Why AI Should Be in Your Self Storage Playbook

What happens when self-storage meets artificial intelligence? 

Scott Meyers and Joe Downs reunite right after their Mastermind and Academy events to dive deep into the game-changing role of AI in the self-storage industry. 

Fresh from coaching hungry investors through their first deals, they shift gears into a passionate discussion about AI’s transformational power—from automating market analysis and underwriting to building personalized dashboards and internal GPTs that replace hours of manual work. 

With Joe’s infectious excitement and Scott’s strategic insight, this episode delivers a powerful look at how leveraging AI can drastically speed up, simplify, and supercharge success in real estate investing—especially self-storage.

Listen For:

1:17 Seal the Deal: Whale hunts, masterminds, and champagne for first deals

4:23 Hungry Dogs and First Wins: The energy of new investors and what fuels momentum

11:00 AI Revelation: How Joe realized he's spending 50% of his time learning AI

19:05 Market GPT is Here: The birth of Belrose’s self-storage-specific AI

30:52 Redefining Industry Norms: Why common metrics like supply index might be outdated

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Chapters

• 1:17 Seal the Deal: Whale hunts, masterminds, and champagne for first deals
• 4:23 Hungry Dogs and First Wins: The energy of new investors and what fuels momentum
• 11:00 AI Revelation: How Joe realized he's spending 50% of his time learning AI
• 19:05 Market GPT is Here: The birth of Belrose’s self-storage-specific AI
• 30:52 Redefining Industry Norms: Why common metrics like supply index might be outdated

Transcript

This is the Self Storage Podcast with the original Self storage expert, Scott Meyers.

Scott Meyers (00:13):

Joe, good to see you. Welcome back to the podcast,

Joe Downs (00:15):

Scott. Great to be seen. Always good to be back here.

Scott Meyers (00:18):

Well, we've been seeing a lot of each other. As a matter of fact, we couldn't get enough of you, so we had you back on the podcast after spending a week together at the Mastermind in the academy. How was it for you?

Joe Downs (00:27):

You know what? It was a fantastic week. Both parts of it, both the Mastermind and the Academy actually, I felt really pumped out coming out of both. And I'm even more excited that you agreed to have me on a podcast right after, which means you're not sick of me yet.

Scott Meyers (00:44):

Of course not. Never. And you know what, you're one of my favorite people to talk to about self storage and you know that, Joe. So outside of the fun stuff that we did in Seattle, it's been a long time since we've been to Seattle. Pretty cool to do some whale watching and really neat hang out in that part of the country. That was really cool.

Joe Downs (01:03):

And we watched the whale hunt that we didn't really know was Hunt until the hunt was over

Scott Meyers (01:10):

For the seal. We got our money's worth. We did. And it was a beautiful day to boot. It wasn't a good day for the seal, but it was a good day for us

Joe Downs (01:17):

And we found a better photographer and cameraman than Richie. I hope he

Scott Meyers (01:21):

Doesn't watch this. Yes, we did. No

Joe Downs (01:23):

Worries. He got seal in the orcas mouth.

Scott Meyers (01:27):

Yeah, well we got it anyways though. And that's the trained professional, which is what we paid for. So there you go. That's

Joe Downs (01:34):

True.

Scott Meyers (01:34):

Well, to fill people in, a few of the folks here that may be new to the podcast, Joe, you are front and center at the academy, but more importantly, your role, which I'm thankful that you've taken on at the Mastermind, is to work with our Momentum group, the second group that has been formed within our mastermind to well catch the momentum that folks are gaining as they come out and while they're in our mentoring program and get 'em into their first deal. And each one is different and unique. And I have to say I'm a little envious. That's the room that I love to be in as well, even though the folks that are growing and scaling, that is where I'm being called to be. But give me your perspective as to not only sentiments from last week, but then also maybe some trends or what you're seeing from the folks that were in the room that maybe pertains to the marketplace and where we're at right now.

Joe Downs (02:28):

Yeah, I echo your sentiment and you should be jealous, although I'm jealous of because I miss out on a lot of the Mastermind actually. So as these move forward and as other people on the team like Jack and Kristen and Rob Blanc and Tim Step Up, not that they aren't, but as they become more involved, I'm looking forward to spending a little more time in the actual mastermind, which I enjoy spending time at as you know, because I also like to be in a room full of people that are pushing me and helping me think and trying to level up my game. But I got to tell you, it is infectious to be in the other room. So it's almost like they weren't at the same time, if there was a way to make concurrent, I would, because the energy in there is awesome and me, I'm only six years removed from it. So it's like that feeling again, it gets me pumped up to see people excited because they have that energy, that drive, that excitement that you have. I dunno, it's been a long time for you, but I can still remember. I can remember that taste Of

(03:47):

The hunt actually oddly enough as you will for that first deal. And then once, would you get it? It's not like the drive subsides, it doesn't, it just changes. It's like the anticipation of becoming a parent is different than being the parent. You know what I mean? And that's the same kind of I think effect of or environment in that room Momentum Mastermind or momentum, whatever. And everybody in there's eager and hungry.

(04:23):

You like to use the Kansas City Chiefs as an example. I like to use the Philadelphia Eagles as an example of the team that won the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. They were hungry. They were call themselves hungry dogs. And that's what that room feels like. Everyone in there is hungry and anxious and eager and willing to participate and really looking forward to going to the Mastermind, which of course you need to own a facility to get into. So yeah, it's fun. But I see both sides. I'm jealous when I hear Tim was in the mastermind and Oh, you sure heard this presentation was great. Yeah, great, thanks. I was in the other room, but

Scott Meyers (05:00):

Well, I can tell I put myself back to that place. Yeah, it's been a little bit longer than six years ago. But when I get to handout the bottles of champagne for the folks that just got into their first facility and we handed out a bunch of 'em this time, I love that. To share in that excitement again, just reminds me of what it was like to get back in the business and get my first facility as well. And so that's part of the reason why we celebrate that and why I love that so much.

Joe Downs (05:28):

And what it will be fun for me, they weren't here this time, but since we took over the momentum and the mentorship training, one of the first students that we've taken over are now getting those bottles of champagne. Or the Kirby could be there, K, the ladies could be there, but there's a whole group coming for the next one. So that's actually back to being a parent moment. That's going to feel like a little bit like being a parent. You're proud of your child for winning an award or your student for an award. And by the way, that sounds like almost a little weirdly conceited or something like that. It's more like I'm excited for them. I'm just so happy to know the work they put in when they're not on the phone or on camera with us and on camera meeting, on Zoom meetings and mastery calls and the FMG and all of the things we provide for them to enable them and educate them and motivate them and show them how to go find that first deal and

(06:38):

Not just find it, but underwrite it and evaluate it, negotiate it, underwrite it, execute it, close it. It's exciting because what goes into done it yourself, and we're all at this now, but I can also still vividly remember what it's like to go through it. It was only six years ago, and be that excited for that first deal, second deal, third deal. It takes a lot of deals, folks. If you're listening before you're an old tragedy dog, then we have to live vicariously through you. No, I am so excited for them to see them get that bottle of champagne. And even the couple students that Ramel was one, I'm trying to remember who else got one. The LE's would've got one if they were theres, it's the Strikes, right? Remember how excited they were and the smiles beaming on their faces of mouth. It's just so cool to see that and I'm looking forward

Scott Meyers (07:37):

To that. I think the cool part is for me, part of this is that these people put their faith in their trust in us. And so they're convinced about self storage for the most part when they come in and they can see what's going on in the market. But there's like everyone, there's just a little bit of fear and trepidation and we are committing to them and really guaranteeing that we will continue to work with them and mentor them until they get into a facility. And even with that, the guarantee, there's just this skepticism. And so when we walk alongside of them and we march out the process and they go and do the work step by step, and then when it all happens and they get it under contract and then they close it and transition over for us, it's not even a relief anymore. It's just a, Hey, see we told you, put your trust in us and we get you into the business. And so once we do that, it's not gratifying. I'm not looking at it from an ego or a pride standpoint, but it's just we get to celebrate together to just say, see, we told you now we can celebrate together. And then they're on to the next.

Joe Downs (08:36):

Or the Jeff Gordon commercial we showed at the academy, can we do it again?

Scott Meyers (08:45):

Point, it was scary as heck, but let's do it again.

Joe Downs (08:46):

It was scary as hell. Let's do it again.

Scott Meyers (08:48):

Yeah, well, so let's talk about mean. Everything that goes on in the momentum is awesome and it's infectious and it's successful. And so I'm so thankful that you're at the helm and that we're also getting the rest of the team involved and you've just kind of taken all of 'em, the team and the momentum as well as the students under your wing, because seeing just some huge success, which feeds into the mastermind into, for lack of a better word, into the big room where everybody's growing and scaling, which is completely, totally different skill sets. And yeah, there was some great presentations over there as well. Ai, you can't have a conversation in business or really anywhere without discussing ai. And my gosh, you want to talk about an industry that is just ripe for processes. We haven't in the past just setting up our businesses like a franchise and teaching that, but now to take those processes and run 'em through whatever, whether it's chat, GPT or cloud or any number of the other tools and resources and more that we're finding out there has just compressed a timeframe for everything now.

(09:55):

And so that's more what I brought in my presentation as to the ways in which we're incorporating AI into really almost every single facet of our business from an operation standpoint to just even 30,000 foot at the C-suite level and incorporating A GBT that acts as our part-time CFO in any other area. But what I was really impressed with is a lot of what you're leaning into in your own business when you're not in the momentum room working with beginners. And that is we're building out this platform for our entire community and our organization, not only for us to be able to utilize and in the Mastermind and for anybody that works with us in any capacity. And you've been researching and even sent me a book and then other resources, and we could go on for hours about this, but maybe overall, let's discuss some of the cool things that you've been seeing recently and incorporating. I know you're doing some things at a pretty high level and a deeper level on the development side as well.

Joe Downs (10:51):

Yes. So wow, how much time do you have?

Scott Meyers (10:56):

Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. We can do part two and three,

Joe Downs (11:00):

A couple of eyeopening things. Lemme start with this. The first one was knowing how much I'm leaning into AI right now and learning, right? It's not like I'm leaning into it and executing on it. We are, we're starting to, but learning still the learning curve is still where I'm spending my time. Very beneficially by the way. And I can already tell how fruitful it's going to be. But the first eye opening thing for me, sky was actually at the academy when I asked, I was about to introduce to the room some of the things that we're working on in ai, and you nailed it, listening to the books, paying for some courses on it, really trying to educate myself. And I asked everybody in the room, were there 50 some people in there, show of hands, who's using ai? It was like two people that blew my mind. And I didn't even say,

Scott Meyers (11:58):

Yeah, mine too,

Joe Downs (11:58):

Say storage. I just said in general. So wow, there's a whole bunch of people that need to be brought along just with integrating this into your life. Forget business, just life.

(12:14):

Two is I'm hiring an executive assistant because I'm getting pulled in so many directions. I need help. I'm getting more involved with you and et cetera. I need help. There's only one Joe Downs. And I was interviewing this firm earlier today and it was an hour and a half call because it's a pretty in-depth process. And one of the things we went over was a time on how much of my week am I spending on what am I doing? And I've been working a lot unfortunately at night because I'm spending so much time trying to learn

(12:49):

Ai, how to retrain my brain to use it, what are all the applications for it, both personally and in storage, starting with storage, obviously outside of it can help you write better emails. We all know that now, and I'll tell you what some of the things we're working on in storage if you want. But the eye opening thing for me was when I did a very loose and rough time on it with this executive assistant matchmaking company is really what they are. And he was like, if I look at my last two weeks, 50% at least of my time is spent on thinking about AI and how to use it, learn it, use it, involve it, grow it, whatever. And when I compare the room, two people raise their hand that they're using it at all and I'm using it. 50% of my working,

(13:48):

My Waking hours not using it. I'm involved in it, thinking about it. I was like, oh my goodness. That to me was just very eyeopening. But personally, what am I doing with it? I am obviously emails and time management and stuff like that. I don't even Google things anymore. AI them, I don't even know if that's the right word, but there's even a new web browser that perplexity put out, which is a personal assistant web browser called Comment. I'm using that now instead of Google. And when you search stuff, it's Google, but it's not to the next level, to the next power, right? It's like Google squared or Google to the Third Power. But then of course in storage, how can we use this in storage? So personally, just, sorry, I lost my train of thought. Personally. I was on last night building a financial planner for myself, A GPT, and it's loading up all my personal information. You taught me how to build my own board of advisors,

(14:56):

Which

(14:56):

Was like teaching a shiny object syndrome person that here's a whole place you can find shiny objects. So now my rabbit holes are AI rabbit holes, but they're good use of time, right? Because getting that muscle memory and then retraining my brain, I'm doing all kinds of stuff with the person, but then so storage, we look at what we do every day and I sat my team down. I said, think about everything you do every day. That's a process. AI can do it better and faster if you teach it. In fact, this morning I was teaching one of my chief of staff, Gretchen, I was like, look, consider AI a new employee, but the greatest employee you're ever going to have in your life.

(15:44):

It

(15:44):

Will never complain, never ask for a time off. Always be at the ready. We'll never forget what you tell it. And you want the go-getter proactive employee to go learn more. It does that too, and it will do everything you don't want to do if you just prompt it to teach itself how the GPT is a generative pre-trained transformer. That's what it stands for, transformer processor, workhorse, pre-trained. You tell it and train it and prompt it to do things. And generative means it learns generative pre-trained transformer. It's not a very sexy name, but that's what it means. And if we

(16:32):

Understand

(16:33):

That the day I asked it, I finally said, what does this even mean? And how did it break it down for me so I can understand it? That was the day the light bulb went off, okay, now I understand what this thing's supposed to do. And so I was teaching her like, look, you wanted to do this. Create A GPT that says you are X. She's going to handle a compliance audit for

Scott Meyers (16:57):

Important to set the persona first.

Joe Downs (16:59):

Yes, you load in the files and then you have it, do what you want it to do. That doesn't mean it does it to completion, but it gets you 90% where you want to be. You train it from there and go. So in storage, one of the things that I know I'm telling you, and hopefully your listeners know this by now, but the way we teach storage through your academy, first and most important thing, the market. Do we want to be in this market? What is this market? Is it a good market or a bad market? How do we evaluate this market? Well, you and I know all the key markers and body temperature and fluids and blood pressures and everything a doctor would know. We know for the market what's going to work. Is there any one thing that's a gotcha? No, but it's a combination of things. Just like when you go to your doctor, your blood pressure's a little

(17:55):

High, but your iron level's low. So I'm not worried about, you know what I mean? Same thing with a market. There's no one source of information you can go to get it all. Well, we're creating one, but to get it all. But then you still need to understand what it means once you get it all, I go to the doctor and I get a full workup. I am the least medical person you'll ever meet. I don't know what it means. I did it. I don't know what it means. I need someone to tell me. So that's what we're doing. Not only are we creating a market, GPTA market study, GPT. So now you give me a facility, I can put in the address and it's going to tell me everything we want to know about that market that Belrose thinks is important and deliver it in a way that Bell rose meaning our IP ranks in terms of importance and then tells you, and this is the part that's generative right now, it's still very dumb, but will tell you, yes, proceed forward.

(19:05):

Here's

(19:05):

All your caution markers, but here's why we think it's good or caution. You really want to double check and triple check that. And I would be careful with these assumptions over here, or this is red flag after red flag after red flag. Bowers would tell you, move on from this market. There's no salvaging. It doesn't matter what your deal looks like. This market's a killer.

Announcer (19:28):

So

Joe Downs (19:29):

That's what we're building. It's being built on the backs of all of our ip, all the deals that we put in, all the deals we help with students underwrite. It all goes at, everything's going into that GPT. So it continues to learn the generative part. And we're still obviously have to work on the pre-training, but the transform is the transformer. I mean it spits out

(19:53):

That's where we are. And then once we have that, then Scott, you can imagine, then can take that and then build the full underwriter on top of it. And that'll take time too. But that's some of the neat things we're doing with chat, BT and OpenAI in terms of getting stuff done in our business. But even with how dumb it is right now, meaning it has no wisdom, doesn't have our wisdom yet, always it fast. So all the things that it used to take us to go to this website and pull this and extract that, put it here into our Excel spreadsheet we built, which is our kind of market dashboard, and then go here, pull that and go here, pull that and understand this, pull that, and then go here for that seconds, got it all. Then now we got to teach it to think and then tell us also, is it good, indifferent, ugly? What would Belrose think? Or really what would Jack think, right?

(20:53):

So yeah, that's some of the neat stuff we we're working on. And then you can imagine as you build out that foundation and as we're doing it together, I'm saying Belrose, but really it's all of your intellectual properties as well. We're building this out together. And then that's the foundation that'll just continue to build from there. And it's so cool to be able to talk to students in momentum. Well, hey, this is coming and it's only going to make your search for deals that much quicker. And then of course, that's the market. It's the foundation, then the underwrite. Well then how about the management? Now we're going to be managing our facilities down the road with using AI to help guide us. Can't replace us, but it can certainly help guide. Yeah, of

Scott Meyers (21:39):

Course not. And those are, I mean, there's a lot there and there isn't a facet of the business that isn't touched by that. And so as you mentioned, the operations side, if I could back up a second from an operational standpoint, in the overall the portfolio, looking at our entire portfolio properties, I've got joint ventures, I've got partnerships, we've got our own properties, different forms of software, just about everything goes through QuickBooks, some through Yardi. And to get on our level 10 calls with our staff to get an update, it takes a little bit of heavy lifting or it used to take a little bit of heavy lifting for them to get to the numbers so that we have some semblance of a dashboard to find out how well is and how healthy is the portfolio and are we hitting our marks? And what a couple of mastermind members have decided to take on because they had built out a portion of this in their own organization.

(22:38):

But then for the rest of us now to roll out to the mastermind in our community is going to pull all of that into using Notion as the platform for it, but then pulling in all the GPTs as well that they've created. But then all of the KPIs that we have set, so as you mentioned, it's one thing to grab all the data and do it faster. And it used to be just we'd go to the internet or Google anything and get the information back. That's Wikipedia or dictionary level in an understanding and a definition of what is this now through chappy, GPT and cloud and others, it's more like a college professor, but somebody who's also out practicing in the marketplace who also owns a business and knows how to apply it. And that's what we're getting back now. Now we layer that on top of the way we train it with our KPIs and the measurements that we want to see and really the benchmarks so that we know like a true dashboard, if it's in the red, it means that we didn't hit our marks at this property or at this level across our portfolio with regards to accounts receivable or you name it.

(23:44):

And to be able to now all of that in one place in a true physical dashboard, a visual dashboard that we can see and everything is being loaded in by APIs and pulled in real time that I can go to this dashboard now that's being created and I can literally see the health of the entire organization. Back to your example of I can go to the doctor too and get a blood panel for a male over, lemme see over 40. And I get the results of, I have no clue what that means. I have to have the doctor explain it to me and then set some goals and some benchmarks and then we go back and measure against it. And that's really, that's what we're doing at the organizational level. Call it self storage investing.com or at the self storage mastermind. Now we can not only put that out there into the marketplace or the community, but then also to tell people exactly how to read it and what they need to do to either follow us and use our benchmarks and our baselines. But ultimately you can customize this because you're going to have some different benchmarks at the property level and portfolio level as well. And again, I'll let you comment on that because I could continue to go down the path of everything that we're doing in every category and it's just amazing. But I mean, you can't say it's a life changer because this is business, but man, this is a business life changer that has just been unbelievable. And once we roll all of this out, things are going to change pretty quickly.

Joe Downs (25:05):

Yeah, no, you're a hundred percent, and I know what you're talking about because those mastermind members are doing it for us, using our portfolio to it out. And that was what it was alluding to. It's still in developed. So I touched on, we can use this for what I'll call origination, the deal sourcing. There's any number of ways you can use it for deal sourcing. What you touched on was management, the actual facility and asset management of these properties. And that's important as well. Extremely important. There's so much we can learn from. Another layer is what I'll call internal management. So even within an asset management where you're managing your rates and particular market and this and that, and that's what some of the things you're talking about there. How about the reporting of it or the accounting, right? So I was talking to my VP of accounting is Elena, I've already talked to her and I have to show her how to do this too. Everyone's learning, and it's okay if you're listening, feel like you're behind, you're not yet. I don't know. But I would start diving in here.

(26:25):

But

(26:27):

With accounting, we've got, I dunno how many facilities we're currently having or management right now, 13, 14, something like that. There's monthly books that have to be trued up

(26:37):

Every month,

(26:38):

Right? So Elena has to go do that manually. And I said to why all we have to do is create a GPT, you load in the file the QuickBooks file, ask it to compare this month to last month, this month to last quarter, this month to last year, year over year seconds. You are not doing it. Ask it to tell you as part of its prompt. What are the outliers? What are areas of improvement? Where are areas you see waste based, not only based on this facility month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year, this facility compared to all of our other facilities, this facility compared to facilities out there in the ecosphere. That's just a simple prompt. It takes longer to write the prompt than it does to have it do what you want it to do every month.

Scott Meyers (27:30):

And

Joe Downs (27:30):

Just to give you an example of what that looks like, I said, Elena, how long does that take you? Every facility, she goes half hour to an hour, every facility. I just gave you a day back of your week or your month an entire day just by taking it two hours, one hour, 30 minutes, however long it takes to set up a GPT to do this for you. And then all you have to do is review it for five minutes. And by the way, probably come up with some cost saving, either cost saving or forward thinking ideas. And you're asking chat G to do it for you. And by the way, you're not just asking chat GPT to do it for you. You're asking Keith Cunningham, who's wrote the road less stupid or I don't know Mr. Ernst or Mr. Young, I don't know big time names, but you know what I mean. You're asking them to do it for you. That's the power of this thing. It's incredible.

Scott Meyers (28:34):

We've just to add on to that, which we could continue to add on and add on. We've been taking, when we are looking at a prospective facility that we want to purchase, we can glance through the p and l and the numbers, whether it's the offering memorandum from a broker or just the numbers from a seller. And we can see in our own mind what the percentages are. But until you do a full underwrite on it, you don't really know. But we've been taking those baselines and those measurements, and we have our own analysis GPT on the front end. It's that first brush analysis and we can run the p and l. It could be in a PDF format. It doesn't even have to be in Excel. And we'll say, compare this to our portfolio when it's operating optimized or at a facility this size, compare it to this, and then it'll show you the balance and the differences to say, well, if you put in, what we then look at is like, okay, based upon our best business practices and where we operate, and once we get to this place with our other facilities, what is that delta?

(29:34):

Do we have room? Where's the value add? Where's the upside? Which is what we're always looking at in an acquisition is where can we take this thing if we implement best business practices and consolidate the marketing into one's website, operate it with the tech stack that we have to reduce payroll, and it'll automatically compare that and then let us know that, okay, you may be buying this for 1.2 million, but within 30 to 60 days it's going to be worth 1.8 and at the end of three years it should be X. And so immediately saying yes or no to the next step to full underwriting within a matter of seconds, that's all it takes. We load it in to that GPT and it spits it back out in 30 seconds.

Joe Downs (30:10):

Yeah, I don't know how much I want to give away on this podcast because out to the public, but there's a lot of really put it this way, based on what you just said, we'll be challenging internally, challenging and proving before we roll it out. A lot of what I'll say are industry norms that we accept

(30:39):

That

(30:40):

I don't accept. And I think we as an industry have done everything we could to, I'll give you one, the supply index,

(30:52):

We

(30:52):

All accept it for what it is. I never have have to deal with it. I have to use it. I think it's an imperfect number. I think it's the Dow Jones Industrial Average when I want to know what's happening in a certain sector. And I think AI will allow us to drill down way more specifically when we analyze a facility than we're currently able to do. I'm leave it at that. But look, that's some of the stuff that I'm going to keep internal to you and me and our mastermind and our academy, but that's some of the stuff that I think people will benefit from that You've obviously been the leader in this space for pushing 20 years. I it's over 17 at least maybe more now. How many years? We've been saying 17. So that's why I'm not sure.

Scott Meyers (31:47):

Yeah, we're about 19

Joe Downs (31:48):

Now. All right. 19. And you're going to continue to be the leader, and I hope to be a part of that by pushing the limits, by embracing this new technology to continue to push the boundaries, not push the boundaries, but challenge what we've always accepted to find niches, more niches and more opportunities within the space. And I

(32:15):

Think

(32:16):

We're going to continue to do that and not just in self storage. Like I always say, Scott Storage

(32:22):

Because self storage is what brought us all together.

(32:24):

Understood. Storage keeps us here. And those who don't know what that means. You got to come join us at the academy, find out.

Scott Meyers (32:31):

Well, and without any more self-promotion, Joe. I appreciate that. And yeah, this is why we're so excited about it Storage Nation, why Joe and I are so excited about it, because you're a part of this podcast, which is a part of our greater community that we've been talking about here, which is the largest community of self storage investors on the planet. We've trained more people how to get into the business than anybody else. And so we've got the largest database we have access to. You can't go out there anywhere else on your own and have access to all the data that we have because it's been shared with us and it is shared in our community. And so to your point, Joe, yeah, I don't buy into all the supply indexes. I mean, that's only as good as the data that's out there that's public.

(33:10):

And the public data we know is by way of the REITs and their numbers and their benchmarks and baselines aren't anywhere near what ours are for our Class B facilities and even class C facilities or in the markets that we operate in, not in our markets. And so all of that data out there, I would argue is skewed. And if you're using any of those as baselines for your underwriting, the reality it may be better or many times is worse once you get into a facility, if you've underwritten it based upon re performance in your tertiary market compared to their class A facility in a class A metro area. So for that, we are at the forefront because we've got the data, we've got more data than anybody else. And so that's what we get to feed into it, into the prompt and use as the baselines for it. So I can't be more excited, and we are moving fast right now to once again get all of this all aggregated in one place to be able to begin to utilize it at its to full potential. I mean, we're already doing it, but to do it more so is just pretty excited. That's what gets, gets me jazzed up on my feet, hit the floor every morning.

Joe Downs (34:13):

Yeah, that's so cool. I'm glad. Well, I don't want to sound like I'm learning, we're aligned. I'm not learning it, but let me acknowledge, it's super exciting to work with you knowing how aligned we are in that regard.

Scott Meyers (34:26):

Yeah. Well, storage Nation, we could go on and on for quite a while on this, but all we would ask is stay tuned. You're going to be hearing a lot more about not only the things that we're doing and rolling out, but as Joe mentioned, if you haven't begun to lean in, I truly believe that. And as we talked about at the academy, this isn't the difference between operating a little bit faster or better. And if you're using one vendor in this area of your business versus another, if you're not leaning in and utilizing ai, you are very quickly going to be left behind because it is going to level the playing field in many areas of the business for everybody who does lean in and begin to use AI in many facets. But those that are on the forefront of it and maximizing it and using it to its full potential, the early adopters in AI are winning.

(35:10):

And that's us. And then we're going to continue to forge ahead. So I suggest you get up to speed very quickly and then keep an ear out here on the podcast and then keep an eye out. And if you're not a member of the Mastermind or been to the Academy, I would strongly recommend that you grab a ticket and come join us to see what we're doing because it is industry leading and groundbreaking. Alright gang. So with that, Joe, I think we are at our here. If we could dispel maybe the two or three things specifically that people could do since we're talking about AI that they could do or that they should do today or tomorrow to get into a routine and a pattern of learning about AI and how they can implement it in their lives and their business, what would those be?

Joe Downs (35:59):

Use it. Get yourself a chat GPT account. I would suggest if you can afford it, and I would hope if you're listening to this podcast that you're thinking about investing in storage, you could afford $20 a month. I think it's worth the investment and start using it. And by the way, if you're using it to write better emails, that's great, but that's still using the phone book When Google is around, let, if you're not sure what to do, there's all kinds of courses you can find. And you know what the most interesting thing you can do? And it's funny, I have to reprogram my own brain sometimes. It takes me a couple more seconds to think of this. Just ask AI

(36:49):

To

(36:49):

Teach you.

(36:50):

That's it.

(36:51):

So literally sign up for it, go into the chat and say, I know nothing about chat GPT, what can you tell me? How can I learn how to use this? And your mind will be blown. And if you just make that your daily habit, you could even say create a 30 day, I want to learn AI program for me, and it'll spit out all the things you should do in 30. You get to tell it how to teach you. That might sound crazy, but you literally, it's like a genie in a bottle

(37:28):

Truly

(37:29):

With unlimited wishes. You get to tell it. You don't know what to do and ask for help and it'll help you. And if you just make that your daily habit, you'll be a genius before you know it. But it's so, so contagious.

(37:44):

It's the

(37:44):

More contagious it is, the quicker you learn and you start, you will open up different avenues and possibilities and uncork, all kinds of things, all kinds of jeans in a bottle you never thought, because it's not just one gen in a bottle, there's millions of them.

Scott Meyers (38:01):

I echo that 100% and there's certainly more that I could add to that. But here's the one small thing that I would add to that folks. And that is typically when somebody just ask a question or you have a question, you say, well, let's just Google it. But that's so limiting, and I think you'll find yourself now, when you're even doing the deep think on stuff and you think, oh, well, I'll figure it out later, or do it whatever later, that's a deeper dive. You don't have to wait until you have time for a deeper dive. You spend the 30 seconds to write the prompt and come

Joe Downs (38:30):

Back to it later.

Scott Meyers (38:31):

Amazing. Yeah, absolute

Joe Downs (38:33):

On your mind. Read the prompt. They work in the background.

Scott Meyers (38:37):

Yeah. Yep, that's it. And it'll get better.

Joe Downs (38:40):

Sometimes they're slower, but if you ask it a deep thinking type of thing, and you could actually select deep think, not to confuse it too much, I just want you to start using it. But it works in the background. And by the way, if you're already have gro or perplexity, that's fine. Use them. Just get the muscle memory, get the habit of using them. I actually am currently paying for, well, lemme say it differently. The only AI I am not paying for right now is Claude. I have an account with all the others. I'm trying to learn 'em and figure them out. And I'm using statue BT for my business and my company, but I touch perplexity and grok every day

Scott Meyers (39:19):

In

Joe Downs (39:19):

Some capacity.

Scott Meyers (39:21):

And that's interesting because I am paying for Claude. It's actually, Claude is how you pronounce it, but yeah, I know the more formal version, only because Claude does a little deeper thinking. And I use Claude to write my prompts to then put into chat GPT. And I know I can't even say that's 2.0 level, but that's just a little trip I picked up along the way from somebody else's that you can use perplexity and grock and some of these other two write. Yeah, see, yeah, it works the same way. So it'll write the good prompt and then you stick it into chat. It's amazing how much better and how more refined of an answer that you get because perplexity and code, they'll also, I can't remember the last time I put in a prompt, even if it's a long one and very detailed, it'll come back and ask me three or four more questions, clarifying questions so that it can dial in to give me a more customized and to the point answer. And then I know I've got what I need and then I send it over to chat to kind of march it out and then give me the execution steps, which

Joe Downs (40:16):

Is great, and add this a little less nugget at the end. And it's something I need to work on. I've seen you do it. You're so good at it. I have to, it's a muscle memory thing and retrain my brain. But I watched do a whole thing on this. If you type everything in and you just back and forth and typing, it takes like 10 times faster than if you just have a conversation with it. So go on the voice dictation mode,

Scott Meyers (40:41):

Click the mic. Yeah,

Joe Downs (40:43):

Click the mic talk because you'll get your responses faster. And then you always lose things you want to say when you're typing,

(40:52):

When

(40:52):

You're talking, you get everything out quickly. And the last thing is, I'm one of these other, well, I know somebody who, this is interesting, I haven't done it yet. He said every Sunday morning he gets up early and it's just he and gr, they have a two hour conversation before his wife and kids get up, or as long as he can go, he goes, I don't know where it's going to go. We should talk about anything. Talk about life, about philosophy, talk about Genus Kong, talk about business. Taylor Swift, you're just having a conversation. And he's like, that's how I get used to using it. I'm like, I got to get there. I'm not there yet, but

Scott Meyers (41:35):

Well, we are going to end this. But I have a buddy who is building that out. He has a business where he is creating the GPT, which is basically you kind of cloning you that you get to have a conversation with. And it's all about, I mean, he will say, don't ever type into it. You need to speak into it and always use the mic. And it'll, first of all, he'll build this bot, and we've talked about this. I know you're aware of this Joe, but you can build a Scott bot and it goes out and grabs all of my stuff that's in the public domain. So it's already got this body of work that I've done and it kind of knows me. And so when I ask it a question, then I always use the mic because then the answers that I get back are in my voice as well, and it knows how to talk to me and uses my own words so that I can understand it as well. Instead of if you type it, then it's too sterile and it may not, the answer that comes back may not be as clear as if it were just your voice then being reverberated back to you with the answers from not only the information that you have put out there into the atmosphere, but then layered into the answers to the actual question that you asked. And so

Joe Downs (42:37):

That's good. That's good. See, I feel like I'm ahead, but I'm behind.

Scott Meyers (42:41):

Yeah,

Joe Downs (42:43):

I very see my shot.

Scott Meyers (42:46):

Well, folks, you've been talking with Scott and Joe, the unexpert in ai, but learning. And so stick around for version two and more conversations about how AI can not only benefit you from a personal and overall business standpoint, but obviously digging into self-storage as well. So with that, Joe, once again, always good to see you. Thanks for your time.

Joe Downs (43:04):

Likewise. So much fun as always. Appreciate it.

Scott Meyers (43:06):

All right, take care everyone. We'll see you on the next episode.

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