How to Start a Billboard Business: $30k a Month Part-Time (Greatest Hits)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Side Hustle Show — "How to Start a Billboard Business: $30k a Month Part-Time (Greatest Hits)"

Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Chris Brown (wantmore.org)
Release Date: February 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this Greatest Hits episode, Nick Loper interviews Chris Brown, a former pharmaceutical rep turned billboard business owner, who now manages around 30 billboards in the Bentonville, Arkansas area and retired at age 42 thanks to the income from this unconventional side hustle. The conversation explores how Chris built this business from scratch, the economics and logistics of billboard ownership, and why billboards are a unique blend of real estate and media, guided by strict regulations and limited supply.

This episode is a rare deep dive into a passive income model that most people pass by every day without considering as a viable business. Nick and Chris cover acquisition strategies, securing advertisers, the balance between active and passive involvement, and why the billboard business stands out as both a cash flow and equity play.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Chris Brown’s Inspiration and Early Motivation

• Personal Background: Chris reflects on newlywed struggles, low-paying jobs, and the fear of corporate layoffs that drove him to seek financial freedom.
  • “I made a commitment then that I wasn't going to be ever on the chopping block where I didn't have some other passive income or side hustle to protect me and my wife.” (02:40)
• Discovery of Billboards: Noticing a vacant, run-down billboard during daily commutes led Chris to research possibilities and eventually initiate his first purchase.

Acquiring Your First Billboard

• Finding an Opportunity:
  • Started by targeting a neglected billboard, looking up property records to track the owner, and negotiating a purchase during a period of economic downturn (2011).
  • “I looked up the county records, looked up who owned the piece of property…It was a local developer that had developed a neighborhood across the street.” (04:00)
• Deal Structure: First deal was $75,000 (including land), acquired from a distressed owner eager to offload assets.
• Due Diligence: Secured necessary city approvals due to board’s unconventional location, and factored in unknowns about local regulations.

Pricing and Renting Billboard Faces

• Initial Pricing: Priced each of four static faces at approx. $600/month based on surveying local billboard rates, for a total monthly gross of $2,400.
  • “Each spot on the billboard…about $600 each. …I just wanted them full to cover my cost.” (07:02)
• Establishing ROI: Three-year payback period, all-cash purchase, with high occupancy rates and minimal ongoing maintenance compared to traditional rentals.
  • “A four sided thing…four static billboards…we’re at $2,400 a month in income there…that’s close to $29,000 for the year.” (08:11–08:31)

The Business Model: Real Estate + Media

• Analog vs. Digital Billboards: Explained the differences between static (vinyl) and digital (LED) billboards, including maintenance, pricing, and ad inventory flexibility.
• Supply and Demand: Regulatory constraints (e.g., Highway Beautification Act of 1972) limit new construction, giving existing boards significant scarcity value.
  • “When you know the rules…once you understand and know how to play the game, it’s actually not so complicated.” (14:52)

Acquisition Routes & Scaling

• Buying Existing vs. Building New:
  • Buying from distressed owners is possible but rare; building new requires navigating local/federal regs.
• Land Ownership vs. Leasing:
  • Can buy land or lease a small parcel (often 10–20% of billboard revenue as lease payment).
  • “You can own your land outright or you can lease…I do have leases on property.” (23:48)
• Examples of Scaling:
  • Chris details building new double-sided structures: ~$300,000 investment for land plus structures, creating $8,000/month income from eight faces. (22:18–22:47)

Operations and Passive Nature

• Low Maintenance, No Tenants:
  • Avoids “tenants, toilets, and evictions” issues; if an advertiser doesn’t pay, the ad is simply removed.
  • “I love that—they don’t have to deal with the tenants and the toilets…eviction process or anything like that.” (17:00-17:31)
• Team and Tools:
  • Small, outsourced team for accounting, installation, and creative; uses spreadsheets and tools like Land Glide for property research.
  • “We use a lot of spreadsheets…Land Glide is a great app…for real estate purchasing.” (42:22)

Finding and Retaining Advertisers

• Inbound and Outbound Approaches: Large “your ad here” signs generate leads; also proactively approaches local businesses.
  • “6 foot tall by 10 foot wide phone number that says advertise here…people will drive by those signs, see them, and by default they’re going to call.” (28:28)
• Term Lengths and Payment Structure: 12-24 month contracts for static, with printing costs often paid by advertiser; digital allows for more flexible, even hourly slots.
• Value Proposition: Recall and local brand awareness trump immediate direct response; pricing depends on impressions and scarcity, not just traffic count.
  • “Recall is a really important thing…value is determined not just on impressions, but…it’s on the location.” (38:08)

Exit Multiples and Building Equity

• Valuation: Existing boards can sell for 7–12x annual earnings to larger companies (e.g., Lamar, Outfront).
  • “They will come in and make offers…anywhere from 7 to 12 times your forward revenue.” (25:23)
• Liquidity/Exit Options: Boards can be sold while retaining land, or bundled and sold as a portfolio.

Personal Freedom and Lifestyle

• Part-Time, Flexible Work: Now puts in about 5 hours/week; mostly management and fielding new advertiser inquires.
  • “Last couple years…it’s been a little boring. I work about five hours a week, maybe…” (43:09)
• Financial Freedom Mindset: Conservative approach; advocates for a 2–3x expense buffer before retiring from primary career.
• Desire to Teach: Plans to launch Billboard Academy to help others replicate success. (46:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Scarcity and Regulation:
  “About 100 years ago, billboards were not banned anywhere…now, since the act of 1972…these are now regulated…limits supply, which drives up the prices…”
  — Chris Brown (13:07)

• On Passive Nature:
  “If they don’t pay…take down the billboard, take down the advertisement, and then I go get another one. Right. There’s no going through eviction process…”
  — Chris Brown (17:05)

• On Scaling:
  “I really only had about $300 into the whole land and two structures which gave me eight, but they immediately all rented for over a thousand dollars a month.”
  — Chris Brown (22:18)

• On Finding Opportunities:
  “You start to think about them and look for them, now all of a sudden you’ll see spots, you’ll see billboards…It will ruin the way you drive…can’t drive normally anymore…”
  — Chris Brown (09:39)

• On Mentorship and Mindset:
  “What we really need sometimes is to take a minute or even have somebody that can have that outside perspective…find a mentor, find a guide if you don't have that…”
  — Chris Brown (50:46)

• On Getting Rich Quick vs. Wealth Building:
  “How many people want to play the get rich game versus want to play the get wealthy over time game. Both work, but…I can play the sure game over time.”
  — Chris Brown (48:09)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Chris’ Background & Motivation — 01:22–03:20
• First Billboard Acquisition Story — 03:34–05:36
• Pricing & Initial Cash Flow — 06:58–08:54
• Static vs. Digital Billboards Explained — 07:36–08:08
• How to Find (& Build) Billboards — 14:25–16:30
• Leasing vs. Buying Land — 23:48–25:00
• Valuation & Exit Multiples — 25:23–27:35
• Finding Advertisers & Market Pricing — 28:09–30:11
• Operational Details (Passive Involvement) — 43:09–44:39
• Building Financial Freedom — 44:42–45:54
• Chris’ #1 Tip: The Hummingbird Metaphor — 49:52–51:30

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Practical Takeaways

• Billboard ownership is a unique, highly-cashflowing blend of real estate and media with significant passive income potential.
• Start by identifying underperforming or vacant billboards, research local regulations, and don’t ignore unconventional or sub-highway locations.
• Leasing land is a strong alternative to buying, offering flexibility and lower upfront costs.
• Term-length contracts, long-standing client relationships, and the always-on nature of billboards mean low turnover and steady cash flow.
• Strict regulation means high barriers to entry and sustained scarcity, driving long-term asset appreciation.
• This is a “get wealthy slow” model—steady, methodical, and gaining value over time, with the option to scale or sell at lucrative multiples.
• Find a mentor, stay persistent, and focus on stacking incremental cash flow for long-term wealth.

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Links Mentioned:

• wantmore.org (Chris’s Website)
• Land Glide app
• Side Hustle Nation show notes: sidehustlenation.com/billboards

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This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in alternative investments or side hustles with both cash flow and equity upside. Chris Brown’s candid insights, actionable strategies, and mindset lessons make billboard ownership more accessible while demystifying a business hiding in plain sight.

Transcript

[Nick Loper]

Here's an oldie but a goodie from.

The archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits collection. 30 grand a month from a Side Hustle I can almost guarantee you've never considered what's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle show. Because your 9 to 5 may make you a living. 5 to 9 makes you alive. Today's guest reached out with a quote unquote passive income side hustle I'd never heard of, but I'm confident that you see almost every day and that's owning billboards. He owns around 30 of these things in the Bentonville, Arkansas area and retired a couple years ago at the ripe old age of 42. Thanks in part to the monthly cash flow that they generate from wantmore.org, chris Brown, welcome to the Side Hustle Show.

[Chris Brown]

Thanks Nick. I'm glad to be here.

[Nick Loper]

You bet me as well. Glad you're here. Stick around in this one. You're going to learn how to find these things for sale or find places where or you could put one, how to fill up that ad space and how passive it really is once you're up and running. Your listener only bonus for this week is my list of 25 other unconventional rental ideas, other things that people are renting out for a profit. You can download that for free at the show notes for this [e-mail] billboards or just follow the show notes link in the episode description and you'll be able to grab that. Now this is something I never considered. What put it on your radar in the first place? Talk to me about your first billboard and the inspiration to get started here.

[Chris Brown]

The inspiration was I was actually just driving past one day after day noticing it was empty. But let me go back a little bit before that to tell you the inspiration of why I even started looking for side hustles or passive income and billboards became that vehicle for me. So got married right out of college the same day I actually graduated. We were so broke. We had two cars, but one of them that you had to get in through the passenger side vehicle or through the door to get into the vehicle. And that was not fun, right? Like you're having to crawl in and crawl over. That's how broke we were. Not a good place to be. Got a job making $8 an hour. Really good after you graduate college, right? Get out making all the money. Started piling on the debt. Buying a new car, buying a house, buying the furniture. Just started racking up. But I Started looking at this, saying, something isn't working. So I actually started studying how to build wealth and get out of debt. And one of my first jobs was actually as a pharmaceutical rep. And we had to sit by the phone about once a year as they did layoffs. When they would announce these, we had to sit there and we weren't sure if we were going to get the call or not to be laid off. And I made a commitment then that I wasn't going to be ever on the chopping block where I didn't have some other passive income or side hustle to protect me and my wife as we made this journey of life as we started out. So I started looking for those, and lo and behold, I found billboards a few years later.

[Nick Loper]

This is like the equivalent of spring training. Opening your locker and seeing the pink tag. Like, you just have to sit there, like, waiting for this death knoll phone call.

[Chris Brown]

Yes, Everybody on the team. Basically, you got a time and you had to sit there. If you got the call, you got to keep going. So that was one of those real uneasy feelings. I was just married, had all this new debt, had a bunch of payments, had a life I was supposed to live. And I'm like, how am I supposed to take care of my wife and my family? I'm not sure I'm going to have a job, which we see that happening all the time right now. Last month, Amazon, Google, all the layoffs are happening. This continues to happen year after year after year.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. No such thing as job security. The only job security is to go out and create your own income streams. And that's what we're talking about. So if you're driving past this billboard, you noticed that it's either vacant or it hasn't changed in a long time. What goes through your head?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, as I drive past it day after day, I'm like, this is getting run down and faded. It doesn't look like it's been taken advantage of. So I actually called the guy and I'm like, I wonder if this was for sale. And I call him. This was during 2011, right after the Great Recession. And he was like, yes, I would love to sell this. I don't want it. It was a part of a different property he had. And he said, yes, you can have it for what I got into.

[Nick Loper]

Is there like a phone number at the bottom or like, how do you find the phone number?

[Chris Brown]

There was a couple of ads on it, but they were old. And so I looked up the county records, looked up who Owned the piece of property. And just so happens I was able to tie it back. Lot of running different hoops and things, trying to find out who the actual owner was. And it was a local developer that had developed a neighborhood across the street. So he had actually just developed a neighborhood across the street and put this as an out parcel.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. So that's one way to get in touch to buy an existing one.

[Chris Brown]

That's how I got into my first one.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. Looking up the county records. Okay, that makes sense. How much does it cost? Like, talk to me about that first deal.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, the first deal was very interesting. So he was just willing to get out. He actually showed me the invoice of his cost to put it in the ground, what he had on it that included the land. He didn't even want the land or anything. He was about to go bankrupt, so he really didn't care.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, okay.

[Chris Brown]

So he actually showed that to me. So that was $75,000, which again, I didn't know at the point was a great deal, but it was a great deal and I was able to purchase that from him and he sold it to me. It's right in the middle of a intersection. So it's literally surrounded by three roads. People have to drive underneath the billboard, which is very interesting and was a little concerning. So I actually had to get the city to sign off on it to say, hey, look, we're good with it staying. Because I was really not sure about that if they were going to make it take down or not and didn't want to buy something. And if that was going to happen. So it did get hit a few times.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, my God. Like by a really tall or something.

[Chris Brown]

Yes, yes. Because the original road did not actually have the road that went underneath it. So people would normally have curved around it. And then they added this X on my property, but it never was addressed. And so it started out as like a little dirt cut through. And then people, people, they paved it and it became a main part of the road. Interesting.

[Nick Loper]

So interesting.

[Chris Brown]

Really interesting spot. Yes.

[Nick Loper]

There's a combination of this real estate play plus a media play. How many eyeballs, like, am I going to get over here? Like, oh, to turn around and then sell that, add inventory. Okay, so 75 grand for the land and the structure to go out there and then you go out and try and find a new advertiser for it. What happens next?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, so once I acquired it, I actually then did. I called up a few local businesses and said, hey, I had some friends that owned Businesses, some huge heating and air companies, some furniture companies, some car dealerships. And I said, hey, would you guys be interested? And it was on the middle of a great location. It was kind of a random spot right by a bunch of neighborhoods where you wouldn't expect a billboard. So they jumped on it. And some of those people are still advertising today. And that was in 2011. So we're talking 13 years later. They still have the same advertisers on a few of them.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. Yeah, long term, I mean. Yeah, if they're seeing a positive ROI on it. Yeah, just keep it rolling.

[Chris Brown]

Yes. Because there's three elementary schools and junior highs and high schools right by it. It's just a great location. So that's how I got the first one is I'm driving around, I found one, decided I kind of wanted it. I was already looking for real estate itself. So I was into single family flips. I was into land acquisition and commercial property and multifamily. But then I saw that and I thought about it was a very interesting way to play the land game. Or as just a different play to own the business, have the media and have the passive income from the billboards themselves.

[Nick Loper]

You end up selling the first spot on that first billboard for.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, so each spot on the billboard. So that first billboard had four billboards on it for signs. Each one of those was about $600 each. That was the first day I had no idea how to price them. So what I did was just called some of the other billboards around and said, all right, what are you guys pricing these at? Because I just acted like an interested billboard buyer and they were glad to tell me what their rates were. And so I was able to find that and give that deal to people. I just wanted them full to cover my cost on that so that I would have just some positive cash flow coming in every month.

[Nick Loper]

A four sided thing or it's like one of these mechanic rotating type of deal.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, it was a top and a bottom on both sides. So it was a good old fashioned. There was four static billboards. Yeah, so we call them static. So in billboards there's static, there's digital and then there's actually tri vision. But most are static or digital. So you have just the ones that are flat, they don't change. They say the same 24, 7. And then you have the digital that actually then rotate in as a LED screen.

[Nick Loper]

The one that's closest to us that I can think of, I think it. So it's two sided. Right. So you get people going both directions. And I want to say it. There's two different advertisers on each side. Like it somehow flips and then every now and again.

[Chris Brown]

Yep. So then there's a tri vision. So those actually flip.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, the slats get broken. It's just like half of one and half of the other stuff. Okay. But four signs, 600 bucks each. We're at $2,400 a month in income there. Okay. And so then pencil that against the acquisition costs. And I have learned to not do math on air, but that's close to $29,000 for the year, which pencils out.

[Chris Brown]

ROI is about three.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, three years. And you're breaking even on that purchase cost.

[Chris Brown]

Total purchase cost. Yeah, paid back in three.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. Did you do cash or finance or what's typical?

[Chris Brown]

I actually did on that when I did cash. So I'm big into no debt, which. Which is different. As a real estate van, a lot of people are into leverage, which works as well. But I did have cash on that. I just wanted to move quick so that I didn't lose it and was able to get it. And then it just cash flowed positive from day one.

[Nick Loper]

So, okay, so three year ROI compared to a single family rental house where S&P 500 investment, it's like. Okay, really, really strong ROI.

[Chris Brown]

That's correct. Yeah. So I kind of look as billboards, like doors. Right. So every sign face, we call them faces, is like a door in the multifamily world. We have number of doors. A duplex has two, fourplex has four. A sign, a double stack sign has four signs on both, two on both sides. So I have four doors or four signs faces on one building.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. And is it the safer path for beginners to try and find this distressed seller in this case like this guy who doesn't want it anymore versus like trying to find a plot of land and like, oh, can I rent out a six square foot thing and put a post it? Where do you see most people getting started with this?

[Chris Brown]

I think both routes are good. If you find some that are distressed and you can rehabilitate or you find one that somebody is looking to get rid of, look to acquire it. It's harder and harder to find those these days, but they are out there because there's a lot of small town signs that are out there that aren't the big operated by a national company that you can still find independent operators. And those are the ones you would find that from just somebody that put up sign outside their business originally or had a piece of land that they were putting it on. And you can find those now, I don't know, safe one versus the other. You can go into a new construction and build a new one on your own piece of land or that you do. And we can talk about a little bit more about that in a minute. But yeah, if you're looking for one, I would definitely just keep your eyes on it. It's one of those things of like, anything I learned a long time ago. The reticular activating system, which is fun when your brain starts to dial into something. It's like when you get a new car. My daughter's about to turn 16. We're looking at new cars. All of a sudden they're seeing the car they want everywhere because we're talking about it and our brain picking up on it. Yeah, same with billboards. You start to think about them and look for them now all of a sudden you'll see spots, you'll see billboards, you'll see locations. You'll start to notice that and you'll say, that's a great spot. It will ruin the way you drive. I will tell you that I can't drive normally anymore without thinking of everything in terms of billboards.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, billboard. What's this guy making on this location? Yeah, it's the same way we did an episode years ago on flipping industrial pallets. Businesses that receive their inventory on pallets and companies that ship their stuff out. And now every time I see a stack of pallets behind any type of building, it's like, oh, pallet money, pallet money. You know, text it to the guest and be like, Yep. Oh, that's 800 right there.

[Chris Brown]

It's funny, I just had that. I'm working with a person that's doing a lot of online stuff, and she was talking to me about billboards and she's wanting to get into it. She was driving to Florida. She messaged me on her way back and said, all right, my drive back from Florida was billboards everywhere. That's all I could see because I was paying attention to them. So once you become aware, they become more noticeable what's out there, how many or how few. And I think that's part of it. I think understanding the way the billboard businesses are running, it's a supply and demand game. So it is a limited game versus a residential single family home where there's tons of them.

[Nick Loper]

Right. And is there such thing as a marketplace like ebay for billboards or where these things may change Hands or is it I got to look up these county records every time I see one.

[Chris Brown]

There's brokers that are in the space that buy and sell for buyers and sellers. So there are brokers in the space of billboards just like any other business because it trades as both a business and as a real estate play. And so you're able to do that. So there are brokers out there you can contact directly the owner sometimes just to find out if they're willing to sell. And that even means regional. You'll see a regional play where the inventory. A friend of mine just sold 20 billboards of his a couple weeks ago, and so he sold them all to a group and one other larger group bought that up. So there are places you can go find brokers that are dealing with them. You can call them directly and ask them and build a relationship. And I always encourage people to do that. Start to build a relationship with somebody. If you know that you may want to eventually buy that from them, go ahead and start to build a relationship with them. You can at least learn or they'll tell you they're not interested. One of the two.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, the ones that I see are branded like Lamar or is Clear Channel or Clear Something is one of them. So they're trying to consolidate and leverage economies of scale and everything. But at the same time, you got to imagine it's pretty fragmented, lots of different, smaller operators, 10, 20, 30 of these things. Just, hey, I'm here for the passive cash flow. It doesn't need to be a nationwide thing.

[Chris Brown]

That's exactly right. So you have your Lamar CVS out front that own the big conglomerates. Right? The one, I always call them the New York City. Those are the ones that are owned and operated by those big companies that have been acquiring smaller middle size independents. But there's a large group of independent owners and those are out there and growing and then you're able to build wealth through those because there is somebody to always acquire. What's great about the billboard space is that supply and demand game. So if you go into look at the history of about 100 years ago, billboards were not banned anywhere. You could put them up anywhere you wanted, any place, anytime, which made them worth not very much at all. So when you have a lot of supply, the demand goes down because there's not much price to be discovered on that. But now, since the act of 1972 and the Beautification act, they regulated them. So these are now regulated across the country, which limits supply, which drives up the Prices if you're actually selling them or renting them out. So. So there's actually a great thing when you own them, they're very valuable because of that supply regulation that allows you to have a very valuable asset. So Lamar has them, but then you also have the independence so you can sell back to, though, if I ever built up portfolios and wanted to sell, there's always buyers out there that want to acquire these media properties from you.

[Nick Loper]

Yes, the existing ones are going to be grandfathered in, but new ones, there's some red tape and regulation to say, like, well, are you even allowed to put something like that on that property? Have you gone through that process of, say, well, here's a parcel or a segment like next to the highway would be perfect for a billboard. But then either it doesn't get approved or you have to talk to the landowner. And like, I want to sublease this little corner. Like, if I want to go the building route, where does that start?

[Chris Brown]

That's a great route. I've done that recently too. So you're right. The great news is the rules are laid out. When you know the rules and you have to dig into them a little bit, they are a little nuanced and a little hard to go find all the exact rules because you're playing at a bunch of different levels. Know you, you have the federal level, the state level, the city level, the county level. However, once you understand and know how to play the game, it's actually not so complicated. Then it's just finding it. What you do is you find a piece of land, you go start to figure out the rules around it, their distances, and every city, state, county, highway, they're all a little bit different state to state. And so you have to kind of be specific to your states. But you do. You find it, you then go get approved. Sometimes they'll approve you based on the rules, how they are, and sometimes they try to delay it because they don't want it. I've had one that I put up not too long ago that I put it up. I actually got the boards up immediately after they annexed into a certain piece of property into a different city. And then they said no more billboards could ever be done and they outlawed it, but I was grandfathered in, so it was one of those place. So there's different ways to do it, but once you have it in, most of the time they will grandfather it in. Or if you acquire one that's been permitted or not, you can do that. But you do have to have permits. And those are again, at the city level, state level, county level, federal level, and sometimes you have to have all the above to actually get. So it's not an easy game to go into right away, but once you know, it's not too bad.

[Nick Loper]

Sure. And the more hoops that you have to jump through, the more people who drop out along the way. It's ads that's worth the headache.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah. Once you figure this out, though, it's not that bad. So, yeah, there's not a lot of competition for it. That's why you don't hear everybody out there talking about billboards. And so this is one of those that I've decided the play that I've had, the way I've built wealth, the way I've built passive income, is through billboards.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. We're 600 plus episodes deep into this show and it's the first time it's ever come up in 11 years. Like. Yeah. And that's why it stood out.

[Chris Brown]

I love it.

[Nick Loper]

It's super interesting. And ever since we had our initial conversation, I'm starting to notice these things every time I drive by, like, oh, I wonder who owns that thing? Or I wonder how that works. So that was the first deal. 75,000 acquisition costs break even after three years. No tenants. I mean, you got advertisers, but they stick around for a long time. Potential no toilets that are breaking.

[Chris Brown]

That's the great thing.

[Nick Loper]

Assignment. Relatively low maintenance type of thing.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah. I don't have to deal with the laws of evictions. I don't do anything like that because it is a commercial thing. If they don't pay, I can obviously work with them because these are a lot of my partnerships and clients that I work with. But I take down the billboard, I take down the advertisement, and then I go get another one. Right. There's no going through eviction process or anything like that and literally change it. Take them down and move on. So I love that they don't have to deal with the tenants and the toilets and they don't have to deal with the evictions and the laws around those.

[Nick Loper]

More with Chris in just a moment.

Including his experience in putting up a couple of his own signs and how.

They can be worth 10 times their annual earnings if you ever want to.

Sell right after this.

When I started the side hustle show, I had no idea what I was.

Doing, but I did have a lot of what ifs?

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All right, walk me through another couple acquisitions here or the next few faces that you added to the inventory.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, so I found another location on a city. So one of the things about billboard sometimes everybody thinks it's gotta be on the busiest intersection, on the busiest highway and the busiest the town.

[Nick Loper]

But.

[Chris Brown]

But remember, this is a supply and demand driven game. So a high quality location could be right outside the city or coming right into the city or on an alternate highway from the main highway or thoroughfare. I Get just as much rent off of a sub highway. So we have a secondary highway that I would. If I have it on the main highway because there's no other billboards around it. So I have. My second acquisition was on a north south highway that basically paralleled our main highway in our city, Just a mile or two away actually. But because I put these up and there were no other. Literally the only billboards on that whole highway for about 30 miles were mine. I'm the only one that has billboards, so I'm the one that controls those. There's not very many and there's no more going up. What that allows me to do is put the rents at whatever I want because that's what then I can determine market rate for those versus so sometimes the location makes a difference. So I found a piece of land. I actually acquired the land because I'm also again in the land owning business. So I love that. So I can duplicate or use it for dual use. One of the pieces I acquired recently was a commercial piece of property that put two billboards on. So it's the same as that one sign I was talking to that had double stacked, which is one on top of the other, front and back. I had two of those. So that gave me eight billboards in one location that were on each end of the property. It's about 3 acre track of property. That's commercial location on the highway. Put those up, did that from new construction. So we cleared it. Lots of concrete. Hundreds of yards of concrete down 20 to 30ft up and still piping.

[Nick Loper]

So just to withstand wind forces and everything Forces, yes.

[Chris Brown]

All that stuff that would do that. And then just the weight of being able to hold the sign upright if something hit it or anything.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Chris Brown]

And so got those new construction up, which you have to go through engineering, you have to go through design. But again, once you have somebody that can help you do that or hold your hand and show you that it's a lot easier. It's not too hard once you do it once. A lot of times the fabricators are the ones that actually can help you get this.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. And this is a much more serious investment. This is hundreds of thousands of dollars to put in these two new things.

[Chris Brown]

These two actually were around $200,000 for the two infrastructures plus the land cost. So I mean I really only had about 300 into the whole land and two structures which gave me eight, but they immediately all rented for over a thousand dollars a month. So we're talking $8,000 of income. Coming in off of a $300,000 piece of property.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Chris Brown]

And that math works pretty well all day long.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. So now you're close to that 3 year break even window again just on raw ROI.

[Chris Brown]

It really works well. That's what I love about this game is you can get into it again for. And I still have the land that I can use because I just took up the land on the ground. I'm using about 6 square feet on the ground for the pipe and then above it, and then I could still build duplexes, multifamily townhomes or a commercial building. On this prop half, I still have 2 acres that aren't encumbered by the billboards.

[Nick Loper]

Gotcha. Have you ever gone down the route? I'm picturing where we used to live in California, right off of Highway 580, like the main thoroughfare from the central valley into the San Francisco Bay area. And a couple billboards just look like these farmers. It's like cow pasture. And they kind of just plant them at the very edge of their property. And. And I don't know if maybe they own and operate it or they have subbed that out to some billboard company, some billboard owner like that, where it's like, no, no, no, I don't want to buy your whole farm. I don't need that responsibility. I don't need that expense. But I would like to. Could I sublease this little tiny segment of it? How does that part work? Have you ever gone down that path?

[Chris Brown]

Oh, absolutely. So you can own your land outright or you can lease. And so I do have leases on property. So on the way to our airport here locally, we have a highway that's a one way in, one way out to the airport for about half our area. I have two billboards on that highway as people go in and out. I actually just leased that because it didn't make sense to buy that one at the time. So I leased that from him for an amount that would be determined based on what that individual billboard would generate. Normally, it's around 10 to 20% of the revenue that you think that sign will generate on a yearly basis that you pay them.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. So rather than a fixed cost, it's kind of almost on a performance basis. I'll give you a cut of what I'm making from the sign and you.

[Chris Brown]

Do it either way. I think some of this is just whatever. Everybody's comfortable. Right. You have two parties negotiating and you try to make sure it's fair. I always want to. I live here I work here, I play here. I'm not going anywhere from my local market, so I'm not here to hose anybody. The person, the farmer in the example, I actually call him farmer in our town and I love him. So I like give him Christmas presents. I take care of him. I really like this guy. So I build relationships with some of these people and so I want to make sure I take care of him. So for him this is, he's getting a great amount of money to put, put up a billboard on a piece of his land that he wouldn't have otherwise used and it's a win, win deal.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, that makes sense. And so maybe my journey starts with looking up the local regulations. Like is it even feasible to put in a new thing or do I have to go with the grandfathered in ones that already exist? And how do I go about looking up the landowners, trying to figure out how to acquire those? Because if you're paying retail prices, it sounds like this would be quite expensive because you've had offers to come and buy up your inventory. Yeah.

[Chris Brown]

Yes. So that's the great. Like I mentioned, you have buyers always out there. If you, once you own these assets, the buyers are always out there. So the big, we call the big boys, the Lamars and the out fronts of them, they will come in and make offers and they'll do it anywhere from 7 to 12 times your forward revenue that you're bringing in on those that are that bringing in revenue wise. So they're worth a lot. So if you're going to somebody that knows what they have, they're willing to sell, but they're going to want a little bit of a multiple on that. The great news is cash flows that will make money. If they're underperforming, then great. If you know, you've seen billboards that aren't performing well and somebody's just, just had them or they're going through a bad time right now, maybe one of those great times. There's a lot of commercial property and distress in the markets. So a lot of commercial owners. So if you have somebody that owned a commercial building that may have had billboards on it, maybe they owned independently, this may be a great time to go talk to them because they may be distressed with their actual piece of commercial property needing cash to cover some other maybe an opportunity, if you see one that's not one of the big ones to go in and do that and buy it.

[Nick Loper]

I want to pause on that cash flow plus equity piece because you're saying, okay, well these things sell for a 7-12x multiple and that's not on monthly earnings, that's on annual earnings, right?

[Chris Brown]

That's correct on annual earnings. So yeah. So you're building the business, Right. So this is what's great, you know, if you've read Rich Dad, Poor dad, he says you want to be a business owner or an investor and this gets you into both of those. So you're not just self employed with a job. What I love about it is I have systems in place so I actually don't touch any of my own stuff hardly. I have an accountant doing the bookkeeping, I have an installer doing all the work. I have people taking care of the creative. A print company doing the print or the digital. What then you have is an asset that you can sell that doesn't require me, Chris Brown to be in the picture to be able to sell it. They could replace me really easily with somebody and go in and operate it. So then it sells as a business and the multiple of that business. So that's a great thing that you're building. You have the real estate play if you want it. If you own the real estate, you still own the real estate and you can sell it with or without the real estate that you actually own. You can sell it with just the boards, keep the real estate, you can give yourself a lease back to yourself on that. So there's options with that. Then you can just sell the billboards themselves to one of the bigger companies as they acquire for that up to 10, 12 times revenue as you're looking at it.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I'm still trying to come up with the cohesive side hustle theory around this, but it's this. Yes, I'm working for near term cash flow, but I'm also, I have ownership, I have equity in whatever I'm building such that I have the optionality to exit down the road if I so choose. And in this example, you're sitting on a multi million dollar asset. I don't need to sell it because it's just spinning off passive cash flow every month. It's like this really cool place to be on that front.

[Chris Brown]

It's the same as a commercial building or a multifamily home or even a business. Right. If you own any other business then you have it and you can sell the asset off if you've built it correctly where it doesn't require you to run it.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, let's talk about the finding advertiser side of things. So I've got, now I've got this new three acre property, we've got two new posts going up with eight faces, eight pieces of inventory. There is this just a lot of smiling and dialing trying to find, you know, who wants this inventory. Is it like plastering a big phone number like your ad here, call me kind of thing?

[Chris Brown]

It can be a mixture of both I think it just depends. So the first thing I definitely do is put a number on the signs. Right. It's a 6 foot tall by 10 foot wide phone number that says advertise the or call this number or email whichever one you want to do. Because people will drive by those signs, see them and by default they're going to call or be interested in if they have a business or they want to run it. What's interesting about billboards, and I think I shared this with you on the, on the pre call is a lot of people advertise for their business but a lot of people love to see themselves up on signs so they like to see themselves in advertisements. So they'll want to drive by a place because they drive by it regardless if it was the right thing for them to do necessarily for their business. They love to see themselves up on sign. So they may advertise and be somebody that would call to get that. But that's a great way to do it is to put your number up there. That's the first way I would do it. Second I would look around the local area. What's the next nearest business that makes sense or who do you know? So I would go look at the ones that are around there and start to call or to ask most of the time if you have a great new location. A lot of times those you don't have to make any calls at all, they'll just come to you and you're fielding emails or calls from others as they start to fill up.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Chris Brown]

Now maybe in year 2, 3, 4 as they come open a little bit then you may have to have a little bit more active involvement in that. But people then start to know you. So in my city people know me. I'm the largest independent billboard operator in my metro area here, which now I've kind of started to build that brand of oh, if you want to billboard call Chris. Even if I don't have the right inventory, I can at least help somebody out and send them to the right rep for another company. And so I've been able to do that.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, and is it typically six month term, a 12 month term, as long a term as you can get like what's typical in terms of you're going to advertise, we'll put your ad up here. How long is that going to stay up?

[Chris Brown]

For most billboards that I do, I do 12 month or longer contracts specifically on the static, which is a printed vinyl sheet that goes up and gets stretched across there. And the reason is there's sunk costs into the actual print and the hanging that you want to make sure they have it. Billboards are also one of those long term, always on.

[Nick Loper]

Do you typically bake that in or do you kind of, okay, it's going to be $1,000 a month plus the printing costs or you kind of like eat that and amortize it over the course of the year?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, you can do it either way. So I actually bake it in as a, an added cost and say, hey look, this is your print cost or whatever. Now if it's somebody I've worked with and I need to work on a deal or something like that, then I'll, I'll work with them. But most of the time it's just baked in. Industry standard is they pay for the print, they pay for the install. Maybe you'll cover the graphics design or something like that for them. But most of the time they would do that on the digital. It's a little different, right, because you can just design it. And I literally can take a design right now, type it in my computer and send it to any of my signs and it goes up live in two minutes. So a little less work a little.

[Nick Loper]

Wow, that's cool.

[Chris Brown]

There's benefits and detriments and I like to share people. Everybody's like, which one do you want to have? Personally, I actually like the old fashioned static science the best. No maintenance, always up unless they get knocked down by wind, which doesn't happen because they're made to handle like a hurricane, five strength winds, then they don't come down. The lights may or may not go off. That'll be the only thing that happens. And I go replace a light bulb or have somebody go replace that light bulb. The digital I have to worry about Internet, I have to worry about power, I have to worry about the actual screens going spots or whatever. You see a lot of signs up that have spots out or signs down. And that is part of the game, right? These are just ginormous, you know, 10 by 30 foot or 16 by 40 foot television screens. They will eventually that are sitting out in the rain, in the cold, in the weather. They will go out over time, but they have Great opportunities with them as well. Because you can sell a day to day spot. You can sell our hour spots, you can put something up, take it down, you can barter, you can trade with things for that, you can sell them. Your question originally was the contract length. And I would say that Most contracts are 12 months up to 24 months. Some get shorter in the one to six months, just depending on the location. You know, if you're looking Times Square, those are like hour by hour, minute by minute contracts that they're selling and they have their way to do that. But if you're wanting to do. Wow, yeah, right. They're getting high dollars for high minutes. But the ones on the highway that you see most of the time, you'll see an advertisement up there for about 12 to 24 months.

[Nick Loper]

I always was curious about that because I've had some friends be like, look, I'm up in Times Square, you know, take the picture, grab the screenshot kind of a thing. But it's like it may have only happened for 90 seconds or something, like, who knows? But you could say, hey, I was featured, I was featured in Times Square billboard.

[Chris Brown]

My daughter, I did that for her birthday, right? So we went out and put one up for her birthday on the billboard and she got a picture in front of her with Happy birthday right after new visual and going up. And so that was fun. I did that with my parents. I took them out. I have one out by the lake here locally that everybody goes to to the lake in the summer. And so as we were driving out there and I was like, I slowed down, I was like, hey, look at the sign. And it was them, it was like, love you, mom and dad, just whatever. So they could see it, you know, just fun things that you can do. So there's some abilities to do things that you on the digital that you couldn't do on a static. But personally I like the static ones just as much. Now when you start to look at the difference in the two of why you would own one versus the other, the static normal rotation is you have eight advertisers per side on a digital billboard and you start to look at that math. So one sign on a regular old fashioned versus eight spots on a digital, that gives you a lot more inventory to move through. For just having one sign on one side, one side on the other, you have 16 spots on one side.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's more work to go out and sell that stuff.

[Chris Brown]

Inventory is a big deal when you want to open up because if you can't get a location easy or you're paying higher dollar. You need to have that and so being able to have people, more people, be able to advertise. And again, you don't have to do it. It's constant. It rotates in every seven seconds on average for an advertiser so it comes up every minute on average is what.

[Nick Loper]

They would have More with Chris in just a moment, including how you can.

Get actual traffic stats for your billboard location, what his day to day involvement looks like, and when he felt comfortable retiring from his day job. Right after this.

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Well, how many cars are driving by every day? Like, what kind of traffic stats you got for me? Because I think this is actually kind of cool. Like, okay, on these big road trip thoroughfares on i80 or i35 or something like, bored on your drive, check out the side hustle show, tune in, make some extra money. But does anybody ask how many eyeballs are really seeing this?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah. So you'll get some very sophisticated that want to know how many. So great news is state highways put out a census every year and they're tracking people driving on highways. So they're actually counted multiple locations upon the highway everywhere across the country. So you have at least an accurate within a year or two, how much actual traffic. Now, there's all kinds of different technologies that are out there that like see how many people are in a car, how many people drove by, how many people are paying attention, recall those kind of things.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Chris Brown]

You do have the ability to have analytics as far as how many people are driving by on a daily basis, estimated number of oppressions. Because you start to look at. All right, we have this many cars going this direction, this many cars going this direction. Maybe there's. It's kind of like the newspaper, billboards, radios, they all have this. We expect one and a half persons per car that would drive by versus just a single car, you know, and looking at it like that, to do kind of an algorithm around that.

[Nick Loper]

But that's all like public data.

[Chris Brown]

Well, the piece for sure, on the highway traffic is. And then individual billboard operators would then have their own amount of eyeballs. They would give it to just like a magazine or even a show would say, a podcast may say, I have this many downloads versus this many viewers versus this many followers versus this many. Right. Like they may count minutes versus hours.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. How do you want to measure this?

[Chris Brown]

Normally, whatever makes them sound the best. Right. So that's what I would say that you. It's kind of a. Not universal across everybody, but most people do traffic counts across the country.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. And is the pricing, obviously, the more viewers, the higher price you command what kind of range is typical?

[Chris Brown]

Absolutely. So you start to look at that, and sometimes that is the case. You can have higher impression counts and you would have higher amounts. But if there's 10 other billboards right there, prices come down. It's probably Similar in the media world. Right. You start thinking about podcasts or YouTube ads or other things. When you're starting to run ads, if there's a lot of others in the space, it's not just the amount, it's the quality, it's the type, it's the time. All those different things playing into effect. I have, like I said, billboards that are static on a probably a quarter of some of the other highways that I get almost the same amount or rates for the billboards that I would if I got on a different highway. And the reason is there's no other competition. So they want to be there. They're billboard stands out. So recall is a really important thing. As you're driving down the highway, you want something that's memorable. So if I'm driving down the road and there's a thousand billboards, I may not pay attention to them. They may kind of get white noise to me. But if I'm driving down the road and there's one billboard and I literally, my truck hits it or I have to drive underneath it, I'm going to recall that one a lot more than the one that I just drove past a thousand of them on the highway. So value is determined not just on impressions, but it's on the location, the different things around that specific one.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, Right. And thinking of trying to find the advertisers that are going to stick around long term. They see the long term value of kind of this similar to I imagine radio advertising where it's repetitions and recall like getting in front of people day after day after day. And also probably a direct response. I see a lot of personal injury attorneys like call me, I guess a combination of the two where it's like, I would like to see an ROI based on this. I don't know if I could directly measure it but. But I noticed that the phone rang more than it used to as a basis of having this thing and you want to.

[Chris Brown]

And I tell people that all the time, it's not the only advertisement. Right. They shouldn't do justice for direct response. So if you're trying to do only this and it's the only thing you're going to do today and you're looking for the phone to ring tonight probably isn't the right method for you however you want to be up there. So when they do need it, not everybody needs a H Vac or an air conditioner repair tonight, but they need it at some point. And what you need to be is when they look you up on Google, which is how most people search something, they would say, oh, I saw that. So now I have trust, because I've seen them over and over for years, and now I trust them. And so even though two others came up, I know this name, I trust this name, and I'm there. So they're top of mind. They have the awareness, they have the trust factor. Billboards do a great job of that being always on becoming a trust factor thing. I even have sales teams that use it. If you're on a company that sells to local businesses and they say, hey, I put my business up on there. Not because I want people to, actually, it's so that when my sales team goes out to make sales, people say, oh, yeah, I saw your billboard. I know you're real. You're legit. Because no one's just wasting money on a billboard in a local town if they're not real. Right. Most of the time you see them, you know they're there, they're going to be there for a while. So it brings credibility as well. So it's great as an owner to have those options to different things. So you'll have everything from furniture stores to lawyers to doctors to car dealers to H Vacs to. You name it. You kind of have a little bit of everything.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, that awareness play is really interesting. It reminded me back when I was painting houses in college and we try and blanket the town with the little yard signs.

[Chris Brown]

Yard signs, that's right.

[Nick Loper]

And early on I was like, why isn't the phone ringing? We got 20 of these things placed. But what it was was when we'd go cold, calling door to door, oh, I've seen your signs everywhere. It wasn't, I'm going to take action on this while I'm driving. It's just building that brand awareness and kind of giving the impression that, like, dang, these guys are doing a lot of work around here. Like, what am I missing out on? Almost. The other almost subliminal billboard slash advertising hack was from Brian Scudamore, 1-800-got junk. And purposely, his franchisees purposely go and park the truck at these busy intersections, assuming with the permission of the parking lot owner or whoever's owning that property, they're not paying for the billboard. They're just parking the truck when it's not in use. And you see it over and over again. And every time I see one of his trucks at these busy intersections, I'm.

Like, I know your game.

I know your game. Because he talked about it on the show. I thought it Was really creative.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah. It's a great way to bring awareness. You're right. It's just like the we buy ugly houses signs you see everywhere. Right. Those were really popular for a while.

[Nick Loper]

Yep. Anything on the tools and technology side that help you manage this inventory or manage the team that helps put it all together?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah. So with mine, it's a small team. We use a lot of spreadsheets. So the technology for the signs themselves, depending on the manufacturer you have, have ways to upload and manage your content and how that's going, finding them. Land Glide is a great app. If people don't use that. I use it for real estate purchasing, which basically is all that county data while you're driving on your phone, show you who owns what, where it is, lines, all that kind of stuff. So Lane Glide is a great opportunity for somebody to grab. There is a fee for it, but it's a great app just to have. If you're in the real estate game, most people that are real estate investors probably have that one.

[Nick Loper]

Cool. That one is new to me. I never heard of it. We'll link it up. Land Glide.

[Chris Brown]

Land Glide.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. At this point, you're sitting on this inventory. At what point do you have to get involved? Like, is it when an advertiser turns over? What's a day in the life or a week in the life look like today?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah. So the last couple years, it's been a little boring. I work about five hours a week. Maybe when new customers call in or I know I have some inventory coming up, I may reach out to people because it's long term. You kind of know out in front three to four months out when their contracts are coming due. So you can have those conversations and start to look for somebody that may make sense to fill them. And sometimes you just. If you don't, you leave them, take them down, the sign goes up and you're surprised by who actually calls you and says, I want to be up there. Now, I've been waiting on. On the sign to come open and. Because I have some signs that haven't been open in years. So if you have that, then there's the demand pent up. Somebody's just waiting for someday that sign's going to come down and they get to advertise on it, and so they'll call me.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. Do you keep a wait list in that sense?

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, a wait list for it. So just working with different ones and the locations matter. Like, I have one that's out by the local lake, and so I May call RV dealers or boat dealers, stuff like that. That makes sense seasonally to play out by the lake versus something else in a different location that it wouldn't make as much sense for them to into play. So I think you have to just look at that. So a day in the life I do answer a few phone calls, send a few emails, make sure that pick up checks for the accountant or you have those direct deposited, whichever way. Again, the team is important. I think that I wanted to free up my time to be able to make those decisions to do what I want to do. That's the idea of financial freedom, was to not have to go to work every day and pick it up. So that's what I've been able to do. I've hang out with my family a lot. So I'm able to make all my daughters events. I'm able to hang out with my wife maybe a little too much. She says I'm always home and she's always home. So she's like, all right, you need to get out of the house, but.

[Nick Loper]

Let'S go find another hobby.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, exactly, right.

[Nick Loper]

Was there a monthly income target where you felt comfortable saying I'm going to do this, I'm going to pull the trigger on this early retirement thing.

[Chris Brown]

So when you start looking at wealth and how you define that, I think it's one of those definitions of financial freedom is you have your expenses and you have your income and once you cover that, then you're technically out of the rat race. Now I'm a very, very conservative person. That's why I buy a lot of things with cat do that. But I'm one of those that want to make sure I have at least double of my expenses coming in or triple my expenses come in before I would have stepped away. I'm not one of those that just say I get right even with it and I'm out or one month. So I've had these billboards now. I started in 2011 and started growing it since then and been able to do that. So this has been years in the making. But as I slowly grow, continue to build. You just kind of look at that expense number which seems to grow. I don't know how that happens, but when you have a family, your expenses seem to grow every year along with it. But that's what it kind of looked like. So as long as I could get and cover those by multiples, then I felt good to step out and away from the rat race and be able to escape.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I have a little Bit of a buffer on the cash flow side. I'm the same way we talk to other people. Like, I made my first 50 bucks, so I quit my job. Whoa, whoa, whoa. How are you going to turn that into 5,000 or 15,000?

[Chris Brown]

And it's actually one of those interesting mindsets. So as a builder and somebody that's had this mindset of saving, investing and building, leaving. So I did all this while I had a corporate W2 job. So I had several jobs in the past. And so as I was building these and then when I finally stopped, it's kind of that weird dilemma. Like now I'm using some of this and that feels weird. I'm not just accumulating and investing and reinvesting and to live off of. It's a little bit weird for me. But I think it's important to be able to just step back and say, look, we're good for here on out. I mean, worst case, I sell the billboards and cash out. Best case, I continue to hold onto them and they continue to grow in value and we live off of them for a longer and I continue to build new ones. So I'm actually looking this year to add several more to my portfolio and hopefully we'll. And my goals is to double the number of boards I have in two years. So as I start to grow and continue, because there's a point where it's like, how much is enough? And then how much do you want to keep going? And so this is just a game. It's pretty fun though.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, that was the next question. Where do you want to take this? You want to add more inventory, you want to sell the thing. But it sounds like you got your answer. You want to double the number of faces.

[Chris Brown]

So what I actually really want to focus on is teaching others. So I want to help others build wealth, get out of the rat race and achieve that financial freedom. So this is where I'm going to go next is actually teaching a course on building your billboard. So it's called the Billboard Academy. It's going to come the next couple months. If somebody wanted to learn a little bit more about that, they could check it out on wantmore.org you could get a download free guide to creating passive income via billboards to see if it's something you'd like to look into. It gives you kind of the starting point for that. So that's what I'm doing on the next phase. So I'm looking forward to going and teaching others what I've learned, put into Practice. So this isn't one of those. I'm just saying you should go do this. Right. It's everybody's doing. I actually have done this for years. Not one year, not just during an upcycle through the last 15 years as I've built this out and continue to grow it. And it's a very trusted source of income that most people would recognize as a good investment, not just a fly by the night that may be done tomorrow or not. These are quite tested over about a hundred years, right? Or more.

[Nick Loper]

That's right. Wantmore.org, the Billboard Academy coming soon. Go check that out. I wanted to ask what's surprised you the most over the last 13, 14 years of doing this or any mistakes that you wish you could do over?

[Chris Brown]

It's more about the time of learning the years that you're in the game to get you better versus a get rich quick thing. And I think that surprised me. How many people want to play the get rich game versus want to play the get wealthy over time game. Both work, but I think it's one of those I can play the sure game over time. If you just started buying a property, a billboard, a business, whatever it may be, creating that income, starting to save it. Like you're saying, not when you make your 50 bucks, you're out and you jump out and you say, oh, look, I'm rich, I'm out of this game. But to continue to do it consistently. I think that surprised me that more people aren't doing that.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's something about stacking up this incremental cash flow, doing it year after year, and before you know it, you're living very comfortably. Plus you have this whole asset that you can go and exit for a big lump sum if you ever want to get there. I remember I asked Miles Bechler, we're talking about online business versus local business, like sweaty startup style things. And I was like, hey, Miles, any shortcuts to get started? And before I could even finish, he's like, shortcuts lead to long delays, my friend. To your point about getting rich quick, it's like if instead of trying to get rich quick, you took this slower, more methodical path, you'd find out that you did it pretty quick on a big time horizon. I mean, you're still a young person. I think you got a lot of years ahead of you.

[Chris Brown]

People realize that they have the ability to build that wealth over time. And it doesn't take a lot, it just takes the consistency over it.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, 10 years seems like, a long time. But in the grand scheme of things, you're going to have a lot more life ahead of it.

[Chris Brown]

It's going to come whether you like it or not, right?

[Nick Loper]

Very good.

Wantmore.org, you can find Chris over there. You can find signs of good on Facebook. We didn't talk about that, but there's a nonprofit or charity component to this business where from every dollar, every ad that gets sold, there's a charity component to that. Signs of good. You can find it over on Facebook. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.

[Chris Brown]

It's more about who we were coming versus just what we have. And it reminds me. So I was in the my barn the other day, so I have a CrossFit gym in the barn, and I was in there working out, and there's two garage doors. And this little hummingbird flies in, and he's flying across the rafters. He got himself stuck up in the top. He's going back and forth and back and forth, and he's just wearing himself out. He comes down, goes right back up there. He goes back and forth. So I finally get a feeder out and start lowering him down slowly, little bit by little bit. As I watch him wear himself out and come down, I start to think to myself, he finally got out. He finally was able to get him lower enough that he could actually escape the barn. But how many times is that us where we're not looking, we're just flying harder and harder and harder. We're trying harder to get out of the rat race, to make the extra thing, to have the extra business. But what we really need sometimes is to take a minute or even have somebody that can have that outside perspective. So who do you have that's outside perspective? Do you have a coach, a guide, someone that's showing you that like I did for that hummingbird. By stepping him down step by step using that hummingbird feeder, he was able to finally get free. I didn't have to touch him. I didn't have to do anything. But he just needed somebody to point him in the right direction to let him reach that freedom. Find a mentor, find a guide if you don't have that, so that you can see the next best steps that you need to take and how to do that. And that's one thing that's helped me the most, is to be the guide that helps others become a free hummingbird, that they're able to go get out of the rat race, get free financially, and Live that life that they were desiring to live.

[Nick Loper]

I think that's a really powerful metaphor. Anything about like the fly slamming against the window, trying to get out, you know, just like, dude, the door's open. Go two feet that way.

[Chris Brown]

That's right.

[Nick Loper]

But I feel like you very rarely take the pause to do this in our personal life. I'm doing the same thing, expecting different results.

[Chris Brown]

That's insane.

[Nick Loper]

I'm wondering why it's not working. Yeah, so I think that's a really.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, it was a really interesting metaphor. Watching him do that. It was a lot longer of a process than I wanted to invest in that little bird's life. But as an hour went by, I slowly worked him down. It was fun to watch because at the end I just sit there and I was like, how many times has that been me? Like, I'm just trying so hard. And then somebody else, though there could have showed me a step faster, a different way to approach it, and I could have easily escaped. But I just kept going harder and harder and fighting the system or whatever it may be. So it's not always about that.

[Nick Loper]

Well, perhaps billboards will be that escape path for you or any of the other side hustles that We've covered on 11 plus years on the podcast here. A couple notes before we wrap up for me is like looking at it as an alternative investment, like a different asset class to park some money into that you have a little bit more hands on control over. Like, oh, I can proactively fill this ad space with advertisers. I can proactively go out and seek better deals rather than the efficiency that's kind of naturally baked into like a S and P ETF or something like that. And I really like the cash flow plus equity piece where it's like, oh, if I have four faces making 2,400 bucks a month, that's cool. But it's also become this asset that could now be worth 7 to 12 times that if I were to go out and sell that. So I think that's really, really powerful. And how it seems like an attainable path to building wealth. It's like you got to have something that you own. You can't just be working for money all the time. So that's what stood out to me. Again, side hustlenation.com billboards is where you find the show notes, links to everything that we mentioned. That's where you'll also find your listener only bonus for this episode. That's my list of 25 unconventional rental ideas things that other people are renting out for a profit. You can download that for free again, side hustlenation.com billboards or just follow the show notes link in the episode description and you get right over there.

Big thanks to Chris for sharing his insight.

Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. As always, you can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thanks for supporting the advertisers that support the show. We had a whole show about advertising. You know, you got to support the ads. That's what makes the whole thing tick. That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. So fire off that text message. Hey, not going to lie, I kind of want to buy a billboard after listening to this. So until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on the.