EP130: EXCLUSIVE! Hugh Jones, RX CEO- "Managing Gas Stations, Leadership, Trump & Navigating the Future of Trade Shows"

Speaker A: Hello and, um, welcome to another episode of the Dan Assor show. Inspiring and insightful conversations with event professionals. Be notified first about new episodes by hitting the follow button. And please Visit the show's YouTube channel, where you can watch episodes of the show and enjoy bonus content. Hello and welcome to Hugh Jones. How you doing today?

Speaker B: I'm doing really well, thank you very much. A lovely day here in London, believe it or not.

Speaker A: So you've got this map behind you, Hugh, for those that, uh, are watching on video. Is that a map of where all your offices and shows are in the world?

Speaker B: It's a map of the world in which I have offices and shows, let's put it that way. But it's quite useful. Ah. When I'm trying to figure out the distances between something and I can say, I think I can probably make that. I think I can get there. It's not that far.

Speaker A: I thought it was like a general having a look at what. What could be conquered next, maybe, but.

Speaker B: Oh, um, no, no, no, we don't. We don't conquer. We're invited.

Speaker A: No. Um, so, Hugh, thank you so much for giving up your time. We appreciate you busy. We're going to talk about everything to do with the trade show and exhibition industry and RX and your role as president of ufi, but I just want to roll all the way back, if you can indulge us for a couple of minutes, Hugh. And I'm always interested to know and intrigued about the background of the guests and the leaders that sit in front of me. And really my first question is, how does your upbringing and early years shape the person that you are today, do you think?

Speaker B: Uh. Oh, you know, interesting. That's a really interesting question because actually there is some topicality there that makes a lot of sense. So I was sort of classically trained in a liberal arts program at a fine university in the United States, and. And I majored in economics with a. With a, uh, concentration in mathematics and things like that. And most people who have that background, typically at that time, which was in the very early 90s, 91 would go to Wall Street. Yeah. But I didn't. I remember a conversation, my grandfather at the time, and he said, you know, really, maybe your 20s are better spent learning how to be a better business person and go for the role that has the most responsibility rather than the role that pays the most money. And I did that. And I actually went and did something really crazy. I went and I ran gas stations for what was then BP oil, British Petroleum Oil is what was known then and downstream, gas stations and convenience stores. And I gotta tell you, it was one of the best jobs of my entire life. I always look back at it with, with a lot of fondness. Those days were difficult. All those stores, I guess, you know, I had a bunch to, to manage and run and grow and all and hire and fire and all that. But they're all open 24 hours, seven days a week. And you know, if you think about it just for a second, you know, you've got all sorts of stuff, crazy boogie, boogie that goes on at a convenience store and a gas station if it's open 24 hours, seven days a week. And so you're always on. Uh, and what I love about that was it really helped me understand that anybody can. It's easier to manage somebody making a whole bunch of money that looks and feels a little bit like you and you kind of know how to interact with them more and stuff like that. I'll tell you something though. Early in your career, if you know how to manage a person who's making minimum wage in Fosseth, kind of Georgia, you know, at third shift, if you learn those sorts of techniques, you're a better executive later on. The other thing is, if there's a problem, you have to solve the problem now, not tomorrow. Right now. These things happen in real time. And that particular last element really helps me in the show business if a union walks off the site or a, uh, fire department comes and says your aisles aren't wide enough, you can't call home, you can't have a meeting on it in two weeks, you got to make a call now.

Speaker A: Sure. So you've been able to draw on those experiences.

Speaker B: And it's, it's, it's absolutely. And you know, there's power, wash claims, water and the gas robberies, theft, ah, pricing the gas, all sorts of great groovy stuff. Um, so I did follow my grandfather's advice and I did, I did do that. And, and then of course I had other jobs at, at that point, BP Oil. And then, and then I went to graduate school and, and then things became a bit, you know, I went to New York City and did other things.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: I ended up running, I ended up running a bunch of, um, software and data companies after that run.

Speaker A: Sure, sure.

Speaker B: Long way from. A long way from downstream convenience stores. But I, I really cherish those times now.

Speaker A: Thank you. It's always good to get an insight into the background. I'm sure we can probably do a whole podcast on all your experiences. Of what you saw at gas stations in the year.

Speaker B: They're fabulous places if you know what to look for. Yeah. Trust me.

Speaker A: So thank you for that. If I'm not mistaken, Hugh, it's almost five years to the day that you were appointed as, uh, CEO of RX. I think it was February 2020, was that right?

Speaker B: That's correct.

Speaker A: So. And it was just before the pandemic struck, and I don't want to dwell too much on, on that time, so I'm sure we, we've sort of done those conversations, uh, to death. But I'm interested just to, to just touch upon it for a moment because, you know, you came in, I'm sure you have, you had all these best laid plans, you've probably been preparing for it for a good few months. And then obviously the pandemic struck. Just give us a sense of, you know, how you had to adapt your mindset to sort of navigate a completely new challenge that no one had experienced before.

Speaker B: Well, the first thing, it was not expected, of course, but, you know, it is. We are a division of a much larger entity. So it was. Although we were going to take what was going to be a very significant hit to revenue, etcetera, the most important thing we did was make sure that, uh, the health and safety of our suppliers, exhibitors, visitors, and our employees was tantamount to success. So the first thing was not about the money. It was about making sure that we didn't know what this virus was, making sure that everyone was as safe as they could be. Uh, that came first. Uh, and then after that, many of the changes that we made in Covid, they were going to happen anyway. Uh, you know, but Covid probably did make them a bit faster. But it is pretty clear that the way IREX had been built was not the way we wanted to position it going forward in the future. And that's likely one of the reasons I was brought in. So while we were transforming the company during the COVID years, one thing to keep in mind, it's kind of a nice little parable to keep in mind. You want to keep, you want to stay in the minds of your, of your clients and your customers and your visitors. You want to stay, you want, want share of mind. And if you're not running shows, how do you have share of mind? Well, think of it. If you have a, uh, Michelin star restaurant, very fancy restaurant, everyone loves your restaurant, and then there's a fire in the kitchen and you got to close for a few months to build it, to repair you could just simply exit the market and do that and have everyone remember what it was like to go to your fancy restaurant. Or you could have a little pop up across the street and serve two menu items, just two, just so that you kind of keep a touch and keep connecting with your customers. And that's what we did. You know, obviously we couldn't run big shows, but we could do smaller things. We could do digital elements, we could, we could have different communities brought online. We tried to do anything we could. Not for the money but uh, for the connection for that. To try to win and keep share of mind that this company had built over decades like that. That was kind of important to keep in mind. So we did pivot quite quickly away from show, to show face to face elements into the digital world obviously. And we were, we were really good at that. But, but you know that we uh, knew that, that we had to, we had to stay relevant.

Speaker A: And what about yourself personally, Hugh? Is there anything that uh, you learned about yourself during that period that perhaps you weren't aware of before? You know, it changed a lot of us and gave a lot of us a lot of skills and also lot of self reflection. Was there anything that you look back and think, you know, this, this allowed me to do this and this is how I've sort of presented myself.

Speaker B: Well, I think that it, it did crystallize something for me. I, I think the, in those days you have to make some very quick decisions without all the data.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And some of those decisions you make, whether it's the termination of good employees. We terminated well over a thousand employees and there were some good ones in there. I mean I like to say they were all great, but we had no revenue. So there's some really difficult decisions. And we, we closed over 130 shows. So you really weren't economically viable. So when you're in that type of situation you will make mistakes. You will. And when you make mistakes, I think I learned the best way around, the best way to go through that is with a sense of humor like you're not going to get it right all the time and be like that was a mistake. Wow, okay, well I won't do that again. I will be a better executive tomorrow for the mistake I made today. And doing it that way is a lot better than the alternative, which is beating yourself up over the mistakes and brooding about it. When you start brooding about it, you lose the element of leadership. You lose you, you. It's better to be honest, vulnerable and say, and transparently we have to make a lot of decisions, and they won't all be correct, but we're going to try to make them correct. And when we don't, we're going to learn from them. And that was, you know, in a crisis like that that went on for so long, you know, there are a lot of great decisions made and there are a lot of heroes that that showed within our organization and around us. But there were some mistakes made, and you got to embrace them. And you say, you know, I'm a better executive today than I was before, and that's okay. Sure, that's what I mean.

Speaker A: And I guess decisions have to be made, right? Full stop.

Speaker B: You know, I mean, I mean, remember, remember in the old days of exhibitions, you couldn't change the current show. You could only change the floor plan, maybe of the next show 18 months from. Like, you could never change the current show. No, no, no. Well, I think the COVID proved you can do a lot, uh, more than change a floor plan. You might change a venue, you might change a country, you might change all sorts of things in three months. And I think that it did kind of shake up the industry and say, no, you can make, you can make changes pretty quickly if you want to.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're going to move on to present day. This is a rather big question. What are the biggest challenges that RX is facing today and how are you working to overcome them?

Speaker B: Okay, well, I think that first of all, post Covid, it used to be if you build it, they will come. Uh, visitors just kind of showed up. You may or may not have charged for them. Most people didn't charge in a B2B event, but they just sort of streamed through the doors. And in those times, uh, there are a lot of reasons why people stream through the doors. One, trade shows are fun, and so it's a perk. And so companies sent a lot of people because it's a perk. It's fun. I get it. But, uh, post Covid, people, uh, are far more judicious in what I'll call business tourism. It doesn't happen as much. You don't send as many people to a trade show. You might send more senior people, you might send people with bigger budgets, but not as many people. So one thing that keeps you up at night is, of course, making sure that we've targeted the right visitor groups that matter and making sure that our marketing to those groups are cutting edge. Now, typically in our industry, not just at rx, I find that that's not a, that's not a muscle that we're really good at. Like a consumer company, a consumer product company. We're good at selling and understanding the needs of exhibitors. But are we as, as good at understanding every visitor segment? No, I don't think so. And so that keeps me up at night. We have to get better at that because visitors are down and we want the right visitors and we want to keep pushing the shows to bring in new visitors and show them the world of which they can find value. So that's one. The other, of course, is we do have some geopolitical elements that are really difficult. You know, I mean even, you know, uh, having to get out of Russia was not helpful. We had a number of great shows with some wonderful executives in Russia. And, and that's not great Chinese. It's a. Although the China GDP is, is growing and still to its advantage and higher than many other countries in the world, it's a slowdown for China, which means that if we do nothing, it might be a slowdown for us. So that keeps us up at night. China's a relatively large footprint. And then of course we have some of the emergence of new markets that are uh, really, they really understand the power of a trade show and they really want to embrace that. And so I want to be at the forefront of that. So those are the sorts of things that do keep me up at night. How to move this company, my company forward, but also the industry.

Speaker A: Sure. Thank you. And there's been no bigger geopolitical shift than the incoming Trump presidency as well. And I just literally read yesterday, David Adler, who was a commentator and obviously an exhibition industry veteran, shall I say that was talking about the tariffs that are being put on at the moment. And there's lots of conversations going on about that in the industry. What's your view on that? Could it be a force for good and generally the Trump presidency? Do you have a view and how that's going to affect business?

Speaker B: I think that whether you have a. There's a fundamental common core in the trade business and the trade show business. It doesn't really matter whether we have a left leaning leader or right leading leader. They both need tax revenue, they both need commerce. It doesn't matter what their agenda is. And that's one of the reasons why trade shows have endured through the years. Regardless of the political leaders, uh, they need business to occur. And so if tariffs make it more difficult to do business, a trade show is a great place for focused business to be done. And so it's not that we're insulated. It's that in some ways we become more important, not less. In order to make sure that the business that can get done, uh, in a paradigm of a more difficult regulatory or statutory framework, you really focus, it's not as easy anymore. So you really focus your investment, your investment on what matters, what gives you return on investment and trade shows at the very top of that. So I don't really have a view of whether it's good or bad. I think it's something that we will have to deal with. Uh, it could be a bluff, it could be a long term issue, it could be a giant trade war and the trade show world will react accordingly in an enormous way. You could regionalize your trade shows if people can't do cross border manipulation. Otherwise you could find that people actually spend more time at a trade show because that's the one channel where they know that there are buyers there and they can't find buyers in other channels they used to use. So sure, we'll see. But I think that the industry, not just us, uh, the industry will be prepared, well prepared for, for what happens, regardless of who the political leader is.

Speaker A: And I guess there are always opportunities and change, right? As you said, Covid shows that as well. So you know, first off, it may, something may seem negative and, and all consuming but actually history tells us that these, these shifts create opportunities as well.

Speaker B: Well, business gets done. So I mean if I take a look at a particular country that might be going through a slowdown in GDP or increasing the difficulty of visas or whatever it happens to be, you can almost always find that the surrounding countries around it pick up the slack. And if you have regional shows that can help there, you can, you can mitigate that in the same way that at a micro world, if there's one or two major venues in a city and they go down for repair, you find a way. You, you, you, you, you do you use more venues, uh, that are smaller, you move to smaller cities for a while while something's around. You'll find a way. Business always finds a way.

Speaker A: Sure. RX's stated mission is to help people and businesses grow by creating communities and building businesses. How does this mission shape the approach to exhibitions and how's it sort of evolved over the years and that's I guess a follow up. How do you measure the success of the mission in practice?

Speaker B: Okay, well it is true that, I mean our role, our purpose in the industry is to help you build your business ethically. Assuming it's an ethical Business. So we are in the business of building businesses. Yours. And, and so, and we take that really quite seriously. Uh, we are not, we are not a firm that buys a show or launches a show and create from a small show, makes it a bigger show and then sells it. And that, that's a private equity concern. And I understand why the LPs do that. I understand why the partners do that. That's not what we do. Right. We're in the business of building businesses for decades. I prefer to think of it as forever. Ah, we're here forever. So if you have a show, if we have a show and we believe that show, we don't make decisions for two to three years out, we can make long term decisions for 10 years out. And that, that is a fundamental element of who we are and the culture we provide. We are in the business of building your business, even if it takes a long time for that to occur. It also helps us put customers first. So when we think about what, uh, are the exhibitors at a show, how do we curate the show in order to, in order to make it exciting and enticing for people to find it useful year after year after year? Well, if you have the same show every year and the same floor plan and the same, same, uh, exhibitors, what happens is you grow the show for a while and then it becomes a bit of a cash cow and then it kind of, it kind of stalls and then eventually it's going to die. Right. The world changes. So you always have to, in the same way you, you build their business, you, you have to be on the lookout for new entities and help them build theirs. Meaning see around the corners, what's next in the industry and, and bring them into your show early and incubate them new segments so that three or four or five years from now they actually become pretty big, large segments or even spin off shows. So it's our job to look around the corners and see out five years. Whether it's construction, cosmetics, jewelry, it doesn't matter. It, you, you have to have a trade show that is always evolving and on that, that means that some exhibitors, it doesn't work anymore. And you got to be okay with that. Yeah, you got to be okay with it that uh, this show is going this direction and it used to work, but doesn't, it doesn't work anymore. That's okay. There's a better way for them to build their business and you know, we got to keep our trade show fresh for, for everybody.

Speaker A: Sure. And I think it's always important I guess. And you agree to get entrenched in that community that you're serving and understand their needs because they're going to know it, you know, maybe perhaps better than the organizer because they're living it and breathing it daily. It's their business. So there's been a lot of talk about, you know, communities and community building and understanding the community. Would you agree with that? That the teams have to make sure that they understand what their clients are selling to them. And obviously client feedback is incredibly important in that.

Speaker B: Well, I challenge you on one thing which is the. It's not entirely true that the industry knows more about the industry than the trade show organizer if they're doing a good job. Because what we get is we get to see the viewpoints on um, that particular industry from many different geographies and from all levels of customer visitor exhibitor feedback. So while they might be looking through their narrow focus, we see the feedback of a thousand exhibitors and where they're going. So uh, our insight into where a business is going is actually quite valuable. And, and I'd say even with their BD folks at whatever company they're looking at, we might still have a clear, clear eyed view. And we have to use that in order to change the show and move the show towards that future and always keep it fresh. So you'll see, not just at our shows but you'll see a lot of shows, things like the most innovative 20, 25 new products or awards shows that awards elements that herald the new innovations in an industry with judges from uh, the industry and also from the provider. Those sorts of things are good indicators of the type of work we do to keep things fresh, not just at rx but in the industry.

Speaker A: Sure. You mentioned about uh, acquisitions and as a possible path to growth. I'm interested to know what you look for in potential acquisition targets, the types of events, businesses, the geographical fit within RX's vision for the future.

Speaker B: Right. Well, I think that RX was built essentially if there was a, if there was a great, great show that was growing and had positive, positive trajectory, we would look at it. And, and while that is sort of true, it's not quite as true anymore. We don't need to try to plant a flat, a flag in every country. We want to plant a flag in the countries that we, that we want to operate in countries that we think that are long term viable. And so we're more focused in where we want to go. And so it's not 160 countries are the opportunity we have a prioritization of the countries that we want to play, where rule of law is strong, where we think that the long term growth rates are helpful, where there's a rising middle class that has needs and wants that are unmet. So we focus our resources and that's the difference. The other difference I mentioned a bit earlier, which is we're not in the business of buying a show low and selling it high. Yeah, we're in the business of, of, of owning that forever. So we want to be what's called a natural home. So if you have a show and you think that it might be a good candidate for us, that's the message. Like here. Why would we be a natural home? Why? Why? How do we uh, rx, why are we the natural owners? Do we have other shows in the area? Other shows in the, in the segment? Do we understand the space? Are we willing to commit a certain amount of resources to really develop the space? If it's new, maybe it's a cyber or AI element, Are we really willing to make that sort of commitment? And if we are, we don't make that commitment for three to five years for a high roi, we'll make that commitment for decades and put out investments that, that, that pay off over decades. I'm not trying to beat the next earnings call. I'm trying to be a natural home. And that's, that really is kind of very different. The other thing that make understand is we used to launch 50 shows a year. Believe it or not, just before COVID we would launch 30 to 50 shows a year. We don't do that as much anymore. We will still launch a bunch of shows every year, of course, but we will also take a look at those shows that have launched very carefully and say, wow, that, that that entrepreneur took a risk and, and it seems to be paying off. And now we're interested. Thank you for taking the risk. That's exciting. The other element of course is because we do have a large footprint is if a show works in one area, we may well Geoclone it for sure. I don't know though that you might think you have a super strong brand in a particular area, say Japan, and you think because you know everyone in Japan knows that show that it'll work in, in Austin, Texas, that's not really always the case. So you got to be a little careful with your Geoclone. What's really happening is not the brand, it's that there's a customer need that was being met in Japan and is that customer need the similar or uh, is it something that can be mined in Austin Texas for example. It's really about what, what business are we trying to build? Not could I take this brand, everyone knows the brand recognition and move it. That, that, that is a recipe for disaster.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think other people on the show have told me that they call it geo adapting rather than geo CL because obviously there are cultural and local nuances. I appreciate you can't tell me specifics but are there any particular areas or business sectors and or geographies that particularly excite you at the moment in terms of when you're looking to acquire or have a footprint?

Speaker B: Sure. So we are particularly interested in the rise of alternative energy elements. So you saw in the press probably that we just purchased a trio of assets in the hydrogen space. That that's the sort of thing that we, we find has long term value Also in the segment element security is always important. Will become more important. Not, not. I'm not talking about defense, I'm talking about more like cyber, cyber security and, and, and, and so forth. That's of course of interest to us. Health care remains very interesting to us as well. I think that there's a rise of, in the, in the, in the world of some economies for construction and all the construction elements including real estate will become increasingly important. Now they, I'm not, I'm not talking about sort of the, in the, in the US that's a very mature business but in other countries where you've got a rising middle class, a high GDP and they have more disposable they're going to want to, they're going to want to buy things and those things aren't being created at the rate or with the local factories and trade shows can help meet that need. So those old line businesses, whether it just be aluminum or metal bending or uh, how things fasten to one another engineering type shows uh, they have great relevance in those markets. In the markets themselves we do look for, we deploy kind of a hub and spoke model. We have a number of major markets where we'll have a giant support staff of IT and marketing and finance and HR and all that stuff and then we'll deploy spokes. We won't try to replicate hubs in all areas we work in. So our larger hubs, and this isn't a full list would be of course in, in China, in the uk, in France, in the US in the uae, uh those are in Japan, those areas are hubs. And then from the hubs we will, we will then have smaller teams working in, in the country, but they are supported by the hubs and they're run that way too. You'll have, you'll have a leader who'd report to me, runs the hub and the spokes and that in that way we can be nimble.

Speaker A: Sure. Thank you. I think I read a recent article that you had the Indian exhibition media owner think and you were talking about the opportunities in India. Is that a territory that you see opportunities for growth?

Speaker B: Well, I mean if you, my words that I just said a few minutes ago, if you say, well, stack India up against what Mr. Jones just said, sure. You've got a rising middle class, you've got, got a high GDP rate, you've got an incredible population boom, you've got new venues coming online and refurbished venues that are now being professionally run because they're professionally run with significant levels of investment. The rule of law is more important and, and, and understood than it has ever been in the past, which means contracts are actually acknowledged and, and there are fewer silly facilitation payments that a public company like ours couldn't possibly engage in. So that would be the type of place, whether it's Delhi, Mumbai or elsewhere that we would be looking. I'm sure we would. Makes sense.

Speaker A: On a recent LinkedIn post, you refer to RX as being tech innovators at uh, the forefront of digital transformation and events. Where do you see AI driven innovation taking the industry? And I guess as a follow up, how is RX positioning itself to capitalize on those advancements?

Speaker B: No, I think people will just go into a giant trade fair with a pocket full of business cards and a notebook in a bag. Think of it this way, think of it this way. When you. That's what we used to do when we went to a restaurant, right? We'd go through the yellow pages and you'd see what's there and you'd call them up and see if you get a reservation and then if they could, you'd walk in and you'd look at a paper menu and then you'd pay by cash and blah, blah, blah. But now of course you can look at an app and you can search by a particular cuisine and you can see the rankings of the restaurants over based on the metric that you want. And then you can make your appointment online and you can pay for it online. And now so, so it's all those digital elements of the restaurant business that are new. They're new certainly in my lifetime. But do they take, does it take away the Fun of dining out at a restaurant? No, uh, not at all.

Speaker A: Not at all.

Speaker B: In fact, it actually enhances it. So think of that versus trade show. Same thing. If I'm interested in a particular element of a trade show, I'm in manufacturing, but I only do one element of manufacturing. Really. Going into a giant trade show means I really want to talk to a few of the providers there. And then based upon the feedback what I'm hearing at the beginning of the day as I talk to those providers, AI should be able to tell me, you know, did you enjoy that conversation with Sally? Because if you did, Tim, 40 yards on the left, has time at 3pm, has seen your background and would like to talk to you about something, uh, in the same space. Would you like me to book you with Tim? And here's how to get there. Watch the avatar just walk with me and he'll be waiting for you at three. You can actually curate, if the visitors are willing and the exhibitors are willing, you can actually curate those interactions using technology. And we're not talking about, uh, putting people on Mars technology. This is technology that is available today where, uh, you can have adaptive meetings and make them fresh. It turns out that if you fill your dance card at the, at the beginning of a show, like I have 10 times for 10 meetings, and, and when I wake up, I know all 10 meetings. Turns out from the data that the third meeting you have, if you have the opportunity to change it based on the first two, will change the indication of, um, what is important to you changes as you go through the day because you learn more and you, you, you know. So that means that the technology for meeting creation has to be very flexible and say, okay, fine, so you really enjoyed that element of that meeting. Why don't you, let's go talk to these two people and see how you feel about that. And, and that is a AI, uh, interface. And that, that sort of is the way we see the future now. Right now, of course, you've asked what we currently do, and we have a number of tools that help along that path. Obviously for matchmaking, but also for data collection. There's no reason to go take the marketing brochures that are printed in paper. You can scan and get everything on that exhibitor stand in a lovely catalog file that you can then download when you're back at home. And the exhibitor can find out everything there is to know about you if you allow them. And then at the end, if you're an exhibitor, you can actually then say, well, how did I do with the show? Who came to my stand? What was their level? What were they looking for? Oh, how did I do versus my competitors? Ah, look, uh, at that. They were better in this area of heat pumps. I was better over here. What did they do that I didn't do? So that solution called Exhibitor Dashboard is something that we offer right now. And it's all using technology based upon matching preferences and feedback, but categorized and cataloged through technology. Now we do have at rx. I mean, first of all, my background is technology and data and software. I mean it's, it's not just gas stations, but, but the reality is Relics is a technology company. So Relics used to be a publishing house. And sort of famously we've moved from that to be one of the larger technology players with data and software and insight. We actually provide insight and we sell that insight unapologetically. And so that is the center of excellence for us. So I am advantaged in that I, uh, can lean upon the 10,000 technologists at my, to help me create platforms or integrate other platforms into my solution set for, for exhibitions. And, and that's really very, very useful. But nevertheless, those, those solutions are still, you know, you know, independent companies can provide them. And if you're an exhibitor, really look at, if you're a, if you're an event production company, look at them because that's the future. Walking into an event with a, with a pocket full of business cards. The 1980s are calling. They want you back. That's not the way it works anymore.

Speaker A: And how do you get, given the amount of staff and territories you've got, how do you sort of embed that culture if you like that sort of either digital first or the fact that, you know, you've got the Exhibitor dashboard? You know, how do you roll that out and make sure that it's ingrained in, in the everyday people that are, uh, dealing with exhibitors?

Speaker B: Well, you first roll out a minimum viable proposition. You don't try to, you know, build an incredible all singing, all dancing proposition and then have it flop because you tooled it wrong. You try to make every day a little better than the one before it. So you roll out what we'll call an mvp, and you roll it out in test markets just like you would a consumer product. And you get the feedback and then you iterate back and forth, back and forth. Ah, back and forth. You make it better and better and better. And what happens through that iteration is two things. First, you get testimonials from Places it worked and you make sure that you cascade that uh, through the firm like this worked at this show. Here's the elements of that show, here's the feedback we're getting and you make sure that that's broadcast to all the show directors around the world and you do that for a while so they can opt in. Would you like this solution at your next show? We can install it at your next show. And after you've done that for a while and you have enough feedback, then it's no longer an opt in thing. You have to then opt out, see the difference. So you know, once we learn, we know what we're doing, we know it's not going to crash and it's going to deliver great value. You've got to come up with a really super duper reason why. You can explain to Mr. Jones why you're not going to take this. Uh, because 70m5 shows are taking it. So what makes you unique. And as we do it more and more it becomes harder and harder to opt out. Yeah. So you know, that's the way you kind of get that tech installed pretty quickly. What I don't do is they don't take a new technical innovation and get on the phone to all the EDs or send an email to all the event directors and say you must do this. I don't do that. I mean if it's good for business, it's good for business. And I'm not really that kind of manager.

Speaker A: Sure. The next topic we're going to talk about, I know it's something you're passionate about and it's the way that we sell, uh, as trade show organizers and we know that majority, many companies still primarily focus on selling square meters. How are you going about changing that and equipping your salesforce to maximize opportunities beyond just floor space?

Speaker B: You know, it really was, I mean historically that's what, what we as an industry did, we sold based on the, the footprint that you purchased. And, and, and we were under this, this belief that everyone had to purchase the same price per square meter. But no other industry does that.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: You know, only we do that like no other. Like airlines don't sell seats at time the same, same rate. Hotel rooms are not the same rate. Depending on how many are left, they're far more sophisticated models. If I go to Disney World, uh, there are 15 different or more segmentation models of visitors. So you can buy uh, a low price ticket or you can probably go get a very high luxury ticket, you know, so, so there's lots of places all around us that sell in a more mature fashion than we do. And uh, and of course what I care about is beginning to adopt some of those models. So let's just take some of the obvious elements. What you really want to do is you want to sell based on the value you provide. You want to sell based on the value you provide. So if you have a company that's about to launch a major product and it's important to them, that trade show is important to them, really important to them, and you should be able to capture some of that value yourself as a provider. Well, how do you do that? Well, the first steps you do is you don't sell the same rate to the same people at time, the same, same place year after year. You don't, you don't prioritize renewals and try to get an 80% renewal rate on site day of. Because you really want to have a conversation with that exhibitor and say, what matters to you? What's a good trade show look like to you next year? What are we trying to accomplish? Because then you might want to move the position on the show floor. You might want to move the size of the show, the size of the stand or double decorator or whatever. You might want to have it on a corner and not, uh, an aisle. You might want it to be A or B. And you might want to do all sorts of different activations to draw attention to the fact that you're launching this new product or sponsorships. So you really want to kind of pause on the renewal. Pause on the renewal. Especially for the ones that matter, those, the bells or the ones that could be bells. And you really should know who's exhibiting the first. Find out, like, when are they going to pop into this industry and make a, uh, big headline splash. You want to be there for that. And then once you've done that, you can kind of get comfortable with the idea of selling at different rates based upon the value you provide. Now, you have to be honest. If you've, if you've come up with a big package for some entity that's creating a big launch, well, remember that in year two or three, they're not going to want. It's not right to charge them that same amount, right? You gotta, you gotta be flexible. You gotta sell based on the value. In some years you have more value. In some years you don't. You gotta be honest about it. But, uh, here's the other thing. I mean that we, we as the industry don't typically, but When I got here that we frequently in shows would, would the same square meter rate in the whole show didn't matter where you were. That's, that's, that's not a good practice in my opinion because there are better places to be. And the other, the other is if you, let's say you've got 10. Fantastic. So stance, these 10 are uh, what everyone has to go past these 10 and you start selling them. Let's say if only two left, you're selling those two left at the same rate you were selling the first two. Huh. Uh, why? Well, because that's the way it's always done. Oh, okay then. Ah. Huh. Why? They don't do that for airline seats. They don't do that for the hotels. And you know, if you, if you really want to kind of got to bring this industry into the, into the forefront, you should be unapologetic for the value that you deliver. Now you do have to deliver the value. You have to deliver the value. But do I need to sell the last gold plated stand for the same rate that I'm selling the first gold plated stand? Why? Because that's the way it's been done. No, no, no, no, no. Uh, unapologetic about that. And if it's not right for you, Ms. Exhibitor or Mr. Exhibitor, if it's not right, that's fine. Then uh, then if it doesn't land well, that's fine. Then you know, you'll have to find a different place for your marketing money. I get it. You know, you got it. Sometimes people change. I understand that. But I think that is what we, we care about. And I, and I. But uh, you do have to be flexible. You should be people. You should be flexible in your pricing based on what you're trying to accomplish with the client. And if you do it well, by the way, pricing is kind of the last thing you talk about. I mean the price. If someone opens up with what's your price per square meter in the show? Oh no, you can't answer that question until you understand what they're trying to accomplish the show. So it's a longer sales cycle. It takes more guts. It takes a different type of salesperson. It doesn't take a product pitching person. It doesn't take just an order taker. It takes a consultative salesperson to do that. But you can train your salesforce to do that and do it intelligently.

Speaker A: Sure. Thank you. RX recently published uh, a guide to inclusive events designed to promote diversity across the industry and I know you've made it available to all, so for all, uh, exhibition organizers. Can you just tell us a bit about the guide, why it's been put together, its objectives and how it's been received so far?

Speaker B: Yeah, so you know, the, in the same spirit of trying to build people's businesses, we want to have all sorts of visitors come and enjoy our shows. And we want to make it as easy for them to engage in their natural, in their, and bring their natural selves to our shows. And we don't want to leave anyone behind. We want to embrace people who want to be at our shows and find the magic of our shows and whatever, however they want to enter. So that means that it's a relatively significant document that you refer to. And the great Ray Rhodes, who happens to work in our organization, has made it public for all. I urge you all to download it. Um, but it really does help you think through how do you make a show, um, accessible for all different types of people so that they can converse with your show and extract value with using their vocabulary. So of course there's issues with people that have um, they're differently abled. Sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't. And you want to make sure that you have responses for that. You might want to have lactation rooms, you, you might want to have quiet rooms, you might want to have prayer rooms, you might want to have different. When, when you have different people on stage, take a look at those people and say, is this in fact a good representative sample of the buyers who are in the audience or is this only one segment or only one type of, one type of Persona? If you have people who are on, on stage, let's talk to them and see about how they like to present. Maybe they don't want to be behind a podium or maybe they're of different stature and some podiums aren't comfortable for them. Build them a podium. That is, there's, there's really about 50 pages of ideas of uh, of what you can do to make people who heretofore really might not have been comfortable the show actually start cheering the fact that they can come and engage the way they've always wanted to. And so I do encourage you to take a look at that. And the reason we made it public is because frankly it's the right thing to do. It's just the right thing to do. I hope I, you know, we as an industry all benefit by behaving better. Same thing in Covet. If someone didn't follow the rules and there was a covet outbreak that hurts me just as much as it hurt their show. If you stunk up the joint, that's a problem. So in the same way that if we, if we work together, we'll be better regarded, is, is really, it's the right thing to do. So I do encourage people to take a look at it.

Speaker A: Sure. I mean, there's been a lot of talk on socials recently around dei, given the Trump administration's stance on it. So I guess, you know, a guide like this is ever more important to make sure that the industry is at the forefront of, uh, accessibility and making sure that visitors and exhibitors alike feel comfortable coming to shows. Would you agree with that?

Speaker B: I would. I mean, I, you know, Trump's perspectives on DEI are his, but they don't really affect how we operate our business. We operate our business, uh, and have for a long time, um, trying to make sure that we cater to those in a way that they can be their natural selves at our shows and engage the way they wish to engage in an ethical manner. And so we will do, and we will continue to do that. There'll be no changes at our ex based upon whatever it is I hear in an executive order in the morning, you know, that really isn't relevant to us.

Speaker A: You're also the UFI president. You were appointed last November, so it's been two or three months now, and I understand that you will continue to be the UFI president until this November. So it's a year's tenure. What do you hope to achieve as UFI president? How's it been in. In sort of post for the last couple of months? Uh, give us a flavor.

Speaker B: Well, first of all, UFI itself is a terrific organization. There are other great organizations that do similar elements, uh, within the association world of events at the country level, but UFI really is one of the, the premier global associations. Remember that I only got in this business, as you said at the beginning of this podcast, five years ago, so. So I didn't know much about it. So there are people at UFI who really helped teach me. Lisa ah. Or Michael Docker or Jeff Dickens, who's been on your. On this podcast. I think Jeff, over at dmg, I mean, you might think of them as sort of. Yeah, they're, they're competitors, but. But are they really? I mean, they really did teach me an awful lot about this industry and I got to meet them at ufi and they're wonderful human beings. So UFI is an association's consortium is really very powerful if we all work together and we want to try to make the, the trade show and exhibitions world more respected. So that's the first thing I don't believe that we get. When I, when I've come from other industries and they get a whole lot more respect than we do. So that's first. I think that people, ah, especially uh, actually in more mature economies, they don't really understand the difference between a trade show and a concert and a musical concert. Yeah, right. It's just for them it's like a tourism element. No, we're not a tourism element. It's not just beds and heads. And what we do build cities. What trade shows do around the world creates value that go way above the event itself. I mean the amount of economic value at a, at an event and then years after that event, it is, is an avalanche of economic prowess compared to a particular, a particular tourist event. So we need to really be able to say that and prove it around the world so that, so that people understand that really if we want dedicated transportation to the event or we need some, some fire and water and police presence or, or we need, we, we need some help or new charter flights to get new visitors in from places that didn't exist. We want that, we want them to be able to say yes, that makes sense. Yes, we want to provide, uh, we want, we want the. We're not, we're not in the tourism business. Yeah, yeah, we fill hotels, we eat at restaurants. But that's, that is just the tip of the iceberg for what we do. The, and UFI is a good platform for, for raising that issue. The other issue, of course that's on everyone's mind is sustainability. You know, what one company does, we should all do if it's a good idea. So the way we view it at UFI is that uh, trade, uh, show is a terrific element of sustainability because it's a carbon consolidation event. I can take one flight and meet a whole bunch of folks and do really useful things and make a bunch of deals with one flight. If I don't have that trade show, I have to take 10 flights. What does that do? My carbon footprint, it doesn't help it. So as long as we have things like recyclable stands, we care about carpets at our shows, we care about things that cause CO2 footprints to increase and we work together to offset and reduce. We can do that as an industry. And that's another element for, for, for ufi. And the third is talent. I mean, let's Face it, the third, you know, do people go into universities and colleges around the world and say, I know what I want to do, I want to go into the exhibitions business? Highly doubtful. Uh, maybe I didn't, I went into gas stations. But you know, highly doubtful. So where we find talent in order to move this to the next level with really perceptive AI, uh, and data capture and customer satisfaction is we do need to reach outside of the industry and make sure people know that we are in fact full of fun, exciting, wonderful, smart people. And you should come join us. Come um, take a look, come see a show. You'll have fun. And I think that that message is, has to, is something that UFI can, can help with and it can help draw upon our, the, the population for which we look for talent. And I don't mean rx, I mean we like the big capital, we all of us. And in order to solve the challenges of what we're facing, whether it's sustainability or AI or whatever in the, in the future, we do need to have people with different backgrounds and people that have different perspectives and we need to bring them into our industry and we need to do it pretty quickly, frankly.

Speaker A: Sure, I, I do feel like, however, we've been having the same conversation for many years. That's not, not to say that we shouldn't continue to try, but um, I think it needs a, a joined up approach and hopefully as you say, organizations like UFI and CISO and others can help achieve this. We're coming towards the end. Hugh, um, obviously you're a leader of, you know, the largest trade show and exhibition organizer in the world. What makes, in your opinion, a great leader in today's business environment?

Speaker B: Okay, well, I'm, um, I'm one of the largest. I might not be the largest.

Speaker A: I think I was going to say one off and then I thought maybe you'll correct me.

Speaker B: No, no, no. I think informal would have something to say about that. No, I'm proud to be one of the largest and I'm proud of what we do. Okay, couple things on that. In the trade show business, much like my early experience, how we started this podcast, I think it's really important to find some people who made the best effort they possibly could with the data they had at the time. And they tried something and it didn't work. And rather than punish them, celebrate it. Make sure that within your organization, failures, intelligent failures, not careless failures, are celebrated. And here's why. If you don't place bets and try new things at a show Every show, every show should have four or five major bets. Your show gets old and boring and it becomes a yawn. And you should go do something that allows you to do that. You should go put on a show in the West End of London. You should go to Broadway. They want the same show every night. That's your calling here. Very different. You gotta place bets and you gotta place bets that stretch you. And some of those you're gonna fail. So when they fail, celebrate that. The kpo, the key performance objective is not have all these bets work. It's have the bets. You can become a better executive because of the failures and your successes. So that's one. The other is when you fail, let's not rude about it. That's, uh, you know, a little humor. Oh, won't do that again. That one didn't work. Humor helps. It helps with your culture. It helps a great deal. It helps people be transparent. Vulnerability is strength. When you can say, as I did five years ago, I didn't know much about this exhibitions business. Now that line is getting a little old now, but I didn't. And being transparent and vulnerable gives you a lot of strength. It gives you the ability to ask questions and say, why? Why can't we change the show floor? Why? We praise the same, why do we care so much about renewals? Why, why, why? And I think that what you want is you want people to be able to look themselves in the mirror and be vulnerable and look at themselves and say, you know what? I am enough. I can do this. I don't need to have all the answers. I don't need to everything I do be perfect. I can stumble. And I've got a team that's going to work with me and we're going to move forward. I want you to look in the mirror and say, you are enough. That's a great employee, that's. And you can lead with that. Is your mantra. Right? I think, I think those are two when as it come to the, this particular industry, given the fast paced nature and the fact that the show must go on and it's opening on Friday, those are two that I think really help in this industry as leadership ideas. I think the other is that, you know, as my boss tells me, quite quite. I mean he's, he's a terrific human being and a great leader. He says, you know, Hugh, when was the best time to plant a tree? Well, that was 20 years ago. When's the next best? Today. Today is the next best time to plant a tree right now. So we don't wait for the next trade show. Do it today. And every single day, make it a little better. Incrementalism works. And I think sometimes in the trade show business, we, we do get ourselves tied up with the idea that.

Speaker A: No, no, no.

Speaker B: The, the show floor has been published, that the pricing's been published. The, the, the, the renewals of exhibitors. We have 70% renewal. We can't really do anything. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. The best time to plant a tree is today, right now. So let's go do it. I think those three things.

Speaker A: How about that, Hugh? I think that's a great place to leave it. Thank you so much for your insights and your sage advice. Very privileged to speak to you today and we wish you another fantastic five years in the industry and hopefully I'll have you back on, if not before, in 2030 and we can celebrate your 10 year, 10 year anniversary.

Speaker B: Thank you, my friend. Thank you for the time. I appreciate it. It's a privilege to speak to you and to your audience and where I have made missteps in this. Hey, that's okay. Let me know. I'll learn. No problem.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Take care.

Speaker A: I hope you enjoyed the episode. Be notified first about new episodes by following me on Apple podcasts and Spotify platform platforms and by subscribing to my YouTube channel. Search Dan Assor.