the thing. You want to now tie it to their why and share like, you know, here's what excites me about this opportunity. And it's not just the numbers, but it's the it's the chance to get others involved like you to earn a consistent return backed by by the storage facility. And and the story needs to build and have an emotional connection and build that credibility. And when you tie it to their goals and their why and what they told you, that's when you can start to communicate with confidence that this is an opportunity you're presenting. You're not asking for money. You don't need them. They need you. Okay.

Step two is one once you kind of big picture share the story, it's the strategy. And this is where you get into explaining the opportunity and you talk about, you know, and one of the things I like to do is before let them invite you to share more about the opportunity. All right, you've already shared how excited, hey, would you be interested in learning more or this is probably not for you, but wet their appetite. Let them lean in, not you lean in. Right? You you want to attract, not chase. So once you get the green light that they raise your hand that they want to learn more and by the way they're they're going to want to learn more especially if you shared with them that this opportunity is aligned with their particular goals based on previous conversations. I'll share with her hey the facilities blank blank and blank. It's 80% occupied. You know rents are 25 to 50% below market. There's space for expansion. There's this there's that. Like share in a nutshell. You don't want diary of the mouth here. You want to keep this like under a minute. share with them. Think of this as the trailer, right? Why do trailers exist? Because they want to show you in two or three minutes the excitement, the intrigue, the what's going to make you curious and build up the desire for you to want to go see that movie or watch that Netflix show or whatever it is. Do the same thing here. You're not dumping on them all these facts and figures. You're just wetting their appetite, getting them to want to learn more. share with them. Here's our plan to raise occupancy, generate more revenue, and increase the returns for our investors. So, you're not don't talk in jargon, right? Don't don't hype it up. Just a clear path forward. That's really really important because people are going to first invest in you before the opportunity. And and in order to invest in you, they need to understand, they need to have clarity, right? Clarity, not complexity.

Step three is the structure. Okay? Now, now is when you're going to talk about the actual structure of the deal. How much money are you raising for the opportunity or how much money are are are you looking to to borrow for the for the deal? Um what the investor receives. This is this is where they where they find out more about the interest rate or if you're going to give them a preferred return, meaning they get paid first before you get paid. If there's an equity split, hey, we're buying the facility for 600,000 and we believe based on XYZ plan within 36 months it's going to be worth 1.1 or whatever the number is. Um, share the timeline and the exit strategy. So important that you can communicate that you've thought through the process. Here's something that most people won't tell you that I believe is critical. Every deal has a rattlesnake. What do I mean by that? If you're a fan of the show Yellowstone, you know that in in one of the episodes in one of the season, Beth is negotiating a a big deal and she brings up something along the lines of like, "Hey, where's the rattlesnake in the deal?" All right. And no deal is perfect. Every deal has a certain level of risk attached to it or there's something about it. Put a spotlight on that. Don't try to pull the wool over people's eyes. Hey, and sometimes I'll even lead with that. Hey, here's here's why you might not want to invest in this deal. As crazy as that sounds. Why? Because you're being transparent about the fact that hey, these are the potential risk. And here's what's important. You talk about your plan to mitigate those risks. Here's your plan to account for that. You've thought through it. That is going to give you more confidence. That's going to build confidence in them for you and build up your credibility. So when when you talk about the structure and you talk or I should say that that section is really more the strategy, but it's important that you mention that. I I didn't want to just gloss over that. Don't just talk about what's amazing with the deal, but talk about where the risks are and what you're going to do to mitigate those risk. So when you can clearly explain the structure and you project confidence and certainty, that is going to start to attract capital, which is what leads to that fearless funding formula.

All right. Number four, scarcity. And scarcity is not about manipulation. Don't say anything that isn't true. It's about communication. And let them know if this is an opportunity limited to three people that you're going to be investing with or two people or five people. Let them know, hey, listen, we're we're limiting this to four people. We already have two spots filled. If that's the case, if it's not, I expect this to fill up very quickly. And that starts to build momentum. That starts to inject some scarcity. It shows that you're you're organized and that others already trust you. If in fact you do have capital committed to the deal. If you have a lender, a partner, someone committed, make sure you share that with others. Okay?

And then step five is you want to secure the funding. And this is how you start to close with clarity. I I'll share with people, hey, look, if this if this sounds like the kind of opportunity that that you want to explore, let's schedule a call, right? Bam fam. Book a meeting from a meeting. And what I like to do is sell the next step, not necessarily sell the deal. Now, sometimes you have a conversation with somebody and they're ready to go. Like you they've built up you've built up enough trust in them, they have confidence in you, you communicated, uh you had clarity, they understand the deal, and if that's the case and and you have those buying signals, then you can move to the close. But no pressure, you're not chasing, okay? Just clear direction and confidence. That's really, really important. And again, sometimes this might look like, "Hey, listen. I I came across a storage opportunity that aligns with what you told me. You told me you were looking for XYZ. We found something that we're going to be pursuing and we're going to be moving on. Uh it's, I don't know, it could be a 30,000 foot facility in this city, 80% occupied." You can share the things that are going to wet their appetite based on what they told you they want. We're looking to raise 500,000 to close and improve the opportunity. investors are going to earn x% preferred return. Let's say 8% preferred return and 40% equity in the deal or whatever whatever the the structure is. Okay, we've already had two investors committed. So, I just wanted to give you an opportunity before this fills up. Would do you want to have a further conversation about it? Do you want me to send you an overview or do you want to hop on a short call? Sell the next step. All right. And and try to eliminate remember speed the lead. Try to eliminate all the friction points in between. All right, you just you want it to be simple, easy to work with, professional, fearless. That that's the kind of mindset and approach you want to have here. And so, think of this as like the confidence cycle. It's preparation, confidence, clarity, action, and then that leads to the capital. And the more that you do in terms of the work that you do up front, the conversation becomes easier. When I secured my my first deal and I got my equity partner, I got somebody to invest 350,000 into the deal. I think it was literally two text messages and a phone call. Now, I didn't do that to somebody that doesn't know me. I had already built a relationship with them. I they trusted me. They they were betting on me as the operator and they and then I was able to present the opportunity on that phone call based on everything I've shared with you here, the fearless funding formula. All right.

So, look, here's here's the next step for you. Here's the call to action. Your next step is not to go raise millions of dollars to go buy your first or next storage facility. It's to start planting seeds today. Drop those breadcrumbs. Every single day, I want you planting seeds and dropping breadcrumbs. Because while I do believe that when you find the right deal and opportunity, the money will follow. I don't want you to be lazy and rely on that. That's not a winning formula. Start telling people what you do, what you're looking for. Start asking them what they're looking for. That's the most important part. What are their goals? What are they looking to accomplish? Start building these relationships before you ever need the money because when the right opportunity appears, and it will if you're following this process, those are the relationships that are going to be ready. You would have already dug your well before you were thirsty. I I started this video and I'm going to end it with this. You're not chasing money. Reframe, shift your thinking there. You're attracting it through clarity, through preparation, through confidence. You've done the work. You're following the cash flow map system. You you're prepared. You naturally have the the confidence to move forward, to pick up the phone and start having those conversations. If you really believe in the deal, then it's an opportunity. They're going to be lucky to be involved in the deal with you. All right? Money follows the preparation. Money follows clarity. Money always follows confidence. It's going to be difficult for you to get people involved if you're not confident, you don't communicate with confidence, and you haven't done the homework and the work because it'll show. All right, so with that being said, I will see you in module five where we actually start turning deals into reality.

Welcome to the first video of module five and this is where we win the deal. And this particular video is going to be all about what we call the closing playbook because you have found the deal, you have negotiated the terms, you may have gotten a letter of intent signed and ultimately a purchase and sale agreement executed. And now we are officially under contract. And let me just go out and tell you that this is where things start to get real for most people. you have done all this effort to get to this point and quite honestly like this is where the real work begins and this is where sometimes people start to feel a little bit of pressure and I don't share that with you to scare you in any way. If anything, I want to encourage you and excite you because this is the step you have to get through. Right? It's been said that you make your money when you buy. You realize it when you sell. But wealth is created in terms of operations, operating the storage facility and maximizing it. And the way that you get there is you need to make sure that you're dotting your eyes and crossing your tees. And now is when we enter the due diligence phase. Okay. So, in this video, I'm going to give you our exact closing playbook, which is a clear road map. It's going to take you from you being under contract to now keys in hand. You are officially a self-storage owner operator. Again, it's going to give you confidence and clarity, which I think is a theme that we've been talking about here in cash flow maps and something we definitely talk about in our storage wins community. And to, by the way, to make this even easier and more powerful for you, I'm going to give you two extremely valuable resources that you can download. It'll be somewhere on here. Number one, it's everything that you need to do before, during, and after closing. So, this is your checklist. And then the second one is our on-site due diligence playbook. So, when you go under contract, you want to go onsite, meaning you want to travel to the facility. And usually, you're going to spend two to three days there, I would say, on average, depending on the size of the facility and and what's involved, but typically speaking, you'll spend 2 to three days. And this is your your on-site due diligence checklist is you being able to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees and make sure that you because you're you're buying a business, right? Storage is an actual business and you want to verify that what you believe is a deal is actually a deal. So, let's go ahead and first, as with most things in business and life, let's start with mindset because how you think about this stage, I think, is going to determine how you perform. And every successful storage owner and operator that I know will will tell you, at least most of them, that you don't win because you're perfect. You're going to win because you're prepared. All right? Preparation, I've shared this in previous modules and videos. Preparation is going to give you peace of mind. Preparation is going to build your confidence. Confidence is is what's going to allow you to lead and step into this storage facility as an owner. Okay? And I and I I shared it a little while ago. You make your money when you buy. You realize that when you sell, confidence is built through the preparation. Okay? And this is no different. The work that you do right now, checking all the all the details, verifying all the numbers, lining up the vendors, this is what protects your profit later. And what verifies that what you think is a deal is actually a deal. Okay. One thing is to have a conversation with the storage owner on the phone is to jump on on Google Maps and do your research and your homework about the market. Another thing is to actually be on site looking at the market driving the competitors going through the due diligence process. So think of this think of this as as two tracks. Okay? Track one is due diligence and that is everything that protects the downside. You're going to be verifying the financials, the physical inspections. you're going to the legal aspect of it, title, all of that. And then it's the operational setup. It's everything that you need to do as you're going to transition to closing on the facility and owning it. So that when you hit the ground running, you're you're stepping into what we call and that we'll be talking about that in the next video of of module five is the facility fast start. Is what does the onboarding look like in the first 30, 60, 90 days. Okay. So you cannot neglect either lane or lane one or track one is due diligence. Lane two or track two is the operational setup. All right.

So let's now talk about the due diligence playbook here. And I think the first thing that's extremely important is the financial and legal verification. And what I mean by that is that you want to verify all the numbers. You want to verify the the P&L or the profit and loss. Now, I will tell you that sometimes these are mom and pop operated facilities and sometimes they might have chicken scratch on the back of a notebook or a general ledger. I mean, they operated old school where they may or may not have a profit and loss statement. And that's where we like to get the last two or three years tax returns. Sometimes we get bank statements because we want to verify that the income they're claiming actually matches bank statements and actual deposits. We don't just rely on on screenshots. where we want to get our hands on bank records. We want to get our hands on tax returns, the profit and loss statement, the balance sheet, historical occupancy, management summary reports, like all these reports. We're going to be verifying all these things. And again, they may or may not have it, but I think one of the things that I like to do when I'm negotiating with a seller is I like to include all of this in the purchase and sale agreement. And I always make it a stipulation that my due diligence period doesn't begin until I have received everything I'm requesting. All right. Like I mentioned, we're going to confirm the taxes. We're going to verify their insurance even though we're going to be getting our own insurance. And we want to find out insurance if they have a loss run rate, if there's been any claims, if there's been any any damages, things like that. When it comes to the profit and loss statement, I like to review 24 to 36 months if possible. Uh I mentioned the occupancy reports, management reports. One quick mention on occupancy reports. Sometimes storage facilities are seasonal, meaning they get an influx of their customers maybe because they're by a college or university and you need to account for that. So that's why I always like to look at the P&L, but I also look at the last 12 months, what's called the trailing 12. So, if I'm, let's say, I'm buying a facility in October, I'm looking at October from last year through now. That's the trailing 12, but I'm also looking at the reports on a year-over-year basis. All right? So, super super important. Uh, I always work with a title company in that state, a reputable title company, ideally that has closed and understands the storage business. We always order title insurance. Make sure, do not skip this step. get title insurance. Make sure you're protected there. Uh oftentimes if you're working with a bank and you're getting bank financing, they may require a phase one environmental. Phase one environmental is where they're checking the dirt. They're checking, you know, was there a gas station nearby? Are the grounds like they're just checking the environmentals of the real estate. That's very important. Um I do know people that when sometimes when they're not working with a bank, they they opt not to get a phase one. I tend to to want to make sure I'm dotting eyes and crossing tees. So, I usually get a phase one done. Uh you're confirming zoning if there's flooding in the area. You want to make sure that you're aware of that and that it's accounted for in your insurance and that you're getting the proper insurance. In the purchase agreement, I always like to include that if there's a website, that domain comes along with the sale, the phone number comes with the sale. So, anything like that, you want to make sure that that's in the purchase.

and sale agreement. I always like to make sure that I get a certified rent roll so that you can confirm exactly what's there and and and what they're claiming is the reality. You know, we've had I I know people that have forgotten to do this and once they close and they didn't get the phone number or the website or they didn't get certain things like good luck trying to get that after the fact. So, don't make that mistake.

That's one of the things our Storage Winds community members uh they follow these same resources that I'm giving you extremely valuable and that helps protect you.

All right. So, number two is this is where you're doing your physical due diligence. It's what we call our on-site due diligence playbook. Okay? And this is where you actually go and you visit the facility and you are part inspector, part investor. Now, one of the things that I think is really, really important is the preparation prior to you traveling and going to do your on-site due diligence.

Um, as an aside, I don't recommend that you ever go travel to a facility that you don't have under contract. So, 95% of the time, I'm only going to the facility if in fact I control it with a contract. And I like to do that as early on in the process as possible because if you have a 30 or 45 day due diligence window where your deposit is refundable during that period, you don't want to burn up two or 3 weeks and then go and then put yourself on a tight time frame when it comes to due diligence.

Um, the other thing that I like to do is I like to set up appointments with key vendors so that when I land and I go visit the facility, ideally I'm already meeting with the roofer, I'm meeting with an electrician, I'm meeting with a handyman or people that I'm interviewing as a potential boots on the ground team member. Okay? So, when I meet a general contractor potentially, depending on how much work the facility may need, I'm looking at do they have cameras? And if they don't have cameras, I've already had a conversation with my camera security specialist. Sometimes they can they can map out like what is needed virtually and on Zoom. And other times you might be meeting with them on site.

But I think the the biggest ones are meeting with a roofer. I always like to line up two or three different roofers to get I want to make sure I'm getting multiple opinions. What's the life of the roof? Are there any leaks? Are there any damages? Do any repairs have to be made? If the owner didn't disclose that, maybe because they weren't aware or otherwise, you may need to renegotiate depending on the complexity of the issue with the roof, but the roof is a big line item. So, I always like to meet with two or three licensed roofers. I actually they bring their ladder, they get on the roofs, they take pictures for me because one thing is telling an owner, another thing is actually showing them. So, get photos, get repair estimates. Really important.

I I like to have an electrician go out there, check for any type of code violations, outdated wiring, is there any potential liability with with with how electrical is done there. Handymen/ boots on the ground, I have them I walk the facility with them. Is there any deferred maintenance? How are the are do any hasp or springs need to be need to be replaced? Okay? Sometimes when there's vacant units, I like to open the door and make sure I can easily open it. Uh you don't want a door where you have to be like the Hulk in order to open it because if so then you might need to replace the springs or the actual door. It just depends.

Check for drainage, right? Is the facility was it designed and built where the pavement or or if it's gravel, whatever the case might be, is it slanted and sloped? How's the drainage? Ask customers if you get a chance to talk to them or ask local businesses in the area. Hey, when it rains here, is there a flooding issue on site? Check to see for for water stains, water pu uh puddles.

One thing that is extremely important is take comprehensive pictures and videos of the facility. The good, the bad, and the ugly. You want it all because when you leave and you travel back home, often times you're going to you're going to refer to those pictures and videos. Sometimes when you're working with lenders, bankers, potential equity partners, private lenders, they're going to want to see the facility. Okay? So, make sure that when you're there, you get comprehensive pictures.

Uh, sometimes I even spend $200 to $400 to have a professional photographer go out there and take video, drone video, p quality pictures of the facility, especially if the facility looks good and it doesn't need a lot of work. Those might be pictures I use on my website, and my Google My Business listing in my marketing. So, that's extremely important.

If the facility is has a lot of deferred maintenance and needs a lot of what we call capex, capital expenditures, you might want to get a general contractor out there. One of the questions I always like to ask is, hey, if you were to buy this facility, like what were some of the things that you see here that would need to be addressed immediately.

Now, it's very important that you understand this is not your dream home that you're moving into. It's a storage facility, so do not overimprove it. oftentimes I see firsttime storage owner operators putting money into a facility, but they're not going to see that money back in revenue. As an example, like painting a door is not going to be the difference between you renting that unit or not renting that unit. Now, you want the facility to be nice and clean, of course, but I don't want you overimproving.

If if you're going to if it doesn't have a gate, an automated gate, and you're going to put a gate there, get a quote for that. Understand everything that you're going to need to put into it before you buy the facility. so that you can account for that in the deal structure, the money that you potentially raise, the money that you might need for the facility.

So, it's super super important that before you even step on a flight or hop in a car to go out there that you're lining up appointments with the vendors, okay? Your your goal is to have clarity, have reports, pictures, videos, bids, estimates. That's super super important. All right? And if something if something feels expensive, get a second opinion. That's why when it comes to roofers, I don't just rely on one. When I bought my third facility, I met with four roofers because I had some questions. And it's interesting cuz I got bids from as low as 27 $2,800 just to do some repair work all the way up to like 20 plus,000 when they're recommending, hey, you might need to replace this or that. Uh so you want multiple opinions and multiple reports. And then I usually eliminate the outliers.

I will share with you here are some common oversightes. I would say it's you want to make sure that the leases are assignable confirming. You want to confirm the utilities all the contact information for for the different utilities. You want to make sure that at least a week or two before closing like you understand the process to transfer over the phone utilities all that kind of stuff. Like that's not the type of stuff that you want to do after closing. You want to have those things dialed in and those loose ends covered before you buy the facility.

Make sure that if you have software, and we'll talk about this here in the operational setup, but if the seller has a particular management software that they use, make sure that you get them to provide you all those reports because once they lose access to that software, good luck trying to get that historical data. All right? And that's really really important because in the future if you go to sell the facility or you want to refinance the facility, they're probably going to ask you about that historical data and you want to make sure that you have it if possible. All right.

So look, when when it comes to all this, like you can you can be comprehensive and dot every eye and cross every tea. Understand that you might not absolutely capture everything, but you you want to prepare in advance. And this is where those resources, those checklist and those playbooks that we've provided to you are going to be extremely extremely useful and valuable for you. All right.

Now, let's move on to the second track or the second lane and that's the operational setup. All right. This is where the the second resource, the the things that you have to do before, during, and after closing checklist come into play. And I created this inside of our storage wins community for my coaching members. And it's been refined through the deals that I've done, the the deals that our Storage Winds ambassadors have done, members have done. And so here's a 30,000 foot view here. Here's a highlevel flow. All right.

So after the contract is signed, all right, some these are just some of the things, and this is pretty comprehensive, but for the sake of of time, I don't want this to be a three-hour video, right? We go into real real depth on each and every single one of these things inside of our Storage Winds community. But just with what I'm sharing with you here and the the checklist and the resources, you literally have everything you need. All right?

Is I like to find out the lean laws for that particular state. Every state has its own lean laws and understanding that if a customer doesn't pay, what is the process that you have to go through to auction off the contents of the unit? And you want to make sure that you're you're doing you're abiding by the law. You're doing it the right way. Okay? So, you might want to consult with the state association, the the storage association in that particular state. I always like to run this by an attorney. I'm not an attorney, so I can't give you any legal or financial advice. So, you want to make sure that you consult with the pros.

Uh, but confirm if that if the storage facility if it's subject to sales tax in that state. Some some states have sales tax, some don't. You want to figure out, hey, are you going to keep that domain or do you need to go on GoDaddy or one of these sites to buy your own domain? Are you going to just take over their website if they have one or are you going to use your own?

If you're getting SBA financing, you want to make sure that you're working on your business plan. They're they're absolutely going to ask you for a business plan. Even if you're getting bank financing, I think it would be really wise to have a business plan where you shore up, you show them the current, you show them your projections, how you're going to get there, how you're accounting for any potential risk. They want to see your marketing plan, how do you plan to to fill up the units if if you have a lot of vacancy. All right? They want to see repair work or or bids and estimates on any capex work like we just talked about, insurance quotes, all that. put yourself in their shoes. If they're going to give you money to buy and operate the facility, they want to make sure that their investment is safe and secure. And one of the ways that you can give them confidence is by showing that you're prepared and that you've thought through all the different angles. All right?

Once you go under contract, obviously you want to be, you know, you want to be lining up the funding. We talked about this in module four, the fearless funding, but you have to understand, are you going to be working with a bank, with SBA, are you working with a private lender, is there seller financing involved? So, once you go under contract, you want to get the ball rolling with when it comes to securing the funding and the financing, and refer back to module 4, fearless funding module, if you have any questions about that. I think that's pretty much just big picture 30,000 foot view.

Now, here's what I would say when it comes to when you're about 3 to four weeks out from closing. In other words, you're going to be closing in about a month. I I like to make sure once that you're that you have an LLC or an entity created in the state in which you're going to be owning and operating the facility. That's what I do. This is an experience share, but consult with with your attorney, consult with the pros. Uh you're going to want to make sure that you get a bank account open. This is going to be for your operating account. Usually I like to have at least two accounts for the entity created. I have my operations account and then I always have an account for I typically have an account for profit and then I have an account for taxes. I like to follow the profit first model and formula.

You want to make sure that you're you're getting professional photos taken for marketing and for your Google My Business and your website and all that. If you're going to take over their domain, make sure that that's something that's going to be done at least at least 3 or 4 days before the closing. If not, some owners may or, you know, have push back when it comes to that, but it it might take 24 to 48 hours to get certain things transferred over, especially when it comes to phone numbers, utilities, domains, things of that nature. So, you want to reach out to these providers like the utility company, the phone company. Find out what the process is so that the day before closing, you're not scrambling to figure all this stuff out. This is super important.

Your storage management software, and that could be like easy storage solutions, which is a pretty common one, ESS. I use storage, which is through the company Storable. Sometimes, depending on their backlog, you might need to get working on this four to 6 weeks prior to closing. And you want to make sure that you're getting your management software set up with your welcome letter, with your lease agreements, with all the different things, late fee letters, like all that type of stuff. They can work with you to get that stuff set up. This is one of the things that we talk about in our storage wins community and we we give support and guidance to our members about, but that's really really important.

If you're going to use a service like spareoot, right, which is an aggregator to be able you can list your your facility and then they get so much traffic that you pay them so that they can get customers into your units. You want to set up a spareoot account. If you're going to do any type of pay-per-click marketing like Google ads, you want to get get the ball rolling there. We talked about drafting your your welcome letter, ownership, all the communication templates. If you're using something like ESS, oftent times they have their own templates. You'll just need to go in there and modify it. Scheduling any any repairs. Okay? So, once you close, I remember when I bought my first facility, we were installing a brand new gate and operator. And literally the day of closing, they were on site doing the work. All right?

If you have if if you foresee that you're going to need or have a lot of trash, line up a dumpster or some type of site cleanup. Make sure that when on the day of closing and for the two or three or four days you're going to be on site that your boots on the ground team member that you hire is going to be there working with you. All right? And that you're setting that person up with everything they need.

Now, when it comes to as we start to get closer to closing, you want to make sure that you're keeping all lines of communication open with the title company, with the lender or the bank, with the seller, with your boots on the ground team member, your insurance broker, if there's a real estate broker involved or a storage broker. Insurance is is really important. So, you want to make sure that on the day that you buy this facility, you you're fully covered and you got the proper insurance in place. You want to confirm the utilities and the internet are in your company's name and that that it's a seamless transition. In an ideal world, think of this like a light switch. You close and boom, you flip on that light switch and everything is rolling.

Merchant account. Super super super important. I can share with you a funny story. I made a huge mistake, huge mistake on my very first storage facility where I literally closed for 1.592 million. I leave the title company. I I go have a celebration lunch with my partner. We get to the facility to meet with our boots in the ground and it hit me and I'm like, "Wait, how am I going to how's the money going to go from the customers to my bank account?" And I realized that I had overlooked, believe it or not, I had overlooked connecting my merchant account. And fortunately, I was able to like within 24 hours, make sure that that was up and rolling. So, your merchant account, you want to make sure that weeks before you understand the process, you send in the proper paperwork.

So, look, this sounds like a lot, and it is. There are a lot of moving parts here, but this is where those resources are going to come in extremely handy. It's a checklist. It's a playbook. You can refer back to this. You're gonna have ideally minimum of 30 days of due diligence. Maybe 45 or 60 days you're able to get. That's a lot of time to get this done. Now, there are a lot of moving parts, but here's the good news. And let me kind of put you at ease here. Storage is a pretty slow business. So, even if you missed on some of these things, it's not the end of the world, right? Like, you're not you're not going to die. The business not going to fall apart. you you want to dot the eyes and cross the tees, but you also give yourself some latitude and some grace that if you miss one or two of these things, generally speaking, it's going to be okay.

So, immediately after closing, like now, we're going to talk more specifically in the next video is what we call our facility fast start. But, so we'll talk about what to do like immediately after closing there. But, look, wealth in storage, it's you make your money when you buy. You you realize it when you sell. the wealth is built really in the operations and creating the value of the facility. So, we'll we'll talk about ownership in the next video, but once you get to the closing table, that's where the fund begins. That's not the end of the of the race. That's really the beginning of the race. And a lot of common mistakes I see new buyers make is not doing a lot of what we've talked about in this particular video. not having the proper insuranceances, not verifying the financials, uh not collecting all the reports from the seller software before it shuts off, assuming that everybody knows what's going on and you're going to close on a particular day. Obviously, you're going to have to coordinate, well, not obviously, you may or may not have to coordinate travel. In my case, I'm not looking for storage in Miami, so usually I got to coordinate travel. Give yourself some grace cuz in real estate, they don't always close when they're supposed to close. And you can mitigate against that by just keeping the lines of communication open. But do not rush through this process. Be patient, be thorough, stay super organized. Okay? I like to set up a a Google Drive folder or a Dropbox folder. And I have everything there because once you go under contract, your closing playbook, everything we've talked about here, this is what gives you clarity and confidence to proceed, pull the trigger, and actually buy the facility. And if you see something that wasn't disclosed or is a big line item, you may need to go back and renegotiate or retrade. Now, I don't do that just to get a better deal for myself. I only do it if it's something really material that wasn't accounted for. But these resources and what I've shared in this closing playbook video. Use this as your step-by-step guide. All right? Adapt them to your system. Maybe you want to twe tweak and shift a few things. Keep everything super documented and and dated. You know, you might want to use this to piggyback on your own playbook and checklist, but every single operator I know that has experienced success, they don't just like wing it and buy storage, right? Like they know what they're buying going in and they have a plan. They build systems. Like they understand how they're going to operate it moving forward. All right? And we'll talk about that in the next video. But your preparation now is going to determine your peace of mind later. So look, download those resources, review them, maybe tweak, build out your own if you'd like, and have have the different timelines so that you know what has to happen. Understand key important dates and deadlines. Like when does your earnest money deposit go hard? Going hard means that it's non-refundable. Is that on the 30th day of due diligence ending? Is that on the 45th day? 40? Like, know those dates so that you're not caught off guard. All right? and communicate that to your team and those people involved. And look, once you do your first one, you're going to feel more confident in the second, the third, the fourth, etc. And when you master this process, you're not going to just close deals. You're you're going to open the door to real freedom. Okay? So, that's what I got for you on this video. Like, great work getting to this point. If you've gotten to this point, clearly you are committed. Just execute. It's not just about consuming this content and information. It's about executing it. All right? massive imperfect action. Don't let fear hold you back. On the next one, we're going to dive into the fast facility start, right? And go through that whole process. So, let's keep stacking these wins. That's what we call our coaching community storage wins. And this cash flow maps is your system within that process. So, take massive imperfect action. Download those resources, save them, and I will see you on the next one.

My friend, congratulations. You are now the proud owner of a self-s storage facility. You have closed the deal. The wire has hit. Documents are signed. The ink is dry. Keys are yours. Now what? Everything we have been working to up until this point has led you to this moment. Now you are again a proud owner of a self-s storage facility. And there's a a saying in in the self-s storage space amongst operators and investors is that when you buy your first, you're halfway to 10. you are going to have gained so much confidence just by getting to this point and you have now done something that probably 99% or more than that of people will never do or have never done. Okay, so now what that begs the question in the last video we talked about how you can close like a professional. Now it's time that you start to learn how to own and operate like one. So, this is where you're going to shift from being a buyer to actually being a business owner because look, the the real work begins and the real wealth is starting to get transferred after closing, right? The first 90 days oftent times I tell our Storage Wins coaching clients, the first 90 days can feel a little bit hectic and chaotic. There's a lot of moving parts. There's different things. It's all fresh and new and it can be a little nerve-wracking at first. But the one thing I can promise you is that after 90 days, most of the time things really start to slow down and settle in. Storage is a very boring business. There's not a lot of emergencies. So the first 60 90 days it can feel like there's a lot of moving parts. But every single storage winner that I have coached and worked with in my experience, friends that are operators will tell you the same thing. first 30, 60 days, especially on your first deal, there's a lot of moving parts, but then it really slows down and settles in, especially once you set up your systems and you're working with your boots on the ground if you happen to to have chosen to work with a third party management company. But once you put the structure in place, everything really just starts to slow down and flow. All right, now here's the thing. By the end of this video, you're going to have a clear 30, 60, and 90day roadmap to stability, to systemization, and to start generating cash flow as quickly as possible. Now, look, you may have bought a facility that's 0% occupancy, and that might take you 12 to 18 months before you're able to stabilize it, maybe even a little bit longer. You may have bought a facility that's highly stabilized, but is not operationally efficient. I don't know what type of asset you bought. And so it's going to depend on how quickly you can start generating cash flow. There's a lot of different variables there. But regardless of what you've you've bought the the facility fast start, this this this particular module is going to give you everything you need in terms of how to think like an operator, how to transition, and then what is the first 30, 60, 90 days of being a self- storage owner operator look like for you.

So now, one thing that I didn't cover in the last video, but I want to dive into it a little bit deeper here, and this is this is something that's done even before you close. Ideally, all right, before day one, you really need to have thought through and really during the due diligence period, you need to have thought through how do you want to manage this facility? And there's there's a couple different paths, or I should say pretty common paths. You can self-manage and that basically means that you're going to hire a local boots on the ground person. Somebody that's going to be there on a week in weekout basis. Usually they'll go to the facility once or twice a week. Um, as an aside, in the amplifier training session, I have a dedicated video about finding and hiring a boots on the ground person and everything you're going to need to know there. Don't skip ahead, but I just wanted to go ahead and plant that seed. But regardless of what whatever path you choose, you're going to have a boots on the ground team member and you are going to manage that boots on the ground team member. You're going to have a management software like easy storage solutions or store edge or cubby are pretty common ones. You may decide to get a call center. All right. Now, this is going to depend on the size of the facility. If you bought a facility with a couple hundred units, you may want to go with a call center. If you bought a facility with 50, 60, 70 units, you may want to just take those calls yourself. I think the benefit to that is that you're going to learn the business quickly. You're going to establish a relationship with the customers. You're going to just get to understand the ins and outs better. And on a small facility, you're likely not going to be receiving that many phone calls. Um, so you need to decide, are you going to self-manage, which basically means you are managing the boots on the ground team member, or are you going to go with a thirdparty management company, meaning that you hire a professional management company that's going to run the daily operations. Okay, that is the the path that I have chosen. Now, part of the reason I've done that is based on a couple different factors. Number one, I bought facilities large enough where the revenue can support a third party management company. What happens is if you end up buying a small facility, let's say you buy a 8,000 or a 10,000 foot facility, in most cases that facility is not going to generate enough for revenue to justify the expense of a third party management company. And so you kind of need to self-manage in that case. But if you buy, let's say, a 30 or 40,000 foot facility that the revenue can justify a third party management company, then you get to make that call. Both can work, but clarity is everything. And I think it's important that you think through as you're going under contract, as you're going through due diligence, what's the best way to manage this facility? Am I going to self-manage? Am I going to third party manage? Both can work. Again, I have friends that self-manage and they will hire the staff and then management is now in-house. I can tell you that if you have an appetite for that and you have a knack for that, that can mean even better margins. uh for me because owning and operating self storage isn't my only business and I have other things and other interests. I've always chosen to look for larger facilities and self and and go with thirdparty management company. Okay. So either way it's you just have to figure out what works for you. Uh now a couple different things I I will mention before we transition into the facility fast start here. If you are using a thirdparty manager, it's super important that you get clear before you hire them to talk about their scope of work. What are they responsible for? What are you going to be responsible for? Usually, in my experience, they are going to be responsible for finding, hiring, and training the boots on the ground team member. Uh they oftent times have an in-house call center that they use. They they might even offer bookkeeping services. Now, bookkeeping is something I've always chosen to hire my own bookkeeper. Super, super important. The third party management company I work with for an additional fee they can handle the books, but again, I have always wanted to work with my own bookkeeper. And, you know, I have coaching clients that manage their own books because they're familiar with QuickBooks and they have a system. It really doesn't take them that much time. I have always worked with a bookkeeper. So, uh this particular person manages the books for my different storage facilities. and a a good keeper, you're going to pay anywhere between, I would say, $75 on the low end to it could be 300 bucks depending on the size of the facility, the complexity, the various things that you want to track on the P&L and on the balance sheet, maybe even a cash flow statement. So, you just have to kind of think through some of these things, but really important that you if you're interviewing and going to hire a third party management company, you're crystal clear on what they do and what they don't do. All right? Super super important. Communication is key. Just because you hire a thirdparty management company, do not abdicate the responsibility. They still need to be managed. So, with our uh thirdparty management company, we meet bi-weekly and we review in depth the management summary report, where we're at with revenue, where we're at with moveins and moveouts, um where occupancy is at, and we're tracking things month over month, year over year. Do we have any unrenable units, and if so, why? What is the plan for that? How are we looking from a customer service perspective? We also look at revenue management. Okay. And and rates are rates aligned with the market. Are we the market leader? Do we need to push? Do we need to scale back? Do we need to make any adjustments? Right? Those consistent meetings keep you connected, keep you confident. And remember, I always say this, you want to inspect what you expect. So, do not make the mistake of hiring a third-party management company and turning a blind eye expecting that they're doing everything that they're supposed to be doing. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. So, you still need to have a close eye, be looking at the reports, be in communication. If things are not moving to your expectations, and that's something that you're going to talk to them upfront before you hire them is expectations. Ideally, you can even ask for some, "Hey, could you put me in contact with one or two of your customers?" do some research on the company. Make sure that they have experience. Make sure that they're not growing too fast and that you just become another client because operations can make or break the deal. All right?

Now, let's start to transition and I want to talk about the mindset here for these 90 days of onboarding. As with most things, it's probably not going to surprise you, but you want an attitude of progress, not perfection. All right? You want to create structure, start building momentum. You want to have a checklist that you complete which is going to build more clarity, more confidence. 30,000 foot view. Let me just kind of give you the road map here. The first 30 days to me the focus needs to be about stabilization and communication. All right. The outcome of this is just going to mean smoother transition. So you want to stabilize, you want to communicate. Days 31 through 60. And by the way, don't worry because I'm going to get deeper into each one of these phases. it. Days 31 through 60 is about systemization and optimization. That's going to give you more efficiency. And then days 61 through 90 is about monetizing, maximizing profit and control. And like let's be honest, like that's why we're in the storage business. Obviously, it's we want to make more money. We want to generate cash flow. We want to build wealth. And we want to be able to do this on our timeline, which is going to give us freedom to do the things that are important to us, the things that fill us up. That's why most people I think get involved in the self- storage business.

So, let's now start to focus in on phase one. And again, your goal here is clarity and connection. It's all about communication. Communication with tenants, with your team, with any vendors. Uh if you're doing any capex work. So, think of like part one in phase one. Think of this as like the tenant communication blitz. All right? You want to send a friendly letter the day of closing. ideally a change of ownership letter, right? And and this is super friendly, letting them know that the facility is under new management. You've recently purchased the facility. You're excited about everything you're going to be doing to the facility. Uh how they can communicate with you from a customer service perspective, your phone number, the email, the website. Now, I think it's super important that you or someone on your team call and or text every single tenant personally and share with them like set the expectations how how are payments going to be handled moving forward, where they can reach you, what's changing. Make sure that it's benefit driven to them. Focus on the benefits, the things that you're going to be upgrading. And that could be lighting, that could be an automated gate, that could be better communication, more intentionality around customer service, improved security. There's a lot of things that you can communicate to them. Now, this should go without saying, but don't communicate anything to them that you're not planning on doing. You do not want to overpromise and underdel. I'd rather you overpromise and overd deliver, but if anything, underpromise, overd deliver. All right? Introduce yourself as the manager, not the owner. That is a pro tip right there because if you're the owner, guess who's going to be getting contacted a bunch. Get like now you've set yourself as like the end all beall and you can't play the good cop bad cop type of thing. So, you want to be the manager, not the owner in their eyes.

It's super important that they understand that in terms of payment rules. Under no circumstance am I suggesting or recommending that you accept cash. It just creates more liability. It's an issue. Especially if you're running these facilities remotely. Like you might live in one part of the country and the facility is hundreds of miles away. Even if it was in your backyard, I would tell you not to accept cash. To me, it just opens the door for liability, theft, confusion, more accounting. I do not accept cash. Now, when I bought my first facility, I decided I was going to accept checks and it just became a nightmare. Like people would send in their checks at the end of the month, but it wouldn't arrive at my mailbox until like the third or the fourth, which meant that to us they were late because if the payment's not in on the first of the month, if it's if it's the second and we haven't received it, they're late. They're getting assessed a fee. And it just became more of a bookkeeping nightmare. I we had to travel to the mailbox to get the checks. So, what I just decided to do is every time I close a facility, I give them a 60-day grace period when it comes to checks and that they understand that on day 61, we are no longer accepting checks and we move everybody over to a credit card payment. All right. I I would offer, especially early on, offer them a a a 60-day grace period for when it comes to late fees. You want to build goodwill. Like I think it's important you set the boundaries and the expectations, but you don't go in there with like a like you're sergeant, you know? You're just like, it's like this and it's like you're so rigid. You don't want people leaving on you, right? You want to make sure that you're taking care of them. You want to make sure that they feel seen, heard, loved, cared on. These are your customers. They're they're going to make sure that the facility continues to run, that you're profitable, take care of your people. Think about how you would want to be treated, right? Golden rule of life.

Now, part two or B of phase one, think about the systems and the data. It's not uncommon to take over a facility and you're going to see that the customer information or the tenant information is incorrect where you are missing an a number on the phone number or you're missing an email or you don't have the proper address. So when you contact the the customers, verify all their contact information, mobile number, if they have a home number, email, address. You want to reconcile everything to the rent roll to what's physically occupied because when you walk the facility, often times what you see in reality on site isn't going to match what's on the rent roll. And so the first 30 days, you're going to probably have to reconcile that. You want to make sure that export any historical reports before the seller's access to their software if they have it ends and you have that data. That can be super super handy for you in the future. If you go to refinance the facility or if you go to sell the facility, you will be asked for that data. It's always helpful if you have it on hand. You want to look at which units are there's a big difference between physical occupancy and economic occupancy. Physical occupancy is you have a customer who has their belongings in a unit, but they might not be paying. They may or may not be paying. Economic occupancy is let's say a facility could generate $100,000 in revenue, but it was only generating $50,000 in revenue. Well, now you have a 50% economic occupancy. Okay, 100% of those units might actually have stuff in it, which means it's 100% physically occupied. But if you're only get collecting half of what you could collect, it's 50% economic occupancy. So you have to make sure that when you're doing this reconciliation, you're checking I is this a paying customer? If not, what is the plan? Do we need to start the auction process on that? You need to secure vacant units. Make sure that you have a particular tag on them. Uh if a customer is not paying, make sure that you overlock them with a Da Vinci lock or whatever system you might be using. you would have gotten hopefully a certified rent roll signed at closing from the previous owner. So, those are some of the things you want to do and you want to just make sure that what's on site in reality matches your online system. All right, part three or C of phase one is the the property walkth through and the capex triage. And I and I kind of just touched on it, but we want to walk if you have multiple buildings, you likely will want to walk every building and inspect every unit. Now, you if if a customer has stuff in there, super important. I'm not an attorney. I can't give you any legal or financial advice, but never I never walk into a unit, okay? I I can open a door and look at it from the outside. Uh I wouldn't walk into the unit. Don't open yourself up to that type of stuff. You can take photos and videos of of vacant units or if a customer is not paying because then you can auction them off. And and there's different there's Locker Fox, there's storage.com. Like all our auctions take place online and then your boots on the ground is going to be the one to take pictures so that you can put those online, get those units auctioned once you follow whatever the lean laws are for that particular state. Okay, that's super important. That's something we talked about in the previous video is understanding the lean laws in that state.

If you're doing any type of capex work or repairs, capex is capital expenditures. You might meet with the different vendors, the roofer, the electrician, the handyman. Like make sure you have a game plan for that process and and create a list. I would encourage you to create a what's a mustdo now list. Like what absolutely has to be done now because it's impacting our ability to to create and generate revenue versus it's a nice to have or it's a nice to do in the future. Super important. If you have a door, as an example, that doesn't open, well, now you can't rent that unit. That's a must fix. Now, let's say you're 10% occupancy, right? You have 90% vacancy. Maybe you don't have to fix that because you have so many other open units. So, you have to use a little bit of judgment here. But if generally speaking, I like to get fixed the things that need to get fixed because it's preventing me from generating revenue versus something that it'd be a nice to have, but it's not going to prevent us from renting out a unit and generating revenue. Hopefully, that makes sense.

When it comes to the boots on the ground team member, obviously when you purchase the facility and you're on site with them the first two, three, four days, however long you're on site, you want to be meeting with them. You want to train them. You want to make sure that that the site map that they understand the site map and where all the units are, the size of the units. Uh you do that by walking the facility together. Set expectations. I like to provide them with a starter kit. you know, the things that they're going to need. Da Vinci locks, pest sprayer, pest, any type of pest control, signage, tools. I remember when I bought my first facility, I we went to Home Depot and bought a leaf blower because there was a bunch of like leaves and stuff on. So, provide them with the tools and resources that they'll need. Their role is just the upkeep of the property and then making sure that they do lock audits, unit cleanouts, they take pictures for the auctions. I don't like them communicating with customers. Their role is not customer service. That's why I have either a call center, a thirdparty management company, but I don't want my boots on the ground really interacting and handling customer service. I want them doing the on-site upkeep and operations. All right? Especially when you hire somebody, I think it's important that you do a daily touch point call. That could be a 10 to 15 minute call. Bare minimum, you should be meeting with them once a week. I think that's really, really important. How did it go the day before? You're reviewing any challenges, updates, wins. Make sure that they have an action plan moving forward. Equip them to be able to do their job successfully. That basically goes with any role that you hire, but make sure that the lines of communication are super super open. If you are working with a third-party management company, just make sure that there's a a frequent touch point early on. Expectations are being set and that they also have what they need from you to be able to do their job. And a really good management company is going to appreciate that. They're going to want to communicate with you early on in the process because they want to

Keep and retain your business. They want you as a happy customer. So, super important that both of you are aligned there. And don't forget in the amplifier training session, we have a video all about the boots on the ground team member. So, once you get through module five, then you can check that out when the time is right.

The last couple ones that I want to mention here as far as phase one marketing and visibility. Yes, you want this to start now. Don't wait until later on in the process, but you want to make sure that you have claimed and verified your Google My Business listing. All right, your Google Business Profile.

If you haven't taken professional photos, take professional photos. Get those uploaded to your Google My Business profile, to your website online. Update your hours of operations. Make sure that you have really good signage that says "New Ownership," that you have a clear phone number, that it just looks professional.

You want to make sure that your website is live, it's connected to your management software, to your merchant account, that people have the ability to go online and rent units. You want to make sure that your phone number is on there. You'd be surprised. I have been to websites that don't have a phone number and a way to contact them. It's wild to me. Or that they have a sign that just has the facility name but no phone number. Like, what good does that do somebody driving by? So, make sure that just this sounds basic, but you again, you would be surprised how many miss the mark when it comes to this type of stuff.

On our website, I like to show like, "Hey, we're located right by the Arby's or by the Dollar General," and here's how you get here from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west. If you're going to be working with Sparefoot, then you want to make sure that Sparefoot has your pictures and your online description and all that kind of stuff.

All right. Now, the last part here is something that I like to do is just quality control. I want to verify all the utilities are now in our name, with our company name, I should say, with our contact information. You want to confirm that merchant deposits are hitting your account. And I like to do that by testing with like a one-cent deposit. So, test everything as if you were a customer. Go to your own website, click the "Rent Now" button, and rent one of your units. Let's say you have a lot of one particular unit type and size available. Like, let's say you have 20 5x5s available. Rent one of your 5x5s. Don't rent like the last 10x15 that you have, as an example. Rent it. Go through the process and ask yourself, "Hey, if I was going to be a customer of this facility, do I find this painless and easy to manage and to rent?"

Call the number. If you're working with a call center, call them and say, "Hey, how long does it take? How many rings did they pick up right away? Were they courteous? Were they helpful?" Make sure. One of the things I like my assistant to do is on a weekly basis, she'll go online and she'll make sure our website is working. She'll make sure she'll call the phone number on Google. She'll call the phone number on our website, make sure that's working. Make sure our call center answers the phone quickly. So, it's a saying I'm forgetting. I don't want to butcher it, but like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of flesh or something like that. These are little things that can take two to three minutes that, done once a week, can prevent you from not being able to rent a unit and generate revenue. Don't ever assume that things are working as they should. Again, inspect what you expect. Super, super important.

Now, when it comes to, let's now transition to phase two. Phase two is now you've gotten through your first month of ownership as a storage operator, and now you're moving into days 31 through 60. Hopefully, you're in the process of starting to get things, communication is on track. You're starting to get things more stabilized, dialed in. Now, we've got to tighten the systems.

When it comes to the finances and the bookkeeping, you want to make sure that you're reconciling every single month. Do not make the mistake that a lot of business owners make, is that they wait till the end of the year to try to do all the books. That is not the way to run, manage, and operate a business. And self-storage is no different. So, every single month, our books are reconciled. We're confirming that our deposits from our merchant account are matching the reports. We want to make sure that we try to get as many tenants as possible over to autopay. Autopay via a credit card. And then you, or your bookkeeper, they're going to close out the books every single month. In fact, I work with a bookkeeper. If you want to just reach out to us, and I can put you in contact with our bookkeeper. But I have a monthly one-hour meeting with him where we review the P&L, the profit and loss statement. We review the balance sheet. We just make sure that everything is up to date, and that gives me, as an owner-operator, that gives me a certain level of peace of mind that at any given point, like, I know where the numbers are at. I know where we're at with our facility. I have my finger on the pulse, and things are just dialed in.

You want a certain cadence and rhythm when it comes to if you're working with any particular vendors. When I typically buy a facility, if it doesn't have cameras, I like to have cameras installed. And so that's an example of a vendor that I'm in contact with. Or if you're adding an automated gate, or if you're improving lighting, things of that nature. So, lock in any type of recurring schedules. Maybe you have somebody who's mowing the lawn or doing some type of maintenance every two weeks or every month. It could be pest control on a monthly basis. It could be the gate service. Whatever it might be, just make sure that you have the contact information. I like to use just a simple Google spreadsheet that myself and my team have access to. Boots on the ground has access to them. They know the contact information for people that they may need to communicate with, and that we're reviewing. Okay, these are the CAPEX projects that we're working on right now, and here's what we're going to be tackling in the future.

Make sure that when it comes to reviewing your KPIs, your key performance indicators, if you're working with a software like Easy Storage Solutions or Storage, then I always, once a week, I always track where are we at from a revenue perspective, where are we at from an occupancy perspective, delinquencies, okay, super important, move-ins and move-outs. Those are some of the things that I'm looking at and I like to update and look at that weekly because, as with anything, what you track and measure expands and grows. So, there are some that will tell you, "Hey, looking at your KPIs once a month is okay." I like to look at our reports on a weekly basis. It helps me stay ahead of things. If there's an issue, I like to communicate with the third-party management company in advance, and I'm not waiting until the month has ended and closed to then try to address certain challenges or issues.

All right. And I think the last part of phase two is, I like, I'm a relationships guy. If you've been following along in this cash flow maps training, then you know that about me already. Relationships are everything. And I like to make sure that I have relationships with local, with the community, the surrounding area, 35-mile radius. I know the different businesses out there. I introduce myself as a new business owner to the area. Often times, if you build these meaningful relationships, they can become an extra set of eyes on your property. They can even send you referrals. Make sure that you let them know that you do offer a referral program. I would definitely recommend that. I even like to build relationships with my competitors. In fact, at our Florida facility, that's what I did with one of our closest competitors. He happens to have been, he's usually pretty full, and every now and then, he'll send us referrals when they can't, they just don't have any availability. And then we give them a small fee in exchange for that, and we just maintain a relationship. So, it's a win-win-win all the way around.

Now, phase three is things by now, days 61 through 90. Depending on the facility and where you're at from a value-add strategy perspective, where you're at from an occupancy perspective, a CAPEX perspective, like, depending on all those variables, things are starting to settle down and normalize. It's not as, often times I experience, it's not as chaotic or hectic, if that's even the word to use. That's probably an over-dramatization, if that's the word to use. But things just slow down and settle in, and the facility is starting to run smoother, hopefully. And this is about, for me, revenue optimization. You want to be auditing your rent roll. You want to make sure that you're checking again the competition and where rates are relative to the market. Where are your rates relative to the competitors?

I always encourage our Storage Wars coaching clients to be, you want to push, you want to put pressure on the market rates. You don't want to be the cheapest. You don't want to be in the middle. You want to be towards the top, and you want to be pushing the rates. Sometimes you might find yourself that you're in a very unsophisticated market, meaning the operators in the area just, they set it and forget it. These are the rates, and they've been the rates like that for years. Like, you don't, that's where you can thrive and win, and you don't want to be that person. All right, so make sure that you're evaluating. That's one of the things I like about my third-party management company is that every month we're doing revenue rate management. Do we need to be increasing a little bit? Do we need to stay the same? Maybe it makes sense if I have a particular, if I have a lot of units of a particular type and size. Maybe I need to drop to get to get occupancy up to start generating more revenue. And then in six to nine months, I can think about bumping the rates depending on where they're at.

All right. You might even want to think about introducing certain upsells. Now, from day one, we always do an admin fee. We do late fees. We do, if we have to put on, if we have to clean out, we do a cleanout fee, auction fee. So, there's there's different profit centers in the storage business, and all that trickles down to the bottom line, which I love. You definitely want to have tenant protection or some type of insurance program where you're working with a company, they provide the service, and you participate in the revenue with them. Oftentimes, we get 70% of that. So, like for our tenant protection, they pay, our tenants pay, or I should say our customers pay $14 a month. We get 70% of that revenue, and we don't even have to service it, which is awesome.

Now, when it comes to reviews and reputations, super, super important that you're constantly doing a steady push for five-star Google reviews. Google reviews are very, very important in any business, especially a storage business. I personally work with a service that's been a game-changer for us, and they have an algorithm where they're reaching out to our customers to incentivize them to give us reviews. It's a legit service. We don't get fake reviews. I don't, I would never recommend that. Do not do that. Do not add fake reviews from non-customers. If you're going to ask friends and family for reviews, make sure that they're not lying and saying, "Hey, I rent storage here," but saying, "Hey, this is more of a character review. I know the ownership, and I know they care." Things like that, I think, are okay. But really, the company that I work with, highly recommend. It's relatively inexpensive. There should be a link somewhere on here if you want to fill out a quick form that'll automatically go to them. I do have an affiliate relationship with them, so full disclosure, where I get a little bit of money if you decide to work with them. But I've been working with them for years. Um, I like them. They're good. My Florida facility went from, I think, six or seven reviews to, I think we have like over 60 now or over 70 in like a year and a half. And so every single month, we just get a new trickle of five-star reviews from our existing customer base, and I love it.

CAPEX execution. You know, you want to make sure that you're, you have an outline or you have a checklist of the things that you want to work on and when you want to work on them. What, what's deferred maintenance that needs to be focused on. Now, I like to make sure I focus on safety and curb appeal. Curb appeal is super, super important. You want to make sure you capture before and after photos for marketing and like if you're going to work with a bank, so that they can see, "Hey, look at all the work we've done here. Look at all the money we've put into the facility." I did that with my first facility where we took before pictures before closing and then after, where we had the brand new automated gate, where we painted some doors, where we added new security and lighting, a new sign. Like, that can be a big, big difference, and it shows a bank, it shows a lender, it shows a potential partner, a potential future buyer, all the work you've done, the value you've created in the facility.

And then the last part here is the reporting and the rhythm. You want to make sure, like I mentioned, you're reviewing KPIs every single week, management summary reports, occupancy reports, things of that nature. You can conduct a 90-day review where you're looking at over the last 90 days, are we trending up when it comes to occupancy, when it comes to collections, when it comes to are things moving in the right direction, or where do we need to tweak, modify, or recalibrate on certain things? And look, celebrate the wins. Like, this is the hard part. Once you get through these first 90 days, it's about making sure you follow through on your plan, your business plan. You're executing, but things really slow down. All right? And then now that you have this confidence and momentum, you can go to find your next facility. Note any lessons learned, and you're just going to continue to build, get wiser, get better, get stronger, start to systematize what's maybe not working or where you're weak.

And I think, in just putting a bow on this, on this particular video, I want to share with you some common pitfalls that you should avoid. Poor tenant communication or not communicating with your tenants. If 30 days in, a customer doesn't even know that you have just acquired this facility, or they don't know what's new or different, that's on you. Okay? So, poor tenant communication, forgetting to do quality control checks, and just like I mentioned, testing your website, the phone number, not offering different services like tenant protection or some type of insurance where you can participate in that revenue, having no boots on the ground ready when you close on the facility and then having to scramble and find one. Over-improving, putting too much money into the facility that doesn't necessarily have an impact on the revenue and the occupancy. I think that's a mistake. And then also just completely ignoring the finances, not having a bookkeeper or a bookkeeping process and system, not reconciling certain things. That is where things start to go south. You've got to have two hands on the wheel. You've got to have your arms around this. This is your business. Make sure that you treat it like a business. Make sure you take care of your customers. Focus on customer service. Overcommunicate with those people involved, and you're going to be in good shape overall.

All right. So, look, this is your first 90 days. It can feel like a bit of a whirlwind, and that's okay. Once your systems and people are in place, everything starts to slow down, and you're going to be rocking and rolling. But the goal is not to do everything yourself, right? Don't feel like you need to take this on yourself. You want to build a business that runs on systems, runs on delegation. Certain parts of it are going to be automated. And in the next video, "The Facility Freedom Method," we're going to talk about how you can move from operator to owner and how you can lead through systems, delegation, clarity. What have I always said from module one? It's about massive imperfect action. Always wins. You're going to make mistakes. Things are not going to go as planned. That's okay. Just hit the reset button if need be. Recalibrate, and you've got this. So, I look forward to connecting with you on the next one.

Hey my friend, first off, congratulations. Hopefully, if you're watching this, I'm going to take it to mean that you have made it through the entire Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System. You have done the work. You have built and laid the foundation, and now you have a clear roadmap to find, fund, and win your very first storage deal. Maybe you're watching this and you're going after your second, third, fourth, maybe even fifth storage win. Either way, that alone puts you ahead of, miles and miles ahead of, investors and others who are stuck spinning their wheels in analysis paralysis, talking about getting involved in self-storage, but never actually making any headway. But now, the way that I see it is you're at an important crossroads because you can take everything I've taught you, everything you've learned, the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System, and try to figure out the next steps on your own. Or you can plug into a community that is going to help you shortcut the learning curve, be there to guide and support you, hold you accountable, help you avoid costly mistakes, and ultimately accelerate your results and get you to your desired goals a lot quicker.

In the last video, I called this next step the "Freedom Path," and that is exactly what this is. But here's the truth: this isn't just a path. The way that I view it, it's an accelerator. Because when you combine the right coaching with the right community, everything speeds up. It's an absolute game-changer. You start moving with more clarity, with more confidence, with more momentum. And that's why I've actually decided to name this amplifier session the "Freedom Accelerator." And let me share with you something personal. Every single leap that I have ever made in my life and business, number one, I attribute that to God and my relationship with God, my faith. Number two, it came because I surrounded myself with the right people. I had the right coaches and mentors pouring into me. I was involved in masterminds and communities of like-minded individuals that were there to hold me accountable and lift me up when I was down, pick me up when I was struggling or frustrated because I wasn't getting to my desired goal quicker. They were there to tell me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear.

I think back to my wholesaling days. I felt like I hit a ceiling multiple times. I was working hard, but it felt like I was on a big hamster wheel, and I just felt stuck. And I found the right coaches and mentors who challenged my thinking, and I got immersed and surrounded by a community of people that believed in me when I was questioning myself. And look, that combination for me, that guidance plus accountability plus support, absolutely changed everything in my life and business. It's what helped me transition out of a transactional business back in 2020 into the storage business that I have today. One that gives me more freedom, more margin, more impact. One that allows me to do this, which is what really energizes me and gives me fulfillment. And that's why I built the Storage Wins coaching community, so that you could experience the same exact growth without the years of trial and error I went through and without the costly mistakes I made along the way.

And what I have come to realize is that most people don't fail because they lack information. They fail because they try to be the lone ranger doing it alone, and they get overwhelmed by too many strategies. They lose clarity on what to do next. They stop taking action because there's no one to hold them accountable or even remind them why they started, somebody to believe in them when they start not believing in themselves, when they start doubting themselves, and the inner critic voice pops up. So, inside a community like Storage Wins, that changes. You're surrounded by people who are, number one, they're doing it, so your belief is going to grow. You get coaching that gets you focused on the right actions. You get support, and you get your questions answered because inevitably, as you start to implement the Cash Flow Maps system, you're going to run into some roadblocks, some challenges. You're going to have some questions, and ultimately, you get accountability that keeps you consistent.

Okay, let me share just a few quick stories from inside of our community because you might be somebody that you're looking at me thinking, "Well, hey, Alex, you can do it because of XYZ," whatever that might be. Well, I think of somebody like Jeremy and Maryanne, who just recently joined our Storage Wins community, and within 31 days of joining our community, they were officially under contract on their very first storage facility for $1 million. Now, these are people that had never been involved in self-storage. They had been thinking about it for a while, but they ultimately decided to join our community, surround themselves with like-minded people. They got the help, the support, and the guidance. And to their credit, not only did they take massive imperfect action, but they gave all the glory to God. And they actually shared about that on one of our community calls. And as of today, as of the day that I am recording this Freedom Accelerator video, they're scheduled to close in the next 24 hours. That's how powerful surrounding yourself with the right people and getting the right guidance is.

Hey guys, this is Jeremy Velocic and Maryanne Velocage, husband and wife. Now, we wanted to actually just talk about a fantastic experience we had with Alex Partardo and the Storage Wins Community. So, I was flipping through Facebook a few months ago, and Alex was on there talking about self-storage, and I have been a full-time real estate investor for roughly 21 years, primarily in the single-family home space. I have never bought a storage facility, although I have tried in the past. When I came across Alex on Facebook, God said to reach out to him because he did want me to do self-storage. And I did reach out to Alex, which I think he was a little surprised that I reached out to him. I've known him for about 15 years or so. However, it was a fantastic experience, and the community is amazing. Alex is fantastic, and he took away the scary parts of self-storage, like the management piece of it, how to find the deals, all the information that we would have fallen short or probably stumbled had we not been a part of that group, how to evaluate a deal, which is really important. That was on.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Gary Keller talks often about standing on the shoulders of giants, and I absolutely would say that is true with Alex and the community. So, we just wanted to give him a shout out, and we would highly recommend him, highly endorse him. And we did buy and close on our first storage unit. It was 105, sorry, 185 units, roughly 33,000 square feet, and we were in the group 35 days. We actually got the deal when we started with the group, and we closed about 35 days later. So, I just want to share our testimony for him because it was fantastic, and we just appreciate the group so much.

And one thing I want to add is Alex teaches us to make massive imperfect action, and that was probably one of the most powerful things that he shared because nothing we do is going to be perfect, but if we don't take massive action, we won't get results. And so I love the community and all of the learning, and we feel 100% supported, and we're just happy to stand here and tell you how great Storage Wins is. Absolutely. So, if you are on the fence or even considered investing in self-storage facilities, I would highly recommend Alex, and I would highly recommend the community Storage Wins.

I think of somebody like Kate, who joined with zero storage experience. She did have a little bit of wholesaling experience but just wasn't able to really gain traction. And because she came into our community and showed up and contributed and gave and built relationships with the right people, not only was she able to find her first deal inside of our Storage Wins community because another member had the deal and wholesaled it to her, but she needed 30% down to get involved in that deal, which she didn't have. She found it from two other Storage Winners, two other people in our community. And today now she owns a storage facility that's cash flowing. She's building momentum. She's knocking on the door of her second deal. And in fact, I interviewed Kate on the Storage Wins podcast, and I'm going to go ahead and we'll link that up somewhere on here so you can hear her story directly from her because she's somebody who doubted herself. She didn't have the belief and confidence she can do this. But to her credit, she stepped up. She invested in herself. She joined the Storage Wins community, and then she followed through. And today she's the proud owner of her storage facility and is well on her way to building a very successful and profitable storage portfolio.

I think of Casey McKillip, who came into our community after he and I had a conversation, and 91 days later, he bought his very first storage facility. Six months after that, he bought his second facility, and two months after that, he bought his third facility. Three storage facilities in 11 months. All with creative financing, and all with one particular method, which was driving for dollars. Okay? He built relationships. He plugged into our process and our system. He showed up on our community calls. He asked questions, and he took the action. And now he's enjoying the fruits of that labor.

Mario Kintarero is another person who was successful as an employee in his medical sales business but ended up getting laid off and knew that he wanted something more for his family. And he planted his flag on storage. He came in. I've actually interviewed him. We'll include that interview as well. He talked about how life got busy, and he just wasn't putting in the time and energy. Six months later, he didn't really have the results he was looking for. So, we had a conversation, a heart-to-heart, and we hit the reset button. And then just three or four months after that, he bought his very first storage facility, which also he found within our community. One of the members actually wholesaled a deal to him. Now he's not only the owner, but he's helping others inside of our community do the same. Different stories, same results: clarity, momentum, and freedom through coaching and community.

I can go on and on. We have other members who have carved out equity and ownership in deals just by contributing to other people's deals. So, that's the type of support, that's the type of benefit that comes from being a member inside of our community. It's what happens when you join Storage Wins. Not only do you get a custom game plan tailored to your goals, you get resources, you get the tools that you need, and you get all the support on your timeline. So, we're not talking about cookie-cutter strategies here. We literally help you create your path to your first facility or your next facility. You get equipped with the tools and the resources. Everything from our buy box builder to deal analyzers, offer templates, funding scripts, due diligence checklists. We just amplify and build on what you've already gone through here in the Cash Flow Maps system. And then we give you support. Every single week, we meet for live coaching, and we do deal reviews and case studies. You'll get feedback on deals that you're actually working on. We'll help you structure offers, come up with strategies to confidently raise capital. But honestly, aside from all that, which is a huge value, the greatest value is in the people. It's in the community. It's in the relationships because you will never have to do this alone.

All right? Our members celebrate your wins. We're going to challenge your thinking. We're going to keep you moving forward. And when you join the Storage Wins community, you're not just learning, you're becoming part of a family that wins together. And here's the truth. What I have found is that you have, you already have everything you need to succeed, right? Like, if you've gotten this far and you've gone through the Cash Flow Maps system, you literally have everything you need to succeed. You've got the roadmap, the strategy, you clearly have the desire and the energy to do this. But if you want to shortcut the learning curve, if you want to avoid any big mistakes, you want to move faster, then coaching and community, that is the ultimate accelerator.

There's an African proverb, and I don't want to butcher it, but it says, "If you want to go fast, do it alone. If you want to go far, do it together." Right? Do it with people. So, you can absolutely do this on your own. But here's my question: Why would you? Why take the long road when you can walk alongside others who've already mapped out the shortcuts, others who've already made the mistakes that you are sometimes inevitably going to make because you just don't know what you don't know. So, look, here's your next step. Click the link below somewhere on this page and book a discovery call, and we're going to help you map out your Freedom Accelerator plan. And I'll ask you some questions to figure out where you are now, where you want to go, what's holding you back, and whether our coaching community is the right fit for you to help you get there faster. So, you've, you've already done all the hard part. You've gotten started. Hopefully, by now, if you're watching this, you've already taken that massive imperfect action, and now it's just time to accelerate. All right? Because you were not meant to do this alone. Let's build your storage freedom together.

What if I told you you could make $30,000, $50,000, even $150,000 or more on a self-storage deal? Here's the kicker: without ever buying the facility yourself. That's exactly what I'm going to be talking to you about today in the "Instant Payday AMP" training video. Because just like people wholesale houses and wholesale cars and anything you can imagine, you can also wholesale a self-storage facility. And often times, people don't even realize that you can wholesale these storage facilities just like you can anything else. So, if you are looking to create cash in the next 60 days to six months, this strategy can be a complete game-changer for you because it's the same exact process I've already shown you inside of the Cash Flow Maps training system: how to find deals, where we talk about deal discovery, how to analyze them with our deal filter system, how to talk to the owners. The only thing that changes is going to be your exit strategy.

Now, let me quickly zoom out and share with you if you're not familiar with wholesaling. Let me just simplify what that means. Wholesaling just means that you find a great deal. You find a great opportunity. You get it under contract, which means now you have equitable interest in that storage facility. You can control the deal. And then you merely assign or sell that contract to another buyer in exchange for a fee. And that fee in self-storage can range from $20,000 all the way up to $100,000-plus. As you're about to hear in just a bit, I have generated $33,000 wholesaling a storage facility. I've generated $25,000. I've generated all the way up to $150,000 wholesaling storage facilities. And I have coaching clients, and people inside of our Storage Wins community, I should say, that are wholesaling deals every single quarter. In fact, I have one gentleman in our community that just this year alone has wholesaled three storage facilities and is well north of $200,000 in net profits without ever taking ownership, without ever owning these facilities.

Hey there, time out. Now, you're not watching this because you're trying to become really good at watching YouTube videos. You're here because you want a different outcome. You probably want cash flow. You certainly want more freedom, and you want to own storage facilities and build something that changes your life and your family's future. Otherwise, why are you here? Why are you even watching this and listening to me? Well, that's exactly why I built the Cash Flow Maps Acquisition System. So that if you haven't already, I want you to head over and create your free account at cashflowmaps.com. You can also just click the link in the description below, and you're going to get access to not just the training neatly organized, but all the tools, the resources, the templates, the calculators, everything I use in my storage business and what our Storage Wins community members use. So, before you keep going, make sure that you create your free account or set some time to do that later. And with that said, let's keep rocking here.

So, the fees can be very, very healthy, and really, you are the bridge, essentially, between the storage owner and the end buyer. Okay? You create value by doing what most people either don't know how to do, or don't want to do, or just don't want to sacrifice the time and energy to do it. And you are sourcing the deal. You're the deal finder, and then you are getting it under contract, controlling the opportunity. And that's why I like to call this the "Instant Payday." Not instant like it happens overnight, but again, within the next 60 days to six months, if you commit yourself to follow what you've learned in the Cash Flow Maps training system, you can go ahead and decide to wholesale these opportunities and not ultimately be the end buyer. In fact, if you find a really good opportunity, you might even be able to get your wholesale fee and eat your cake at the end of the day, too, by retaining some equity. That's exactly what I did on one of my storage facilities. I'll walk you through it here.

I think what we should do here is let me just break this down in five simple steps. All right? Because I want you to understand the process at a 30,000-foot view, and then we can dive into the particulars. Step number one is sourcing the deal. And you already know how to do this because, again, we talked about this in our deal discovery and our deal flow training modules. You already know how to build your list and how to have meaningful conversations with these mom-and-pop storage owners. You know how to identify these opportunities that check the boxes.

Step two is you want to analyze the deal, or what is commonly referred to as underwriting the deal, and you want to run it through our deal filter system to make sure that it makes sense for an end buyer. Now, don't make the mistake a lot of people make, and that is overthinking it. Just confirm that there's value-add potential, okay? And and that the numbers make sense for an end buyer.

Step number three is you want to control the deal, and you want to get it under contract. Your LOI, you're probably going to start with a letter of intent. And there's an AMP training video on exactly how to put together a simple two-page letter of intent, which is non-binding. It's not a legally binding contract. And then eventually, you're going to get a purchase and sale agreement or a purchase agreement executed. That is what is going to ultimately give you control. You're not closing yet. You're just buying yourself time and positioning yourself to market the opportunity and find an end buyer. I'm going to talk to you about some best practices, dos and don'ts here towards the end of this video. So, so stick with me here.

Step number four is market the deal. And there are essentially eight ways that I have experienced finding buyers for a storage deal. And I want to share these with you now. Number one is, here's the great thing is you've been listening to me, hopefully, and you've been following the Cash Flow Maps system, and so hopefully you know that I'm a reliable, trustworthy, incredible buyer. And I'm not only coach others on how to buy their first or next self-storage facility, but I'm also active in the business. And so, number one is, you have the opportunity to, if and when, or I should say when you get a deal under contract, if you decide to wholesale it, then think of me as your first buyer because I am actively looking for opportunities. And if for whatever reason the deal doesn't work for me, it could work for somebody in our Storage Wins community because there is constant deal flow happening within the Storage Wins community. So, there should be a link below this video somewhere on this page where I'm just going to ask you some questions, complete the form, and you can send the deal directly to me so that I can evaluate it. We'll review it. We'll see if we're interested in buying it. If we are, we're happy to pay you whatever wholesale fee you're looking for, as long as the deal and the numbers make sense for me or for us. Okay? So, step one is, there's a link somewhere below this video or on this page. In fact, I would encourage you to just bookmark this so that whenever you come across a self-storage opportunity that you get under contract. That's really, really important. I don't like to work with daisy chains, and there's three people in the middle of a deal. So, this is only going to make sense if you are the one that has the deal directly under contract with the owner, then you can go ahead and send it to me. Or maybe you're working with a broker or through a broker with the owner, and you're just, you need help, and you're not sure, and you want to potentially get me involved in the deal or you want to wholesale it, then you can go ahead. As long as you're direct, you could submit the deal directly to me. Okay? So, bookmark that link somewhere below this video or on this page.

Number two is, if you are a part of our Storage Wins coaching community, and I want to encourage you, if you haven't already seen the Freedom Accelerator video that talks about the Storage Wins community, definitely check that out. But we are a community of just awesome people. We're hungry. We're reliable. We are looking for the right opportunities. And so, we've had a lot of members just this year already buy deals, wholesale deals to each other. We'll talk about that a little bit here. But you can share it inside of our Storage Wins community. Of course, if you're a part of it. If not, just go ahead and refer back to step one, which is just submit the deal using the form that's on this page.

Number three is, you can post the deal inside of the Storage Wins Facebook group. You should already be a part of the Storage Wins Facebook group. If not, again, there should be a link on this page for you to join that group. It's 100% free, but there are people that every single week share opportunities that they have under contract. It's a great place to network with others, build relationships, and find buyers.

Number four is, I would also encourage you to join other storage Facebook groups. There's a bunch of them out there. So, just search inside of Facebook for storage Facebook groups. Now, look, let's be honest, Storage Wins, I might be biased, but I believe it is the best storage Facebook group out there. So, make sure you join that one. But, yeah, in all seriousness, I would also encourage you to join the other ones because if you get a deal under contract, or I should say when you get a deal under contract, if you decide to wholesale it, you can certainly find a buyer inside of one of these groups.

Number five is, you want to make sure that you're building your buyer list. Just like you're building a prospect list of self-storage mom-and-pop owners, you also want to do that so that when you find an opportunity that doesn't quite fit your buy box blueprint, or maybe you're looking for to generate some cash and you want to just wholesale a deal versus taking it on, then you already have an email list. You have a list of ready-to-go buyers for self-storage opportunities. So, here's a pro tip: When you see people in these Facebook groups, when you see people commenting with their email addresses, whenever you see a deal posted or they raise their hand and say, "Hey, I'm interested in that deal," send them a message directly and let them know that you come across self-storage wholesale opportunities because you work direct to owner and that you do a lot of marketing. And ask them if they want you to add them to your buyer list. And most of the time, they're going to say yes. Make sure to get their name, their mobile number, because you can also text them if they give you permission, and their email address. And now you can start building your email list.

That's going to lead us to step number six. And that is, when you get a deal, hopefully you're building your email list every single week. You can send an email to your list. And if you don't yet quite have a list, there are others who have a buyer list. So, that's the magic and beauty of building relationships with people in the Storage Wins community and the Storage Wins Facebook group is that you can joint venture with them and say, "Hey, I have an opportunity." Maybe you've been marketing the opportunity and you haven't been able to find the right buyer. You can joint venture with somebody who has an email list because an email list is an asset. And if a buyer comes from their list, or if they bring you a buyer, then you can include them in the deal for some type of fair fee split, whatever might make sense. You're going to have to take that on a case-by-case basis.

The seventh way to wholesale one of your deals is to reach out to a storage broker who has active buyers. Now, if they're an active, successful broker, I can tell you they have buyers. There's some brokers that specialize in certain regions or areas. Now, here's what I would suggest. If you're going to go this route, be very transparent with them that you have it under contract and you're looking for a buyer, and that you're not looking to list the facility with a broker because you are not the owner. You just, you control the deal. I would only recommend you do this if you have a relationship with the broker and you don't think the broker is going to try to go around you to the seller to try to get the listing or anything like that. So, this is not one of my favorite ways, but if you've built a meaningful relationship with a broker and the deal can support paying them some type of commission that makes sense, then it's a way to potentially get them involved to bring you a buyer. Just be very transparent with people and let them know, "Hey, I have this under contract. I think it's a really good deal. Here's why XYZ. I'm looking for a buyer." Let them see what they're willing to do. See if they have, they might have a buyer in mind who's been reaching out to them for a deal in that particular area. You just never know until you have the conversation.

Number eight, I don't typically go this route, but I'm going to include it anyways, is you can contact the competitors within the 10 to 20-mile radius of that facility to see if they are interested in owning another storage facility in an area where they already own a facility. Now, here is my disclaimer for you, and we're going to talk about this in the dos and don'ts, is

I always like to lead with transparency. So, if you haven't been transparent with the seller, in other words, if the seller believes that you are the end buyer, not somebody else, then you risk burning a relationship with that seller because the competition, the competitors, I I would say most of the time they know each other or they know who owns the storage in the area. So, if you reach out to a competitor saying, "Hey, I have this under contract. Are are you interested in buying it?" Don't be surprised if that person contacts your seller. And so, if you haven't been transparent, I don't recommend this. I do recommend transparency. I will talk more about that here in a bit in this video.

So, just an FYI that because they already own storage in the area, they might be interested in taking over that facility. It is a viable way to potentially find the buyer, but it does come with some risk that you should be aware of.

Uh, step number five, and this is getting paid, right? This is what it's all about. Once the buyer closes, then that's where you get paid your assignment fee, or it could be a JB split, and that's your instant payday. It's turning your knowledge and your hustle into real income without having to use a single dollar of your own money, without having to close on the deal, without having to operate it.

So, let me share with you some real-world case studies and examples cuz I've done this numerous times. I have Storage Winds coaching clients who have done this numerous times. It's a great way if you're looking to generate a pile of cash within the next 6 months. My very fir, in fact, when I first got into self- storage, uh, late 2020, this was in the summer of 2021 was the first storage deal I closed. It happened to be a wholesale deal.

Now, here's the irony, okay? I built a wholesaling business in the single family space for 14 years and wholesaliled the north of 750 deals during that time. I shut that down to focus on self- storage because I didn't like the transactional nature of wholesaling. I didn't want to continue building that business. And then the irony is my very first storage deal, I ended up wholesaling it. Why? Because it didn't fit my buy box blueprint. And I actually had the opportunity to work with two friends, one of which found the deal and brought me in because he knew I had experience wholesaling. And another friend of ours ended up joining the deal. And so he ended up finding the buyer. The three of us ended up splitting a $99,000 wholesale fee. So each of us made $33,000 upfront. The cool thing is that um one of the guys involved in the deal that knew the buyer ended up also negotiating for us to retain 15% equity in that deal. So what did that mean? That meant that each of us made $33,000 at closing and amongst the three of us, we still own to this day 15% equity and have ownership in that deal. Okay, which depending on I I think based on the revenue that facility is generating that 15% equity is probably worth anywhere between 40 and $80,000. I I don't have the exact revenue that it's generating at this moment, but it's probably worth 50 60 $70,000 just that 15% equity that at some point in the future whenever that facility gets sold or refinanced, then we'll realize some additional profits on that deal, which happened way back in 2021. And we don't do anything. All we do is get a K1 once a year. We have no management responsibilities, nothing, right? So, we got our cake and we got the cherry on top with the equity. So, that's deal number one.

Another deal I did was it wasn't your typical standard assignment where I didn't assign the contract because I got a kind of a quick story, but I a couple years ago I was traveling to Italy and right before I left to Italy, I got a call from a super nice lady who owned a facility in Louisiana. It's about a 21,000 square foot facility. And she called me and she said, "Hey, Alex, we've never spoken before, but I own this storage facility. You sent me a letter 2 years ago and I've been holding it because I had the thought of selling it, but the timing wasn't right and I wanted to know if you were still interested cuz I I think I think I'm going to be selling the facility." So, she held on to my letter for two years because there's some specific things I included in the letter. We have we have an AMP training called Accelerate and Dominate where I get into additional ways that you can market for mom and pop storage owner and generate leads. Direct mail is one of those. So, I'll talk about that in that AMP training session. But, she held on to my letter. Super long story short, I ended up getting that facility under contract for 400,000. Great deal. deal. I gave her exactly what she was looking for and ended up finding a buyer who's a friend of mine, somebody who I've worked with who paid $550. So, I ended up getting $150,000 at closing.

But here's where this deal got a little bit interesting is that the seller had an attorney who would not allow me to assign the contract. So, I'm going to share with you what we did based on the guidance and advice of my attorney. I'm not recommending you do this. I'm in fact I am suggesting and recommending that you always consult with an attorney to make sure that you're doing things the right way. Okay? You it's too easy to do things the right way to mess around and do them the wrong way. But ultimately what we ended up doing was the attorney set up an entity in that state and then we closed on it and on the day of closing we assigned essentially we sold 100% of the interest in that entity over to the buyer. So, the buyer took over the LLC that bought the facility in exchange for my $150,000 fee. Don't worry about there's some engineer brains watching me now saying, "Oh, I need to know exactly that." Like, let the attorney just give them the structure andor mastermind with them. Hey, here's what I want to accomplish. How can we legally do this where we disclose it? By the way, we disclosed everything to the seller, to the like everybody knew what was going on and it was perfectly fine. But consult with your attorney to make sure it's done the right way.

Look, we've had numerous examples just this year alone inside of our Storage Winds community. We have one member who has wholesaliled three storage facilities this year to other Storage Winds community members. Um, and so we have people buying deals, wholesaling deals to each other. One of those members needed 30% down on one of the facilities that that she was buying from another Storage Winds member. Two other Storage Winds community members came in and funded that deal for her. So, it's just winwinwins all the way around here. Uh, when you bring the right deal to the right buyer, it it can it can be a gamecher for you.

So, look, now let's talk about how you can do this the right way. The first thing is be transparent with sellers. And a lot of wholesalers will disagree with me. There's a lot of wholesalers, and in fact, years ago when I first got started in wholesaling, I I was one of these. I wasn't exactly disclosing to the the homeowner that I wasn't going to be the end buyer. If you know you're going to wholesale this and you're not the end buyer, let the seller know, hey, listen, I work with a with a group of storage buyers and we're we're actively pursuing opportunities. We each have different goals and objectives. So, if you think you might buy it, let them know. Like, I may buy this myself or it could be one of the partners that I work with. Either way, whatever we commit to, you know, once we get past due diligence, we're going to be closing one way or the other.

Number two is work with a reputable title company or attorney. Make sure that they know how to how to close a commercial transaction, everything gets properly recorded, that you're protected, the seller, the buyer, like everybody. All right? You want to maintain control, and you want to be by being the point person when it comes to communications. Essentially, you are the bridge between the seller and the buyer. And so you want to communicate clearly with both sides.

Work with only buyers who operate with integrity and are not going to try to go around you or do anything shady. And that is why I like to interview buyers. And I have a preference for obvious reasons working with buyers that I've already built a relationship with. And that's why being a part of the Storage Winds coaching community, being a part of of our Facebook group, digging your well before you're thirsty and getting to know people and adding value and contributing a lot of what we've already talked about in the cash flow map system is so critical and so foundational and important. All right, so when you interview them, have a quick conversation before sharing the details. Set clear expectations. Ask them, is this their first deal? Are they are they seasoned pros? Find out how they are planning on financing the deal. Do they need to get bank financing? Do they need to get hard money? If they say, "Oh, I'm buying with cash." Confirm cash that you have liquid today. Like meaning we're not going to close today, but if you could, you have the ability to close today. Cuz sometimes people say they're going to buy with cash, but what they really mean is they're going to go get some type of financing somewhere. if they're working with a private lender, just find out how they plan on funding the deal and ask them directly, are you going to be the end buyer or are you going to try to work with somebody or partner with somebody to get this deal done? You just want to understand who's going to be involved. And essentially, you're grading the abilities, the ability of this buyer to get the deal done. Because what you don't want to do is choose the wrong buyer, assign the contract to them, and then now they eat up your due diligence period, and before the due diligence period expires, they come back to you and say, "Hey, the deal no longer works for me." Now you're up the creek without a paddle. And either you have to step in and close or you have to go back and try to renegotiate with your seller, which can be done, but it's not ideal. So, make sure that you take the time to interview the buyer before you select one and feel very confident that they're going to be able to get the deal over the finish line. Okay? I cannot underestate how important that is.

When it comes to marketing the opportunity and you're ready to promote this, here's what I like to do and here's what a lot of people inside of our storage wins coaching community have done and are doing is I recommend creating a 5 to7 minute loom video that essentially walks through the highlights of the opportunity. Think of this as your movie trailer. You ever jump on YouTube and you're thinking of watching a movie or you're thinking of jumping into a Netflix show or series? My wife and I have done this before and we're like, I don't know if I want to watch this or not. So, what do we do? We watch the trailer. The trailer just gives us the highlights of the show or the series or the movie. Same thing with your video. I like to use take really, really good photos, like clear photos, clear videos of the facility. If there's anything that's challenging about the deal, if you're a fan of the show Yellowstone, Beth, there's there's a scene in one of the seasons where Beth is like, "Where's the rattlesnake in the deal?" Right? So, if there's if the deal has a rattlesnake, if there's something challenging about it, put a spotlight on that bad boy. Like, don't hide it. Shine the spotlight on the big pink elephant in the room. Be transparent with people. Don't pretend that it's all like peaches, rainbows, and unicorns. Show the best of the deal, but also show, hey, here are some of the warts that it might have. And by the way, here, if I was going to be the the end buyer, here's what I would do to mitigate against that risk or here's here would be my game plan. Uh, people will really appreciate when you lead with that honesty and transparency.

And by the way, I wasn't planning on mentioning this, but I think it's super important. Be prepared to answer why you aren't the one that's going to be buying and closing on that deal and that opportunity. Because often times I get asked, "Hey, Alex, if this is such a great deal, why aren't you buying it?" And at times, like when I wholesaliled that deal where I had it under contract for 400,000, I and I wholesaliled it for 550 that I made 150 grand. I had just gotten back from a 3-week trip in Italy. I was in the middle of I think at the time I owned three facilities. I was in the middle of running a mastermind. I was going to be traveling again in a couple of months. Like the timing was just off for me to onboard and take on another facility. It would have been like look that deal today I think is worth probably somewhere between 900 and a million. He bought it for 550,000. I would have been buying it for 400,000. So would have been an amazing deal. In hindsight, I probably should have closed on it, but I was happy with the 150 grand that I made at that point. Didn't have to really do any work. And that came because I had a relationship with the buyer. I trusted him. I knew his ability to close. I knew he wasn't going to go around me. And so, I think that's really, really important that you build those relationships, but then that you build a very clean marketing package. Have everything organized in I like to use Google Drive, Dropbox. It has the address, the wholesale price or any key terms that might come along with the deal, a short market overview, competition study, my underwriting and competitor analysis, professional photos and videos. That's super important. If there are any market studies like the supply and demand reports and and demographics, all that type of stuff. Make it as easy as possible for buyers to understand the opportunity and want to work with you. If they have to come back to you for information and it's this back and forth, you're probably not doing a good enough job of like creating a package and giving them all the information they need. One of the things that kind of drives me wild is when people post in a in a storage group in Facebook like, "Hey, I have the self- storage deal, you know, 600,000. Who's interested?" or something like just vague no information. Don't do that. Don't be that person. Protect yourself. Obviously, make sure that if if you know you're going to wholesale it, try to give yourself enough of a due diligence window. Make sure that your your paperwork is buttoned up and dialed in. We talked about building relationships. I don't want to continue to beat that horse, but it's it's so it's like the fabric. It's in the DNA in the fabric of this entire training and everything we do. And then don't chase perfection, chase progress. Okay? The the first wholesale deal I would probably say is going to be your toughest because you just don't know. But this is why hopefully you have the right guidance, coaching, mentoring, support. You're involved in a community like Storage Winds to to be able to answer your questions and help get you over the finish line. I mean, it could be a complete game changer for you.

So, look, in summary here, as we're going to wrap, if you've got a potential deal, and when I say potential deal, a deal that you have directly under contract, I want to be crystal clear about that. Submit it. Click the link below. Submit it to me. That way, I can evaluate the deal. If if it's not for me, trust me, we probably have a buyer for it, provided that it's a deal. And if the deal checks out, we'll close on it. I'm happy to pay you whatever the wholesale fee is, as long as it's a deal for us. I never count somebody else's money. I want you to to do very, very well. I mean, you did the hard work of finding the opportunity, getting it under contract. So, you bring the deal, we'll bring the capital andor the buyers. We both win. Seller wins.

So look, next steps is go back through the cash flow maps training. Brush up on any areas that you're just not clear. But this is about massive imperfect action. Use what you've already learned to find deals and qualify deals. Make offers via the offer accelerator, aka our letter of intent. And once you find something that looks promising, don't wait. Get it under contract. Submit it. Reach out to us. Start the conversation. Use the the eight ways that I just shared with you on how you can find the right buyer. Make sure you're building your email list. And the fastest way to build confidence, proof, and generate cash in this business is be a really really good deal finder. That's why I want you to really focus on those modules, deal discovery, and and and how you can get deal flow going. If if you get really really good at finding deals and locating these opportunities, then that can be your instant payday.

You've now gone through the cash flow map system and by now you know how to use the cash flow maps method to uncover mom and pop storage facility owners that check off your buy box blueprint and how to connect directly with these owners using the direct contact blueprint that we talked about in one of the modules. Now look inside of our storage wins coaching community we actually teach 17 different ways that you can locate and find offmarket storage deals. But in this particular AMP training session, our Amplifier session series, I want to focus on a handful of some of the most powerful ones, my favorite ones that produce consistent opportunities no matter your experience level or your marketing budget. And look, these are four offmarket strategies. One is an onmarket and that is working directly with brokers. But here's the good news. You don't have to master all five or even think about running all five channels at once. In fact, I would actually encourage you to pick one or two channels, go deep on those, get good, start generating leads and opportunities before you move on and start adding. In other words, I would rather you go an inch wide and a mile deep versus scratching the surface of all these different marketing channels.

So, let's dive into my very first, and that is direct mail. I love this strategy because I used it in 2005 and six to get my first deals. I still use it today to get deals. So, despite what you may think, despite what people say or think about old school direct mail marketing strategies, it absolutely works. I've bought hundreds and hundreds of single family homes using direct mail and I've also bought three storage facilities using direct mail. Now, think about self-s storage owner when you compare it to a single family owner. In single family, these people are getting bombarded with direct mail. I mean, and they they are getting hammered every single day with letters and postcards. In storage, it's a fraction of what homeowners receive. So, your letter has the opportunity to stand out. And I actually want to share with you some of the most effective tips and strategies to make sure that your direct mail piece gets opened. Because let's be honest, if they don't open the envelope and they don't read your letter, it's not going to matter. You could be offering them 20 times what their facility is worth and if they don't read it, it's going to end up in the trash. It's all for nothing. So, here are some things. First, let me start with the envelope. Okay. Now, I always and I've tested different approaches when it comes to the envelope. I like a 5x7 or a 6x9 invitation style envelope. I like a manila color, which is like a creamy yellow or black. Now, when it comes to the the letter, make sure a couple things that are important. Make sure that it's hand addressed. And that could be you. That could be somebody on your team. It's it's not a good use of your time. So, I don't recommend you. When I first got started in real estate, that was me at the kitchen counter like hand addressing the envelopes. Your time is much more valuable than that. So, there are actually direct mail fulfillment companies that people will have people that they employ that will handw write the envelopes or there's some that have machines that hold the pen and will actually do the writing for you. I think it's super important. When it comes to the manila style envelope, I like blue or black ink. When it comes to the black envelope, I like a silver Sharpie. And then, this is super super important when it comes to the stamp. Make sure that it's a live forever stamp and that you put multiple penny stamps right next to it. Why? Imagine if you received a letter and it it was handressed. It looked like it was invitation style and then it had four or five stamps. It had a forever stamp and then penny stamps. You're going to be curious. You're going to be like, "Who's sending me this?" You're going to open it. That's the whole goal.

Now, when it comes to the letter, keep it simple. One page. I like two or three paragraphs. Um, write as if you are writing to somebody you know. Do not just go to to chat GPT. Ask for some, you know, put in some weak prompt. Ask for a storage owner letter and then copy paste. It's going to be very impersonal. It's going to come across. Take the time, energy, and effort to make sure that your message speaks directly to them because that in and of itself is going to make you stand out from anybody else. Um, you want to make sure you include your mobile number, your personal email. In other words, I don't like to use a company email. I like to always put a PS to to have them keep the letter if the timing is not right. In fact, if you watched the Instant Payday AMP training video on wholesaling storage facilities, the deal where I made $150,000 net profit, that lady held on to my letter for two years. And she did so because I specifically asked her in the letter, hey, if the time is not right, hold the letter. The other the other two things I want to include here is I like a wet signature, meaning it's it's uh in in blue ink. I like somebody to sign your name. And then I I like to include a picture of my family at the bottom. People say it's very personal. I've actually had storage owners tell me and comment like, "Oh, Alex, you got a beautiful family." and they may have kids, they may have grandkids, and it just gives you an extra connection point when you when you speak with them. So, that's pretty much it. There there's a lot I can get into when it comes to direct mail, but keep it genuine. You're not trying to buy the facility with the letter. You're just trying to open the door to a conversation. I like to send out mail every 6 weeks to 3 months, depending on your budget, depending on how big your list is or how small and targeted your list is. But I want to make sure that the second letter builds on the first letter. So in other words, it's different. I'm not just sending the same exact letter. I might use a different envelope. I might even use a different stamp. Like you can get pretty into the weeds with this stuff, but keep it simple. You might want to start with 25 to 50 letters a week and then build from there. Maybe you have the resources and a budget where you can do a couple hundred letters a week or a couple hundred a month. It really just depends. Okay, your your goal here isn't to force a sale. It's just to be top of mind so that when they're ready to sell, they think of you.

Okay, number two is the rent gap sniper method. Now, the rent gap sniper method is something that I discovered when I was going on.com and loopnet.com. That's the commercial MLS of real estate. So, self- storage, multif family, industrial, office, etc. where instead of people going to the multiple listing service such as where homes and duplexes and land and things of that nature, people go to KY and Loopnet when they're looking for commercial real estate. Well, when I was reviewing the OM, the offering memorandums that these brokers would prepare, which is basically a really nice crafted PDF package about the opportunity. Every now and then, I would come across a page. It says something like rate comparison where basically they're doing the heavy lifting for you where they're essentially showing you, hey, here's the subject facility that we're trying to sell and then here are the rates of the competition. And what I found was that I would always look at this and then I it hit me. I'm like, well, take a look at like as an example, if you look at the rate comparison sheet right here for safe storage, which is the the facility at the top highlighted in red there, that's the facility that the broker is trying to sell. And look at the rates of safe storage, $60, $100, $130, and 155. What we're looking for is we want the rates of the facility we're interested in to be lower than the average of the market rates. Why? because if we buy that facility, we can go in and raise the rates and create instant value and instant equity. Okay. But what I discovered looking at these rate comparison sheets is that every now and then there would be a competitor whose rates were even below the subject facility. In other words, they had the lowest rates in the market. Here's an example right here with Southwest Mini Storage. Their rates are $40 for a 5x10, but look at the competition. $60, $76, $87, $60, $69.95. I mean, they are well below the average of the market. Same thing with the 10 x 10 and the 10 x 15s. Here's another example right here where you see A1 mini storage is a subject facility that's being sold, but take a look at Weaver Mini Storage. Their rates are significantly below the average of the market rates. And you can actually even see that at the bottom. Same thing here. One more example. The subject facility, the 5x10 rates are 65. But take a look at this competitor, Advantage Self Storage. Their rates are at 49. Look at the 10x10. The rates are 95, 133, and 99. But Advantage Self-S Storage is actually 69. That represents an opportunity for us right there where we can create instant equity and we can create instant value. That is the power of the rate gap sniper method. You're finding facilities that are undercharging compared to the market around them. Okay. So you can hop on Krexy and Loopnet create a free account. You can filter for for what you're looking for in terms of self storage. And whenever you see view or click a link for the offering memorandum, every time you look at the offering memorandum, make sure that you're going through there and that you're checking for that rate comparison sheet cuz the broker has already done the the homework for you. So, I absolutely love the rate or the rent gap sniper method.

Number three is wholesalers. And one of the best places to find wholesalers is in storage Facebook groups. I'm biased. I happen to think Storage wins has the best storage Facebook groups. So there's there should be a link on this page. Make sure that you're already a part of the storage wins Facebook group. But honestly, you should be joining all the storage Facebook groups. And when you see people marketing deals, wholesale deals, send them a message, connect with them, get on a call with them, find out, are they direct to the owner? Okay, these people are spending time, energy, and money to find these offmarket opportunities. And they may not have the capital to close them. They that just may not be their strategy and their business model. They might not have the confidence that can represent your opportunity. And then you you can find wholesalers like inside of our storage wins coaching community. We have several people that have wholesale deals to each other inside of other communities, storage Facebook groups. So I like to be active. I like to connect with these people, build relationships with them. Whenever I see somebody posting a storage wholesale deal, I'm reaching out to them. I'm making sure that I get on their list. I share with them my buy box blueprint. Share with them exactly what I'm looking for. And I stay top of mind, stay connected with them once or twice every week or every couple of weeks. You know, send them a text, send them a video text message. Uh see how you can add value, build a relationship with these people. So wholesalers, if you find the right ones, they can be a steady flow of deals for you. Especially when they know you can perform. When you build a relationship with them, you establish credibility, they know you can close, and they know exactly what your buy box blueprint is based on what I've already taught you here in the cash flow maps training.

Number four is driving for dollars. And driving for dollars is such an effective strategy. I have a coaching client, Casey McKillip, who bought three deals within 11 months of joining the Storage Winds community. All driving for dollars. Didn't spend a penny on direct mail. Didn't do a bunch of cold calling. He's a big hunter. And in Oregon, he was driving. Every time he'd see a storage facility, he would stop in. If nobody was there, he would pick up the phone and call. and and it can be extremely powerful when you're able to stop in and meet an owner face to face, shake their hand, talk to them about the storage business, let them know you're you're actively looking to buy a facility. It's incredible. Most people don't do this. Now, look, if you live in a city like like where I live in Miami, where I'm not looking for storage in a big metropolitan city like Miami, then I will only go driving for dollars when I go like when I go to Georgia or North Carolina with my family and we stop in for lunch and there's a facility nearby and we have the time, then I I'll go ahead and pull over and do that. But you might live in a market where it makes sense to own and operate storage. You should drive for dollars within a hour to 90 minute radius of where you live. Like go on a Friday, like carve out a whole day and just your goal is to just drive for dollars and stop in and connect with these people. I have found mom and pop storage owners to be extremely friendly. And I've had coaching clients land deals this way. So driving for dollars is super super effective if you happen to be in an area that it makes sense to be looking for storage.

Number five is storage brokers. And yes, this is the onmarket strategy. But look, here's a secret. Most of the best deals brokers have are actually offmarket pocket listings, and they only send those to their top buyers, the buyers they trust. So, your job is to be that buyer. And what I want you to do is every single week, remember when we talked about capital conversations and and connections and meaningful conversations, you should make it a goal to connect with one or two brokers in the target area where you're looking at and make sure that you build a relationship with them. Don't waste their time by asking them basic questions about a deal they have that you can pull up on an offering memorandum, but share with them your buy box blueprint. share with them your bio info sheet, which is what I call in our community the secret weapon. And that's who summarizes, it's like a one-page bio and resume on who you are, your criteria, a little bit of personal information, your resume in terms of if you've done any real estate deals and how you plan on funding deals. Follow up every 30 to 45 days, right? Don't be a pest. You don't want to be the annoying pest. You want to be the welcome guest, but follow up with them every 30 to 45 days. Send them a personal message. Make make a connection to somebody else in your community, right? See how you can add value. Let them know that you're actively pursuing opportunities. If you're working on something, let them know as well. Let them know that if you buy a facility that you plan on selling, you'd love to have a conversation with them about possibly listing it with them. Right? Follow through. Be genuine. Be yourself. And when you take the time to build relationships with these brokers, then you're going to see them send you opportunities. And here's the key. When they do, get back to them as quickly as possible. Within 24 to 36 hours, get back to them. And if the deal doesn't work, share with them why the deal doesn't work. Okay? Because brokers are looking for feedback. And one of the things I know for certain because I've talked to some of the top brokers in the country. Brokers want you to send offers. Why? They want to be able to present offers to their clients. These mom and pop storage owners have hired them to sell their facility. So, whenever I'm going to present an offer that's extremely low, I'll have a conversation with the broker and I'll say, "Hey, listen. Would it make sense for me to send an offer in writing if I can't be in the ballpark of what you're looking for? Here's how I'm arriving here." And just have a conversation with them. They will appreciate that. Okay.

So, look, whichever channel you choose, commit to one or two. You already have access to the Cash Flow Maps lead tracker. So, that's where you could track all your leads. This is the same spreadsheet that we used back in in video 3.2 when I talked to you about the cash flow maps method. And it's designed to just be a simple tool to help you manage your leads like a pro where you track the name of the facility, the contact information, like all the details are in there. And I think you're going to notice that when you stay consistent with just a handful of these activities, your pipeline is going to fill up faster than you thought. So, those are five channels to accelerate your deal flow and help you dominate the market. Direct mail, rent, gap sniper method, wholesalers in Facebook groups, driving for dollars, and then building relationships with storage brokers. Inside of our storage wins coaching community, we go even deeper. There's so many more ways to find offmarket mom and pop deals, but I want you to start there. Pick one or two that resonate with you. Go deep because consistency beats complexity. every single time. And remember this, I keep saying this, progress beats perfection. Okay? Massive imperfect action. You don't need 17 strategies. You just need one that you can execute consistently. So download your Cash Flow Maps lead tracker below. Get it loaded with leads. You should already be taking daily action because you could be one phone call away or one relationship away from your first or your next storage deal. Make it happen.

So, welcome to the fourth video in our AMP training sessions or our amplifier training sessions. And this can be extremely valuable for you if you can plug in and this is called plug in to win. And it's all about how you could take advantage of the storage wins Facebook group. Now look, there are people that hop on social media just to scroll and just to consume information and those people are just not fully taking advantage of the power of social media. Then there's others that plug into social media to create and to contribute and to connect and to give. Those are the people that win with social media. And the Storage Wins Facebook group is not like other storage Facebook groups where people are just in there posting deals for sale or soliciting and making offers. It's a place where yes, there is some of that as well where people are in there and sharing deals that they control and have under contract, but it's also a great place to connect with posts that are contentri with value that can help you where people ask questions, share resources. And so I really I want to share my screen and share with you how you can extract the most by giving and by connecting and by contributing inside of the storage wins Facebook group because there are people in there that have awesome awesome storage businesses and storage portfolios. There might be people just like you that are in there looking to buy their first deal or their second or their third. Either way, it's an amazing place to connect with people, build relationships if you approach it with the right mindset. if you approach it where you're going to engage and you're going to connect and you're going to give and contribute. So, those are common themes. I know I've said that on more than one occasion already in just a short minute or two that I've been talking, but it's because it's that important. I find that when you show up to communities, whether it's online or virtual or in person, and you show up with a heart to give and connect and contribute once again, then the laws of reciprocation are always going to tip back in your favor.

So, let me go ahead. I want to share my screen and I'm going to take you inside of the Storage Winds Facebook group. And look, as of the time of this recording, in fact, let me just go there right now. As of the time of this recording, there's just under 21,000 members in there. That's not what's what's important, right? What's important what you're able to get out of this group by showing up and and giving. Okay? So, first thing you're going to want to do is uh there's going to be a link somewhere on this page or below this video where where you can click. It's going to take you to the StorageWins Facebook group. Uh there's only three questions. It'll take you literally 30 seconds to answer this. Make sure you put your email in here. There's a valuable resource that we'll send you. Make sure that you put your your phone number in here and then just submit. My assistant will approve you usually within 24 hours. And then once you come in here, I'm going to kind of give you a lay of the lands. But the first thing that I want to encourage you to do is create an intro post. All right. This can be this is something that I don't know why people don't do but whenever you join a group let it be known that you're a part of the group. Okay, that in and of itself is going to separate you from everybody else. So create an intro post and essentially share who you are, where you're from, what led you to the storage wins Facebook group. If you have if you already own storage, share that you already own storage. If you don't and you're looking for your first deal, share that you're looking for your first deal as part of your buy box blueprint. I would encourage you to share that. Share your why, your goals. I always think it's a great idea to include a picture of you and your family if you're comfortable with that. Totally up to you. Maybe something that shows your personality. But people want to connect with people. We are human beings and we're meant to connect. Okay? That's why if you think about prisons, one of the highest forms of punishment is isolation. Humans are not meant to be isolated. So, I want you to go in here, do an introductory post, share a little bit about yourself, your personality, what got you interested into storage, where you are at in the journey. I wouldn't make this a post about asking and looking for something in return. In fact, that's a mistake I find people make is that they go in there and they just want to ask and extract and get. I want you to take the opposite approach. I want you to show up and give and contribute and connect. So, we talked about sharing your why. Share how you can help others. This is extremely important. This is a form of giving. So, you have a unique ability. You have certain strengths. You have a certain skill set. How can you show up and contribute to others by sharing with them? Maybe you're really, really good at analyzing deals or maybe you have an awesome network or maybe you have access to capital or you're a really good marketer or you understand how to find deals or you're a great negotiator and you're good at sales. I don't know what that is, but whatever it is, share it. And I don't encourage you to share this from a place of like bragging, but hey, look, these are some of the things that I feel like I might be able to help and contribute, but do it in a in a non-pitchy, non- salesy way. Like, hey, if anybody needs help with this, happy to hop on a call, happy to help, uh, however. So, I think the more that people know about you and what you're good at and how you can show up and help others, it starts to open up some doors and some opportunities. So once you come in here and you do your introductory post uh post, there's a couple featured posts like Mario, one of our storage winners when I took over this group and rebranded it. I mean, so check out some of the featured post. Um this is something that I think is extremely valuable. In fact, we have a dedicated AMP session just to this. It's your essentially your your first 30 days. It's the ultimate daily action plan to buy your first storage facility. So, I would encourage you to read through this. As with any post, like and comment. All right. One of the problems I see with Facebook groups is that people use it as a place to spam and promote and not give and contribute. I want you to go in here when somebody like this one was posted 21 hours ago. He has a question. Go in here, like and comment. when somebody has a deal for sale, particularly if if you know the person or if you like the deal, whatever, just like it and and comment. This is a place like you can see this one was posted. Terry's actually a friend of mine was posted not that long ago. 15 comments where people are in here sharing their emails and requesting information. So engage with people in the comments, like their post. If you see like I'll give you an example. This I just This is a value post right here that I shared about where I recently interviewed Kate, one of our storage wins members, about her mindset going into storage and how she got her first deal and all that. Like and comment in there. All right. When people have questions, contribute. Seek to be a connector. That's what this is all about. It's not about promotion and gain. It's about connection and contribution. And one of the things I like to think about is think about the framework CEC. connect, engage, contribute, seek to build actual relationships with people. One of the things if if you've already been through the cash flow map system, hopefully you have, then you know that it's about building meaningful relationships. Don't think transactionally, you know. So, seek to connect people. Take conversations offline when possible, when it makes sense. Be thoughtful whenever you have a question or a post. Be very specific and to the point. Don't just ramble and ramble. like make it easy for people to consume and digest your post. If you have a question, I would encourage you to start with a question. Then you can provide some background and some context. But try to avoid marathon post because time is valuable and people often times are not going to sit there and and read a fullon long post unless it's just really really content rich. And if you're going to post something, make it rich. Make it something that can actually help people. That's how you start to stand out from others in the in the group. That's how you start to get well known. That's how doors and opportunities start to open for you. So, post insights. Anything that you feel has helped you. It could be a resource. It could be something that you learned. It could be a mistake you made or a lesson that you learned. That is extremely valuable. I find that when you lead with your heart with transparency and vulnerability and you share not just the wins, but you share the L's, I don't call them losses, I call them lessons learned, people are drawn to you. Why?

Because you're more relatable. Like, let's be honest, like we all make mistakes. I make mistakes. I don't have everything figured out. And that's why on the Storage Wins podcast, I openly share not just the wins, but the challenges, the things that I've learned along the way. So, I think it's extremely important that you put yourself out there and you do that. And and we also, by the way, we want to encourage and celebrate your wins. So, share that. If you made your first conversation to a storage owner, post that. If you submitted your first letter of intent or you closed on your first deal or you finished a particular video or module in the cash flow map system or maybe even you joined the Storage Winds community and you got accepted, you got an invite. Share that. Okay? Don't just be the person who scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, but I want you to comment and contribute. Okay.

Now, a couple of a couple of just best practices things I've learned along the way. Before you post, ask yourself, will this help somebody? Will this help the community? Is this Here's how I define value. Is there can somebody do something with the information I'm sharing in the post? That is how I define value. Tag people. Like if you see somebody ask a question and you know somebody that has a certain uh level of expertise in that area or can potentially help, bring them into the conversation by tagging them. Use hashtag the word storage wins. Uh hashtag I like to whenever I'm going to ask something in fact in inside of our private storage wins community for our members, whenever they have a question, they always start with # ask in in all caps. Whenever they're going to give something, it's # give in all caps. And whenever they're going to share a win, it's hashtag win. So, keep the the the your post focused. Avoid spam. We will not uh accept any type of spam or promotion or anything like that. Seek, show up to give, help others. And if you come from that heart place, then it's incredible what starts to happen for you. Okay?

So, look, with that said, here's my challenge for you. like right after you finish this video, head over to the group right now. If you're not a part of it, answer those three questions. By the way, it's to your benefit to include the right information because we got some pretty cool things lined up for you after you join. So, make sure that you answer those questions, join, do your introductory post, share your why, share your goals, your buy box blueprint, share how you can help others, and remember this, a really, really strong community is built on generosity. And that is how communities grow. When you show up and you engage and you ask questions, you share your journey. You're not just learning storage. You're becoming part of a bigger movement. All right? You're becoming now part of this storage wins Facebook group ecosystem and you really start to help people. So, with that being said, that is how you can get the most out of this. I would encourage you to go in here. You can scroll and there's a there's a lot of really really good posts. One of the things you might be able to even do is if you use the magnifying glass, you can search by my my name and that'll bring up a lot of the posts that I've done or when people have tagged me. You see people welcome to the storage wind. So you can come in here like comment just engage. You see like others have done the same thing and come in here and there's just a lot of really really valuable information. Like here's a perfect example somebody who wanted to introduce themselves. So go ahead and and and get in there, engage, connect, and that's how you are going to get the most out of this community. So with that being said, let me know if we can help or support you in any way. Uh, if I can contribute and help you on your journey, go in there, tag me, and we're happy to support you.

Hey storage winner, you have finished the cash flow maps system and you now have a road map. Now it's time to fire up the engines. And in this session, what I'm going to do is we're going to start to take you from learning to doing. Now, look, hopefully you have heard me loud and clear throughout the cash flow map system where it's about massive imperfect action. And so, if you're watching this video, you should have already been taking action. But, I'm going to go ahead and put that off to the side for now. And I want to walk you through what I call the 30-day old deal sprint plan. And this plan is how you basically turn the knowledge that you have acquired into results. And where we're going to put motion and start to create more momentum. So look, a map by itself is important, but it doesn't move you forward. If you were hanging out with me in Miami and and I told you, hey, let's drive to San Diego. Here's the map. Let's plug it into the Jeep. That's great. We need that. But we then have to like take the action of hopping in the car or in the plane and taking the next steps. So, a map by itself isn't going to just move you forward. It's an important tool, but action does. And so, look, I have watched many, countless investors go from stuck to success simply by following this rhythm that I'm going to share with you here. It's not complicated. So, that's the good news. It's not glamorous, but it works every single time that you do it. Okay? The goal for the next 30 days isn't perfection. Surprise, surprise. You're probably not you're not surprised to hear me say that it isn't perfection. And in fact, we're never chasing perfection. It's about consistency. It's about building the habits that make you think and operate like an owner, not a dealchaser. Okay?

Now, everything we've done so far feeds right into this. The storage wins triangle. Remember that storage wins triangle, which you should be seeing on the screen now. We got deal discovery, we got fearless funding, and then we got win the deal. Okay, those are our three milestones. The goal in that middle triangle is to buy your first storage facility. The reds are the obstacles and the challenges that oftentimes get in the way. Those green milestones, this is what's feeding right into this. All right. So, I'm going to walk you through the what I call the LMAO method, and you're going to see how each component here fits in to deal discovery, fearless funding, and then winning the deal. Okay. When you do these four actions daily, you're running a real acquisition machine and you're going to start gaining a lot of clarity, confidence, progress, and momentum. Now, here is the LMAO method, and it's not laughing my off. It It's not what you think. The L in the LMAO method is list building, right? Every business needs a steady flow of prospects, opportunities. And so L is for list building. And you want to make sure that you are adding at least 25 new mom and pop storage owners to your list every single day. If you have a virtual assistant, perfect task for them to be doing. If you don't, don't necessarily worry about that right now. Use the cash flow map system. Hop on Google Maps and find and locate 25 new mom and pop storage owners based on everything I've shared with you. Again, I prefer that you have a virtual assistant do this because your time is more valuable. But if you don't have one or maybe you just don't have the budget for it or you just haven't found the right person, that's okay. Get in the habit of doing it because you're going to be picking up things along the way that are really helpful and important for you moving forward. So, think of your list as your lifeline. Every conversation, every deal, every dollar starts with an opportunity. And usually that comes in the form of a list. And that sometimes if you're looking at onmarket listed facilities that could be on Kraxy Loopnip at the end of the day it's a list it's an opportunity.

The M is for meaningful conversations and you know how if you've watched the cash flow map system or if you're a part of our storage wins community you know how much I value relationships. Relationships start with connections and connections start with conversations and I prefer to refer to them as meaningful conversations. So, I want you to have three to five meaningful conversations every single day. Make it a non-negotiable. At least at least three to five meaningful conversations. I'm talking with mom and pop storage owners. I'm talking with brokers, potential lenders, potential partners, wholesalers. Don't think of these, you're not pitching anything. You're just connecting. Okay? These are just connection calls. I want you to ask curious questions because the more that you listen and the less that you talk, the better off you'll be. Communication is a two-way street, but I want you doing 80% listening, 20% talking. Remember, the one who asks the questions controls the conversation. And relationship capital is always going to preede financial capital. Relationship capital, I'll argue this with anybody, is the most important capital you could possibly raise. So that is M. I mean, and don't worry, I'm going to break this down for you over the next 30 days. I just want to give you a 30,000 foot view here.

A is for analyze deals. Another word that you can substitute analyze with is underwriting. I want you to analyze your underwrite one to two facilities every single day. If you can commit to do this for the first 30 days, you are going to feel so much more confident. You're going to gain not just confidence, but momentum towards understanding what's a deal, what's not a deal. you're going to feel much more comfortable. One of our storage winners, Kate, who I interviewed on the podcast, and in one of the AMP training sessions, you'll have access to be able to watch that. Um, she talked about how when she first joined our community, the challenging part for her was underwriting, analyzing deals, but she committed to this. And so, she looked at one to two deals a day, every single day. And now it's one of her strong suits. And now she can look at a deal quickly and know I if it if it's worth her time, energy, and attention if it's not. So lean into this because it's super important. Every single deal that you analyze is going to build a pattern of recognition. It's going to give you that confidence and that confidence is going to feed into action and action is going to feed into momentum and so on. So you're going to start to be able to spot better opportunities the more that you lean into this. Super super important.

The O is for offers. All right. It's I always use baseball analogies because I grew up playing baseball my whole life. I ended up playing one year of college baseball and I've always shared if you're in the bleachers or in the dugout, you're not going to be able to to get on base, right? In order to get on base, you got to step up to the plate. In order to step up to the plate, you either got to swing the bat or if you're going to get walked or if you're going to get hit by a pitch. Either way, I need you in the game. And in order to get in the game, you got to submit offers. So, I want to get you to the point where you're submitting one to three offers per week. This can be verbal. This can be written. It can be a simple one or a two-page letter of intent. The key here is that offers are going to create momentum. It's going to get you in the game. And when you make offers, you quickly learn how sellers think and how brokers are going to react and and how to negotiate, how to ultimately win these deals. So, that's the LMAO method, list building, meaningful conversations, analyzing deals, and offers. All right, simple doesn't necessarily mean easy. Those are two different things. They're very distinct. But if you commit to this rhythm daily, then you're going to put yourself in a position to win and ultimately succeed.

Quick heads up, YouTube gives you the education, but inside the Cash Flow Maps membership, you get the implementation, every single module unlocked, all the spreadsheets, underwriting calculators, templates, scripts, everything neatly organized in one place so that you can actually execute. If you want the full system instead of having to piece together the videos here on YouTube, click the link in the description, create your free account, and get access right now. Now, let's keep going.

All right. Now, I want to share with you, I think it's 10 points I have for you here that I want to break down is, and these are big picture things that I think can really help you from a mindset perspective and how you want to approach this. The first 30 days here, I want you to already be thinking and acting like an owner from day one. All right. One of the ways you do this is I believe in working in sprints, not working in marathons. So, this can be referred to as the Pomodoro method. You can just Google it or chat GPT it. But I want you to block off 60 to 90 minutes. Okay? And and consider this like your storage power hour each day. And I want you to track three important key performance indicators, KPIs. That's meaningful conversations, the offers that you make, and your follow-up conversations. Adding 25 new opportunities or mom and pop storage facilities to your list every single day. owners and business owners and entrepreneurs, they they track important KPIs. They measure the inputs and they eliminate the excuses. All right? Focus on the inputs. The outputs will eventually come.

Number two is the capital connections network. We talked about that in the cash flow map system and it's part of our one of the blue projects in our storage winds triangle model. It's I want you to have a capital conversation every single week. So why? Because you want to dig your well before you're thirsty. Yes, I do believe if you find the right opportunity, the money and the capital will come. But I don't want you to wait until the last minute and scramble. I want you to plant those seeds now. I want you to dig your well before you're thirsty. So talk to one new private lender or banker each and every week. All right? Share with them your buy box blueprint. Share with them your why. You're building your money network and you're having capital conversations before you ever need it.

So, uh, number three is underwriting reps, those repetitions because repetitions breed confidence. Preparation breeds confidence. So, set a timer. This can be ideally you're carving out at least 90 minutes to work on your business, on your storage business, not in it. And 90 minutes, that could be 15 to 30 minutes of just practicing underwriting. And that could be quick deal underwriting, that could be deeper analysis. Don't chase perfect spreadsheets. But I just want you to like build muscle memory. Start to look at offering memorandums. Start to look at deals and say, "Hey, how do I quickly what's the revenue? What if I was to use my operating expense ratio? What would the NOI be based on a certain cap rate? What would that put the value at? Where are the rates in the market and and what's the gap or the delta there?" So, just start looking at opportunities more and start building those underwriting reps, I think, is extremely important to your success, especially the first 30 days. And by the way, if what I just shared with you sounds like Chinese or you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back to that section of the cash flow map system and watch those videos because that'll help you get a better understanding of it along with the tools and resources that I shared there.

Number four, relationships first, transactions second. Think long-term, not short-term. All right, the person that is thinking transactionally, not my kind of person, not my jam. I want to connect with the people that are thinking long-term, thinking relationally. Every single touch point is a chance to build trust. So that's super super important. When you connect with people, don't ask for something. Don't be the one with your hand out always looking for something. Be the one with two hands out looking to give something to somebody. And then eventually you can make that ask when the time is right. But do it with the intention that you're not going to get anything in return, but you're just seeking to connect and contribute. Super super important. To me, it's relationship building 101.

Number five is I want you to do a weekly debrief. Okay? This could be a meeting with yourself. It could be a meeting with your virtual assistant or somebody on your team, but every Saturday or maybe it's at the end of Friday, end of your work week. Spend 20 minutes with yourself and say, "Hey, what worked this week? What went well? Let's celebrate those wins. What didn't what do I need to change, tweak, or modify moving forward?" And then set an intention for the following week. Okay, that is how you operate with a level of intentionality that gets you moving forward building progress and momentum. Don't just wake up on Monday morning at the start of your work week saying, "Hey, okay, what? Let me figure this out. What do I have to do first?" No, think about that. Spend a late Friday or or early Saturday morning planning out the next week, looking back, celebrating what worked, figuring out what needs to change, and then setting an intention for the start of the week. Right? Plan your day the night before. something I've been doing for years and it's super super helpful. Um, and then I would encourage you in the Storage Winds Facebook group, post any reflections inside of that group. All right, if you're a part of our Storage Winds community, then you know where to go. We have a private portal. Share that in that community as well. Obviously, you know, you're going to get a ton of support, encouragement, and and we got your back.

Number six is think of this as like a visual pipeline. So, if you have a a simple CRM, it could be a Google spreadsheet or whatever CRM you're working with, identify opportunities. And this can be a simple cold, warm, hot system. That way, you know which leads and opportunities to prioritize.

Number seven is let's celebrate your wins, even the micro wins. Every time you hit a goal or every time you take a step forward, share that in the community. Put # win in all caps and post it in the group. that's going to start to build your momentum. You're going to gain a certain level of excitement and energy from that. And one of the reasons we call our coaching community storage wins is because I'm a big advocate and believer of get clarity about the desired end goal you have and why you want it, which in our case it's in your case maybe to buy your first or your next storage deal. But we can't really control that. What we can control is our mindset, our thoughts, our actions, and how we react to things. So, focus on the daily, weekly, monthly activities that when done consistently will put you in a position to achieve that big storage win. And that's really the heart of this particular AMP training video here. It's to get you off on the right foot in the first 30 days.

Uh, number eight, you would have already you went through the market map and you would have already selected your market. So spend some time each week like diving deep into your market and really understanding and learning it, the population, if it's growing, if it's not, why, what opportunities and jobs are coming in, why are people moving in or out? What's the medium household income? Uh, how does that affect storage? The population of renters in the area, certain pockets or segments within that market, the competition, are are rates trending up? Are they stagnant? Are they trending down? Be the expert. Be the big fish in a small pond. All right? And that's why I love smaller tertiary markets, maybe even certain secondary markets. So, super super important that you just become a pro. Act like a professional. Act like an owner.

Number nine is find an accountability partner. Pair up with somebody inside of the Storage Winds Facebook group or if you're already in our Storage Wins community, then you likely already have an accountability or numerous accountability partners. Just a a simple 15minute weekly check-in can be extremely extremely powerful. I know that whenever I have accountability partners, and I oftentimes do, I show up different because I know they're going to ask me, and I don't want to be that dude that didn't follow through with what I said I was going to do. All right, super super important.

And then finally, like have fun here. Like document the journey. You might want to consider keeping a simple journal. lessons learned, wins, challenges, frustrations. Like, get that out, right? You're a human being. Like, it's all right to sometimes be in the fields, but just don't stay in a low energy state. Track conversations, offers, lessons. Like, clarity comes oftent times from reflections. And that's one of the reasons I'm such a big proponent of masterminds and joining the right communities like Storage Wins because you have others that you can connect with and share these reflections and they're going to share with you and together we win and we grow together. Super super important. If you haven't seen the first amplifier uh training video, which is the freedom accelerator, highly encourage you to watch that.

So, let me as we start to kind of wind down here, let me just spend four or five minutes talking to you about like the potential structure for like week one, week two, week three, and week four. So, think of week one as your launchpad. I if you're following our process, you would have already added about 150 or so owners to your list. So, now you have 150 mom and pop storage opportunities. you would have already had 15 to 20 meaningful conversations. Think about how powerful that could be to have 15 to 20 meaningful conversations with storage owners, brokers, lenders, bankers, wholesalers, etc. You would have analyzed or looked at seven deals. You would have already made your first potential soft offer. Now, maybe you don't feel confident to make an offer in the first week. That's okay. But if you're doing the work, I want you to take that massive imperfect action. And maybe by week two, week three at the latest, you're already making your first offer.

Week two, think of this, if I was going to kind of theme these out, right? Week one is your launchpad. Week two can be like your pipeline builder where you're continuing to add opportunities to your list. You're now in follow-up mode. You're still having meaningful conversations with people. You're having capital connection conversations. You're now submitting one to two letters of intent. You've connected with a lender, a partner. So week two is really where you're building on on week one. And you're going to see how quickly you adapt and you learn, especially when you're following the cash flow map system. And if you want to put that on steroids, especially if you're part of the storage wins community,

Week three, think of this as like your offer engine. Now you're submitting hopefully two to three offers. You're you're getting feedback and learnings from brokers or or a coach if you're working with me or somebody inside of our storage wins community. you you start to just really stack the the small wins. You're starting to gain some progress and momentum. And speaking of momentum, that's what week four is about, momentum maker. You're continuing to follow up on offers. Maybe at this point now, since you have a pretty healthy list, you might have three to 400 opportunities. Now, you maybe think about doing a small direct mail campaign, relatively inexpensive, and it could yield some really powerful results for you. You're analyzing your KPIs. H how many people have you added to your list? How many meaningful conversations have you had at this point? And the follow-ups, okay, having a follow-up system built out, how many deals are you analyzing or have you analyzed? And then how many offers have you made? And then you're going to start to be able to figure out what's working for you, what's not. You can start to refine your pro your process. Remember, this isn't about perfection, right? I I I would much rather you step into the game, step up to the plate, swing the bat. It's okay if you strike out. All right? It's okay that it's going to happen. If you think to continue on with the baseball analogy, Hall of Famers, the best of the best, fail 70% of the time, right? In order to get into the Hall of Fame, the cream of the crop, you're only going to succeed about 30% of the time. All right? The cool thing about storage is that it just takes one, two, maybe three solid solid deals for it to make a significant impact on your life. All right? And that's been my experience.

So look, what separates those who close from those who quit? It's it's not talent. It's really just a mindset of I'm going to persist. I'm going to be consistent. And I'm going to be willing to be coachable and held accountable. So if I was going to summarize all this into three points, we want progress over perfection because done beats perfect every single time and twice on Sunday. You want to measure your inputs. You know, focus on the controllables. Control your actions. The results are going to follow. Massive imperfect action because clarity is going to come from doing. You're going to learn so much more by implementing what we've talked about than you are by continuing to be in consumption mode of just consume content. Consume content. It's going to make you feel good, but that's not really progress.

So, the first 30 days, it's not about closing a deal, right? the the what I've shared with you, Jeremy and Maryanne going under contract in 31 days, Casey McKillb closing his first deal in 91 days. That happens. But I I don't want you to set that bar. I don't want you to be like, "Okay, if I haven't if I'm not under contract in 30 days or if I haven't closed in 90 days, like I failed." Everybody's on a different journey. Look, when I first got into storage, it took me nine months to close my first deal. Now, admittedly, I spent the first three months not really taking massive imperfect action. All right? And that's why I'm able to hop on here and confidently share with you what not to do and what to do cuz I know what works. All right? So, this is about consistency. Consistency is going to give you confidence. Confidence is going to lead to additional clarity. And clarity eventually once you stack all these together will lead to closings. Closings will lead to cash and cash flow. So, it's all about the C's here.

So, look, here's your challenge. Commit to this LMAO method for the first 30 days. Uh, post your daily wins inside of the the Storage Wins Facebook group and encou encourage others. Like, ask for feedback. Be coachable, especially when you're working with the with the right person. Make sure that you're willing to be held accountable. Find an accountability partner. Very, very important. And I'm confident, do this for 30 days, you're going to have a real pipeline. You're going to have a lot more repetitions and reps and at bats. you're going to have to already start building the or laying the foundation for building real relationships and gaining real progress and momentum. So, don't seek for permission like you you have everything you need. Now, I need you to just go out there and get it like one LMA day at a time.

Hey, it's Alex and in this quick video, I'm going to walk you through exactly how to use your cash flow maps lead tracker. Now, I I think we I've built this in a way that it's it's pretty easy to use, pretty self-explanatory, but there's a few things that I want to call your attention to. Now, you've already learned how to find mom and pop storage facilities uh using the storage scan method. Now, this tracker is going to help you organize, rate, and track everything in one place so that you can start building momentum fast. And that is the idea here. Massive imperfect action. Again, I want you to have an attitude of progress, not perfection. Think of this as your your mission control for for all the deal flow that you're about to start getting. So, let me go ahead and share my screen here and I'm going to show you how you guys can go ahead and use this cash flow maps lead tracker. So, here we go.

Now, as you're going to see here on the left hand side, just basic information, facility name, address, city, state, phone number, email. Obviously, you're going to want to document all of that or even better have a virtual assistant or somebody in your team documenting that information. And then you're it's going to get interesting because you're going to see this orange section here that has a few drop downs. So, do they have a website? You could just click here. Yes or no, they have a website. Obviously, you're going to add the link to their website if they do have one. Uh, if they have Google reviews, how many Google reviews do they have? Do they have six? Do they have 47? Do they have two? Do they have none? Put that number in here. What is the average rating? 4.0, 4.6, 3.1, 2.8, whatever it is, put that here. Google business listing claimed. So, do they have a Google My Business listing? Uh, which will typically show up on the right hand side of Google. Are they offering promotions and discounts? So, if they do have a website and you go to their website, do you see any type of specials or promotions like dollar move in or half off? oftentimes if they're offering promotions and discounts that means they have availability i.e. they have vacancy and they're using these promotions and discounts to incentivize getting new customers and that can give you a pretty good indication of the supply and demand for that particular facility and even for the market if you see promotions and discounts across multiple facilities in a given area.

Now, here in this black section, here's where we get into our storage scan. And this is pretty cool because if they have a website, you're you can go ahead and rate it based on is it professional or updated? Is it basic or outdated? In other words, it looks like it was built in the early 2000s or the late 90s. Or maybe they don't even have a website or it's a broken link. I come across broken links a lot. Traffic visibility, is it on a main road so it's high? Is it moderate or is it just low poor visibility? By the way, super important. If you hover over right here, if you hover over, you're going to see notes that pop up. Okay? And I'm going to explain more in the storage scan glossery tab of this cash flow maps lead tracker where you can get even more information there. But if you just hover over the categories in black, you're going to get some specific detailed information just in case you have any questions. Uh, online presence, again, is it strong? Is it inconsistent or is it weak? And if you have any questions about online presence, you can just hover over and it'll give you some detailed notes and so on and so on. So for each thing, it's got its own specific dropdown so that you can start to categorize it.

Now, uh, and then we end with just basic notes, the status, date added, last updated. I'm including this for you because I don't want I don't want any excuses about, hey, Alex, I don't have a CRM or I need a CRM. No, you don't. You can simply use this, especially if you're just getting started. The great thing about this Cash Flow Maps lead tracker is that now visually you can start to see and spot where are the potential opportunities, what leads should you prioritize. So, as an example, if I see that a facility that I'm looking at doesn't have a website, right? I'm just going to go ahead and put no here. doesn't have a website and it's got let's just say it's it's on a main road and that that's a good thing for us but it's weak in terms of online presence and it's got poor neglected reviews and I start seeing all these reds pop up on my spreadsheet visually like hey that's an opportunity let me focus in on that one now in the storage scan glossery this is just a quick walkthrough of how you can how to understand the different categories what to look for the what's in the drop- down options in case you don't want to hover in and see the notes. This is kind of like your your just your quick scan if you just want to see it in one shot and then some specific notes. So, this will really help you. And then at the bottom here, just some quick notes on how to use it. So, I wanted to keep this video just bite-size, short, sweet, to the point, and use this in conjunction with your cash flow maps lead tracker. So, if you have any questions, go back and watch video 3.2, which is all about the cash flow maps method. If you've already seen that, then I want you to the call to action is today I want you to add 25 mom and pop storage facilities to your cash flow maps lead tracker. By the end of this week or within the next week, I want you to have a hundred on your list. And by the end of the month, I want you to have your top 300. Okay? So, that is your starting point. again, massive imperfect action. Let's have an attitude of progress, not perfection, and and let's start to get after it. Okay, I'll see you on the next one.

All right, you have run your self- storage deal through the cash flow map system. You've got something promising. You got something on the hook. This is the moment where a lot of people tend to freeze up because there is something that becomes very real when you are now you've analyzed the deal and you've figured out what you want to offer and now it's time to actually put that offer on paper and send it to the broker or to the owner and people freeze up because number one again it becomes real. Number two they don't really understand what to do next. So this video is meant to simplify the process for you. Understand that you don't buy a storage facility by simply staring at a spreadsheet or by just jumping on Google Maps and looking at deals all day long. You buy it by taking action. And eventually at some point that's going to mean sending a very simple, clean one or twopage letter of intent, what is commonly referred to as an LOI. And people over complicate this next step. They need they think that they need to have a an attorney drop a 15 to 20page purchase and sale agreement or they're worried about putting the wrong thing in writing or saying the wrong thing. That's not what this is. An LOI, it's I'm not an attorney, so that's a disclaimer. So, consult with the pros, but an LOI is not a contract. It is not legally binding. It's simply a professional way of letting the seller or the broker know, hey, I'm serious about your storage facility. here's the outline, the framework, and what I'm willing to offer and pay for your facility. Think of it as planting a flag in the ground. It gets you on the seller's radar. It it builds credibility with the broker, the seller, anybody involved. And then it buys you the time to essentially, if you come to an agreement, to then transfer that onto a purchase and sale agreement. And that may may be when you want to get an an attorney involved, somebody that understands the the storage business and and can protect your interest. Uh, and sometimes if they have an attorney and you have an attorney, that can take some time to work out, dot all the eyes and cross all the tees. I'm actually in the process of selling one of my storage facilities, and it it took a good three or four weeks for the attorneys to work things out, and that's not uncommon. All right.

Now, in this video, I'm going to walk you through exactly how you can fill out an a letter of intent. It's either going to be one or two pages. I'm going to share with you what to include, what to leave out, so that when you send it, you can send it with confidence, even if it's your very first one. So, let's go ahead and and first start with what a letter of intent, an LOI, actually is. Like I mentioned earlier, non-binding expression of interest. It's not a contract, okay? It's not legally binding. It it just outlines the basic terms of what you are offering. Think of the price, the due diligence period, the the closing timeline, the closing date, any contingencies, the earnest money deposit, your name or your entity name, uh, their name as the as the legal seller. It it basically just helps everybody see that, hey, here's the offer, and it gets everybody hopefully on the same page before any money is spent on attorneys, lawyers, third party reports, anything like that. Here's what a letter of intent is not. Like I mentioned once again, I want to be crystal clear about this. It's not a contract, this doesn't lock you in. It doesn't cost you anything to send. And as with everything else I've talked about in the cash flow map system and what we talk about inside of our storage wins community, it's it's not about perfection. This is about progress. Think of if we were on a football field and and they kick off the ball to us, our job is to move from where we are up the field and into the end zone. All right? And if you're not a football fan or you don't follow sports, that's perfectly fine. You just want to progress through the process until you can get to the closing table. Remember something that deals don't happen by thinking about them. They happen by taking the next step. And at this stage of the game, when you've when you've analyzed the deal and you've researched the market, the competition, and you've figured out what you want to offer, now is the time to put that along with your terms on the LOI. Okay, that is the next step.

So, let's let me walk you through the eight core sections of a of a winning LOI. And what I'd like to do is go line by line through what to include. I'll have the LOI template. I'll have the LOI template that you can download on here and and you can you can follow along as I'm talking. I I just want to talk through it here. It's very simple. Again, do not over over complicate this. But section one, you're going to have a simple heading and property info. All right. So, this is where you're going to include the name of the facility, the address, obviously, city, state, zip code. Then list who it's from. So, in other words, you are the purchaser. You are the buyer, and that is going to be your entity name most likely or an entity to be formed. It could be your name andor an entity to be formed. Uh, and then who is the seller? And if the seller has a broker, somebody representing them. Now, here's a here's a pro tip. Like I mentioned, you want to use a company name, usually a limited liability company, or you can put an entity to be formed. Consult with the pros and an attorney, but it's going to make you look far more credible, I think, than just putting your name. If you don't have an LLC or a company name, do not I don't recommend anyway going out and opening one up. You will eventually do that once you're past due diligence and you know you're going to move forward. then I always recommend that you open up an entity in the state where the facility is located. But you should defer and default to whatever your attorney recommends and advises. Uh, but that is the first section. Easy peasy.

Section two is about the purchase price. All right? And this is where you're going to put what you are offering. If you have multiple offers, then you can go ahead and put that there. Like, hey, I'm including this is my price if I'm paying all cash. This is my price if I'm getting some bank financing. This is my my I should say offer. This is my offer if there's some seller financing or a hybrid. I always like to make two to three offers and give them some different options. If I'm going to make it a cash offer or if there's going to be some type of bridge financing or private money or hard money, I'm going to make that a really really low offer, something that makes sense. Uh, if it's seller financing, then I might make that my highest offer, but it's going to have great terms because again, if I'm going to give the seller their terms, I want to be able to dictate and control the interest rate, the term, and interest rate, term, and the down payment. Okay, those are the three things that I'd want to control. I want to control the interest rate, the length of the loan, and then the down payment if I'm going to give them their price. So, uh, section two, it's just you're going to put your purchase price, the terms, etc.

Section three is an earnest money deposit. Think typically it's going to be 1% maybe 2% of the purchase price. Um, that's going to be held in escrow after you sign the purchase contract. So don't worry about having to put up earnest money deposit with your letter of intent. You don't have to do that. Uh, the LOI, you're just sharing that, hey, I'm interested. I'm serious. Here's what I'm offering. The earnest money deposit usually is put up anywhere between 24 and 72 hours after you execute the purchase and sale agreement. So, we are not there yet. That is usually put up in escrow with the title company or the attorney that's going to be closing the transaction. I would always recommend as a side note that it's a title company and attorney that you choose, but again, that's outside the scope of this particular video. Just wanted to to mention that.

Section four is all about the due diligence period. Think of due diligence if you come from the single family world. This is like your inspection period. This is your verification window where you're going going to dot your eyes and cross your tees because you're buying a business here. Self storage is a real business. And so you're going to be verifying the financials, the leases, the physical condition of the property. This is if the facility is not in your backyard and you haven't actually physically put feet on site, like boots on the ground, then this is typically when you're going to travel. Once you're under contract and you're going to spend 1 to 3 days on site performing your due diligence, I will usually put in my letters of intent. There's a lot of variables and factors depending on if I really want the deal, depending on if I think it's a great deal and I need to tighten up certain terms. As a general rule of thumb, 45day due diligence is a sweet spot. If you can get 60, fantastic. It just buys you more time. Uh, as an aside, one other thing I will include is one of the videos in the AMP training sessions, our amplifier training sessions is the instant payday. And the instant payday is all about how you can wholesale storage facilities for big pops of income. If you know you are going to wholesale it, you want to try to give yourself as big of a due diligence window as possible because you are going to market the facility or I should say market the contract. Uh, you're going to find a potential buyer, hopefully the right buyer and whatever time you have left on your due diligence, that's the time they're going to have. So the more breathing room you can give yourself from a due diligence perspective, the better. If you know you're going to be the end buyer, then 45 days I think is a sweet spot. If you can get 60, fantastic. I don't typically recommend anything less than 30 days unless you're just intimately familiar with that facility with the with the financials and you've already done a lot of the work, but I think 45 days is a good sweet spot for you. Think of the due diligence period as your safety net. Unless otherwise stated in the letter of intent or in the purchase and sale agreement, your deposit is refundable during this due diligence period. make sure that that's the case so that you can walk away if something doesn't check out. Now, look, when I send a letter of intent and I ultimately sign a purchase and sale agreement, it's because I have every intention to close on that facility. All right? I don't ever recommend you get in a habit of

Just sending out a bunch of blind LOIs and signing purchase and sale agreements if you're not confident that what you're offering can work. That is a quick and fast way to burn your credibility. Self-storage, believe it or not, is a pretty small industry. Word can travel, especially with brokers.

So now, if during due diligence you uncover something that was not disclosed, or it's, it just you didn't know, and it materially affects the deal and the numbers, then you can obviously certainly go back to the broker or the owner and what's called retrade or renegotiate. I don't ever like to do that or suggest doing that as a way to just get a better deal. Although I know people that do that, I don't like that approach. If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it.

Now, again, if I go out there and the seller told me the roofs are in great condition, and all of a sudden I go out there, I have a roofer go up there or a couple of roofers, and they say, "Hey, Alex, this roof has a three or a four-year shelf life," then I know that that's going to be a big expense for me down the road. I'm going to need to address that with the seller and get better price and/or terms. Or I can decide to buy it if I think it's a good deal, or walk. That's the purpose of your due diligence period.

Section five is the closing timeline. So, normally you're going to close, I would say typically you would probably close within 30 to 45 days after due diligence. So, let's call the timeline in total. I think about three months, 75 days to three months is pretty common, depending on the complexity of the deal, the size of the deal, the more parties that are involved. I mean, there are deals that have taken four, five, six months to close. I would probably say 90 to 120 days for sure. I'd say the bulk of deals probably fall within that range. It also depends on like if you have SBA financing involved, Small Business Administration, that can delay and that can take longer because there's a lot more paperwork and boxes that have to get checked off.

I remember my first deal, we were hustling. We were moving. We went through due diligence in 45 days, but we were able to get from start to finish with SBA. I think it was like 73 or 74 days, but I was moving quickly. Like when they requested something, I was on it. So, yeah, I would say 60 to 90, 60 to 120 days is pretty typical, especially for a mid-size facility.

Section six, financing terms. Here's what I would recommend here, especially if you know you're going to be working with a bank or you need to get some type of bank financing, lender financing, try to keep this as flexible as possible, right? As an example, purchase subject to buyer obtaining satisfactory financing. Buyer may utilize bank, private capital sources, Small Business Administration. You want to give yourself some outs here. Essentially, give yourself some options. So, I think that's important.

Uh, section seven is about the contingencies. Contingencies are what protect you. I wouldn't put so many contingencies in there that it prevents you from even getting to a purchase and sale agreement. But, as an example, you could put like, "Offer is contingent upon buyer's review and approval of the due diligence items included, but not limited to the rent roll, the profit and loss statement, the balance sheet, any environmental reports, etc., etc., management summary reports, etc." So, I like to include that my due diligence window, that clock doesn't begin until I have received all of my due diligence. And then what I like to do is once I come to an agreement with the seller on the letter of intent, then it opens up, let's call it a two-week window where they're not going to negotiate with anybody else. We're committed to work together to transfer everything onto a purchase and sale agreement. And in one of the addendums of the purchase and sale agreement, this is where I list out everything that I'm going to need as the buyer to review during due diligence. All right? So, you don't have to list everything in the letter of intent. Just enough to maintain control of the deal and let them know that, hey, I'm going to want to review certain things during due diligence. Okay.

And then finally, section eight, it's just the expiration and the signature field. I always suggest you put some type of expiration window like, "Hey, this offer shall remain valid until this date. If not accepted by the seller, the buyer reserves the right to withdraw the offer." And that just introduces a little bit of urgency and scarcity into the deal. I wouldn't just leave it totally open-ended. 48 to 72 hours, I think, is pretty typical. And like I mentioned, it creates a sense of urgency. And then you're just going to write your name, sign your name, if there's a title of an entity name, things of that nature.

So, before we put a bow on this particular AMP training video about the letter of intent, let me share with you some best practices, some dos and some don'ts. Here's what I do recommend. One to two pages max. You don't need a four or five-page letter of intent. Totally not necessary. It's complete overkill. You want it to be easy and simple for them to read through and digest. The more complicated, remember, complications and confusion makes the mind say no. Put yourself in the best position for them to want to say yes. So, be clear. Don't be clever. Just be direct and clear.

I always like to attach a cover letter to my letter of intent, or if you're sending an email, a nicely crafted email, one or two paragraphs. You don't want a novel or a dissertation here. Attach it as a PDF. I don't ever send a Word document. And then get confirmation within 24 to 48 hours that they have received it. And that's it. That's it as far as the dos. Okay, we've already talked about the eight core sections that you need to include there. Uh, you might want to run this by an attorney, but like I mentioned, an LOI is not a legally binding contract.

Here's what you should not do. Don't overpromise or include price or terms that you're just not sure about. It wouldn't be great for you in the relationship if you send, let's say you send an offer for $800,000. I just picked that number out of the air. Let's say you send an offer for $800,000 and you're just not sure that you can make $800,000 work, and they come back and they accept your LOI. It's going to damage the relationship or potentially damage the relationship, make it more difficult to move forward. If all of a sudden you're like, "I kind of messed up on my numbers. I can't offer 800. I'm at 600," you're not putting yourself in a good position. So, if you're going to send an LOI, make sure that you feel comfortable to enter into an agreement and start performing due diligence. And at that point, you may start incurring some costs when it comes to travel and flights and hotels and time, certainly things of that nature.

Don't delete all of your contingencies, especially early on in the process, because the LOI lays out the framework, the outline, the terms of what you're offering. What you don't want to do is leave out a bunch of contingencies and then when you get to the purchase and sale agreement, now start adding a bunch of contingencies that you never even mentioned or brought up initially. Make sure you believe it or not, I've heard some stories of people that they thought they sent the LOI and when they look back, they never sent it. It was just stuck in their drafts. Make sure you send it. Make sure it's received. I always like to check 24 to 48 hours. Typically, I'm in contact with the seller or broker, and they know an LOI is coming. So, I do get early confirmation.

And just keep in mind, this is just about momentum. If we're on a football field, like I mentioned earlier, you're just trying to move the ball up the field for you to get into the red zone and then ultimately into the end zone. All right? The more LOIs you send, the faster you're going to become, the more you're going to gain confidence, you're going to gain feedback. It can build your credibility in the marketplace, especially amongst brokers. So, look, that's pretty much it. You somewhere on this page or below this video, you'll have a link where you can download the LOI template. Feel free to modify it. I mean, you can even jump on ChatGPT and, you know, pick what works for you. I just want to provide you with a simple LOI that can work for you. Do not overly complicate this. There's not a whole lot of fields to fill in.

As an aside, one thing that I like to include typically when I send an LOI is what we call in the Storage Wins community our secret weapon. And this is a buyer info sheet. And I'm not going to get too much into it here. I have a YouTube video about it. And the buyer info sheet, think of it as a one-page resume that tells the broker, the seller a little bit about you from a personal standpoint. Who you are, if you have a family, usually I include a picture. If I have any hobbies, I'll tell them about my background and experience in real estate and in self-storage, what I own, what I've done. It essentially just gives them a snapshot of who you are and it builds up credibility and trust so that you get shot to the top of the list because a lot of people don't include this. So, that's an aside. You can go to my YouTube channel. If you just search for Alex Partardo, you can find my channel. YouTube.com/alexpardoo, and there's a video. I think the title is "The Secret Weapon" or something along those lines. You'll find it. In fact, I'll see if I can have the team include it somewhere on here, but if it's not, for whatever reason, you can find it on the YouTube channel.

So, with that being said, here's your next step. Download the LOI template below this video or somewhere on this page and just practice. Take 5-10 minutes filling it out. Familiarize yourself with it. It won't take you long. And then you should remember, I want you getting to the point when you think about the LMAO method, okay, of list building on a daily basis, having your meaningful conversations, analyzing deals every single day, and making offers. I'd love for you to get to the point where you're sending multiple LOIs every single week. Even if they don't accept it, it's going to give you some credibility. You're going to gain valuable feedback. And this is what gets you sharper and it gets you ahead of most people. If you're not sending offers, it's going to be challenging for you to buy a storage deal. Uh, somebody at some point has to make an offer. Okay?

So, with that being said, remember something. Progress beats perfection every day and twice on Sunday. Go make an offer. Make sure it's an offer you feel comfortable with, you feel good with, because you've looked at the market, the competition, you've analyzed the deal, you've run the numbers using the deal filter system, and you just feel confident, or as confident as you can be, because you're always going to have a certain level of doubt, especially the first or second time that you're doing this. So, build momentum. Do not overthink this. Let's take that first or next step towards your storage deal.

Welcome to the Delegate and Dominate AMP training session. And this is essentially your boots on the ground blueprint. It's how to find, hire, and train your on-site partner for freedom. Because that's really what they are. They're not an actual business partner. In fact, they are an independent contractor. But you need to treat them like your partner because they are going to be your eyes and ears. And this is a key essential team member that allows us to run, operate, and manage these self-storage facilities remotely. So, this is going to be a super, super important lesson for you because I don't care if you go third-party management, or if you're going to hire, find, and train your boots on the ground. Either way, you're going to require this particular team member, a local on-site boots on the ground person. Okay?

So, if you're watching this, you've already done a lot of heavy lifting. You've learned how to find deals using our deal discovery. You've learned how to fund them, right, with the fearless funding approach, and how to close them and ultimately how to win the deal. But look, the truth is, is that you cannot scale freedom if you're chained to the facility. Your time is too valuable. I want you out there building meaningful relationships, connecting with storage owners and brokers and wholesalers, raising capital, deal structuring. Like that's where your time is spent. I don't want you're not going to be the boots on the ground team member. We typically buy these storage facilities from mom and pop owners who are the boots on the ground. They're the ones doing the heavy lifting. That's likely not what you're going to be doing. That's where your boots on the ground team member comes in. Again, they are your eyes, your ears, and your hands on site. And they're going to give you leverage. They're going to give you peace of mind, the freedom to be able to operate like a true savvy self-storage owner, operator, and business owner. And in this training, I'm going to walk you through the full boots on the ground blueprint. How to find, hire, train, manage a rockstar local team member who takes pride in the property as if it were their own. And that's one of the key ingredients that you need to find in this local boots on the ground team member is somebody who has a pride of ownership, okay? And they have a strong work ethic. And by the way, somewhere on here, you'll be able to download two super valuable resources. It's my day one onboarding checklist for your boots on the ground team member and also the weekly and monthly task checklist. Even going to include as a bonus, as an unadvertised bonus, I should say, I'm going to include a job ad that you can go out and put on Indeed or there's several places online, and we'll talk about where you can find them. So, by the end of this video, you're going to know exactly what to do, literally step by step.

Quick pause for just a second and we'll get back to the training. But I want to make sure that you don't make a mistake that I see a lot of people make pretty often. Don't just sit here and passively consume this content and watch the entire training. If you actually want to implement what I'm teaching, go create your free CashflowMaps account right now. Head over to CashflowMaps.com or you can just click the link in the description below. You're going to get access to the calculators, the templates, the trackers, the worksheets, all the tools and resources that go along with the training. That way you can follow along and implement as we go instead of just trying to take screenshots and reinvent everything yourself. So, with that said, let's get back to the training.

So, let's tackle this in sections. And I think it's super important that I need to get your buy-in here. And I think it's super critical that you understand why this role is so important. All right, your boots on the ground team member isn't, don't think of them as a virtual assistant, a task person. They're, think of them as an actual partner, an extension of you. They're going to help you operate this facility remotely. They're going to handle the small things before they become big things. They're going to be able to protect your investment on a week-in, week-out basis. And this is how you start to transition from operator to owner. It's how you're going to build freedom without sacrificing quality control. Because when you empower the right local contact, your facility is going to run smoother, your customers are going to be happier, you can focus on what matters: finding your next deal, funding your next deal, relationships, etc.

The second part of this, I think, is super important that you wrap your head around is understanding what makes a great boots on the ground team member. And I kind of touched on one of them earlier, but you want somebody who is going to be reliable and responsive. You want somebody, you don't need a wizard computer engineer, computer science type person who's going to code, obviously, but you do need somebody who at the bare minimum understands the basics. They can communicate by text. They can take pictures on their mobile phone. They know how to upload it to Dropbox or Google Drive, anything like that. They're comfortable around that. Okay? If that person is 70 years old and they just got a mobile phone and they're trying to figure out how to turn it on, that's not your person. You want somebody who is detail-oriented. We talked about pride of ownership. Somebody who is not just there to collect the paycheck and just do the job, but they want to own the outcome. Uh, and if it's a cherry on top, it's bonus points if they're also a handyman or a handywoman. If they understand how to do some pretty basic things, if they're comfortable doing using a lock cutter or if they know how to just do basic handyman type stuff, that's super, super helpful.

Now, in terms of where you can find them, I'm going to share with you some of my favorites. I always, when I've built a relationship with a seller and I'm further along in the process of due diligence, I will always ask them. It's a two-part question. "Are there any existing customers who have been at the facility for years and they really know the facility? They're very friendly. They pay on time. That you know them that could make a good boots on the ground team member who might be looking for a little bit of extra side work and side income?" I'll start by asking there. Depending on the answer, I might broaden it and say, "Hey, do you know anybody local in the area that this? Because I'm looking for a part-time local boots on the ground person. Do you have any tenants or local or customers or local contacts who've been with you for years that would take pride in this property?" You'd be surprised. Some of the best boots on the ground team members can come from sellers or people in the community that already know somebody there. So, I would absolutely start there.

I also love to go to first responders, particularly firefighters. Why? Firefighters are known to have side gigs and side hustles and they're always looking to generate more income because they have a lot of free time. They might work 24 hours and have 48 hours off, and then every so often they get, I think, five days off. I think it's called a Kelly week or something like that. Well, when I bought my Florida facility, we literally have a fire department right across the street. That is the first place we went. And our first boots on the ground team member, who was with us for about a year and a half, was a local firefighter. And he literally, when he was on shift, he would just walk across the street over to our facility. He'd spend an hour or two on site doing what he had to do. If he got a call, he went to take care of that. But it was just very convenient. Okay. And so firefighters can make amazing boots on the ground team members, and many firefighters are handy.

Speaking of handy, handymen and contractors. If you're doing your on-site due diligence and you've lined up appointments with any handymen or any contractors, have a conversation with them. Let them know, plant the seed that you're going to be looking for a part-time local boots on the ground team member. And here's the truth is that this is very, very part-time work. I mean, our boots on the ground team member goes to our facility once, sometimes twice a week. They might be on site for an hour to three hours at a time. So, let's say they're working five hours a week. Maybe it's 20 to 30 hours a month, and that's probably a lot. And we'll talk about pay and all that. So, this is super, super part-time work. We're talking five, let's call it six hours a week that they might be working. So, handyman or contractors are a great place. Local Facebook groups, just word of mouth, planting seeds with people in the community. When I build relationships with local businesses in the area, I'll also let them know about the position available. Um, you can be posting in local community or neighborhood groups and just let them know like, "Hey, I'm looking for a reliable part-time position helping me manage a local storage facility, light maintenance, weekly site checks, reporting, things of that nature."

And I think this is critical. Hire for attitude, and you can always train for skill. If somebody just has the wrong mindset, the wrong attitude, like, next, you don't need that. You can always train the person. I don't need anybody with storage experience. That's easy to train. But I can't train for attitude and for mindset. I need somebody who's going to take pride in their work, who's going to be a strong communicator, who's got a basic understanding around a mobile phone, email, things of that nature, and that's going to be the bulk of what you need because you can train the rest.

In terms of compensation and pay and all that type of stuff, it really depends on the market that you're in. Look, I have a coaching client who bought one of our Storage Winners, bought a small facility in a small town. I think there's 5,000 people or so, and he pays, I think it's $250 a month. I have another Storage Winds coaching client that also bought in a small town, not as small as that. I think she pays $200 a month. So, now those are smaller facilities. I have paid anywhere between $500 and $600 a month for our facilities. So, it's relatively inexpensive for a very, very important team member. And I would say on average, this is pretty common pay. It's not like we're lowballing people. Keep in mind, this is super, super part-time work. All right? Like I mentioned, they're going to be on site one to two times per week. They might be working, at most, I mean, 30 hours a month is probably a lot, to be honest with you. Now, if you bought a facility that is a heavy lift from a value-add perspective, there's a lot going on, there's a lot of vacancies, you're doing CAPEX projects, that person may or may not be working more. It really depends. But I would say as low as $200 a month all the way up to $600 a month is pretty common. I would avoid paying hourly rates unless it's for additional tasks that's outside the scope of work, emergencies, which don't really happen that often, to be honest. You know, if you see them going above and beyond and you want to bonus them, I think that's always a cool thing to do. But understand that these are independent contractors. They are not employees. So, before they even start working, before you pay them, have them sign an independent contractor agreement. Check with your local attorney. Check with your CPA. Like, consult with the pros. This is not legal or financial advice. I'm just sharing with you what I've done. So, you want to collect the W9 for tax purposes. Review the scope of work with them. Review their job description, pay. That's going to protect you and just set expectations from day one. I think disappointment occurs when expectations aren't being met. And I think it's really, really important that you set the proper expectations.

And then when it comes to onboarding, and keep in mind again, you're going to have three resources that you can download on here that relate to this video: the day one onboarding checklist, the weekly and monthly task, and then even a job ad that you can place out there. But when it comes to onboarding, this is where you really want to build the foundation for long-term success with your boots on the ground team members. So, I encourage you to use that day one onboarding checklist because it's pretty comprehensive. But that's going to walk them through like you're going to want to do a full facility tour. So, when you close on the property, ideally you would have already hired your boots on the ground team member, and then you can work with them for 24 to 72 hours, depending on how long you're on site, and make sure that they understand where all the units are, the different sizes, if you have any climate-controlled units, if there's any problem areas, any doors that need to be fixed or springs or hasps, things of that nature. Show them how to do unit cleanouts and make sure that they understand it needs to be broom-swept, crystal. It's got to be super, super clean. I was going to say crystal clear, but that wouldn't make sense in this context. Show them how to do overlocks, right? When a customer is not paying, and like what the system looks like between getting the report from your software system when somebody is late and making sure that that can get over to them digitally so that when they go on site, they can do their overlocks, they can do their lock audits, unit cleanouts, all that type of thing. Review the cleaning standards and just safety basics. Make sure that they understand if there's rat packs or any type of pest control that they understand where that's located. Again, if there's any problem areas with the facility, what the reporting looks like in terms of if there's a unit that is giving, let's say it's giving him or her a hard time opening. Okay, we got to take a picture. What unit is it? Communicate that to us. We then got to find somebody who's going to go out there and fix the issue or get some quotes. Just set expectations. All right. Make sure that, I would say the first month to two months that you're working with the boots on the ground, that you're having, I would say the first month, probably want to have daily touch points. Now, that person is probably not going to be on site daily, but I want you to have more communication, especially early on in the process, and then the communication rhythm and cadence can go to weekly. During that first walkthrough, here's a pro tip: take photos together. Like, introduce them to any vendors, any neighbors. Reinforce that they represent you and your brand, and that's super, super important. That's why somebody having pride of ownership is extremely important.

Now, for the first 30 days, I always like to have them send a daily text, or even if you have a 10 to 15-minute touchpoint call after each site visit. And after the first month, that can move to a weekly or a bi-weekly check-in. Uh, again, I want you to shorten the communication gap, meaning I want more frequent contacts and touchpoints with your boots on the ground team member. It's that important until you understand how that person works and you work out all the kinks. And then maybe 90 days down the road, you can loosen that up a little bit. Uh, but make sure that they understand that the facility's always got to be clean. If there's any trash on site, even a gum wrapper, that's got to be picked up. We want to overlock delinquent units. We want to prepare vacant units to get them online and ready to rent. Why? Because a vacant unit is the most expensive thing in storage because it's not generating any revenue. Make sure that they understand how pictures need to be taken. And then to upload that to whether it's LockerFox or StorageAuctions, and there's some others out there. If there's an issue with the gate, like sometimes it's a quick fix and they should be handy enough to work their way around it, or if they need to contact the local vendor because it's become a bigger issue. Uh, if you guys have a Dropbox on site or anything like that, that they understand how that process works. If there's any keys that that person needs to have on site, that that person has, they have access to the DaVinci locks, etc. So, I think all that kind of sets the frame for what that person's going to be doing and the resources that I'm providing for you here. It's going to go into more detail there.

So, yeah, that's, I think big picture, that covers it in terms of boots on the ground, their responsibility. Here's something that I recommend to everybody. Storage Wins coaching clients, like people I've worked with, is once a week, I always like to do, or have somebody on my team, like I have my assistant do it, do a quality control check. Visit my website. Go through the process as a customer. Click the "Rent Now" button. Call the phone number. Make sure everything is working because that one or two minutes that's spent can save you a lot of time, headaches, and energy in the future. Okay? So, understand that your boots on the ground is not just an extra set of hands. They're your eyes and ears. They're your local partner in success here, okay? Like all the top storage operators I know have a really, really good boots on the ground team member. You want to set clear expectations from day one. You want to empower them to own their outcomes, not just be like somebody who's going to complete tasks. You want to reward reliability, communication. Like, acknowledge them. And sometimes it's just a verbal acknowledgement like, "Hey, I really appreciate you going above and beyond because of X." And just acknowledging and appreciating people can be extremely powerful, especially when it's genuine. And I only recommend you acknowledge and appreciate them if it's genuine. Provide feedback quickly and openly. Um, positive and like you want to give that person feedback. So, don't treat them with kid gloves. Be a straight shooter. If something goes wrong, use it as a teaching opportunity. Make sure that there's buy-in from them. Like I mentioned, you want to show appreciation. It can even be a small thank you note, or it can be an extra $50 on top of what you pay them. That could go a really, really long way. You want to think long term with this person. When you find a really, really good boots on the ground team member, it's going to save you a lot of time and future headaches. Now, you're starting to build a foundation that you can really build on and scale on. And that's, this is the exact process that I follow across my different facilities. If you start buying facilities in the same town where you have another one, now that one boots on the ground can cover multiple sites. Okay?

So, let me share with you a few common mistakes that I think people make. Number one is skipping the independent contractor agreement or W9. Like, get that upfront. Don't get that like three or six months later. Don't abdicate the responsibility and just train them once and assume that they know what to do. So, use a checklist. Inspect what you expect. I always like to pay either with Zelle or something electronically. I'm not paying with cash. I'm not sending a check. Uh, maintain tight communication with them. And look, you're going to get what you tolerate. So, if you tolerate mediocre work, sloppy, shoddy work, that's what you're going to get. Early on, set the right boundaries and expectations. They need to take pride in their work.

So, to wrap this one up, your boots on the ground, think of them as the bridge between freedom and frustration. Because trying to operate a storage facility remotely, if you're not in the area, without a really good, reliable boots on the ground can lead to a lot of frustration. It can lead to you working more in the business rather than owning a system and a business that runs without you. All right? So, call to action. Just download the resources, use those to hire, train, and empower your first local boots on the ground. Now, you're probably not going to start looking for this person until you go under contract on your first or your next facility. So, you know, I think this will be really, really helpful. This might be something that you bookmark and you reference once you're under contract on your first facility. And it's an important part of this overall process.

So, with that being said, you now have what you need to go out there, delegate to dominate. First off, congratulations. If you've made it all the way through this training, you're already ahead of most people because most people just consume information. But very few actually follow through and implement. And that's what I want to challenge you. I want you to remember that you don't need another course. You don't need another YouTube video. You don't need more information. You need action. You now have a roadmap. You know how to define your buy box blueprint, how to find deals, how to analyze opportunities, even raise capital, make offers, and start building your path towards storage ownership.

If you haven't already, last reminder, go create your free account at CashflowMaps.com, or you can just click the link in the description below. And that's where you're going to get all the templates, calculators, trackers, worksheets, the tools, and the resources that go along with this training. And if you're already at the point where you're thinking, Alex, I don't want to do this alone. I'm still a little bit confused, maybe lost, and I want help creating a plan and accelerating the process. Then I want to invite you to book a free 10-minute discovery call using the link below, and let's map out where you are, where you want to go, and what the right next steps look like for you. So, I want to encourage you, take massive imperfect action. You now have everything you need. If you want help with the implementation, you want support, guidance, and accountability in the right environment of like-minded people, again, I invite you to book a link, book a call in the link below. Head over to StorageWins.com/call and let's make it happen.