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Welcome to the Billboard Mastery Podcast, where you will learn the correct way to identify, evaluate, negotiate, perform diligence on, select the construction type, build, rent the ad space and operate billboard signs. And now here is your host – the guy that built from scratch the largest privately-owned billboard company in Dallas/Ft. Worth – Frank Rolfe.
Webster's Dictionary defines a habit as a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. This is Frank Rolfe, the Billboard Mastery Podcast. We're talking about some habits that you should never give up because they definitely will ensure success more than if you don't do them. Now, the first habit I have is in building billboards, that I always triple check the setback before I drill the hole where the signpost goes. And I do it on the very day before digging it. Let me tell you why. Because I normally will go out and check my setbacks, both front and side, and I'll put a stake right in the center where that hole is supposed to go for them to put the pole in for the billboard. But one time when I was out there, someone had pulled my stake out and moved it around. And I think it was probably a kid goofing around. So if we drilled the hole where the stake was, it would have been a catastrophe. The sign would have been too close to the highway. The whole sign would have been a complete loss. So I don't trust leaving anything in the field overnight.
So what I do is I go out and I remeasure one more time. Some people would say that's overkill. I would say, no, that's just sheer and utter caution. Another habit I have is I always am out there when they drill the hole for the sign, because I like to take the tape measure and drop it down the hole myself to see what that depth is. Because I find that a lot of people who drill those holes, a lot of the guys running those auger machines, they cheat. They don't really care how deep it is. So as a result, if it's within a foot or so where they think it might be, they'll call it a day because they just want to go to lunch. They think, well, it can't be that big a deal. Structurally, it's not the structural problem. The problem is that your sign is engineered to be a certain height to the inch. If they're 12 inches off of how deep the hole should be, your sign is going to be 12 inches higher than it's legally allowed to be. And if you ever have anyone turn you in saying your sign is too high, the state will go out there with a surveyor and they will require you to survey the height of your sign.
And if your sign would be a foot too tall, they would make you lower it by a foot. So you want to go out there and measure that depth yourself because you can't afford to have a problem. Also, I like to be out there whenever they drill the hole. And after I've measured it, I drop a dime down it. There's a dime at the bottom of every sign I ever built because that was what I told myself was the item which allowed me to know that I'd done my job. The hole was in the right spot. It was the right depth. I would then drop a dime down it. You also want to always be there when they align the pole as far as where it is with the street. That's what gives you your V with the sign. You want to be out there when they do it because if you're not there, again, they don't care. They'll put the sign column in the ground, and they don't really care where the head plate of the sign aligns to, and what do you end up with. You can't fix it. There's nothing you can do if they do it wrong. You'd have to literally cut the top of the pole off and re-weld the whole thing back together again.
When you're buying signs, one habit you want to do is you always want to comp all the other signs along the highway. Every vacant sign, you want to know what they're asking for it. Because one of the key ways you can get burned in buying a billboard is if you over-exaggerate how much you can rent the sign for. So you want to be the master of what the rents are along that section of the highway. You also want to triple-check the permit. You do not want to buy a sign only to later find that the permit specified the sign was in a different spot or that the permit had expired. You want to really get all over that permit and make sure that it is correct. Another habit I have as far as growth, whether it's in building signs or buying signs, is to have a board, an erasable board with a whole bunch of rule lines on it. Those are little black lines that run the whole width of the sign. And I always worry about making sure that board is full because I'm a big believer in volume. And if you have a deal on every one of those lines and you keep that thing full, you will always have a progression of new signs that you're buying or building. If you don't have that little chart full, then what's going to happen is you're going to soon find you have nothing to build.
So you have to trust a volume. And by having that as a habit, trying to keep that board full, it always keeps you pressing for the next deal. On renting ads, what the habit needs to be is that you start marketing any renewal of a sign about 60 or 90 days ahead. Now, you might say, but what if the advertiser renews? Okay, let's get them to renew 60 or 90 days ahead. Because if you look at how long it takes you to go out and find a new advertiser and get their artwork agreed to, and then the vinyl printed and then installed, that takes a bit of time. That alone takes, what, 30 or 60 days. So you have to give yourself plenty of advance notice. So my habit there is you basically take and get a bunch of foam core. You can get it down there at the dollar store. And you put on the thing every month of the year, Jan, Feb, March, April, all the way down. And then I have a rubber band, or you can do a string, and you move that string, the progression up one day every day. And then you put your sign.
When it expires. You have a strip of paper that equals about 60 days of length, and you have the end on the right-hand side of that strip of paper on the date on which the sign would go empty. And the minute that string or rubber band hits that strip of paper, that fires off the alarm that you have got to figure out whether the advertiser is renewing or not, and you have to start your marketing efforts. That's the only way you're staying full is if you start at least 60 days or so ahead. Finally, operationally, once you have the sign built, I think it's very, very important to go out and drive the lights on that sign. Now, I am probably more OCD than most people, and I believe you should drive it every 30 days. But maybe you could drive it every 60 days. But the problem is, is if the lights are not working, and your advertiser drives by and they see they're not working, it's going to shatter all confidence you have or that advertiser has in you. And they're going to want a discount or probably 25% or whatever your contract agrees to for all the time since the sign went up, even if the lights have only been out for one day. And on top of that, they're probably not going to renew with you because they don't trust you.
Imagine the horror of that Dairy Queen operator getting the whole family in the car to drive by their billboard, only to find it completely dark, all the lights out. If you go out there and drive your signs at night, every month, what you will do is you will ensure that you won't have any problem with your advertiser, you won't have any discount issues. And also driving your existing signs is not really a bad habit in and of itself just to see what's kind of going on out there, whether there's new signs being built or more importantly, any new advertisers being built, new restaurant, car wash, whatever the case may be. The bottom line is there are simple habits we can all have that hurt us, and there are habits you can have that help you. There are habits you have that can hold you back, bad habits, gambling addictions, whatever the case may be. But there's also good habits that can propel you forward to success. These are all positive habits. This is Frank Rolfe, the Billboard Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.