The Iferia Techcast
00:00:01 · Ezekiel Iferia, Gary Pageau
[00:00:01] S0: Welcome to the Iferia Techcast, where we bring you all things, science, engineering, technology, and innovation. I'm your host, Ezekiel Iferia. And today, we are joined by Gary Pageau, a marketing communications and media expert with diversified experience in market research, media relations, publishing, social media, and editorial strategy. He's also the host of the Dead Pixels Society podcast and teaches entrepreneurship as adjunct faculty at a local community college. After twenty five years at an international nonprofit, he started his own business and built a leading niche community in in the imaging space. So, Gary, I am truly honored and excited to welcome you to the show, sir. Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah. [00:01:02] S1: It's it's great to be here. So happy to to to share. If your audience finds it at all useful, let's hope we can help them out. [00:01:11] S0: Alright. Gary, let's dive in already. So, you know, you you you spent twenty five years at an international nonprofit, and then you started your own marketing communications business. You know, that that... That's quite a big leap. What made you Yeah. You know, what made you decide to make that change? You know, was there a specific moment that pushed you?
00:01:37 · Gary Pageau
[00:01:37] S1: Well, it was it was more or less it was desperation, actually. As with a lot of things in life, it wasn't exactly planned. So the organization that I worked for was at the time the largest business to business photo trade association in The US, or we were based in The US, but we had 18,000 members worldwide. And our primary revenue source was our annual trade show, which was drawn anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 people a year. It was about 80% of our revenue. At our peak in the 1990s, we had about 90 staff. Had events all over the world, Australia, The UK, Germany, Mexico, Canada, and of course The US. So we were a big organization and I was responsible for marketing communications and marketing research and republications. And so I had a of different roles there. And eventually over time, what happened was the world kind of went out... The rug was pulled out from underneath us. Let's put it that way. The world changed and the organization didn't change with it, which was part of the, which is kind of what I think is what we want to talk about is, you know, the change that happened. So what happened was, a lot of our exhibitors at our show, again, which is our largest revenue source, it was film processing things, right? So it's film processing equipment, film processing services, chemicals, photographic paper, all of those kind of things, which behind the scenes, you were... You know, you're relatively young, but back in the day, the only way to see your pictures was to process film. And then, of course, digital cameras came into play. And digital cameras certainly were part of our show and was part of our events, we... You know, people launched their digital cameras or whatever, but people weren't shooting as much film. So our trade show space started to contract as chemical companies left the industry. Kodak went bankrupt in 2012, for example, and they were one of our largest exhibitors. The film camera people were being replaced by the digital camera people, and some kind of times they were the same company, know, Canon, Nikon, those people. But they were... We were also then competing with the Consumer Electronics Show, which was a much bigger audience. So we started losing some of our big exhibitors. So so... And then our...
00:04:05 · Gary Pageau
Also our audience was shrinking, so our show was shrinking shrinking, and so our revenue was shrinking, and we did not really adapt well. So by 2012, when I left, you know, we were at one time 90 some employees. When I left, there were 18. So, you know, we had a severe revenue crunch and we just could not find a way to adapt our, our, business model, you know, to accommodate. Right? So very, very, very common story in the world of business these days. And so I decided that I was going to leave, so I left voluntarily and I was going to look at, you know, starting my own business, right? And kind of with the idea that I would hang out my shingle as a marketing communications person, and hopefully get hired by one of the industry companies, right? That was sort of the idea. And started as a consultant, and that worked for a while, and I did that for a while. And then eventually what happened was, I was keeping my friends in the industry updated with a Facebook page on industry news, and I had someone come to me and say, Listen, if you turn that into a newsletter, I'll sponsor it. And I said, Well, I like money, and I know how to make newsletters because I was doing that at my prior place. I'll happily do that. So that's how I started it. And so from there, we've grown it from kind of a niche thing I did on the side to my primary revenue source, which is sponsorships in the newsletter plus a podcast, plus we also do events. So those things are the adaptation. So I stayed within my market. The photo imaging business is my market for my community, but I don't need the overhead and the infrastructure of a nonprofit trade association. At the time, at our peak, were generating $25,000,000 in revenue. We were a fairly decent sized organization. And I still serve the audience, but just in a different way.
00:06:08 · Ezekiel Iferia, Gary Pageau
[00:06:08] S0: Alright. Thank you for sharing that with us, Gary. [00:06:10] S1: I gotta jump a lot on you there. Sorry. [00:06:14] S0: Yeah. It's a great response. So, you know, what was the, you know, the hardest part about starting over, you know, after twenty five years in one place? You know, what did you have to Oh. Learn that you didn't expect?
00:06:28 · Gary Pageau
[00:06:28] S1: Oh, I learned a lot of things. So for example, one thing I wish I knew when I started was to actually, like, commit to doing what I'm doing now. I didn't really start getting serious about the publishing side of the business for a few years. I should have just started from that. And that that was was just a miscalculation. I should not have done that. Also, plus just going from working with a team of people on a project to basically working by myself. Right? I was self employed, home office, all of those kind of things. So that was a big adjustment. Also, just, you know, having to... You know, when you start out on your own, you know, you're basically spending your own money. And, you know, so if I needed to go to an industry event or something back when I worked for the nonprofit, travel we had budget. If I needed to go to a show or a conference or whatever, there's a travel budget. Well, when you're self employed, you're paying for that stuff yourself. And then you really gotta decide, do I really need to spend $1,000 to go to this event? Or do I need to spend this money to go to that event? So watching the budget, the isolation is a big deal, and just doubling down and focusing on what is gonna drive the business, I think, are the things I kind of wish I learned when I started. I kind of made that up as I went along. But I think that was really the big thing was having to go on my own without the infrastructure of a large organization, which, know, if you've been somewhere for twenty five years, you kind of get used to having... Doing an expense check from going on a trip and having the check paid for, right, that, you know, they give you a reimbursement check or a mileage check. Well, guess what? You know, when you're self employed, you're not gonna get that. Right? So so it really affects your decision making process.
00:08:30 · Ezekiel Iferia, Gary Pageau
[00:08:30] S0: Okay. So, Gary, you know, you get in the photography industry doing one of the most dramatic transitions in modern business, you know, the move from analog to digital. So what was that like from the inside? How did companies survive or feel? [00:08:54] S1: Well, there's a couple of things that are out there that are sort of like... It's [00:09:00] S0: kind of