Note: We are re-featuring West Coast Billboards as our company of the day after a fascinating discussion with Jeremy Jones, the company’s CEO

Company: West Coast Billboards

Market: California

Email: westcoastbillboards@gmail.com

Phone: 559-736-1569

West Coast Billboards is a small family owned company which operates on out of home plant with 119 faces of which 14 are digital.  Billboard Insider talked with Jeremy Jones, the company’s CEO.

How did you get into the out of home business?

I heard an ad on the radio for a sales position,  I called and was hired the next day by Clear Channel. I had a fire in my gut to do better. My boss at the time told me, if you can do radio sales for 6 months you can do anything.  That lasted 4 years but I was driving about an hour every day to work, and I saw a billboard being put up on the hwy. It was up it two days with ads on it and I started asking questions about the billboards. The radio station that I worked for was just bought out by Clear Channel and they owned a handful of billboards in the area.  I had driven by this small wood billboard for a year thinking that it would be great for someone to advertise on. It was about to fall over and had been tagged a few times, so I spoke to the property owner and put a lease together and renewed the permits on it and Bam! I was in the billboard business, so I thought. I had a few billboards just like this when the economy tanked. I couldn’t get anyone to advertise, and I was drowning in debt! I had put all my money into the billboards, and I quit my job to grow my business. I owed everyone money and a lot of people owed me money, but it was hard to get paid. I sold everything I had to pay my rent and just hung on. It was so bad I had to sleep in my car a few times. I managed to hold onto the few billboards I had. I had a Very humble beginning!

Whose digital signs do you use and what have you learned?

I have been using Watchfire Digital billboards. I called a few companies, and a rep named Josh Haygood met with me almost the same day.

I’ve learned that led billboards are a lot like radio sales.

Are you also doing solar?  What’s that like?

We have a few billboards that have solar lights in areas that power is hard to get to. It works great as long as we don’t have a few cloudy days, then the batteries don’t get the charge they need. I think battery technology has a long way to go yet but it’s getting better.

Any other thoughts?

I’ve been in TV and radio sales, and one thing is fact!!  Billboards are the oldest form of advertising “Always on, Always working!

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