Free Call Me Ted by Ted Turner, Bill Burke

mistake.
    Even worse, once we got to Macon, I really threw myself into my work. My father had purchased Jones Poster Service earlier that year and their previous owner—Johnny Jones—stayed around for a while to help me out with the transition. He was beloved by everyone in town but he wasn’t the greatest businessman. An elder in the Presbyterian Church, he was a fine, principled man, the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. Unfortunately, his spirit of generosity often caused his business to suffer. When he sold us the company he was beginning a battle with cancer and wanted to get his affairs in order. He had no children to whom he might pass along the business, and was happy to sell to my father, who by now had earned a solid reputation across the industry.
    At the time of our acquisition, Jones was a small company, with about two hundred billboards and revenues of just $55,000 per year. They operated twenty-four-sheet posters—those smaller billboards you used to see with aluminum trim around them—and his people had not put much effort toward maintenance, leaving many signs tattered and some even in danger of falling down. I inherited a lean staff, just six and a half employees including me. We had two bill posters and a three-man construction crew. The “half” was a secretary who worked mornings only (an answering service covered calls in the afternoon). The office itself was run-down and tiny, out on the edge of town near the railroad tracks. My secretary and I shared a one-room office and we had a cramped little garage at the back where they kept the paste cooker for the billboards and stored all the rolls of paper.
    Despite the company’s poor condition and my relative youth—I was still just twenty-one years old when I took over—I felt like I was in my element and knew exactly what needed to be done. To grow we had to add locations and raise advertising rates across all of our signs. I handled all the leasing and advertising sales. I staked out locations for new signs and went out with the crews to show them exactly how and where I wanted them built. I’d personally go down to City Hall to learn about local zoning rules and to apply for the permits required for new billboard sites. Having trained so many summers with some of the best in the business—including my dad—it all came to me naturally.
    I was active in the Macon community, becoming the youngest member of the local Rotary Club, and joining the board of the Macon Red Cross chapter and the United Way’s publicity committee. Every year we’d donate signs to advertise events like the annual flower show or other charities that could use the space to their advantage. Not only did I enjoy the community involvement, it helped smooth the way for the growth of our business.
    My father came to visit and he was happy with everything he saw. He was an active Rotarian and it pleased him when I brought him to a Macon meeting and several of the older members of the club made a point to let him know how much they thought of me and what good things I was doing in the community. I drove him around and showed him all our new signs and he was impressed by the locations I’d managed to secure and excited to see the improvements that had been made in organizing and managing the small staff. He was really high on the whole operation and when I drove him back to the airport, he said, “Son, you’re starting out where most men finish,” meaning that here I was twenty-one years old and running a business. A few days after he left I got a letter from him telling me what a great job I was doing and how proud he was of me. My father was usually very sparing with his praise, and nothing he ever did before or after that day ever made me feel so good.
    Within my first two years in Macon we increased our number of billboards by 50 percent and doubled our revenue to $110,000 per year. Not only did I feel like I was becoming a strong leader of this