WATERTOWN — Runningboards Marketing is a young Watertown–based marketing firm that offers clients the chance to advertise on a digital screen on the sides of its trucks. The message could be an advertisement for a commercial product or service, a political ad, or a Happy Birthday message, the company says. Richard (Calvin) McNeely, III, president […]
WATERTOWN — Runningboards Marketing is a young Watertown–based marketing firm that offers clients the chance to advertise on a digital screen on the sides of its trucks.
The message could be an advertisement for a commercial product or service, a political ad, or a Happy Birthday message, the company says.
Richard (Calvin) McNeely, III, president and majority owner of Runningboards Marketing, which was launched in early 2018, says it didn’t take long to figure out that the new company had franchise potential. The firm is now selling franchises and seeking buyers.
Runningboards Marketing is headquartered at 19138 U.S. Route 11 in Watertown, but has its eye on adding a Syracuse location.
“We do plan on having a local address in Syracuse in the near future,” says McNeely, noting that the company already has a truck operating in Syracuse. He spoke with CNYBJ on July 16.
Runningboards Marketing currently has 15 employees. McNeely says he hopes to hire another six people before the end of 2019. He declined to disclose any revenue information for his company.
Company origin
McNeely retired in September 2016 from Hi-Lite Airfield Services, LLC in Adams Center — a company he had founded.
More than a year later, McNeely was surfing the internet in November 2017 working to promote another business in which he was an investor. And he noticed a truck that really caught his eye.
“I had never seen one of these trucks before, and I knew right then and there I had to do it,” he says.
That truck was similar to the type that Runningboards Marketing now uses.
McNeely, who is 58, also knew that he wanted Zachariah (Zach) Yelle, who is 23, to serve as his partner in the business venture and be the firm’s VP.
McNeely knew Yelle from church, where the young man was responsible for sound and lights. Yelle had also handled some video work for McNeely along the St. Lawrence River.
He described Yelle as a “whiz” at technology who has a background in marketing, social media, videography, and graphic design.
“He’s got the skill set I lacked to make this a perfect business,” McNeely notes.
In early 2018, as the pair decided to move forward with their business idea, they had a company in the Midwest custom build a truck for Runningboards Marketing.
The firm now refers to the truck as a digital advertising vehicle, or DAV (pronounced Dave) for short.
The DAV was built on a Ford Transit chassis with three independent high-resolution LED screens, per the firm’s website. McNeely and Yelle picked up the truck in late April 2018. They drove it back to Watertown and eventually started showing it to local businesses.
“And when we showed the truck, we put an image up on the truck of the people we’re visiting before we visit them,” says McNeely.
They’d pull a logo, a picture, or another visual off a company’s website and put it on the truck. Their effort started attracting clients for subscription advertising, including a car dealership, a bank, an insurance company, and a realtor. The company’s website lists clients that include Jefferson Community College and Watertown Savings Bank.
“It was probably about two months into it [June 2018] when we realized we had something special,” McNeely noted. “We might have something to franchise here.”
Franchising
McNeely then spoke to a friend in North Carolina, who retired to become an independent franchise consultant. After some research, McNeely’s contact told him he couldn’t find any similar company operating among 4,000 franchises operating in the U.S.
“So, he introduced me to the franchise world … consultants, attorneys, brokers,” McNeely recalls.
McNeely and Yelle then started researching how they would build their own trucks. They also knew they’d need computer software and pursued those options as well.
As of this past April, Runningboards Marketing is approved to sell franchises in 35 states and Washington, D.C.
The firm has DAVs in Watertown, Syracuse, and Nashville, Tennessee, but has yet to sell any franchises, according to McNeely, but the company is in conversations with about 20 prospects.
Runningboards’ website includes its requirements for purchasing a franchise, including startup costs between $70,500 and $255,000; net-worth requirements of $50,000 in liquid capital and a net worth of $150,000; and a royalty of the greater of 6 percent of gross revenue per month or $500 per month.
Knowing that they may have to host potential franchisees at some point, the business partners then pursued a place to operate and were able to secure a 10,000-square-foot facility in Watertown that had once functioned as a car dealership. They moved in last December.
Jamestown Community College connected Runningboards Marketing with Keyes Information Technology in Watertown for software development, which the company calls RBM Velocity. It keeps track of client times and schedules, when the ads play, and generates reports for the clients as well.