Everyone has their own strategy to initialize contact to discuss a billboard ground lease with the property owner. Some cold-call, some use letters, but everyone has experienced the same effect on occasion – the owner who, no matter what you do, will not talk to you. Here are some strategies to make contact.
The Unknown Corporation at a P.O. Box Problem
In this scenario, the owner of the property is a made-up corporation name that goes to a P.O. Box. You cannot find any phone number for this Corporation on Google, and there is no address that you can stop by and try to introduce yourself. So what do you do? First, you can always get the name of the owner or registered agent through the corporate records section of the state in which it is formed. This is a lot of work (not that much, really, since the invention of the internet), but it allows you to end the mystery.
Another solution is to revisit the property and talk to the neighbors. For example, if the tract you are interested in is a small piece of vacant land, and the neighbor is Larry’s Brake Shop, I’m going to get you that Larry knows who the owner is. Most neighbors have an emergency contact number, or know the name of that person, since they probably compare notes on values, new developments in the area, etc.
A similar strategy is to contact a real estate broker who is handling a near-by property. They often know all the surrounding owners – they probably call on them all the time to try and get a listing on their property. But be sure that you do not tell the brokers that you are trying to build a billboard. They may view that as bad for the area and deliberately try and sabotage you. Instead, tell them that you are with a lawn service or something unimportant. That way, they will also not try and charge you for the information.
The Owner Who Will Not Take Or Return Your Calls
Under this scenario, the land owner refuses to call you back, or take your call I the first place. These type of owners fall into two camps: 1) those who are lousy at communicating but mean well and 2) those who don’t want to talk to you for whatever reason. The first group can be solved through repeatedly calling and leaving messages until they finally get up the energy to call you back. Don’t be pest – never call more than one time a day. You increase this frequency, however, by blocking your called ID by pushing *67 before dialing. Eventually, if you don’t give up, you will reach the owner.
The other type is much more complicated. They know you want to talk to them, but the feeling is not mutual. One solution is “office sitting” – going to their office unannounced, and waiting until they’ll see you. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it doesn’t. Another strategy is to send the land owner $20 with a note that asks them to keep the $20 if they’ll just call you for one minute. $20 a minute equals $600 per hour, so most decent people will take the bait. That’s not to say that they will agree to your proposal, but one of the most frustrating events in finding billboard locations is not being able to put a land owner in a “yes” or “no” category.
Conclusion
Nothing is more frustrating than being unable to communicate your billboard ground lease offer to a prospective land owner.
When that happens, don’t give up. If you persevere, and use these tricks, you can reach anyone. Except Jimmy Hoffa. Nobody has pulled that off yet.
Tags: billboard lease
