Mark Harvey, the owner-founder of National Media, of Australia, is a serial trade show entrepreneur who has built and sold events in seven deals including: Online Retailer, ORIA’s and IMEX (sold to RX), Naturally Good, Total Facilities (Diversified Communications), Accountech, Accounting Business (Terrapinn), Cake Bake & Sweets (GL Exhibitions), and Brisbane Travel Show (News Corp).
The 30-year-old company – based on Australia’s Gold Coast in Queensland – had started as a B2B publisher before moving into exhibitions. It has A$13mn revenue and $3.5mn EBITDA. Its three largest events are: NoVacancy Expo (claimed to be the largest event in the southern hemisphere for the accomodation sector); Design Show Australia; and AusFitness Expo, a business-consumer hybrid. National Media last month acquired the Workplace Health and Safety Shows (in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane) from the privately-owned International Exhibition & Conference Group.
Mark Harvey left school in Townsville, Queensland at age 14.
What were your earliest career ambitions?
I didn’t really have clear career ambitions as a youngster. I struggled with school, often finding myself at odds with teachers and spending excessive time in the principal’s office. By the age of 14, I decided my time would be better invested elsewhere, leading me to leave school and take on a series of jobs. During my early teens, I had various low-skilled jobs before landing a role in sales. Despite lacking traditional career aspirations and uncertainty about my future path, I’ve always been curious and harboured a natural ambition. I knew, ultimately, I would land on my feet and make something of myself.
What was your first job?
I worked back-of-house for a well-known fast food restaurant. It was a crappy job and I wasn’t that engaged with it but I needed money. Other than knowing this was not what I wanted to do, what I quickly discovered was that working at the lowest level can teach you the impact each employee has on a company’s success or failure.
It wasn’t until I got a job selling door-to-door that I realised sales was what I wanted to pursue. I worked for a home improvement company selling cladding. It was commission-only. If you didn’t sell anything, you didn’t make any money. Fortunately, I was good at it and earned a good living. For most people, a job in direct sales is a nightmare. But I loved it. I did this job for a couple of years. I had a great mentor who taught me a lot about the fundamentals of selling – gaining trust, building relationships, persistence and perseverance, and that attitude sells.
How did you get into media and events?
After several years of extensive travel with the door-to-door sales gig, I decided to try my hand at some other roles, which eventually landed me at a small independent weekly newspaper. I sold classified and display advertising. But, as a small independent, everyone chipped in to get the paper out on time. During my time here, I got to spend time with some great people who taught me the inner workings of a publishing business.
How did you become an entrepreneur?
It was mid-1980’s and I decided it was time to do my own thing. I started a promotional products business. It failed. I didn’t have a lot of capital to start with and – because I didn’t have experience or relationships in the promotional products industry – I couldn’t get credit. I had to pay up front on all my orders and it took 90-120 days to get the products printed and delivered to the customer. It was a terrible business. All I ended up with was debt and thousands of pens emblazoned with logos.
Needing a way to pay back the debt, I had to find another business idea. This time I needed a product I could sell, get paid first, then deliver the product. I launched a publishing business: a regional telephone directory called Smart Pages. Selling advertising in an annual publication and getting paid before we printed the book was a great model, if you got your margins right. It made money and provided cash flow. But it didn’t shoot the lights out!
Selling to small business owners across all types of industries opened my eyes to how different businesses operated and the daily struggles they faced when it came to getting and keeping customers. Armed with this insight, I created a business newspaper called Ideas in Business, a resource aimed at helping SME owners better manage and grow their business, particulary around advertising, branding, PR, sales and customer service. The directory and newspaper created a valuable and diverse database of business owners that we could monetise. There was no real strategy in the business – other than to make money. We would sell all types of products and services to our customers – from advertising in our directory and newspaper to graphic design and printing services.
It was in 1993 when I got into exhibitions. A customer who became a close friend used to run a trade show. My wife and I were at his house one evening having a BBQ and he was telling me about his event and how good it was. I left intrigued and spent the following week digesting everything I could about the business of exhibitions. Capital light, payments upfront, high margins and recurring revenues! I was hooked and decided this was our going to be my next product launch. I had a great database, lots of connections, and a good understanding of what small business owners valued so we launched the Small Business Expo. We launched in March and ran the first edition in September. It was a great success and a turning point for the business. Once I discovered the world of exhibitions, I sold off the publishing assets and focused on being a pureplay organiser.
I’m most proud of how we have made it all work. We have never borrowed money to start the business. We used deposits from stand sales and advertising revenue to cashflow the company. I’d never worked for another organiser, or even attended an exhibition. The first exhibition I ever attended was ours! The common expression “ignorance is bliss” definitely played a role in getting our first exhibition off the ground. If I had actually known what I was in for, I probably wouldn’t have launched the event at all. We started in debt so, to get the business operating and profitable, was a huge achievement and something I’m extremely proud of.
How would you describe National Media?
The business has evolved considerably from when we started. In the early years, we were a traditional exhibition organiser. We ran lots of different consumer exhibitions and a couple of trade shows including a large regional mining exhibition. We grew the business to 25 exhibitions a year, mostly regional events with a couple of shows in metro markets. In 1999, Reed Exhibitions (now RX) wanted to acquire the mining show. We ended up selling it to them for a price I’ve since realised was a bargain. They would probably have been prepared to pay a lot more.
The preceding years, we shifted our emphasis from consumer exhibitions to concentrate on trade shows, streamlining our portfolio to fewer shows but with greater profitability. In 2008, Brian Thomas, of RX Australia, proposed the notion of us being a hothouse for them. We reached an agreement with a pre-defined purchase price structure that factored in retention, margin, and growth. The option to acquire and the payment was contingent on the show’s performance. If a show didn’t perform, they could walk. We agreed terms and launched Online Retailer, an e-commerce exhibition and conference. RX acquired the show on the anniversary of the third edition. The entire process unfolded seamlessly and was a great success.
Many of the major exhibition organisers in Australia established their presence during the 1980s and 1990s, primarily through acquisitions. As a consequence, quality trade show assets and organisers have become scarce in Australia, because the majority have already been acquired. That became evident to me when, on the final day of Online Retailer, I was approached by another event organiser expressing interest in acquiring the show. Shortly after the sale announcement to RX, I found myself being courted by several more organisers actively seeking acquisitions.
The deal we struck with RX was the catalyst to shift the business to a “launch-to-sell” model. Since then, we have also successfully developed and sold trade shows to other leading industry players including: Diversified Communications, Terrapinn, GL Exhibitions. We’ve had seven exits in total.
At the outset of the pandemic, we decided to shift from our “launch-to-sell” model to a hold-and-grow strategy. Initially, I thought the M&A market wouldn’t rebound so swiftly and, if it did, the deal prices would be depressed. I didn’t want to participate in that market. Boy, was I wrong!
Today, my business is in growth phase through a combination of organic expansion, launches, and acquisitions. We’ve gone from being a seller to a buyer. I thought the prolonged shutdown of our industry during Covid might yield opportunities to acquire distressed assets, but very few actually materialised. Nevertheless, we did acquire a furniture and lighting fair, launched a show into a new sector after another organiser chose to discontinue their event. And we have just completed acquisition of the Workplace Health and Safety Shows, in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
What have been your most successful events?
They have all been successful: we would not have been able to sell them if they weren’t. I would have to say Online Retailer and Naturally Good Expo, a trade show for the natural, organic and healthy products industry, have been my favourite shows. Both events served incredibly passionate communities which cared about the shows and their industries.
There haven’t been too many failures in terms of trade shows thankfully. There have certainly been occasions where we have missread the market and not delivered a big enough crowd to satisfy exhibitors. I’m sure there are plenty of organisers who have experienced this. But there’s no real horror stories!
The launch model we’ve developed helps us identify very quickly if a show is going to fly or not. “Fail fast”, is a common phrase you’ll hear at National Media. When you’ve launched as many shows as we have, you get very good at spotting red flags early. Because of our process, the potential failures don’t get to market publicly. Most of the launch is done under the radar. We don’t do PR or any form of mass marketing, we don’t spend large sums on fancy websites or marketing materials. We put all our efforts into conversations with the market, hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and meetings, starting with would-be visitors. We never start with exhibitors. Understanding the buyers and what problem you can solve for them, and getting them engaged and excited about the prospect of a new show is where it all starts.
What are the imperatives for a successful trade show?
There are numerous considerations, but these would be my essentials:
Market Dynamics: Serve a market or industry that’s sufficiently sizable and expanding, or is undergoing major change (continuous innovation, technological advancements, evolving trends, etc) or has a constant surge of new products and players coming to market.
Exhibitors: You need an exhibitor universe that is both diverse and substantial enough to sustain long-term growth. If there’s only a few hundred suppliers in the industry and your show has, say, 70% exhibitor retention, it won’t be long before you run out of runway. The average deal size for exhibitors is also something we always look at. A higher average deal size (or lead value) for exhibitors makes it easier to get exhibitor buy-in. When exhibitors offer higher-value products or services, or when each interaction can potentially lead to substantial contracts or long-term customers, their ROI is considerably more favourable, making the show more attractive to them.
Visitors: Attracting an enthusiastic and engaged audience who are interested in learning, networking, but most importantly, exploring products and solutions and interacting with exhibitors. This is a critical factor for a successful trade show. There are so many events now that attract audiences by prioritising content over exhibitors. Successful shows deliver actual buyers who have a propensity to do business with your exhibitors.
Demonstrable ROI: It’s essential that both exhibitors and attendees can point to a tangible ROI from their participation in the show. This might include lead generation, sales, partnerships, brand exposure, knowledge acquisition, or new valuable contacts. If they don’t realise these benefits, the likelihood of their return in subsequent years diminishes significantly.
Education and Networking: Great shows extend beyond aisles of booths. They function as educational hubs, delivering high-quality content for continuous learning, knowledge exchange and access to industry expertise and valuable business connections.
Show Team: Your team, particularly the sales and marketing people, should be deeply immersed in the industry their show serves.
What companies do you most admire?
The companies I admire the most are those that are the disrupters like Apple, Amazon, and Tesla. Within the exhibition industry, I’ve always been impressed by CloserStill’s growth and their ability to scale events into other regions.
What are the best lessons you have learned?
- Be flexible in your thinking, be prepared to change your mind and embrace new perspectives. I wish I’d learned this when I was much younger
- Persistence and perseverance are the biggest determinants of success
- Always think big and challenge the status quo
- You only get to move forward in life; there’s no rewind button.
