When a billboard can’t be seen from the road, its importance to advertisers is diminished or even eliminated. Yet many billboards are blocked by objects that could, with the proper strategy, be eliminated. In this Billboard Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the options to remove obstructions.
Episode 136: How To Remove Obstructions Transcript
Billboards are all about visibility. And when something blocks that visibility, it can have a huge impact on how much you can rent the billboard for, which equates to how much that billboard is worth. This is Frank Rolfe with the Billboard Mastery Podcast. We're gonna explore obstructions, how to best solve those, what the steps are, 'cause there's a whole business in some billboards just in buying things that are blocked and then unblocking them. Let me give you an example of that. There was once a billboard in downtown Dallas, and it was owned by what was then Foster and Kleiser, which became Metromedia, which today is Clear Channel. But many, many years ago, this sign had a premium spot right in downtown Dallas, but it was vacant. And it was vacant because there was a sign right smack in the middle of that billboard, and it was for the parking lot that was below the sign. They had erected, after the billboard was built, a sign advertising their parking lot, and they just happened to place that right smack in the middle visually of that sign. After I had noticed it had been vacant for a few years, I went to the company and said, "Hey, I'm interested in buying the vacant billboard that you have in downtown Dallas."
And they said, "Why would you want it?" And I said, "I know you're a big company and you probably try and get big-time advertisers to rent the space and they won't do it because of the obstruction. But I could probably find someone who might pay me a few hundred dollars a month more than the ground rent even despite the blockage. Maybe we come up with an ad and the middle of the ad is blank or something and you can only really read the words surrounding that parking sign in the middle." They thought it over and they said, "You know what, we'll sell it. It's kind of embarrassing. It kind of counts against us at the home office as far as our percent of vacancy." So I bought the sign. And the first thing I did is I went to that parking lot and I said, "Hey, I'm just curious. I've bought the billboard here, but your sign is blocking the billboard. And if you think about it, the billboard blocks your sign going the other direction. What do you think about maybe lowering that sign down so it's not in front of the billboard?"
To which the owner said, "Sure, I don't care." So I said, "So I can lower it as much as I want?" "Oh, yeah, sure, lower it as much as you want." So all those years, that sign had sat empty not only because of the blockage, but because no one from the big company had ever taken the effort to try and get it fixed. And now I was able to lower that parking sign completely out of that giant billboard, and I then owned one of the few billboards in downtown Dallas with no obstructions at all. The moral of that story is some obstructions can be fixed. Now, some sign owners, when there's an obstruction of their billboard, their first idea is, "I'm gonna sneak out there with a chainsaw in the middle of the night and cut it down." You see that all the time happens on signs, maybe old wooden signs out on the right-of-way. That is the worst idea you can have. There are criminal penalties from going out and sawing things down. It could be a tree, it could be somebody else's sign. So just cross that off your list. That is in no way ever how to deal with obstructions.
So, if we take that off the table, then what are the other options? Well, diplomacy. So, in many, many cases, you can remove obstructions by simply going to the neighboring property owner and saying, "Hey, what would I have to do to have you fill in the blank of what the obstruction is. Trim the tops of your trees, tear down this one tree that's blocking me, lower your existing sign, move your existing sign to the other end of the property. Just what would it take to get that job done?" And then see what they say. And sometimes you'll be shocked at their response. From the same big company now known as Clear Channel, there was another sign that was completely vacant out on Interstate 30 between Dallas and Fort Worth, and it was blocked by a grove of trees. Same story. They put in no effort to fix it. I bought the sign for scrap. I went to the entity that owned all the trees. It was a property owner, had this giant piece of land with the trees. And I said, "Hey, what would I have to do to chop the tops out of those trees, lower those trees down?"
And they said, "Those trees aren't supposed to be there at all. That's in the floodplain. So we actually want to remove all the trees. We just haven't really done it." So I said, "Could I go out then and chop down the trees blocking my sign?" They said, "Sure, as long as it's at your own cost, we don't care." Once again, obstruction had been cured. But sometimes it's more complicated than that. Sometimes people are not willing to go ahead and just let you go on their property and remove the obstruction. In those cases, however, there's something that can always get their attention, and that is just money. There was a sign and this isn't a sign that I ever owned, but someone bought a sign on the North Dallas Tollway, which is one of the most premium streets in Dallas as far as quality of traffic, had horrible tree obstructions. So he went to the owner and said, "Hey, you're kind of blocking the sign." And they said, "Yeah, but we kind of know that by blocking the sign, it's costing you a whole lot of money." So they struck a deal where he would give this person part of the money.
A sign on the tollway back then was renting for about $5,000 a month. With the obstruction, which was a tree, there was no money at all in it. No one would buy the sign. It just obliterated the sign visually. But he struck a deal. If he would go ahead and chop down the tree, he would split half of the net income with the neighbor. After paying the lot rent, he would go ahead and give him half of the money coming in. It was a totally intelligent deal for them. What you had then was you took something at zero to $5,000, paid out the ground rent, which I think back then was about $2,000 because of its location, and then both the neighbor and the person who owned the sign each got $1,500 a month. So, I don't know about you, I would much rather have a portion of something than 100% of nothing. So once again, obstruction fixed. When you go to people and you simply say, "What would I have to do to get this done?" it leaves the door open to anything.
Anything is possible. And that gets the attention of a lot of people who would not respond if you went to them with the first offer. Maybe that's one of the key items for removing obstructions, is going to the neighbor and just saying, "Hey," being honest, "What would I have to do to get this obstruction out of here?" If I went for example to somebody and said, "Hey, here's a deal. I'd like to trim your tree back. I'll give you $100," they probably would not even give me a response. They'd think, "It's not enough money. I'm not even gonna bother talking to this person." But when you flip it around, when you make them the official referee and judge and say, "What would I have to do to get this done?" that will at least elicit a response. Now, you can't always work around the response. Someone might just simply ask too much money or have too big a demand to get the obstruction removed, but at least then you know the option. You know if you could have done it, and you know if it's something that you can get accomplished. This is Frank Rolfe, the Billboard Mastery Podcast.
Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you soon.