Age Advertising President Andy Goodman has 33 years experience siting and developing billboards.  Today he talks about when and how to approach a landlord.

When do you approach a landlord about a potential out of home lease?

I spend a fair amount of time looking at a particular city, looking for non-landscaped areas of the freeway, reviewing the sign code, finding existing billboards in the city and the spacing.  I then start calling landowners to see who’s interested.  I prefer to get my landowners and leases in place prior talking to a city. I have many instances where I talk to a city and then one of my competitors finds out and will begin leasing up property before I have finished.

When I was building in the city of Los Angeles there was sign pre-inspection process.  When you thought you had an opportunity and/or lease you would turn in a pre-inspection request form.  A sign inspector would go out to make sure the spacing and other requirements were correct.  During that time in the mid 90’s there were 5-6 billboard companies turning in preinspections.  I found out that if you asked the right people in the city you could get a copy of the preinspection locations.  Each time I applied for a sign preinspection one of my competitors would try to get leases nearby to space me out or try to get my property owner to do business with them.

What’s the best way to approach a landlord?

Any way possible.  Whatever it takes.  Usually what I do is research who owns the property.  I try to find the mailing address, email address and a business or home phone number. I will try to contact them by phone to introduce myself before I send an email or letter.  My last resort is to show up on their doorstep.  I walk into the office and introduce myself.  I’ve even shown up at people’s houses to ring the doorbell or leave a letter.  Most recently I had a property owner call me back after I left a letter at the front door (he didn’t have a mailbox).  Two weeks later he called me back and said the package you left for me got wet.  I don’t know who I’m calling but I’m interested because you took the time to leave something at the front door.

Why call first? 

I think these people are so inundated with mail and email a phone call allows you to tell if they are interested. I much prefer to pick up the phone.

You can reach Andy Goodman at andygoodman.age@gmail.com.

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