My last trip to South Carolina is testament to the fact that being in the storage business isn’t a walk in the park. All that money you see is just a tip of the iceberg. And I mean it. I was visiting South Carolina to get the storage facility I recently bought there up and running. It’s a huge 70,000 sq. ft. warehouse and I’m turning one of the sections, which is around 45,000 sq. ft. into an indoor storage facility.
When I got there, I was shell-shocked. A storage facility I invested $800,000 in, was under water due to heavy rains. Not just that, it had building material worth $275,000 now completely covered in water. The contractor had kept all the doors open the previous night, as they were core drilling some of the concrete to install metal posts at the corners of the building, so people wouldn’t run into them. Now I know that’s a wet process. And they probably kept the doors open to circulate the air. But the anxious me lost it and started asking all sorts of questions as to why the doors were open and what else might be contributing to our condensation problems. For the next few hours, I frantically called all my friends who knew more about construction than me. Ultimately, we figured that it was just a perfect storm that I had missed by a few hours.
The morning after, the warehouse was bone dry. We decided that if we keep the doors closed every night, it will stop the rain from coming in. We also plan to do some drainage work to move water away from the exterior of the building more quickly. We’ll also install a gable end louver fan that will circulate air, as circulating air doesn’t condensate the way stagnant air does. Simple stuff, but super effective.
If someone had asked me on the first day of my trip, if something good was going to come out of it, I’d say hell no! But by the time I left yesterday, I was actually quite optimistic. I also uploaded a couple of pictures on Facebook today. I got a time lapse video which helped us identify all the contributing factors and have come up with a solution for each of them. Through this experience of mine, you need to understand that although storage is a great way to earn money in less time, it isn’t free lunch. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. There are going to be challenges.
That said, I credit this line of business for my ability to handle this past trip, the way I did. Why? Because for the last several years, storage allowed me to make enough money in so few hours each week, that I’ve been able to invest the remaining time I have to “work on myself”. The old Mike was, quite simply, incapable of handling such a stressful situation with the relative ease that the new Mike demonstrated while on site last month.
Sure, the money in storage is great, but it isn’t a cakewalk and the money alone is probably not reason enough to deal with the challenges. It’s the freedom that the money gives you that makes it all worthwhile! I’m way better to people in stressful situations than I was just a few years ago. I think there’s something to be said for that! And I feel incredibly fortunate that storage allows me to spend my time “getting better” and thriving as opposed to just surviving. If you are serious about this storage thing and want to learn more, you will find an exponential amount of value inside the Storage Rebellion UNIVERSITY! I hope to see you there!