Insider talked with Chris Baughman about what he’s learned in 30+ years in the business, what he thinks of Anna Bager and what’s next for him now that the Fairway Southwest assets have sold. Baughman was the General Manager of Fairway’s Southwest Division which was recently sold to Lindmark Outdoor.
Chris, how did you get into the Out Of Home business?
My first job out of college (Michigan State University) was with Gannett Outdoor (part of the Gannett Newspaper family) in Grand Rapids , Michigan. Tom Carroll and Kelly Duff gave me my start there and were a couple of great mentors! I started in Real Estate/Public Affairs. That was the track in Gannett if you wanted to get into management. I learned so much in those early years dealing with politicians and negotiating with landowners. I dealt with CEOs of large companies all the way to farmers in more rural areas and truth be known, some of those farmers were the best negotiators!
You’ve been at a public out of home company (CBS now Outfront) and at independents like Fairway and Newman. Contrast each experience.
Both experiences were great. I had the opportunity to work for some inspiring people and great CEO’s in Wally Kelly, Kevin Gleason and Kari Newman and all of them let me run each business like it was my own. But working for an independent has a little less day to day structure so your best self can shine through, which would win the battle of comparisons for me. Although I must admit, there is nothing quite like having a brand such as CBS to give you instant credibility with advertisers, agencies, landowners and politicians.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you entered the out of home business in 1990?
It has always been about the people. You can have amazing products, culture, processes and a solid strategy, but without great people to help you execute those plans you have nothing. I have also learned that great ideas can come from anyone in the organization. You just need to provide them a safe platform where they don’t feel they will be judged harshly and then watch how these great ideas bubble up to the top. This will always help drive revenue, improve operating profits and create a great working experience for your employees. As many of you know, Fairway Outdoor has been for sale for the last 10 – 11 months now. But despite all of that impending uncertainty hanging over our heads, we continued to set record revenue months in our markets during the months of May, June, and July, just as we were moving closer to our closing date. That should leave no doubt just how important people are! The Lord has truly blessed me with some great people over the years!
What do you think of the appointment of Anna Badger to run the OAAA?
Anna is coming in at a critical time in our industry and her background at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) will serve her well. The OOH story has never been better in my career than it is right now with all of the data now available, new audience measurements, programmatic and several attribution models in the works. Anna will only help to improve upon that story for the benefit of all in our industry. My hope is the OAAA under Anna’s leadership will continue to partner with Geopath and the many things they are working on collectively to help the OOH industry finally grow our revenue share over the 7 to 8% of the total ad spend. It’s our time!
What would you like to do next?
Most of my career has been about resurrecting broken OOH markets. I can come in and within 60 days have a pretty good idea of what needs to be changed in terms of people, processes, and culture, and begin to generate momentum to turn the operation around and grow revenue and operating profits as quickly as possible. So I would like to use those successful experiences from across the country in a couple of different ways. One, find an owner who is perhaps looking to get out from underneath the day to day of running of their company and would like to turn the keys over to me to run with it. In this scenario, I would also be interested in finding an owner who is looking to eventually exit their business and would be willing to help me look at a purchase when the time was right. Secondly, find a great opportunity to begin a relationship with a Private Equity firm looking to enter the industry and run their OOH business for them. This could be one that they currently own already but are not happy with the results they are getting or someone who may be brand new to the OOH space and are looking to acquire and need that expertise to run it for them.
You can reach Chris at cebcc1@gmail.com.
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