Roy Park, Jr., the owner of Park Outdoor, is the author of Sons in the Shadow, an unflinching chronicle of his time working for his father Roy Park Sr at Park Communications as well has his subsequent experience buying Park Outdoor from his dad. Insider recommends the book for those who wish to understand the rewards, complexities and strains of working with a family member. Lots of advice which will help you run your out of home business. For instance:
Get a 10% holdback on acquisitions. Roy Park Sr. used to hold back 10% of the purchase price in any acquisition for at least a year for undisclosed liabilities. You want to avoid having to defend yourself with you own money from claims created by somebody else.
Sign checks yourself or ask to see checks, withdrawals and bank statements once a while. This is critical if you have a small company but don’t write checks. Roy Park Sr did not do this early in his career and discovered a manager was making out small checks for “business expenses’ to himself.
See your signs. The first thing Roy Park Jr. did when he took control of Park Outdoor was to personally drive and photo each of the company’s 3,000 billboards. He realized that the company’s billboards looked terrible and that major renovation was needed in order for the company to thrive and grow. Maybe Sean Really of Lamar can’t see all of his signs but this is a must for the rest of us.
Loyal employees a huge competitive advantage. Roy Park Jr talks about numerous conflicts with his father over how to pay employees. Roy Park Jr’s approach was to be more generous than his father and it built a loyal workforce. Here’s what a national sales rep said writes about Park Outdoor in the book:
“I recently cleaned out my Rolodex and discarded more than one-half of my ___________ business cards for departed managers and changed addresses. I have Park Outdoor cards from the 80’s that could’ve been printed yesterday. In my mind this is the mark of a remarkably stable company.”
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