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Inspiration comes unexpectedly. Have you ever noticed? You get so caught up in your world that you can develop tunnel vision, especially if you work in a literal tunnel of shipping containers.

Like a lot of people, it’s easy for me to get bogged down in the day-to-day operations of the business. Each day, I eagerly put my nose to the grind stone for an endless series of portable-storage marketing, website-developing-for-better-storage-container-viewing, boxpert-equiping, shipping-container-transforming - and more. At the end of a long day, nose comes up and I take deep breath. The next morning, another deep breath, nose back down and repeat the never-ending list of to-dos. Over and over, day to day.

Then, November 5. Fort Hood. Nose comes up, grindstone put aside.

As the terrible news unfolded, I was stuck, overcome by pensive grief and reflection. My long list of tasks to accomplish fell a distant second to giving pause.

I called a couple of military customers Falcon serves to offer support, condolences, a listening ear and anything else I could think of; however, I really didn’t know how to help. There was no list of to-dos for something like this. Besides the phone calls, I did the only other two things I could think of to offer respect: pray and reflect.

After spending some time in prayer, I considered all that these valiant men and women go through. What it must be like to live a tightrope of service and sacrifice. I have always had a hero-like respect for anyone who has ever worn the uniform. But after the tragedy on November 5, my respect turned inspiration is out of the park.

Now, my nose is back to the grindstone. But as my head is bowed down while I feverishly work, the respect and inspiration is an even stronger motivation for what I do. I can own and work on a thriving small business because of those at Fort Hood, and the rest who are stationed all over the country and world. I OWE it to each of them to work as hard as I can. And I will.

So pardon me. With head bowed, my nose needs to get back to its grindstone.

I didn’t wear green today.  I always wear green!  Falcon green.  It’s a simple decision - long sleeve or short sleeve, but it’s always a green shirt.  I peddle green Falcon boxes.  But today, I didn’t wear green.  I wore blue.  Short sleeve,  of course (the hot weather you know).  But blue.  Possibly a symbolic expression that no one but me will know.  But I wore blue today out of honor.  Gratitude.  Remembrance of all who fought for our freedom.  Fought so I could start Falcon Storage… peddle green shipping containers… so I could choose between green and blue.

When we started this blog at the middle of 2008, I committed that I would post something once per month, maybe even twice per month.  Lots of content on storage containers. Lots of fun stuff to write about.  Lots of benefit from a marketing standpoint.  Needless to say, the current ratio is once every two months.  Now, there’s an important marketing lesson in all this.

In the last couple of months, I’ve focused about 90% of my efforts on sales.  Especially on sales of custom containers.  We’ve had inquiries from all over the world (literally!) about building these shipping containers into the craziest things.  I’ve written about homes, but also bunkhouses for disaster relief efforts, jails for prison overcrowding, and housing structures for oil and gas sites.  All kinds of cool stuff made from an ISO container.

If you take a step back, how did we get all these inquiries? Well, marketing of course.  More specifically, web marketing.  The next logical question is what would happen if we focused all our time on sales and none on marketing.  More than likely, our inquiries for custom storage container modifications would go down, and consequently sales goes down.  All that to say is that in any healthy organization, there has to be a balance of sales and marketing.

On a macro level, I’ve read alot of businesses are cutting marketing in this downturn.  My only hope is that they are not cutting their nose to spite their face - that it does not cause a downward spiral which eventually impacts sales.  I think the better thing to do is to invest in tactical marketing and focus on growing sales instead of purely cutting costs.

Oh, and here’s a link to a radio show I did recently that talks more about Falcon Storage’s web marketing strategy.  Check it out.

My personal application from this is that I will try to re-balance my personal efforts on sales AND marketing.

We finally pulled the trigger and did it in December.  We decided to make the container home a reality and build out one of our storage containers into a living space.  Our Boxperts are affectionately calling this the “Show-Co” or Showcase Container.

Brian and I spent countless hours at IKEA (because that’s how long it takes to walk through the maze!) generating ideas.  They’ve got some phenomenal ones in the “Living in 267 sq. ft”.  Their assumption is that the space is square, and a shipping container is a rectangle. We had to translate that.  We then spent countless hours assembling the furniture for the container home. In a 40′ storage container we were able to fit a bathroom with shower, a kitchenette with eating bar, a living area, and a bedroom with bunk beds and desk.

The responses we’ve been getting have made us quite proud. People walk in and say things like “I could live in a container home”, “It’s actually quite spacious”, “How did you turn a shipping container into this?”, “I need a flat screen TV in my connex.”

I’ll be posting some pictures of the shipping container house soon but need to get a camera that will capture the dimensions of a storage container.  Stay tuned for that. Maybe we’ll be able to change our tagline to “It’s a box… you put PEOPLE in it!” in the not too distant future!

Back in August, I wrote about our tagline, “It’s a box… you put stuff in it!” and promised that I’d write about the “creative process” on how we came up with it.  Well, here goes.

It was the first summer that we were in business. We were still working out of my condo on Duval and we had a couple of MBA interns from the UT McCombs School of Business working for us.  They wanted to learn how to sell, and in this case, sell portable storage containers (8×40′, 8×20′).  

One day we decided to go make a couple of field calls to construction sites, and one of the interns, Barclay, was so excited that he went out, bought a hard hat, a new pair of work boots, and Wranglers work pants.  He was quite a sight to see.

Anyway, we went to one of our portable offices at the new Target being built at Parmer & I-35.  Barclay walks in and out walks this rough, tough, huge construction superintendent named Joe.

Barclay says, “So, how do you like our portable storage containers?”

Joe says, “They’re fine.”

Barclay says, “So, how’s our service?”

Joe says, “It’s fine.”

Barclay says, “So, do you have any other feedback for us?”

Joe says, “It’s a box… you put s*** in it, don’t take yourself so seriously!”

Silence, awkward silence, awkward silence. And finally, we all just bust out laughing.

Well, we left there and realized that Joe was onto something.  It was honest, it was simple, and it was how the customers viewed our product - it was the truth.  The tagline was born.  Obviously, we had to clean it up a bit.  And, THANKS BARCLAY!

Just recently, we got a nice compliment from Dr. Laura on the tagline as well. Click here >>  Dr. Laura Clip

I have to admit that I’ve been distracted in the past month.  With the stock markets plummeting, the turmoil in the US political scene, the devastating hurricanes, and the constant bantering of “experts” on the 24-hour news stations, it’s been hard to focus on our portable storage container business here in Central Texas.

Then, I bumped into Barry at my Rotary Club.  Barry has been a mentor to us at Falcon Storage pretty much since the beginning.  He’s a successful businessman with a strong altruistic streak.  He’s a marketing genius figuring out all kinds of ways to position our storage containers.  I guess he could see the angst in my eyes and in typical Barry fashion, he says with laser-like focus, “More successes are created in down markets than in good times.”  And boy, did that get me thinking.

In these turbulent times, the best thing we can do is to focus on those things that we can control - taking care of our customers, delivering our brand promise of “easy, friendly, and dependable”, building our Boxperts’ skills, honing our marketing messages, developing systems within our company, coming up with new and creative ways to customize shipping containers, and managing the bottom line.  All the other things in the world may affect us, but if we’re smart and focused, we will weather the storm… even better, we may come out stronger in the long run.

In the last week, I’ve chosen to “fast” from the news. You know what?  My optimism as an entrepreneur has begun to return.  My outlook has improved.  And most importantly, I’m focused.

When I got married a few years ago, we made our typical vows but my bride also made me promise that we would never live in a portable storage container.  That was tough.  I mean, come on, they’re sturdy, cheap, and spacious - 320 sq. ft. in a 40′ shipping container. You add four of them together and you’ve got a home that’s bigger than most of the homes in Central Austin.  Needless to say, I was not successful in persuading her.

Yesterday, this article hit CNN - Shipping containers could be ‘dream’ homes for thousands.  These guys in New Mexico have found a low cost, environmentally friendly housing solution for the exploding population in Juarez.  These container homes can be mass produced, easily setup, and are built from recycled shipping containers. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.  

In the past couple of years, we’ve been building prototypes in Austin, and the same concept of container homes could be applied to areas like Laredo, or even Galveston.  If you check out the website for PFNC Global Communities, you’ll see that they even have ideas for a multi-family development.  I love the creativity - used shipping containers into something usable.

So now the question is whether or not I try to revisit the idea of living in a portable storage container with my wife…

Jen and I took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest last week. Living in Austin, you see shipping containers primarily in transit - either on trains or being hauled by trucks. When you visit port cities like Vancouver or Seattle, you see these massive container ships coming into port, the cranes that they use to pull them off the boat and the depots that hold all the containers. The volume of shipping containers is truly amazing.  Mark Levinson even writes about the dramatic impact of shipping containers in his book “The Box : How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger“.

With natural trade imbalances, where would all these shipping containers go?  You can’t just throw them away.  The portable storage container industry is part of this ecosystem, recycling the retired shipping containers and finding a new use for them.   We’ve been “green” all this time, even before “green” was cool.  Who would’ve thought?  People will find more and more uses for retired shipping containers. My hope is that  Falcon Storage will be at the forefront of that innovation, figuring out what’s beyond portable storage.  If anything, I’m happy to know that we are helping with the whole green initiative.