Episode 192: Gorging Yourself at the Self-Storage Buffet

Announcer (00:03):

This is the Self- Storage Podcast.

Scott Meyers (00:08):

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Self Storage Podcast. I am your host, Scott Meyers. Today we have two special guests. We have Roger and Julie Trovillion, and they are special to me anyways because they have come through the ranks of self storage and mostly through our ranks in terms of learning the business. So they came to our self storage academy, spent some time in our mentoring program, and with our mentoring folks, our active members of our mastermind. And Julie also works for us. We basically operate a financial services company that deploys capital in self storage, and Julie is at the heart and center of all of that. So she’s in our investor relations department, although she is the department, she’s everything. She’s investor relations plus and works with our investors in many capacities to make sure that our capital raising efforts continue on down the path and the tracks. And she’s been a godsend in that area. And our investors will say the absolute same, but we want to talk to them about, I wanted to share with you their story and how they got into self-storage and where they are to this day. So Roger, Julie, welcome to the show.

Julie Trovillion (01:10):

Thank you, Scott. Thank you.

(01:12):

So I never thought I would be in this position. I’ve always been just a worker bee, always went to work in an eight to five, whatever. And then I met Roger Tavion and he had gotten into, he wanted to get into flipping houses. He lived in the Nashville area and he wanted to get into that. So he joined Ren, it’s a Nashville real estate organization I guess. And he went to a meeting one day and he saw this guy, some guest speaker came in named Scott Myers. And so he was kind of sold on self storage and he bought the self storage home study course. So he went through that and then that gave him access to one of the academies that Scott hosts. We got married and he asked me, do you want to go to one of these academies in Orlando? I was thinking, not really.

(02:12):

I have no interest in real estate, no interest in being an entrepreneur, but I’m a good wife. So I said, yes, I will go. And we went, it’s a three day academy. By the end of the weekend, I said to Roger, why are we not doing this? Why are we not in self storage? So we talked about it and we decided to join the mentorship program. And long story short, a year later we found our first facility. We followed Scott’s protocol, found a facility, and we were just, it’s all new to us. We were nervous about it, unsure about it, should we really buy this facility? And our mentor said, if you don’t buy it, I will. So we’re like, okay, let’s sign on the dotted line. So that’s it. We bought our first facility in February of 2021. A few months later, a nearby storage owner emailed or messaged us through Facebook and said, Hey, do you want to buy our facility too? And we said, sure. So we bought our second facility in, I dunno, was it April? May of same year. And then we bought our third facility just last year. We proudly owned three self storage facilities.

Scott Meyers (03:31):

Roger, is that the way you recall it?

Roger Trovillion (03:33):

That’s pretty accurate. Yeah. That was at Rain and you came through with a, I think it was just a little one hour segment at Rain and attended your three day? No, it was a three hour, I think the following Saturday bought the study course and they gave me a ticket to go to your academy and kind of sat on it till after Julie and I met and away we went. It’s been great. It’s hard to think that we’ve come this far in a short period of time and wouldn’t have happened without your academy for sure.

Scott Meyers (04:17):

Well, I appreciate that. And all we did is we provided the buffet and it’s open for anybody to be able to take what they need and the tools and the resources to go out and do it. And that’s what you did. And so once again, I love having these calls and I love sharing our successful tribe with the rest of our community out there that is watching and listening to the podcast. Because I think sometimes it’s just the things that you say and what you’ve done and your path may resonate with somebody else who’s maybe on the fence and hasn’t decided to take that leap. But just recently, Roger, you’ve made the decision after a lot of a hand ringing and thought and prayer to then say, Hey, I think three may be enough or two may be enough, and maybe it’s time to hang up the normal nine to five. Tell us a little bit about how you came to that realization and what that timeline looked like.

Roger Trovillion (05:09):

Well, my W2 was a service engineer for medical equipment all over the country. So I traveled all the time. Every time something broke, I’m in a plane going somewhere. So as far as getting us off the ground and doing the day-to-day, Julie was handling all of that with the storage facilities and the timing. It just got, we were doing well with the two facilities we initially purchased. I had a grandbaby coming, Julie’s mom needed some assistance because her age, my mom’s the same way. And it was just kind of, this is a good time to call it quits for the W2. So the storage facilities, having the two facilities that we initially purchased allowed that to happen. So that’s where we’re at right now. We’ve got the third, we’re getting it ramped up and getting it off the ground, and here we are.

Scott Meyers (06:03):

Well, that is very similar path to my wife and I, Christina and I, back in the day, we had lots of houses and apartments and we had a job. We quit our W2 jobs, but then with the tenants and toilets, we basically just, we bought a job, we were just working for the company that owned it and we owned the company. And it wasn’t until we got into the place where we had a number of facilities under our belt that we were able to then enjoy the true freedom that we enjoy now, and to be able to spend time with our kids and raising them and doing all the things that we wanted to do. And that’s what storage obviously brings. So Julie, you came into this relationship with Roger and he’s already investing in real estate, and as you said, you didn’t say that your arm was twisted to come to the event, but it wasn’t anything that was on your radar. And so maybe you had some expectations coming into this or maybe not. Tell us, what did that look like in terms of the mind shift and the change to now being all in because you’re active on the operation side of this business and acquisition as well. So how did things change once you saw the light?

Julie Trovillion (07:03):

Yeah, so I had no interest in, like I said, no interest in real estate, nothing to do with entrepreneurship. So I just went to be supportive. And honestly, it was in Orlando. I’ve got family in Orlando, so we made a long trip of it. So that was part of the deal. I get to go see my family. But when we were sitting there listening to it, when we’re looking at stories from other people who had been through your academy and how successful they are or were, I’m like, well, this doesn’t look that hard. We could do this. We could put in the time. It was a little daunting to hear how much time you had to put into it. I think they said 10 hours a week and working full time. It’s hard to dedicate 10 hours per week, but it isn’t, I mean, if it’s something you’re interested in, you can make the time. So we’ve made the time. And honestly Scott, it wasn’t that hard. We started sending out the letters and I think it was the second group of letters we set out. We got a response, yes, I’m interested. And it was from a half hour away. Our first facility is a half hour from home.

(08:20):

I think when I went into it, I was thinking, you have to do a lot of research, make a lot of calls, and just really dig deep. And when it happened for us, when God opened those doors for us, it’s like I think this is meant to be. So here we are.

Scott Meyers (08:40):

Well, and I think folks that maybe listening out there and maybe you would agree or you don’t have to, both of you, Roger and Julie, that 10 hours a week to make a change in your life and that allows Roger to be able to come home and not have to travel so much. It’s not that that’s too much of a sacrifice when you look at the hours that we may spend either being miserable in our own job or what have you, but that’s up to obviously everybody else to decide. So we’re sitting at three facilities right now. Roger, once you get this third one, which is a recent acquisition up and running, and whether you determine if it needs to be stabilized or at least on a good path, what’s next Is number four on the horizon or what’s the overall goal now? Have you talked about building the empire and how big that is and what does it look like?

Roger Trovillion (09:25):

We’ve definitely talked about building the empire. We definitely want another facility after this one. We’ve talked about depending on circumstances, either selling this one and then moving on to the fourth one. At some point I’d like to try a hand at possibly doing a conversion or even maybe a ground up, right Al, just depending on how market goes and circumstances. But yeah, we want to get this one stabilized and up and we’re comfortable with it. We’ve done a lot to it and in fact, we’re in the process of adding some property to it to kind open things up down there. But definitely we’re going to continue on with what we’re doing. It’s been a blessing to us. It’s made life a lot different needs. I may

Julie Trovillion (10:20):

Add

Roger Trovillion (10:21):

To that, of course.

Julie Trovillion (10:23):

So our facility is here in Kentucky. Like I said, they’re about a half hour away. They’re in small communities. I think both of them are around 4,000 population and we stay a hundred percent full. We’re the premier facility in both locations. So one thing we’ve also discussed is expanding the first facility. It’s a beautiful facility, and so we are talking about expanding that one too.

Scott Meyers (10:47):

Well, obviously you’ve been through the training, but you also have an inside line and being in our mastermind as to how we operate. And we love it when we’re in a market in which the REITs have a presence because they are their premier facilities and they’re raising rates. But you’ve taken a page clearly from our book and our teachings and what we’ve learned from the REITs. And that is somebody has to be the market leader. And so you might as well have the nicest facility and then be able to charge the premium rents. You can’t wait around for somebody else to do it, otherwise the market, it doesn’t increase. Rates don’t go up. And that’s what we find in some of these smaller markets. And so there’s nothing wrong and everybody out there has full permission to be able to do the market rate leader as long as you have a good product out there and you are better than your competition.

(11:29):

And so also along those same lines, what you’ve had access to Julie is you’ve had a front row seat being in the investor relations department to see we what we do on really the backend, not only the front end but the back end of our syndications and from the multiple funds that we have and what the whole process looks like and what it looks like to be to identify these properties and put together the capital and gather the capital from our limited partners and then exit and how they exit profitably. And then you and Roger decided, well, I think we can both be both active and passive. So let’s talk a little bit about your journey as a passive investor as well.

Julie Trovillion (12:10):

Yeah. So again, this is something I never thought about doing, but then I saw the success of some of these projects closing and your realized IRR over your, was it 18 projects? And I’m like, why are we not a part of this? I’ve got some IRA funds that has just been stacking up over my X number of years. And so I decided to invest in a couple of projects. Now I’m invested in three projects and just excited because like you said, I do see the backend, I do see what’s happening in the background. Most investors don’t see the whole story, they don’t see the workings, the operations of what’s going on at the facility. But I do, I trust you. I trust all of our partners, so I just passively invest where I see that our funds are going to grow exponentially in the next five years or so.

Scott Meyers (13:10):

How has that changed for you, Roger? When you look at investing passively as an overall, maybe a retirement strategy or even just kind of adding to the pot, did you ever think that you would be in this position as well?

Roger Trovillion (13:23):

No, honestly. So in the time that Julie has worked with you, she’s seen these different opportunities. She’s like, man, I wish we could invest in this one. I wish we could invest in that one. And then the opportunity came up for her to do it, and she’s like, what do you think we should do? I said, go for it. I mean, as she said, we have wonderful confidence in you and the things that you’ve brought to us via the self storage. And then in this investing side, she sees what kind of person you are, both business and personal, and we have full confidence. Confidence in what you do. And just the projects she’s seen happen, she was excited to be able to invest in part of that. Will we continue to do the passive? Yes, because the passive side of it, we don’t have to be as involved in it. We can see what’s going on. We can trust the leadership of those that are doing it to take the driver’s seat as it were while we come along for the ride.

Julie Trovillion (14:31):

And two things that really resonate with me, Scott and I speak to seasoned investors. I speak to new investors every day. My days are filled talking to investors. And two things that really resonate with me, and I’m proud to say, well, three things I’m proud to say we work for a faith-based company. Scott Myers has never lost a dime of investor funds. Worst case scenario, their money was just returned and they didn’t make anything on it but didn’t lose a dime. And the third thing is that we don’t do capital calls. I talked to so many investors lately that they’re having to come up with extra funds for other investments. So I can rest assured that that’s never going to happen to us.

Scott Meyers (15:20):

Yeah, well, that is the backbone of when we decided that we were going to start raising capital, that all of those things we’re going to be in place. And it is. It’s what sets us apart. And the fact that we’ve been at this for a little while and just a minor correction, no, we’ve never lost a dime of investors capital, but we’ve also never had a break even where we just returned their capital. We may have missed our mark in terms of an IRR on a couple of our projects over the years, but we’ve never not given our folks their money back. And a return, maybe it was just a little bit less, but our goal has always been to raise capital just as quickly as possible because we have a lot of deal flow. And the best way to do that is to make it easy for people because heard of somebody, aunt Sally who had a capital call in some investment that she had 20 years ago, and it diluted her interest or she was moved out or somebody who took their money and ran.

(16:05):

And that’s why everything that we do is done with the SEC for raising private equity, no capital calls. And the fact that our track record speaks for itself over the past 30 years in real estate and then 20 that we’ve been in self storage. But you’ve also, again, have to give yourselves credit. You dove into the Mastermind as well, and you’ve also had another front seat at the table there to see all the deals that our mastermind folks are doing. And then so even if you’re not doing your own deals and for Roger, Julie gets to see a lot of these on the backend, but for you to then come to the Mastermind along with her and then see all the other deals that people are putting up, you begin to just create and you get this experiential knowledge by way of proximity just being close to these deals and seeing the underwriting over and over and over again the way these deals are pitched. So talk a little bit about how the mastermind may have either helps to round out the education in self storage or your experience to make you a better investor.

Roger Trovillion (17:05):

So the mastermind, there’s a lot when you go, you’re seeing all these guys have got more experience. And from my perspective, it’s always all these other people in the room have got way more experience than I do. But you get a lot of, oh, I never thought of that moments or I’ve been looking at this and it hasn’t made sense and now that’s cleared that up for me. The Mastermind is just good for that. There’s camaraderie to go around with it. Everybody’s willing to help everybody. For example, our third facility was brokered by an individual mastermind, came from somebody we knew at Mastermind. It was a project that was something they couldn’t attend to because they had other bigger projects. So the rubbing elbows and all of that, it really helps. It opened your mind up to other opportunities, other possibilities, and a lot of those Oh aha moments. So yeah. How

Scott Meyers (18:18):

About you, Julie?

Julie Trovillion (18:20):

Pretty much the same thing. I lean on people at the Mastermind. If we have an issue at one of our facilities that we’ve never experienced before, it’s good to get in a room with all those people and just talk about the issues. And we’ve come away with some really good ideas on how to solve the issues. Like Roger said, it’s just a good comradery, just good people. And it gave us opportunity for our third facility. So it’s just all in all a good group of people to associate with. And we have had opportunities in the recent past that people have called on us and asked us, well, what about this? Well, we live in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and we’ve had people call us and say, talk to us about the Bowling Green Market. So it’s even that small stuff, it’s just really helpful. And we’ve got some issues at our third facility and we’re planning on talking to some specific people in the mastermind. How would you do this? Because we’ve seen how successful they are with solving these kind of issues.

Scott Meyers (19:26):

Well, again, the mastermind is, it’s a powerful piece of our business. And selfishly, and you guys have heard me say this before, and probably those out there in self storage podcast land, I built this because I found I needed to surround myself with other folks that were growing and scaling at the same level. And I never professed to be the smartest person in the room. And I don’t ever want to be the smartest person in the room when it comes to my business because that means I’m not learning and grabbing other business practices from other folks that are doing business all around the country in different markets and at different levels. One of the benefit of that that we’ve mentioned before is that we recognize that the fire burns hotter when the coals are closer together and when everybody’s feeding off each other and they’re growing and scaling, it just makes us all better.

(20:05):

And that is our goal. It’s our one and only goal in the Mastermind is just to make the industry better. And we’re doing it one investor at a time. And so it’s just been great to see and the success to share and the success of the folks that are in that group, it’s it’s been awesome. It’s just been awesome to see. But also the relationships we get to do not only business life together, but personal life together. And even on the mission field, and you too as well, thankful that you partook in one of our short-term mission trips to Ensenada. What was that like?

Julie Trovillion (20:35):

Life changing, I guess you could say. We are all in with Scott Myers because when you’re a student, when you’re an investor, he invites people to go to the mission field, like he said. And we were new to Scott Myers, I think it was in 2021 that we went, and I had no idea what to expect. He claims to build two houses in two days. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t know about that. But it gets done. It’s fun. It’s work. It’s challenging. It’s a blessing to be able to do that. And just to come together with people or don’t know and meet new people and go through that experience is awesome. And I’m going to credit you and Christina with that trip. So when I went there, I had a job that was a contract position and it was ending later that year. And so just as we were leaving, I offhandedly mentioned to Christina that I’ll be looking for a job in a few months. Long story short, I’ve been here all this time. Here I am.

Scott Meyers (21:48):

Yeah, see, great things happen when we continue to do a business together and business life together. And Roger, as I look back, I think so many folks, they say, well, I’m pretty handy. I think you could probably use me on one of those mission trips. And then you come down there and you recognize that, well, first of all, we don’t need your building skills and your craftsmanship and we can cover all sins at the saw with a one and a half inch trim, so it doesn’t matter. So what was that experience like for you to be able to head down there and build a house and then hand the keys over to a deserving family at the end of two days?

Roger Trovillion (22:26):

Yeah, so you’re right about the carpentry stuff. It’s like, oh, I can do that sort of thing. And you’re right, you get down there and everybody’s doing something, whether it’s painting or cutting or nailing or from small kids to full grown adults. It’s the whole gambit. And everybody’s busy. You’re hardworking, you’re getting paint all over you, you’re getting dirt all over you. It’s amazing. The Colorado area was great, but as far as eyeopening, the biggest eyeopening, when you start this project, you see where the family that you’re doing it for is at and where you’re putting them after you’ve helped build this house for these people. As much as it impacts us, it’s making a huge difference for the people that you’re building these homes for. You can’t do it for everybody, but it’s one family at a time. And you’re just like everything else in the business, you’re just you putting a plate, a system in place to keep doing this for people. And it’s amazing. And what you haven’t hit on too is that you’ve got a separate project going to help some of these families even develop their own businesses down there, which is also amazing. Again, life changing for these people.

Julie Trovillion (23:56):

They go from living in a shack, literally a shack with dirt floors to living in a fully furnished home, fully furnished home with electricity and water and the emotion at the end when you hand them the keys. I’m getting chills right now thinking about it, the mother breaking down sobbing because she was just overwhelmed with this. So life changing, definitely.

Scott Meyers (24:25):

Yeah, there’s no substitute. I mean, that’s why we keep going back. It’s not just out of obedience even though that’s what drove us in the first place, but wanting to be able to give back, but then to see, never expecting to be that, I guess that fulfilled and that filled with emotion and understanding the impact and the significance of what we’ve done. And that has become our legacy. And that in itself has been a big part of the mastermind in everything we do is just doing things that are significant that create an impact and to build a legacy. And this will be it. And we will continue to do so as long as we have air in our lungs and resources in the coffers to be able to take people on these trips and never understanding not only the effect of the families who would never, probably never have the ability to have a key in their hand that opens a door that is to their home.

(25:15):

It’s just been incredible. And so here we are at September 20th, 2024, and we’re heading back in November the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I can’t wait. It just never gets old. The trips are incredible. The impact is incredible. And these missionaries have now just become friends of ours. And so we can’t wait to get back down to Ywe and Sonata base and build a couple more houses. And so I think this will put us closer to the mid 45, mid forties. I think about houses 42, 43 and 44 I think is what we’re going to be building down there this time. And so we’re looking forward to that. And as you mentioned, Roger, just certainly not tooting our own horn, but being able to giving people a house, not as they say, as the parables says, giving people a fish and feeding them for a day versus teaching them how to fish and feeding ’em for a lifetime.

(26:04):

The programs that we’re coming out with now with the micro loans and entrepreneurship programs, as well as a mechanic shop and automotive shop that we’re opening up on another base here very soon and to have a hand in is that’s the real cool stuff. And so when Christina and I begin to slow down a little bit, we will spend 80% of our time working more on our missional efforts and then 20% keeping the business going. So stay tuned for that. So guys, first of all, thank you for all the kind words, and we certainly appreciate Christina, and I appreciate your trust in us all along the way from buying into our processes and that we do to teach people how to become successful in self storage, to coming on board with us and being a big part of what we’re doing to grow, but more importantly, to build the kingdom. We’ve been so thankful and blessed by you two and your heart and for our greater mission that we have here within this business, and not just us self, self-storage and for those that are self-serving. So it’s just been a joy and just a pleasure to work alongside of both of you.

Julie Trovillion (27:08):

Thank you, Scott. We appreciate that.

Roger Trovillion (27:09):

Yes, definitely. Thank you. And Scott, you guys deserve it. Your process and your training, all that has changed our lives. Our lives. So as much as you’ve done down in the mission field, you’re doing stuff right here at home too that are changing lives. It definitely has changed ours.

Scott Meyers (27:30):

Well, appreciate that. We will keep on, we keep together. So before we end, I just got a quick question for you. What is either a significant book or maybe even it was just a phrase or something that somebody said to each of you along the way that has had a huge impact on your life, whether it be in business or on the personal side of things?

Julie Trovillion (27:49):

I mean, this is kind of off the cuff, but when that mentor said to us, if you don’t buy it, I will. That set us off. That’s what started us. But I mean, as far as I would have to think hard about quotes or books or what really affected us, but just for me, it’s the relationship we have with you and Christina and the investors and the Mastermind people. For me, it’s more relationships than books. It’s just working with all of you. It’s just been a blessing.

Scott Meyers (28:29):

Great. How about you, Roger?

Roger Trovillion (28:32):

At the risk of sounding a little bit corny, the Bible and my Christian teachings going back to my childhood and whatnot, have guided me in the way to do things. And Julie and I talk off and she says, well, why do you do this? And generally it goes back, well, the Bible says do this. And this is aside from that, there’s been so many things as far as getting into this program, getting into the self storage business, the mentor that we had, the other people you surrounded your self with, helped us tremendously, have been a great resource for things and to pick out one single thing that I can, but that’s kind of jumbled.

Scott Meyers (29:35):

Well, there’s certainly no shame in that. The best book on everything related to relationships, marriage raising, kids, business. Yeah, it is the book. And that’s the one that I continue to go back to. And that was written by God, the author. And so yeah, we need to dig into that. And then when it comes to everything else, self storage, he’s just given us the ability to go out and make that happen for other folks as well, including yourselves. And so we’re just thankful for that and his guidance. So with that Self-Storage Nation, you have been spending time with Roger and Julie Trovillion, and they are a product of what it looks like to understand and recognize that there is a better way of doing things. And that is a leaning on the shoulders of folks that have done it in the past and to follow up process. And then look what happens sitting at the place right now where you too can be if you haven’t got into the business or the industry yet, it can retire folks. It can create a different lifestyle and certainly put people in a different place than where they were before. And so this was not meant to be any type of a commercial for everything that we do, but here’s a shining example of what it looks like when people lean in. And so Roger, Julie, thanks so much for spending time with us today.

Roger Trovillion (30:44):

You’re welcome. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Meyers (30:46):

All right. So with that gang, we look forward to sharing up more time with you on the next Self Storage podcast. Until then, take care of everyone.

Announcer (30:56):

Hey, gang. Wait three things before you leave. First, don’t forget to follow the Self-Storage Podcast and turn on your notification so you never miss another episode. And while you’re there, please leave us a five star review if you like the show. Second, be sure to share your favorite episodes and more via Instagram, and don’t forget to tag us. And lastly, head to the links in the show description and hit follow on Twitter and Facebook to get a front row seat as we grow and scale our business and bring you along with us.