Billboard Business: What I’ve Learned Over the Years
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By Frank Rolfe
Many people ask me how I started my own outdoor billboard business. Truth be told, it all started as a resume builder for graduate school applications. Fourteen years later I sold my billboard empire to a public company. Along the way, I learned many things about what works and what doesn’t work in successful billboard deals.
When I got into this business, I thought it would all be about building cookie-cutter signs on the freeways, and then leasing the space. I had no idea how competitive it was. There were sixty billboard companies in my market! The competition was so crazy that you had to have a gimmick in order to survive.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear people ask me if there are still opportunities left. Absolutely! On average, I was able to pull of a deal each month for fifteen straight years in a competitive market. My secret was thinking “outside the box” and coming up with creative game plans.
This is also why I wrote my book, “Big Bucks from Big Signs”. In the book, I will show you the wide range of deals I completed as well as the lessons learned from each deal.
I’m a big history buff; I read mostly biographies and books on warfare. What makes it fun to read these things is to gather the lessons learned by many famous and successful people. By doing so, one can overly what worked for them and apply it to your own life plan.
After you’ve read a lot of these books, you start to see certain patterns emerge that seem to show signs that an idea or action is going to be successful. SImilarly, you’ll see what actions do not appear to be good ideas if you want to win.
I wrote my book to give real-life examples of what seems to be the pattern for success in building a billboard company. All of the case studies are true stories; all of the lessons learned happened to me. I know I’m not the only guy who has made money in this business. However, I know I’m the only one who seems to want to write about it and share this knowledge openly!
My formula will give you a much greater chance for success than any other avenue. I believe that if you study the deals in my book carefully, you may identify a deal in your market that meets the same criteria.
About Frank Rolfe
Frank Rolfe became the one of the largest private billboard operators in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He eventually sold his billboard empire to a public company 14 years later. Rolfe is sharing his expertise to anyone interested in getting involved with outdoor billboards. He is the author of the book, “Big Bucks from Big Signs”, which contains everything you need to know in order to get started.
Copyright secured by Digiprove Billboard for Sale: An Amazing Deal that Anybody Could Have
Home > Outdoor Billboard Articles > Billboard for Sale
By Frank Rolfe
Although I spent my career in the Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas market, I discovered one of the greatest billboard for sale deals in Los Angeles, California.
It all began with an ad we were running that said, “We Buy Billboards”. The caller was a guy who had inherited about twenty-four billboard units in Los Angeles when his brother was killed in a car wreck. This guy had no idea how to run an outdoor billboard business, so he stopped taking calls, paying ground rents, and let all the ads go empty. He saw my ad and was intrigued.
He threw out a price and I accepted it at full price because it sounded low. The important part to me was what he agreed to. He allowed me a six month due diligence period to try and re-paper the ground leases.
When I flew out to Los Angeles, I found that the locations were pretty decent with three of them standouts. The risk management part of my brain went to full speed; I quickly decided to try and sell these three standout locations to a big outdoor billboard company to reduce my investment in the remaining signs. So, I packed up these three signs (after re-negotiating their ground leases) and met with the biggest sign companies in Los Angeles. My hunch was a good one, because the biggest company offered me as much for the three signs as I was paying for the whole operation: $250,000.
What made this an amazingly great deal was the fact that I didn’t have to put one cent into buying these signs. I did a simultaneous closing of the three signs and the entire operation. In one day, I had gone from no signs in California, to a major player in Los Angeles. The best part is that I had not risked one penny.
I found that operating billboards in Los Angeles was extremely difficult. After a few years, I sold the operation off for a $300,000 profit. That amount was not very impressive, except for the fact that I had not put one dollar in the deal.
You’re probably asking why didn’t the big local companies contact the guy directly to buy the signs before he ever called me? After closing, I asked them. They told me they only wanted the three signs that were standouts. They guy would not offer three billboards for sale by themselves. So why didn’t they just buy the whole group and sell off all but the three signs? Chalk that up to the amazing dynamics of big companies (and an opportunity for you and me).
The lessons I learned here were as follows:
- Thinking outside the box is very profitable.
- Buying a group of assets and selling a few off to pay down debt is a great strategy.
- Big outdoor billboard companies can make stupid decisions.
About Frank Rolfe
Frank Rolfe became the one of the largest private billboard operators in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He eventually sold his billboard empire to a public company 14 years later. Rolfe is sharing his expertise to anyone interested in getting involved with outdoor billboards. He is the author of the book, “Big Bucks from Big Signs”, which contains everything you need to know in order to get started.
Copyright secured by Digiprove 
