Episode 140: The Million Dollar Room: How Mastermind Events Changed My Net Worth

Steffany Boldrini (00:00):

My ex used to tell me, only dead fish go with the flow. And incredibly, very successful people sometimes only buy every decade during the recession.

Self Storage (00:24):

This is the Self storage podcast where we share the knowledge and skills from the industry’s leading investors, developers, and operators to help you launch and grow your self storage business. Your host, Scott Meyers, over the past 18 years has acquired, developed, converted and syndicated nearly 5 million square feet of self storage nationwide with the help of his incredible team at selfstorageinvesting.com, who has helped thousands of people achieve greatness in self storage.

Scott Meyers (00:59):

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Self Storage Podcast. I’m your host, Scott Meyers and Storage Nation. I have a treat for you, I have, but with us I would like to introduce you to Steffany Boldrini. Steffany is going out and taking the self-storage and world by storm. She is one of our mastermind members and I’ve been admiring her from the stage when she presents at our mastermind and everything that she’s doing outside of that. So we just had to have her on the podcast to share just exactly what she is doing and to be able to catch up. So with that, Steffany, welcome to the show.

Steffany Boldrini (01:29):

Thank you so much for having me, Scott. It’s a true honor to be here.

Scott Meyers (01:33):

Wow. Well, it’s my pleasure and I can’t wait to be able to share what it is that you’re doing with Storage Nation. So with that, I’ve given everybody in the other intro a little bit of background on you, but if you would tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to the place where you are in self-storage.

Steffany Boldrini (01:50):

Definitely. So I moved to the US when I was 18 years old and count my blessings every single day that I’m here for the last 23 years. And I started, I landed in Silicon Valley and just by a matter of being there, I started working in startups, in tech sales. And as soon I started to make some money, I wanted to invest it somewhere. And because you are surrounded by technology, the first thought you have is typically to invest as an angel investor in startups. And so I started doing that and at the time I was dating somebody that was a successful real estate investor. And very quickly it became very clear that real estate is a much better, safer in several different ways form of investing, especially compared to angel investing. And so I decided to learn everything that I could from him. Took 30 pages worth of notes.

(02:54):

He was in the retail space and I wasn’t sure where retail was going in the future. And so I was learning and listening to podcasts and reading books and came across self storage. Someone mentioned that it does well in good times, in bad times, and I decided to learn everything I could about self storage and made the mistake to wait too long to join your mastermind to be honest. But after what, three years or so doing that full time, I joined the Mastermind and have been doing sub storage since then. I’ve invested in a few different asset classes, but self-storage is the main one.

Scott Meyers (03:41):

Well, very similar to your path is the one that I took as well. And I was also working for a tech company and investing heavily back into that company by way of our stock options and just plowing everything into a company match. And then I decided that I had to take a look around and hedge against inflation and make sure that my retirement was going to be safe and secure instead of tying it all to one company, the one that I was working for. So yeah, went out and looked around the landscape, the investment landscape, and same thing, much like you recognize that real estate was, there are far more millionaires made in real estate than there were in either investing in startups or in the stock market or in doing even company matches and 4 0 1 K’s. And that’s how I landed in real estate to begin with.

(04:27):

First of all, you can see it, you can touch it and feel it versus the big casino on Wall Street. And sure enough, the company that I worked for, they in 1999, the.com crash that got caught cooking the books and I watched ’em about 350,000 of my retirement go down the toilet with it. I was thankful that I had my real estate at the time. I was not in self storage at the time, but then that’s what made me decide to go into real estate. And so the rest of my end is history as well. So you also invested in a couple of different asset classes and then landed in self storage. So what attracted you to self-storage to begin with?

Steffany Boldrini (05:06):

Yeah, the number one thing was the fact that it does well in good times and bad economic times because it was around 2019 or so and a recession was around the corner. We just didn’t know when. And because of that, I decided to focus on self-storage also, of course, it’s in my personal opinion, a lot easier than multifamily because they’re a lot less moving parts. If you have a problem tenant, you can kick them out within 30 days, typically, depending on which state you are at. And people come to their unit an average of around four times per year. So there’s really no tenants, toilets and trash to deal with some exceptions. But yeah, it’s so easy to manage remotely asset class, very easy today to add a lot of technology to manage remotely, and it is pretty straightforward.

Scott Meyers (06:09):

Yep. I can say the same thing being in single-family homes and multifamily. When I saw self-storage, I found the light not only is it easier, seem easier, it is, it truly is and has been. And then when I began this journey, I realized and recognize that there wasn’t a whole lot of people, this is back in 2005, there’s not a whole lot of people teaching about the industry. And then that’s how we started our education organization. And then selfishly our mastermind. And I say selfishly because I wanted to be in a room with a whole bunch of other self storage professionals and there wasn’t one at the time a mastermind. So I created it and then I invited as many of the people that I knew that were either at the same level as me growing and scaling at the same speed so that we could learn from each other and share businesses practices, but also bring in people that were above that are willing to open up their Rolodex and share their resources and their wisdom and also their scar tissue from some of the mistakes that they had made along the way.

(07:05):

And so we filled the room with those folks as well. And that became just out of our own mastermind. I take more notes than any other event that I go to, and that was my design. And so that being said, tell us a little bit about your experience from the mastermind and maybe just from a networking, you’ve done an incredible job of networking, Steffany, so I mean that’s what brought you to the Mastermind. So maybe answer that in two ways. Tell us the power of networking and then what it’s like to be in the Mastermind.

Steffany Boldrini (07:37):

Yeah, that’s a really good question, Scott. I think it’s always so important to look back at how you got to where you are and be so extremely thankful for the people that helped you along the way. And the mastermind is definitely one of those things, but I think it’s also important to look at the timeline. So number one, how did I even think about going to your mastermind? I read one of your books and it was on my to-do list to reach out. I had reached out, but I never followed up after one of your people had called me and left a message. And one of the years my word of the year was scaling, and I was thinking, okay, what do I need to do to scale my business? One of the things is join a mastermind. And so I followed up on that year old voicemail that I had from your team member joined the mastermind.

(08:32):

And one thing I really want to highlight is that the expensive things that we attend are the ones with the biggest R O I. So the two most expensive events that I have attended have returned. I was thinking about the numbers as of today, I think about a million dollars in net worth. So we cannot be thinking about, oh, this is X cost for this because the amount of return that you get from attending events that other people have paid top price because they are professionals and they want to network with other professionals and grow and scale their business that way is you cannot put a number to that. And of course you also have to network, follow up and build relationships. So it’s not just showing up. One of the partners that I met at your mastermind, I had never seen him to be honest, after being there for a year.

(09:40):

And one day I just look at him and I’m like, I think he must be from California. So I said, Hey, where are you from? And he was not a big talker like myself. And so he’s like, yeah, I’m from Orange County. I’m like, what? I’m in Orange County right now. Let’s connect. And so we decided to partner up on a deal and they’re wonderful, incredible operators. I partnered up with another guy that I met at another high net high profile people and we ended up raising the $2 million that person needed for their deal. So it is very important to go to places where high people are at. And this goes not only from our networking perspective of real estate world, but also maybe living in an area that you’re going to be exposed to people that are where you want to be.

Scott Meyers (10:42):

A hundred percent agree with that, Steffany. And again, you never want to be the smartest person in the room because if you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re not growing. And so I love it when I go somewhere else and I fail, maybe a little intimidated or I feel like, wow, these folks are growing and scaling at a level much higher than I am at, and some of these conversations I can keep up with, but maybe I did catch up all of that. And so those are the times, especially looking back through the years where growth happens because then you realize that you have to have a game on and you also realize that, wow, I’ve got a lot to learn, but in an encouraging way, oh my gosh, knowledge is power and getting access, the old adage once again is not what you know, it is who.

(11:25):

And so yes, there’s some learning that takes place so that you can have those conversations and step up to the table and have those or belly up to the bar if you will, when you’re at a mastermind or another event like that and have those conversations. But truly when you begin to network with other folks that are at a level higher than you that can make introductions for you on your behalf or just show you things that you didn’t know or ways of doing things, that’s where the exponential learning occurs, and that’s where true growth and scaling happens as well. And that’s why it’s been so great to watch that happen for, you’ve been so open to it and you’ve done such a good job of networking and then seeking out individuals. And so could you share a little bit, would you mind sharing a little bit about some of the projects and maybe some of the doors that have opened as a result of some of the networking you’ve done within the mastermind?

Steffany Boldrini (12:16):

Absolutely. So not only have I met incredible people that when I needed help, for example, right now I’m building my very first facility from the ground up. I have reached out to a member to help me look at the quotes and help me understand if this is a proper amount or not, and what are the next steps for building a facility from the ground up, who may be the best contractors to be working with. Got introduced to an architect from people from the mastermind and of course partnered up with this other person that had three self-storage facilities and ended up raising 2 million for their deal. And so of course when you partner up, you get a percentage of the deal. And those are just some of the benefits from the mastermind. And again, highly encourage people to be in the asset class that they are working on so you can be working with the professionals that have been doing this for many years. So yeah, that is the gist of it.

Scott Meyers (13:26):

Well, since we began the, it’s not just our tagline or on our banners everywhere else, it’s all about community and capital and deal flow. And there are other folks, I think for a minute, if I could spend just a minute talking about our mastermind, I think there’s many other places you can go where I think Mastermind is a term that’s been thrown around a little too loosely, where some of the gurus, if you will, they used to have a bootcamp or whatever they would call it, and then they just named it Mastermind because now that’s a new popular term. And all it was was just a repackaged three day learning event. Whereas a true mastermind, what we adhere to and when we formed our mastermind was following Napoleon Hill’s model, which Steffany, because we talk about it at the beginning of every meeting to remind everybody why we’re here and why people in the room that are in the same industry together, they tap into the exponential amount of wisdom and intelligence in that room to be able to grow and scale.

(14:23):

And that is all about businesses practices in our community, it’s about capital and deal flow. And as you just mentioned, a hundred percent of nothing is nothing. You didn’t say that, but if you have a deal and you can’t put it together from a capital source, or if you don’t have access to architects and in general contractors to build it, but you found an opportunity, a piece of dirt to be able to buy, well, then you’ve got nothing out of that if you can’t have a team to be able to tap into a team and build one to be to move forward. And so for us, we realized really quickly early on in our career that I needed to have access to capital to grow the business, and I needed a community of people to learn how to do this better. And the more people that you can share best business practices with that are learning in other parts of the country or the world for that matter, the further you’re going to be ahead and then deal flow.

(15:11):

There’s a whole bunch of folks that, as you know in the mastermind that are really, really good at finding all kinds of opportunities. And they either don’t want to take ’em all down or they can’t take ’em all down and they either want to wholesale ’em or they intentionally are there to wholesale properties to the rest of the folks in the mastermind. And so by nature and design, you’ve got a whole bunch of folks that are running a hundred miles an hour. There’s going to be overlap, and there’s also going to be opportunities where some folks bring the capital, other folks bring the resources and somebody brings the deal, and we get to put those together. We also get to deconstruct deals that people present at the Mastermind where they say, Hey guys, they’re treating the group as a board of advisors to say, Hey, I’ve got this opportunity here.

(15:56):

I don’t know if it’s a deal, but I think it is. Let’s deconstruct it and then put it back together and I’d like to get your thoughts on that. And we go through those exercises and case studies as well. So without me promoting, I get excited about this because yes, I built it, but I built it for me because these are the things that I needed and then still do. Steffany, talk to us a little bit about maybe what you’ve learned from that side, from doing the case studies and having people present deals where we take ’em apart and put ’em back together from your perspective.

Steffany Boldrini (16:26):

Yeah. Well first I really admire everything that you have built so far. Your numbers are incredible and I really look up to you. There is a popular, very successful venture capitalist in the Bay Area that had his own startups. And he said once, and I cannot find this quote for the life of me, but he said something like this, yes, when I was building my company, I could have kept 100% ownership of it and own 100% of the pie. However, when you want to scale and grow, you have to give up that pie to the best people in the industry. You have to share, you have to give stocks and percentages of the company and your pie is going to be sliced. However, that piece of your pie is going to be a whole lot bigger than that original 100% pie that you had. So I think partnerships, of course, with the right people, you have to do extreme due diligence on your partners and do a lot of q and a before partnering up with people.

(17:36):

And there are several questionnaires that q and as that both of you guys should go through before partnering up, deciding many different things. Partnerships are fantastic because we are not all great at several different things. We are great at very few things, if not one thing. And we need to find people that are great at your weaknesses, our weaknesses. So the last thing that I learned of the mastermind was the cognitive clause that we need to look at in the loan documents, which put it simply, I’m not an attorney, is basically some banks in some states are putting this clause on your loan documents where you give up your rights to a trial and it goes right away to something else where they can take your property away very quickly. So you need to have an attorney to of course look at all of that from the beginning before when they give you the term sheet and negotiate all of these things. Well, these things, you can lose a deal because of that, and that’s a ton of work that you put into a lot of potential other people’s money. So you really need to be careful. Of course, this is, it is our business. We need to be extremely careful about who we work with, how we do our due diligence, who manages the property, who we partner up with.

Scott Meyers (19:10):

Well, yes indeed, that clause that was brought up at the end of our last mastermind raised a lot of eyebrows and a lot of concern and some anxiety and everyone, and immediately made my attorneys who review our docs aware of this to keep an eye out for it. It can get buried. And it was a doozy. And the way it was presented by Rick was, it’s almost like, can this really be happening? And then he showed us the document, it was like, yeah, it can happen. So that’s just one of the gotchas of the pitfalls of the many that we find and uncover and present each and every quarter. But I wanted to touch on Steffany, another point that you made, and I just want to double down on it.

(19:49):

We talk about in our mastermind, we’re going through business life together. And I mean we truly are. Some of these people have been in here 10 plus years. And I mean, for instance, as one of our members, when he dies the keys to everything as to where everything is at, it resides with another member in the mastermind, not with his spouse or his family. And that is the level of trust that is in here. And that’s, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t trust his family, but it’s just that he knows that the people in that room will be able to go through and find and uncover all of his assets so that his family does get to it and do the right things to unwind it. So we kind of sandwich that person in the middle, and that is a level of trust that we have in that room.

(20:29):

And it’s difficult. The many times I’ve seen partnerships formed, I’ve seen bad partnerships formed where two broke people with bad credit decide to go into sell storage together and they can’t do anything because they’re both broken. They have bad credit, but it’s not a good partnership. Those are just friends who have similar interests. But the best partnerships are ones in which not only do they bring complimentary skill sets where one person may be a developer and the other one is on the private equity side. And if a third partner is an operation specialist, well that’s good, and as long as they draft the operating agreement where everybody stays in their own lane, that’s a good partnership. But usually it’s where one person needs something that the other person possesses. So it is needs-based or it’s complimentary skill sets or what it takes to get a deal across the finish line.

(21:17):

But what is so important, as you mentioned Steffany, is you got to know someone and that comes from spending a lot of time with them and essentially business, and I say in air quotes, dating that person to find out if it’s a fit, because a partnership, as many people know and have heard that it is a lot like a marriage in many, many ways. And if it goes sideways, it can go really, really bad when you begin splitting up assets, it’s one thing in a true marriage should do that, but it’s a whole different matter when you’re talking millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars about real estate if you pick the wrong partner right up front. And so that is the environment we created as well, which people get to go through business life together and they get to discuss in a confidential setting also a big piece of what we do.

(22:03):

People bring issues in the business world and personally to the mastermind and they share in front of the group because everybody’s sworn to secrecy or confidentiality not to share outside of that room. And for some folks, it’s the only place where they can air out what’s going on in their business or if they have to fire a business partner and that business partner happens to be their spouse or whatever that looks like. So people get a chance to be able to know each other very intimately. And I say that in a professional manner before they step into a partnership with each other. And so that is very key. So for anyone out there, don’t enter into any partnership. If you’re thinking about doing so without really getting to know that person and doing your background check and due diligence on that person, and it’s okay. And you’re not going to offend them, they shouldn’t be offended. Or if they are, then maybe because they have something to hide, but they should be doing the same on you before you enter into a partnership because that is something that we all take very seriously.

Steffany Boldrini (22:58):

And also always go with your gut. I know people that partnerships have not worked, and I’m a very curious person and I always like to ask what happened. And for this one friend whom a partnership did not work, he was interviewing somebody and his dog got in the room somehow and that person didn’t treat his dog properly and he decided to hire him anyway. And at the end of the day, he stole his entire database of investors that he had built over several years. So go with your gut as well, is if they give one little hint that you’re not feeling good about follow your gut.

Scott Meyers (23:45):

Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. That’s really good advice, Steffany. Alright, so let’s talk about your development project. How’s it going?

Steffany Boldrini (23:55):

I’m scared.

Scott Meyers (23:58):

That’s natural. Everybody that embarks on how a development project is

Steffany Boldrini (24:02):

Really, my stomach is churning really. It’s a huge project and you need to really hire the best people and make sure that you’re doing the right thing, especially when you’re involving investors. It’s a piece of land that we are in contract for in California, central California. That will be my very first big project. And so far everything is going smoothly with all the reports and phase ones and the city is looking decent for the permits. So we’re excited while nervous at the same time. And this to be the first of many big developments that we’ll be doing in self storage.

Scott Meyers (24:49):

Well, that’s good to hear. And remember, hope is not a strategy. Yes, you will be doing many, many more and I have a hundred percent confidence in you in doing so because we’ve been watching what you’re doing. And so yeah, I look forward to many more after this one. So tell us, without jumping ahead and without causing more fear, how are you approaching the balance of 2023 and 2024? Is it just a focus on development or are you now beginning to look at the next, or what do you have in mind? What are your plans if you don’t mind sharing?

Steffany Boldrini (25:20):

Right now we’re looking at a lot of land because we have not been able to find incredible deals. And so I’m beginning to think we have to create our own, and I found this great land broker that is feeding us a lot of good opportunities in California. And so the plan is to analyze it very, very closely. I met some other brokers in other states as well that are feeding us some good land deals, but the math has to work with the interest rates that we have today and in the near future. But I am a firm believer that with the cap rates increasing, it is worth paying more for your mortgage, for your loan and get a discount on your property compared to paying top price when the cap rates are compressed.

Scott Meyers (26:18):

A hundred percent agree as well. I think the opportunity right now to create yield, get yield and create value is in construction and to be able to now take advantage of some of the properties and or land that is depressed because cap rates are a little bit higher. But just knowing that this is only temporary for your interest rates and your cashflow and that you’ll be able to refinance after you’ve traded value and when the rates come down, cap rates will come down. And then whether that is a time to sell or not, this is absolutely the best time to be buying while values are down. It is a buyer’s market as we’re heading into this next phase in economic cycle. So we saw what happened the last time around in 2008, and many of the folks that we were watching in the marketplace, they mopped up and they did extremely well.

(27:05):

And that’s what we’ve been preparing for ever since then was creating a war chest of private equity and partners that come alongside of us and lenders. And I think we’re just announcing the tip of the iceberg, if you will, and we’re going to start to see many, many more opportunities come to market. So good for you. And the focus on California, so I have to ask this question. Many of the California investors are looking elsewhere because they can’t find yield because land is expensive, everything is more expensive, so cashflow is a little bit more difficult, but you’ve, you stuck your guns and you’ve been looking close to home for the reasons you just mentioned. You don’t have to divulge your secret sauce, but tell us how you’re able to find these opportunities in the great state of California where it has been so difficult to get properties to cashflow.

Steffany Boldrini (27:53):

Absolutely. And sometimes cashflow is not, what you’re looking at is an exit of a higher price of a property. Just like what happens in residential here in California, in some markets you’re always on the red with rent. However, you get a lot of equity very quickly. So you really need to look at what is important to you. The way I found this particular broker is what I call showing up. You got to show up, go to events, go out to the places where your people are hanging out. I was literally working at a coffee shop and I met this broker that started talking to me and he introduced me to a couple of other brokers that find land in certain areas of California. And that is how not all deals of course pan out because some of the land is still very expensive and you need to be very creative.

(28:51):

For example, there is a land that they presented recently where it was in a good part of town, however, it was very expensive. So what can we do there? Can we subdivide and sell the front to retail and do storage in the back or can we do industrial? What can we do to make this work? So it’s important to look at alternatives, be creative, ask people in your network, what should you do? What would you do in this situation? Because we’re not alone and everybody’s going through things like you were briefly mentioning about the mastermind. All business owners, all entrepreneurs are going through something at all points in their career. And so it’s really important to know who to contact to get help. We don’t build anything alone.

Scott Meyers (29:43):

Yeah. Yep. I learned that lesson early on when there was a gentleman who asked me a gray haired gentleman very wise and very savvy in real estate for many, many years, and he asked about my partnerships. I said, well, I kind of shy away from partnerships I’ve heard and seen other things that have happened in bad partnerships and what that looks like. And he says, I can’t. He said, there’s no way I would be at the place where I am. And he was pretty well known. Everybody knew where he was at, and he was at the top here in my local market here in various forms of real estate investing. And he said, I can’t imagine ever doing a project or embarking upon an acquisition or development without a partner. And he’s the one who kind of changed my way of thinking at this. And he just said, you just got to have good legal documents in place and make sure you guys are a match for each other.

(30:32):

And so that was kind of the light bulb that went on for me in terms of yeah, absolutely having to build a team. So that’s good advice. So if any of you out there in Storage Nation needed to hear that again, well, you just heard it twice, it’s time to step out of your comfort zone and trust and find the right partners. Well, Steffany, on that note, so you’re certainly not a rookie. You’re on your way to becoming a veteran, but you’re not so far off of really starting in real estate and in self storage. So for the folks that are maybe at that stage or looking to get in, and maybe you’re really sitting on the sidelines waiting because they’re a little bit fearful of interest rates and some of the things we just mentioned, what type of, not advice, because we don’t do that in the Mastermind, but what type of experience would you share with them?

Steffany Boldrini (31:17):

Of course, besides the fact of being where your people are and the professionals are? In this case, the Mastermind, for example, my ex used to tell me, only dead fish go with the flow. And incredibly, very successful people sometimes only buy every decade during the recession. So number one, don’t think it will never end whatever situation we’re going through, whether it’s a good economic time or a bad economic time and go buy real estate. If we are able to get fantastic deals nowadays, and you have to suffer with high interest rates for the next two to three years for a huge potential upside, go for it and find the people that understand that because it’s very easy to forget that there will be a good time around the corner when we are in a bad economic time and vice versa. So if you do the math and do your due diligence, you will be fine.

Scott Meyers (32:28):

Yep. Agree. Agree. Well, Steffany, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate you spending time with Storage Nation now today and sharing some of your experiences and your insight on the market and sharing the properties and the projects that you’re working on as well. As we wind up here, could you maybe share maybe the best piece of call it advice or experience sharing that anybody has ever shared with you?

Steffany Boldrini (32:53):

The best piece of advice, I would say the partnerships. My recent most favorite book is 10 x is easier than two x. We really need to step out of our comfort zone, find who is the best at our weak points, and continue expanding and growing and growing yourself so you can get to that next level. It’s like those reptilians that the skin comes out every so often, we need to really transform ourselves in order to grow.

Scott Meyers (33:27):

Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I agree. I agree. Well, Steffany, once again, thank you so much for your time and very much looking forward to catching up with you at our next Mastermind.

Steffany Boldrini (33:38):

And another thing I really appreciate about your mastermind that I’ve never seen anywhere else is that you’re God focused and we do a little prayer every Mastermind in the morning. And I think that’s such a beautiful thing that brings us back to what really matters.

Scott Meyers (33:57):

Well, it is. And business shouldn’t be separate from our faith in the way that we live out our lives because this is our mission field. So I appreciate that. Steffany, thank you for saying that very much.

Steffany Boldrini (34:06):

Thank you so much, Scott, for everything you’re doing for so many people. I know it’s a ton of work to put these together, and I’m genuinely appreciate all the lives that you have touched.

Scott Meyers (34:16):

Thanks, Steffany, I appreciate that. It’s my pleasure. We’ll see you soon.

Self Storage (34:27):

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