Consolidation is one of the biggest conversations happening in out of home right now. Companies are selling. Larger operators are acquiring. Independent owners are being approached with opportunities that may be hard to turn down.

But there is another side of that conversation that interests me just as much.

What about the operators who are choosing to grow?

At the upcoming Apparatix Unleashed conference, I will moderate a panel Tuesday morning called Built to Last: Three Paths to Growth in OOH. I invited three operators whose businesses and backgrounds look nothing alike: Troy Hammond of Street Media Group, Joe Ogden of Billboard Joe, and Ben Harbaugh of Ohio Outdoor.

What makes their stories interesting is not simply that they have grown. It is how differently they have done it.

Joe spent years building billboards while keeping another career, before eventually making the enormous leap into a major acquisition. Ben has taken a more incremental path, building inventory, making smaller acquisitions, reinvesting, and adding new capabilities as his company has grown. Troy brings decades of OOH leadership and a different perspective altogether: growth through scale, strong operations, and national sales.

Three operators. Three very different paths.

There is no single blueprint for success in independent OOH. Building may be right for one operator. Acquiring may be right for another. For someone else, the opportunity may be in managing assets.

Selling can be the right decision too.

But in an industry where we spend a lot of time talking about who is buying and who is selling, I think it is worth spending some time talking about the people who are still choosing to build.

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