The Seller Stopped Operating. The Data Made Them Stay.

What do you do when the seller of your first self-storage facility simply stops showing up? Phones go dark, the website dies, and occupancy craters to 40%...while you're still under contract and $25,000 deep in non-recoverable costs? 

That's the crisis at the center of this episode. 

Joe Downs sits down with Adam and Kirby Leiby, a sales professional and homeschooling mom with zero prior storage experience, who purchased Lemon Springs Self Storage in Sanford, North Carolina for $625,000 in August 2025. 

Less than a year later, the 96-unit facility is at 70% occupancy and climbing, year-one projections are hit, and deal number two is already in their sights. 

Their story is a masterclass in one of the most valuable skills in self-storage investing: telling the difference between a market that doesn't want you and an operator who simply stopped trying. 

If you've ever wondered whether you have what it takes to close a distressed deal, this episode is required listening.

Listen For:

1:10 How did two career professionals with zero storage experience decide to buy their first self-storage facility?

7:33 What does secretly shopping a 10-mile radius around a storage facility actually reveal about the market?

12:26 When occupancy drops to 40% mid-contract, how do first-time storage investors decide whether to walk or close?

15:40 What is the single moment Adam and Kirby Leiby decided to push through and close the Lemon Springs deal?

22:43 What does a storage investor's five-year portfolio vision actually look like in practice and what are you doing today to get there?

CONNECT WITH GUEST: ADAM & KIRBY LIEBY

Website | Adam's LinkedIn | Kirby's LinkedIn | Adam's Instagram | Kirby's Instagram | Adam's Facebook | Kirby's Facebook | Facebook Page 

CONNECT WITH US

Joe Downs on LinkedIn

Belrose website | Belrose email | Belrose LinkedIn

Transcript

Joe Downs (00:00:00):

I want you to imagine something. You've spent months finding a deal, you went through the education, you underwrote it, you got the bank on board, you signed the contract, you put your earnest money down, and then while you're under contract, the seller stops operating. He just stops. Phone goes to voicemail, new tenants can't rent, existing tenants move out. The facility you thought was 75% occupied is now sitting at 40% and you haven't even closed yet. You have a clause in your contract that says if the seller violates his obligation to keep running the facility, you can walk away. Full deposit back, no harm, no foul. That is the moment my guests today were standing in. They almost walked. They came very close. The rational choice on paper was to take the deposit and go find another deal, but they didn't walk. Today, Lemon Springs Self Storage in Sanford, North Carolina is at 70% occupancy and climbing.

(00:01:01):

Their year one projections, they hit them. Deal number two, they're already looking. Adam works in sales. Kirby homeschools their kids. They had no prior storage experience. What they had was the ability to tell the difference between a market that doesn't want you and an operator who stopped trying. Today, you're going to hear how they figured that out.

(00:01:38):

I'm Joe Downs. Welcome to the Storage Moguls Podcast. My company has acquired 20 storage facilities, which is over 50 million in assets across multiple storage niches. With three more under contract right now and two pro storage facilities and development, we've seen this business from every angle, educated hundreds of students and learned firsthand how to succeed and why and who succeeds and why. That's what drove us to build storagemuggles.ai, an AI powered community with the tools, the structure, and the guardrails to teach people how to buy storage facilities. And that's exactly why I launched this podcast, to try to bring you the operators, the lenders, and the real people who've bought deals. So you can hear their stories, learn this business from them, the folks living it every day. I am excited about today's conversation because Adam and Kirby bought this facility back in July or August of 2025.

(00:02:31):

So this is a great chance to hear their story and check in to see how they're doing. Adam and Kirby are the owners of Lemon Spring Self Storage in Sanford, North Carolina. 96 units purchased in August of 2025. I was right. Adam is a sales professional, Kirby Homeschools of Kids, who are now, by the way, active participants in the family business. I'm looking forward to unpacking that. They came through our Self Storage Academy and I got to watch this deal happen in real time. This is the full story, the fear, the near walk, the fix, and where they are now. Adam and Kirby, welcome to the Storage Muckles podcast.

Kirby Leiby (00:03:11):

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Adam Leiby (00:03:13):

Yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks, Joe.

Joe Downs (00:03:16):

Well, I appreciate you guys coming back because I know we've already talked to you guys right after you bought it. And we're going to get into all that and break that down. But before we do, I'd like to have a little fun on our podcast. So I'm going to ask you a series of true, false questions along the way. All right. You're up for it. You can take turns, you can both answer.

Adam Leiby (00:03:36):

We'll see how much we're on the same page.

Joe Downs (00:03:39):

True or false? Self-storage was one of only three major real estate asset classes that actually increased in value during the 2008, 2009 financial crisis. True. Sure. True is correct. When the housing market collapsed, people downsizing still needed storage. So demand went up, not down. The other two asset classes, if you're curious, you want to take a guess? They're kind of techie.

Adam Leiby (00:04:13):

Oh, tech was kind of starting to boom.

Joe Downs (00:04:17):

Cell towers and data centers.

Adam Leiby (00:04:18):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (00:04:19):

Yeah.

(00:04:20):

The real estate asset classes. Anyway. All right. Adam and Kirby aren't real estate operators by background. He's in sales. She homeschools the kids, which is exactly why the story matters. Because if getting into this business required an industry background, they'd have never gotten in. And neither would most of you, and I don't think I would have either. So I want to back up to before Lemon Springs, before storage was even on your radar, because I think where someone starts tells you more than any deal number ever could. So Adam Kirby, what did a normal week look like for each of you before self-storage entered the picture? What were you doing and what were you trying to get to or where were you trying to get to financially?

Adam Leiby (00:05:04):

Am I going? Okay.

Joe Downs (00:05:06):

Don't all answer at once.

Adam Leiby (00:05:11):

It was a journey. I mean, I think as you grow up and we both graduated from college and obviously trying to get your feet underneath you from a career standpoint, we had some career changes over the last 20 years or so, but I predominantly have been in sales, business development, customer service my whole career. Kirby, I don't want to speak for you, but she started really in the corporate world as well as a sales manager, events sales manager for a hotel. And it just wasn't who she was. She recognized that a lot sooner in life than I did. I was in corporate America for about 16, 17 years until I finally realized it's not the path that I want.

(00:06:02):

So yeah, that's kind of how it came about. But then you get into your mid 30s and you just feel like you're on that hamster wheel, just going around and around and around from day in, day out. The weeks look the same and it's honestly not who I am. Joey, I mean, we spent some time together. I'm a very high strong kind of active person and like to keep things interesting. So yeah, the complaining from me became kind of a daily thing. I came home almost frustrated and then the kids can see it. And it just all kind of built up over time, honestly, to where we kind of sat down. We're like, "Where do we go from here? What do we want to accomplish? What are our goals?" And we really structured that out and fast forward a year, two years, but yeah, it was really kind of sitting down and saying Kirby again saw-

Joe Downs (00:07:02):

Yeah, let me follow up here with a question for Kirby. Kirby, how long were you watching storage from the sidelines before you actually did something about it? Or maybe you weren't watching storage. How long were you watching this frustration that Adam just talked about from the sidelines before you did something about it? Because what you did about it sounds like it was storage, but maybe answer both those questions. So how long did this go on before the light bulb went off like, "Hey, we got to do something different." And then when you stumbled onto storage, how long did you sit on the sidelines just watching storage before you did something about it?

Kirby Leiby (00:07:40):

Yeah. So I would say, I mean, honestly, it was a couple years with Adam. It started small and then it gradually increased the stress levels, just the frustration with his job and things like that and just not wanting to be in corporate America. And I think it got to the point where we were on vacation in July and I think he was just relaxed because he was on vacation. He didn't have to have the stress over work. And it was a heart-to-heart moment and he's like, "I'm just done. I need something." And we stumbled across the Scott Myers, I think it was on social media and I was like, "Let's do it. " We had no idea about storage. We honestly never even looked into it. We never owned a storage unit. So it was just completely something from left field. And honestly, then that November, so just a few months later, Adam went to the academy and it was all from there.

Joe Downs (00:08:42):

Yeah. I think when we first talked about this, I think you said you saw an advertisement on Instagram.

Kirby Leiby (00:08:49):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (00:08:50):

And so it was a couple months. You sent him off to the academy a couple months later and the good soldier that he was, he went and he came back. And I distinctly recall from that podcast interview, he was taking good notes and you were encouraging him to take the next step, right? Or he came home and you talked about it? I'm not sure exactly what happened there.

Kirby Leiby (00:09:21):

I mean, honestly, no. He actually called me while he was down there and he was, I think I said this the last time, it was like a different person. It did not sound like Adam. He was just super excited. His voice was just, you could tell it was something that just a fire was lit under him. He just had this passion that I haven't heard since probably maybe we got married. I

Joe Downs (00:09:46):

Get it. I had a similar experience when I went to my first academy. I couldn't sleep those nights because I was finally

Kirby Leiby (00:09:51):

Excited about something. I didn't go personally. It was that part I was sad about, but we kind of made the decision over the phone before he even left the academy. So I trusted him and I could just feel it even though I wasn't there in person. So yeah.

Joe Downs (00:10:11):

All right. Adam, you guys, I'm going to fast forward here a little bit. You passed on Lemon Springs the first time you looked at it. Walk me through that. Why'd you say no the first time?

Adam Leiby (00:10:25):

I think originally we just had in mind, and I know you hate this word, Joe, the whole buy box thing, but it was trying to understand again

Joe Downs (00:10:36):

That's just misused.

Adam Leiby (00:10:38):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (00:10:39):

Go ahead.

Adam Leiby (00:10:40):

But yeah, it was just trying to understand, okay, what does the first one look like or what do we want the first one to look like? And it was Lemon Springs was just smaller than what we were honestly looking for. We were trying to get something that was closer to 200 units that potentially we would third party manage. So yeah, we looked at it, but nothing really stuck out to us. Again, even being 30 minutes from our house and having Scott and you and the team kind of drive into your head that a good first deal too would be one to self-manage because you learn a lot upfront and you learn the business. So I did like that approach, but it was just kind of we had the blinders on a little bit just thinking, "Hey, we want to go a little bit bigger." Well,

Joe Downs (00:11:35):

There was a lot of old school wisdom that everything has to be bigger. And when you guys were coming through, that was still lingering. It's a completely different mindset today. In fact, one of the reasons I started StorageMugles.ai in this podcast was to talk about deals that aren't bigger because people make so much more money relative to the risk they take on, on these smaller deals. What was your purchase price on this, Lemon Springs?

Adam Leiby (00:12:08):

625,000.

Joe Downs (00:12:09):

Yeah. And just we'll fast forward real quick. What's it worth right now?

Adam Leiby (00:12:16):

Seven and a quarter. It'll be coming up on a year. If we can get another 5%, five, 10%, we'll have 100,000 on it.

Joe Downs (00:12:24):

Right. And less than a year, right? So it's hard to do that in other asset classes and you're only one year in. Let's fast forward two, three years. You're only at 70%, by the way. When this thing's stabilized, it's going to be worth well north of a million, right? So the prevailing wisdom used to be, and a lot of it has to do with low hanging fruit, right? The low hanging fruit, five, six, seven, eight years ago, you could buy 30, 40, 50, 60,000 square foot facilities that were grossly undermanaged and undervalued. That's so much harder today with so much more competition. The real value is in that sub two million, sub million even range, which translates into the smaller square footage size that we're talking about. But you guys, when you were coming through, there was still this kind of old prevailing wisdom that, "Oh no, bigger's better." Well, not necessarily.

(00:13:20):

Not necessarily in storage. It really comes down to where it is and how you're going to manage it and can you manage it? Do they have to be near you like this one? No, they don't. But look, one of the prevailing themes throughout this podcast is going to be me talking to people who first deal is under a million or certainly under two million and how much more money risk reward wise you're making on those deals versus having to scrape and claw and squeeze every penny to get yourself into a $2 million deal even where you guys were when you started, which might have broken every bank you had to what? Where would you be today? So, and I'm not necessarily saying that you wouldn't be in the same place. It's just how much more risk, how much more capital does it require to be able to learn the business, get into the business, create value for yourselves where you are today.

(00:14:15):

So your story is one of the stories I love as well, which is why I want to have the guys on in the early days of this podcast, because you set such a great example for so many people. I just want everyone to hear your story. I want people to hear the Blunk story. There's so many more stories I want people to hear because you are truly paving the way for people, whether you realize or not by doing what you're doing, taking the, not risks or big leaps you are, but by forging this path and showing people, no, I can buy a $600,000 facility and by the time I go to refi or sell this thing, it's going to be worth 2X what I paid for it because you've got the tools to not only source it like you did, but evaluate it, underwrite it, negotiate it, and close it, and now manage it.

(00:15:03):

So I'm just so excited to have you guys on and keep telling this story here. So when you went back, Lemon Springs, I don't know if Adam or Kirby wants to go here, but when you went back for the second look, what changed between the first time and the second time? What changed your mind?

Adam Leiby (00:15:19):

Honestly, I think some of it was is we weren't doing our full due diligence on it. We didn't do a deep dive on it. We kind of just did a 30,000 foot overview of just looking at the demographics very loosely and kind of how it was kind of listed and everything, but we just kind of wrote it off right away.

Joe Downs (00:15:42):

Yeah.

Adam Leiby (00:15:43):

Yeah. It was one of those things where we kind of ... Actually, it was one of the evenings we were on, one of our weekly, the Tuesday meetings, I forget what they were called. Anyways, it was one of the self-storage meetings that weekly meetings we were on and we were kind of looking off it on his side on one of the computers. And it was just like we looked at each other like, "Eh, let's keep looking." And then Jack on your team there kind of circled back with us a couple days later, he's like, "Hey, did you see this one?" And I was like, "Yeah, we looked at it. We passed." And he's like, "Well, why'd you pass on it? " And he started to unpack and kind of dig and he's like, "I would just encourage you to go back and take another second look at it.

(00:16:20):

" And that's what we both sat down, took a hard look at it and started to uncover

Joe Downs (00:16:27):

Some

Adam Leiby (00:16:27):

Interesting pieces.

Joe Downs (00:16:29):

It had the too small stigma.That's what I think was just real killing. And you have to remember, you guys were kind of the leftover from the old school way of training and teaching and you were just new to us coming through. And that's what I was trying to say, there was this old school mentality that you couldn't ... Too small, it's too small. Yeah. Well, you know what? Making a couple hundred grand, I'll go too small for that. I dealt with this in my own company where we had this one partner, everything had to be bigger, had to be bigger, everything had to be bigger. And I was like, "But $300,000, $400,000 profit here, no brainer all day long. Why aren't we buying this? " And we went through our own frustrations and friction, but that's why we're here now talking. So thank you both for being here telling this story.

(00:17:23):

Before you committed Kirby, I think this might have been up your alley here, before you committed, you secretly shopped the entire market around Lemon Springs. What did you find and what did it tell you?

Kirby Leiby (00:17:35):

Yeah. So I think that was just another thing that kind of initially we were kind of like, because it's more of an urban setting. It's not really, I think just bigger is better kind of mindset. We were thinking, "Oh, it should be in a suburbs, more like city, closer, not as many of farms and things like that. " So when I shopped around and called some other storage facilities within 10, 15 mile radius, I was shocked to hear that most of them were pretty much full. And I was like, "Okay, so there's definitely a need in this area, even though it's this urban setting." And this location is, I mean, as you know, Raleigh is just getting bigger and bigger as it grows. So it kind of put a light bulb on. We're like, "Okay, so there's potential

Joe Downs (00:18:27):

Here." All right, cool. But the takeaway there is you did your homework, which is what you learn and you called around and you realized, "Hey, there's demand here because everybody's full. This one's just not being operated very well." Exactly. So I was like, "We'll get into that. " So the deal that scared you was also the deal that taught you the most important lesson in this business, the difference between a market problem and an operator problem. And one you can't fix, the other you can. So you guys found the right kind of problem. Love that. All right. 

True or false, your Google business profile drives more new tenant inquiries than any other single marketing channel for self-storage.

Adam Leiby (00:43:11):

Yeah.   

Joe Downs (00:43:12):

True. 70% of self-storage renters start with a Google search. Your profile is the storefront and when it's broken or you have two fighting with each other under different names, you actually become invisible to people actively trying to give you money. And you know what the best part about the Google business profile is Kirby what?

Kirby Leiby (00:43:33):

The reviews.

Joe Downs (00:43:35):

It's free.

Kirby Leiby (00:43:36):

Oh, that too.

Joe Downs (00:43:40):

It's absolutely free.

(00:43:43):

Yeah. Reviews are important. Switching up your pictures every six months is important, but it's free. It's the best marketing you can do and that's where you should spend your time. I want to ask you about the support system, not as a pitch here, but because one of the biggest fears first time buyers have is feeling like they're doing it alone. Adam and Kirby weren't doing it alone and being specific about what that actually looks like matters. So as you heard in the beginning, they came through the Storage Academy training and mentorship program, and they brought in outside help for the facility transition from Kristen and Rod Blunk, who are now also part of storage moguls. And their kids are part of the operation. And I want to understand what each of those pieces actually contributed in real terms, not in theory. So what specifically from the academy or the training mentorship did you actually lean on, not the curriculum in general, but the specific things that mattered when the deal got hard?

Kirby Leiby (00:44:55):

I mean, like we had mentioned before, just when we were going to possibly walk away, I think just that guidance was super helpful, just you telling us that you can do it. But besides that, I also think just Rod and Kristen, the way that they helped us with our transition, like Rod had actually physically came out and we walked the property and he told us, he was telling us things that we would have never have thought of if he wasn't there, like raising these questions and showing us things just because we've never owned a facility before. So we had no idea what we were looking for. So that was super helpful.

Joe Downs (00:45:38):

Adam, is there anything specific on your walkthrough that Rod pointed out that helped allay a fear or did you negotiate or you were able to plan for that you didn't see?

Adam Leiby (00:45:52):

No, it was really just the information again that you don't know, right? So it was just like opening up a door. Okay, this door is hard to open. Okay, well, I know you should put lubricant on it, but just even down to the different products, I remember him putting together a list for me of like, "Hey, this is what you need to get. You need to get this garage door lube. And okay, these latches are all rusting because obviously it's an older facility. Get this Rust Oleum stuff. This stuff is next level." So it was just stuff like that where you're like, "Okay, I wouldn't have done that and war thought of that, even though I am more of a hands-on guy." Yeah, it was-

Joe Downs (00:46:34):

He also went there

Kirby Leiby (00:46:35):

At night because he had stayed down there and he was like, "It's pretty dark. You need to fix lighting." And we were like, "Oh my gosh." We weren't even thinking about it at night because obviously every time we go, it's during the day. So it didn't even kind of bring us to think of something like that.

Joe Downs (00:46:54):

Yeah. Always go at night when you're visiting and if you can after it rains, you want to see where it's puddling. Yep. Kirby, I'm going to you for this one because you're the homeschooler and apparently the sweatshop manager. I love that the kids are involved though. What do they actually do day to day and what has it meant for your family to build something that they're a part of?

Kirby Leiby (00:47:21):

Yeah, so they actually are involved a lot. So another thing that Rod and Kristen taught us what to do is to clean out a unit. So they help us, our kids help us sweep it out, clean it. Sometimes we have to spray accordingly. We throw a new lock in there, we tab it. All the things that Rod and Kristen taught, we kind of passed down and told our kids how to do that.

Joe Downs (00:47:47):

How old are they?

Kirby Leiby (00:47:48):

They are seven and nine.

Joe Downs (00:47:49):

You got seven and nine year olds cleaning out units.

Kirby Leiby (00:47:52):

Yeah, and they love it. I

Joe Downs (00:47:54):

Love it. I love it.

Kirby Leiby (00:47:55):

Our son loves to use the blower.

(00:47:58):

And then we made some door hanger flyers and it's kind of like a little family fun activity where I'm driving and I'm following Adam and the kids and they're hanging the door hangers in these new developments and townhouses. And I'm just stalking them behind them and they're running from house to house and they're loving it. It's exercise. So we're getting some physical education in there, some business. We're learning a lot. And then they help me stuff envelopes. A lot of people like the hard copy invoices. So they'll be stamping stuffing envelopes, going to the post office, checking our PO box, just little things that it might not seem like a lot, but they are learning a lot.

Joe Downs (00:48:42):

That is awesome.

Adam Leiby (00:48:44):

The flyers were great until I got kicked out of a church parking lot.

Joe Downs (00:48:51):

Well, that's a great segue because I want to ask this question too. What does the Sanford community know about Lemon Springs Self Storage Now compared to what they knew about it before you took over? Besides that, you'd like to put flyers on cards.

Adam Leiby (00:49:06):

I was about to say, whether they want to know us or not, they kind of do by now because we've gone through easily 500 just putting them everywhere. I'm not kidding. It would be a Sunday morning. I've actually proposed, you're going to get a kick out of this, Joe.

(00:49:25):

I was trying to do this last Sunday. There's a church that actually is across the street from our facility and they have their service 9:00 AM on a Sunday morning. And I wanted to go to that church. I just wanted to ... I'm like, what better? I mean, these people are right across the street from us. They have to live right in this community. I'm like, "Just go meet them. Let's go to church there. Let's see what this church is all about. " I'm still working on that. The kids seem to be down for it, but I'm getting a little pushback from Kirby.

Joe Downs (00:49:54):

Maybe stay out of the parking lot, but

(00:49:58):

Maybe offer coffee and donuts across the street, put a big sign or something. No, this is great. So the tools matter, the education matters, the people around you when the deal gets hard matter, but the thing that actually closes the gap between knowing and doing, that's a decision. And I want to congratulate you guys for making it because you made that decision. Even when it got really hard, you guys made the decision to continue forward because you did the math, you analyzed the data, the facts in front of you, and you took action based on that. So I want to congratulate you guys. Thank you. Last question, and I want you to actually think about this before you answer. All right. There's a book called Be Your Future Self Now. Have you read it?

Adam Leiby (00:50:51):

Audioed it.

Joe Downs (00:50:53):

I have not. Okay. Well, that counts. I listen to them too. That counts as reading. You have not, Kirby? Okay.

(00:51:00):

I have not. The beginning of the book is, really, the book is about Mr. Beast, but it's not about him, but he's the reason for the book. And the idea is that you don't wait to become the person you want to be. You start acting like that person today, right now, from where you are. Adam listened to the book, read the book, so he knows what Mr. Beast did at 17 years old, which is what made him today the most followed human being on the planet. No one has more followers than him. And he's only what, 27 or 28 now. So my question to you, five years from now, what are you doing? Not what do you hope you're doing? What are you doing? Where are you? What does your portfolio look like? What does your life look like? And what are you doing right now today to make sure that's exactly where you end up?

(00:52:04):

Who's going first?

Kirby Leiby (00:52:06):

Man, that's a loaded question. Go ahead, Adam.

Joe Downs (00:52:11):

Adam's getting all fired up over

Kirby Leiby (00:52:12):

There. He's got a vision board already planned.

Adam Leiby (00:52:16):

I mean, I've said it from day one. Our five-year plan is to have three to five facilities. I would love to pick one off a year, but at the end of that five years, if I only have three or four, I'm good with that.

Joe Downs (00:52:35):

No, no, no, no. That's not how this works. Five years from now, you need to tell me, "This is who we are, this is how many facilities we have, this is where we're living, this is what we're doing, blah, blah, blah, and this is what I'm doing today to make sure that

Adam Leiby (00:52:53):

Happens." So for one, I am now in the self-storage industry. I've been trying to do that for the last six months working for Storable, and that's been going phenomenal. So I've been trying to ... My first step is to try to submerge myself into that industry that I'm invested in, passionate about. And honestly, that's where my focus is right now. We started looking at second facilities here in a new year, but honestly, we pulled back a little bit because we ended up investing with one of Scott's private deals over near Dubai earlier this year. So we sunk some money into that and took a step back just to be like, "Let's not forget what we have here already. We have Lemon Springs that's not stabilized yet. Let's really get that to a point where we feel good. It's stabilized and then basically start hunting for the second one." And all along the way, I'm talking to storage operators and owners on a daily basis, learning new things every day on different markets throughout the country of what they're implementing.

(00:54:12):

It's very cool of where I was at two years ago to where I'm at right now. I'm super happy with what that looks like. And honestly, Joe, that goes back to books. And when I was really struggling mentally, Kirby can contest to it. Every morning, I would go out for a walk and I'd be listening to audiobooks and I'd come home and I'd just be amped up ready for the day. I'm like, "This guy's got me motivated." My head was getting in the right spot because I just had way too many negative thoughts going through my head. So that really centered me to be able to focus to go forward. But five years, I hope we're living on five to 10 acres out in a deep country away from everybody. I hope we have three to five facilities somewhere around- I

Kirby Leiby (00:55:03):

Hope.

Joe Downs (00:55:04):

Yeah, I can't listen to this anymore. Kirby, do you want to save him? Kirby, where are you in five years? I was

Kirby Leiby (00:55:11):

Going to say, Adam and I have the same goals. We talk about it almost daily. Like he said, we will be living on five plus acres in the country, all of the farm animals doing it the homeschool homestead way, as well as owning three facilities plus an RV and boat storage.

Joe Downs (00:55:37):

I love it. And I'm going to need you to make sure he stays on top of what he's doing today to make that happen.

Kirby Leiby (00:55:45):

Yep, absolutely. I always tell him

Joe Downs (00:55:47):

You have to talk- I heard a lot of wishy-washy in his answer there.

Adam Leiby (00:55:51):

I've

Kirby Leiby (00:55:51):

Been trying

Adam Leiby (00:55:52):

To- Yeah, I know.

Kirby Leiby (00:55:53):

I know. I tell him constantly, just say like it's already happened. You can't say, I hope or I want- She

Joe Downs (00:55:59):

Didn't even read the book yet, Adam. You read the book and she's giving me the correct answer. Yeah,

Kirby Leiby (00:56:04):

I don't need to read the book. I've already got it. Yeah,

Adam Leiby (00:56:06):

She's very good at that.

Joe Downs (00:56:07):

And you're right. If you say it's going to happen, you will start acting that way today. Exactly. That's the whole point of the book and that's what you need to do. And that's why I asked this question in my closing. I want you to leave this interview, this podcast interview with a new perspective. Well, maybe you don't need one, Kirby, but a reinforced perspective, which is we are going to become what we said we would in five years. So that's a homestead, I forget how many acres it was, five plus with the animals, maybe some goats, whatever it is,

(00:56:44):

Right? Five years. And if you know that's what you're going to become, then you have a very clear path of how to get there starting today. We're starting yesterday. Yep. So that's why I asked this question and that's what I want to tease out of everybody. And I hope anyone listening is thinking about that for themself as well. What am I doing? Where am I going to end up and what am I doing today? So folks, here's what I want you to take away from today. When Adam and Kirby closed in Lemon Springs, the facility was a 40% occupancy, the seller checked out, the website was broken, the phone went to voicemail and they had a contract clause that would have put every dollar of their deposit back in their pocket, although they would have lost about 20, 25,000 and sunk costs. Today, because they analyzed the facts, they stayed in the deal, they knew they had the guardrails in place today and they're executing, today they're at 70% occupancy and climbing.

(00:57:43):

Their year one projections have been hit. They're already looking for deal number two, which I think should be a boat and RV facility. And the gap between those two pictures isn't luck. It's the ability to tell the difference between a market that doesn't want you and an operator who stopped trying. And that's a learnable skill and that's exactly what we teach here. That's what we cover each week, self-storage, boat and RV storage, pro storage, industrial outdoor storage, truck parking, small bay, flex, all of it. Guests, deals, operators, lenders, the full picture, straight from the people doing it. If you're not already at storagemuggles.ai, you should go there. You can start for free. We don't even ask for a credit card. It's no trial period. That's just where you're going to find out if you can do this. Please like, subscribe and share this podcast. When you share this episode, you're telling everyone in your network that you're in this business and that signal goes a long way.

(00:58:38):

Your next partner, your next investor. Your next deal may come from someone who saw that you shared this podcast. Share something specific that hit you today. Adam and Kirby, thank you so much for joining me. I was super excited to have you guys on. Like I said, you're one of the inspirations. You're one of our very first students that came through successfully, even through all the trials and tribulations. I look at you now. I could not be happier for you and I'm looking forward to following your career and your portfolio. And I'm looking forward taking an invite on a five acre homestead somewhere five years from now. Did I get that right? Five acres?

Kirby Leiby (00:59:17):

Yes, you did.

Adam Leiby (00:59:18):

Thank you. Those five, 10. I'm not going to be taking

Joe Downs (00:59:20):

Whatever. Who's counting?

Kirby Leiby (00:59:23):

Exactly.

Joe Downs (00:59:24):

And by the way, Kirby, I think you should read the book because if you do, what you'll find out is that Mr. Beast hit all of those goals way earlier than he thought he would because he knew what he was going to become in that timeframe and therefore it made the path so much clearer and easier. And so he blew away his goals. So I might be visiting you in three years on your five to 10 acres.

Kirby Leiby (00:59:47):

Let's do it. All

Joe Downs (00:59:47):

Right. So hopefully you'll be back after you close deal number two.

Kirby Leiby (00:59:51):

Yes.

Joe Downs (00:59:52):

And certainly maybe we'll even do the podcast from your homestead in a couple of years. That'd

Kirby Leiby (00:59:56):

Be amazing.

Adam Leiby (00:59:57):

That would be cool.

Joe Downs (00:59:59):

Folks, there's a seller out there right now who's ready says stop watching and start moving. Drive for dollars, send the LOI. See you next week.