Justin Booher of Vital Outdoor appeared this week on Neil Bell’s Bell Board Podcast.  Some of the highlights.

Find a good banker and stick with them.

You could probably write a book on billboard bank financing. Banks are very friendly when you’re getting into the business, and then a couple years down the road they don’t want to do deals, or they start requiring a lot more down than before. The other thing I found is that community banks will give you a good loan officer who really gets it and becomes your quarterback — and then he leaves, and you get somebody new who knows nothing about the business…Once you find a great loan officer who knows this industry, you just stick with them.

Think carefully about when your billboard lease should start

I added language a few years ago that says the lease commences within 180 days of all necessary permits being issued. That tells the landowner we’re going to build once permits are in hand — but I’m not paying rent while I’m waiting on permits or fighting a legal battle. Most landowners don’t realize that without that kind of provision, an operator could sit on a lease for years without building. I’ve only ever had one landowner push back and say they wanted rent to start immediately. The other thing I always do is hand the landowner a check when we’re actually out there building. We’re taking up more of their space during construction. It’s just good relationship management.

Neil Bell’s Walgreens rule for sign development

I’ve put a lot of digitals in towns outside of big cities…if there’s a Walgreens or a CVS and you put a sign near one of those, it’s going to be a winner. They’ve already done the homework.  I’ve just coming in behind.

You can watch the 1 hour interview below.

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