Mucking about with power tools

A conversation with Keith Berg

Keith Berg jokes that he spent twenty-odd years working out a career plan before finally giving up career planning altogether. That was in 1987, when he first got involved in publishing, beginning with a small service station magazine and developing it into the magazine you are reading now. Keith Berg is the publisher of Convenience & Impulse Retailing.

"I grew up in a working class area in Sydney and always had one job or another earning pocket money," said Keith. "I graduated from delivering papers, to being a golf caddy, to coaching younger kids in maths. I had two or three years at Woolworths, where they invited me to join their management trainee program. Even as a teenager I certainly loved retail, but didn't really have much of clue as to what I wanted to do – engineering, architecture, commerce, law – I just didn't know."

"Mum and dad were Depression kids and insisted their three children have a good education. For me, it came down to finding a way to finance a university course and still be able to pay my way at home. As it turned out I was offered a Commonwealth Government university scholarship as well as private industry scholarship to study engineering full time. So engineering it was!"

From engineering to BBQs to sales

In 1973, Keith graduated from the University of NSW but says his heart was never really in an engineering career.

"I spent the next six or seven years working as a project and maintenance engineer for ICI, Philips Petroleum and then Comalco. I liked engineering for sure, but I never really saw it as a lifetime career and had already begun a part time degree in marketing."

"Mind you, the degree in marketing was a bit of a disappointment. I don't know what I really expected, but I didn't expect a bunch of career academics who hadn't actually gone out into the world and sold anything. To my undying shame I got fed up and walked away in the final year without graduating."

Keith's next move was to open a factory manufacturing indoor barbecues, specialty cookers and kitchen ventilation equipment, shortly followed by a 300 sq m outdoor living store. "In my youthful exuberance, I bit off rather more than I could chew and went belly up after about four years. The exercise left me broke, divorced and with glandular fever. It took almost a year to get myself together again."

"I had always been attracted to building and design and had done some study and got a builders license during my years as a barbecue expert. So, at age 34, I joined AV Jennings Home Improvements, where I ended up as Sales & Finance Manager, without the burden of knowing very much either about sales or about finance."

And to petrol & publishing

Two years later, Keith received a job offer from one of his former marketing lecturers, who had taken over a sales promotion company. There he met Robyn Bennett, who co-founded Berg Bennett Pty Ltd, the publisher of Convenience & Impulse Retailing.

"I had won the English prize at high school, but never really thought of myself as a writer. Anyhow, Robyn and I started a little company which offered commercial writing services. Robyn was a very clever wordsmith and taught me how to write for an audience. We wrote direct mail campaigns, brochures and company newsletters and developed quite an impressive client list. It was impressive to us anyway."

In 1987, Keith & Robyn were invited to take over the writing and production of a small in-house magazine for the NSW Service Station Association.

"My partner, Robyn, was less than keen on the service station mag, but I loved it from the moment we started," said Keith. "I liked the industry. I liked the people. I was fascinated by the friction between the oil majors and their dealers and spent far more time on the servo magazine than was perhaps warranted. It had a circulation of just 1,800 and was losing money."

"After a year or two, the Association invited us to take over the magazine and assume all of the commercial risk. We put in a lot of time and money and, in 1990, relaunched Service Station as Australia's only national magazine for the retail petroleum industry. A year or so later, it was beginning to get its head above water. But Robyn wasn't enjoying petrol at all, so I bought out her share of the business and pressed on with a concept for an industry trade show.

"I had no idea how to put on a trade show and went looking for a company to partner with. The industry associations I approached thought it was either too risky or far too ahead of its time."

Keith formed a partnership with an independent exhibition company and staged the Service Station 92 expo at Darling Harbour in Sydney. It has very successful. Two similar exhibitions followed at two year intervals in Melbourne and Brisbane before Keith's company bought out the partnership. Exhibitions followed every second year in Sydney and Melbourne under the umbrella of the magazine. The most recent was C-Store 2008 in Melbourne, with the next due in Sydney in March 2011.

But Keith's casual manner belies the fact that the growth of his business has been anything but plain sailing. He and his company have been sued several times by a number of rival publishers with interests in the convenience area. All failed. Two well known trade associations have separately attempted to organise boycotts of his company, also without success.

"Mind you, we had a huge amount of industry support. But it was obvious that there were some people who didn't want us around. Maybe they either wanted to own an industry publication or trade show for whatever reasons, or had had a go themselves and been disappointed with the results. You'd have to ask them. I think the future is far more interesting than the past.

C&I has grown to become Australia's largest retail trade magazine. With each expansion, the title has changed. It's gone from Service Station, to Service Station & Convenience Store News, to Convenience Store News to Convenience & Impulse Retailing (C&I) today.

"These changes reflected what has been happening in the industry. While industry experts endlessly debated the definition of a convenience store, customers were making definitions of their own. These days every FMCG retailer is chasing the convenience dollar and C&I is trying to address this reality."

A simple formula

"We have always had a very simple formula. Any convenience and impulse retailer should be able to pick up our magazine and quickly learn something useful. But a simple formula takes a lot of work and I have been blessed with the most outstanding team in Australian trade publishing."

Keith's staff tend to stay with the company for a long time. The most recent arrival has been with the company for four years, ranging to 15 years.

"We have a pretty relaxed office where it's OK to turn up in your shorts. Mind you, our aircon sometimes makes it necessary to turn up in your shorts!

"I don't like to see people working long hours because I think having time for family makes you better in your job and my staff is certainly proof of that."

Keith has been married for 17 years. He and his wife, Denise, have two daughters aged nine and thirteen. He has been an amateur fish keeper for many years, likes buying and selling property and has spent the last ten years restoring a 12 metre boat. Always the engineer and amateur inventor, he still spends time tinkering in his home workshop and holds three world patents.

"I don't work the crazy hours I used to. When I got bowel cancer in 2002/3, my staff carried me. Now they do it all the time and I am grateful that it is they that have given me the chance to enjoy life a bit more.

"As far as the future goes I'd like to further develop the business into the broader convenience channel, which is much bigger than traditional P&C. This year my work scene will be dominated by the detailed planning of next year's C&I Convention & Expo.

"At home, I like to spend plenty of time with Denise and the girls. If I can squeeze in the time, I'm going to try to design and build an off-road camper this year and maybe persuade the family to do a little outback exploring. Otherwise, I'm happy just being a trade publisher who mucks about with power tools."