Michael Baker-Mosley: being great at marketing won't make you a great marketing leader

If you're looking to enter the market, picking your nemesis is a great way to do it. >> One of our competitors had 45 people in their B2B marketing team. 10 to 1 [music] outspending us. And we would find ways to subtly mock them any opportunity. >> We promote people who are good at their job. [music] And that's the It's so wrong for so many people because you lose somebody who's good at their job, and you might get a [ __ ] manager as well. >> I love this stuff. 2/3 of marketers have never had any formal training. >> The best hire I made in my

marketing team was a risk manager from Amazon. >> Outside the industry. >> Had about 9 months of event management experience. I really took her on board the idea that you should hire for your strengths and weaknesses. We released this piece of PR that was never meant to see the light of day. It wasn't ready to go. And then my timeline is just filled with this. >> I was pretty angry. The comments in the group in the WhatsApp channel we have was try and keep calm, but keep calm. [music] It was too late. I wasn't asking for people's opinions of whether or not should be calm. But

my mistake was to go to the stick, [music] and I had to make my apologies. >> Letting people go. >> It's a really hard part of leadership. The weight of that decision, how you dealt [music] with it. >> Having to do that face-to-face is probably one of the hardest things I've done. >> You as a leader always have to remember it's not about you. I feel bad. I hope you I thought about you, is it? It's about them. I don't want too many people going, "Oh no, well, it's just business." Fine, okay. You could be that type of leader if you want. I chose not

to be that person. >> Welcome to the iGaming Leader Podcast. I'm your host Leo Judkins, founder of iGaming Leader Mastermind. And on this show, I sit down with some of the most inspirational and forward-thinking leaders in our industry, diving into the real challenges, high-stakes decisions, and lessons that shape our industry. If you're a VP, director, or an executive in iGaming, this podcast is built for you. Before we dive in, a quick thank you to our sponsor Sumsub, the full-cycle verification platform trusted by top iGaming operators worldwide. Sumsub helps onboard players quickly, stay compliant, and prevent fraud, all without slowing growth. More information in the description. >> [music] >> Everybody, welcome

to the iGaming leader podcast. I am here with Michael Baker-Mosley, ex-Canopy, ex-CMO at IGP, one of the most influential and well-thought-of marketing consultants in the industry, often cited as a top 10 marketer and ambassador for our iGaming leader mastermind. Mike, great to have you here. Welcome to the podcast. >> Well, thanks for having me. Been waiting for this invite. >> When we first met was in this smoking area at SBC Lisbon, right? And we were just like hanging around. >> We're just trying to stop people from smoking and saving lives. >> Yeah, but we were we were helping everyone. And um we'd never met before, but

we started talking and you described yourself as a completely different person on the last recording that we had than the person that I met in that smoking area in Lisbon. I'd love to talk a little bit of first about what's different now versus when I met you back then. >> Yeah, so I think I hadn't even completed my first 1 year at IGP, and I had gone from head of brand at Canopy and then thrust into CMO role at IGP, which was just a fantastic experience, but I think I was completely prepared for the marketing side. But I I think that the step up to

CMO, that seat of running a business, I had hadn't been prepared for at all. It was a wonderful, brilliant experience, but I was trying to track that, recovering from surgery. I think my youngest wasn't even 1 at that point as well. And I think that person compared to the person now, everything from how you handle situations, the experience of running a business, as well as marketing. You know, Mastermind had that huge amount of influence in that. It was what I needed at that moment time. But, those two people are very different. >> If you look back now, and you look back at yourself, would you

have expected that you would have been here, like from a career perspective, from a you know, whatever it is for you, confidence, skills, all of that, right? Like, would you have expected such a transformation in such a short period? >> I think what's changed is when I went into the role, I love marketing. I absolutely love it. I'm a big proponent for it. And I've always looked at marketing at how it extends into the business world. But, sitting on the management team IGP gave me a completely different viewpoint. It allowed me to extend the idea of of growth of marketing far beyond my controllable remit. Further

depth into the business, you know, this is looking at the strategy, the culture, everything from project management to the product, and how it touches everywhere. And I think theoretically I knew that, but I think being part of Mastermind and the transition and working with other senior people, other experienced leaders, really gave me the confidence to dive deeper. And I think that for a lot of people, that's quite a big gap. What what do we do with all organizations? We promote people who are good at their job, and that's the it's so wrong for so many people because you lose somebody who's good at their job, and

you might get a [ __ ] manager as well. And honestly, that happens more more often than we actually care to admit. Yeah, be good at what I do and then dive into the business as a first-time C-level. It's exactly what I needed. >> Love it. It's true, isn't it? We promote our best, leaves a gap behind them, then that best person starts micromanaging because there's such a gap, and you kind of left to sink or swim. And also, I think there's nothing that can really prepare you for that first step into that seat of C-level, right? It's very different. And also, I bet for

you from going from Cambly to IGP also organizationally as in culture and what that looks size, all of that is very different as well, right? >> Well, yeah. I I spent the first year telling the team that we were driving the car and building the car. Which I'm not big on corporate phrases, but I think that literally is my favorite one. >> I love it. You said something that stuck with me about your time at Cambly where you said you weren't a great manager back then, but you became one at IGP. Is there a specific moment where you realized that you had to step into

this new version of that there was a version of you that perhaps wasn't good enough yet? >> I think there's two sides of it. One, if I'm honest, I stayed around at Cambly for too long. You know, I should have left a year earlier. You know, my mission, my growth had sort of come to an end in terms of what I wanted to achieve. When I when I got to to IGP then I was in a different seat it really dawned on me that I had passionate people who were good at their job and felt a responsibility far more to ensure they had the opportunity

to what I've call in marketing great work or or great marketing work, you know, thoughtful, intelligent penetrating strategic work that's going to position IGP the way we want to, right? And I inherited and built the team at IGP. So, I felt the responsibility far more. >> I want to talk a little bit more about building that team at IGP. We spoke about it a lot during your time there, right, about hiring and who to hire and what to delegate and all of the things, the headaches that come with it as well. So, tell me a little bit more about decision-making around who to hire, when

to hire, and what to hire for, specifically in marketing, PR, and commercial. Like, how have you gone about that? And what are some of the things that you've learned in growing that team initially? >> I've said to you before, the best hire I made in my marketing team was a risk manager from Amazon. >> Outside the industry, which is which is great. >> Outside the industry, yeah. Had about 9 months of event management experience, but I really took her on board the idea that you should fire for your strengths and weaknesses. And I just stole them. Our head of events turned out to be one

of the best hires I think I've ever made in my life. And the reason for that is because she was able to do a depth of detail, not that I'm not incapable of, but you know, when you are strategically trying to to move a whole team, you can't get involved in. So, you know, I was looking for someone organized, someone passionate, someone who cared about the details to complement my strategic approach, my creativity, my ambitions for what we were trying to do in the business, as well as give me the ability to be involved in the business as well. Look, I did some fantastic projects

outside of marketing with an IG pay, which I couldn't have done without the team there. I think that was a key hire, you know, but we've been there as well. PR was a constant issue, shall we say? You know, and eventually we found someone really good. And the big thing there was getting somebody who not only understood the product and the industry, but somebody who understood new media. I mean, it's not even new anymore, but I I think people still call it that, you know. I think it's still the industry where people still write at length 1,500 word articles. I don't know who reads it, if

I'm honest. >> I remember that article that Jody did, right? I think it was in IGB about the decisions that you're making at the top as a CEO. But it's I thought it was brilliant, you know, all the content around it. But you're right, it's a long-form piece and unless it really keeps you tied in, nobody has time for that. >> And it's part of the mix, but it's not the full mix. And I think, you know, I love this stuff. 2/3 of marketers have never had any formal training of how to respond to a crisis, but it's true, 2/3 of marketers have never had

any formal training. And this goes down to why marketing can be seen as a bit of a lightweight, as a bit of a joke, because the majority of people working in the industry or working in the profession don't use language like strategy, don't use language like growth, don't use language that penetrates at board level, right? When I took the opportunity at IGB, I took that title, I really wanted to show what marketing could be beyond a social media post. So the people that we hired were great at their part of their job, but they also understood what the rest of marketing did. And that's everything

from the brand marketer we had, PR and content guy, the events, product marketing. They were building systems within a wider system. So if I wanted to, I could be the type of person who read 100 social media posts, 100 articles, watched every video. And people would say to me, "You have a great post." I'd answer, "I don't know what you're talking about." Not because I wasn't interested, because that's the point of hiring a team so that we could do other stuff. >> I actually love that, Mike, because so many of us, we hire, like you said, for strengths and weaknesses. We realize that that's the

case. We also realize that we've got to hire to free ourselves up for other things, you know, higher-value tasks perhaps that only we can do, right? So that's big part of delegation. But then, because we're passionate about the things that we're delegating, right, those specific areas, we somehow stay involved too much, right? We keep our fingers inside of it too much because A, it's comfortable, B, it's something you really enjoy, and C, letting go of that thing that's comfortable and that you really enjoy and that you're probably really good at, feels very risky as well because it's never going to be done as well as

you did it before. And don't get me wrong, it goes wrong. Yeah, exactly. So, tell me a little bit about that. Do you do you remember that um message I sent to the group. It was the first Monday of my holiday. 2 weeks off and I hadn't really had a proper break. And we released this piece of PR that was never meant to see the light of day. Well, I mean, eventually it was, but it wasn't ready to go. And then my timeline is just filled with this. I mean, obviously, you wage management where you're all calm and collected at all times, but I was

pretty angry. I think the comments in the group were in the WhatsApp chat we have was, you know, try to keep calm, but keep calm. I mean, it was too late. I mean, I wasn't asking for people's opinions of whether or not I should be calm. It was too late. I mean, don't get me wrong, my mistake was to go through this thing and I had to make my apologies, but equally, you know, if for 364 days of the year, you get somebody working independently who's at coal face and can anticipate what's going on, and for 1 day, you have a blow up, and then

most blow ups are normally solvable. They're all but most are. Then that was trading for. Yeah, it's difficult and sometimes the problem with that is that sometimes they're also when things go wrong and you've given it a try with letting go, that's sometimes the proof that you feel you needed that validates that you shouldn't let go and it's actually the opposite, right? There were unnecessary controls in there that I put in place when I came back, but they were they were relaxed pretty quickly. Yes, the ups and downs. Yeah, well, as a leader, sometimes you have to get over yourself, don't you? I mean, most

leaders don't quite follow up around us. Let's talk a little bit about the other side of that. So, you've also had to let parts of the team go, right? Walk me through that. And the reason [snorts] why I'm asking is because for most leaders, you obviously or you already know about it before you actually communicate it, right? Letting people go. It's a really hard part of leadership. Uh the weight of that decision, the burden of still having to talk to someone that you know you have to let go of. It's just not been announced yet. Can you talk a little bit through that period of

time and how that went for you and what some of the challenges were and how you dealt with it? >> I've had the four experience condensed into almost three years, right? I'll tell you what it did do. It really enforced in me that we had the right team in place. And I'll tell you what it did. The dignity and the approach of these people when you're letting them go was was truly inspiring. And it really reinforced that we had great people. And I think but for a personal self, especially when you're riding at 100 miles an hour, you're you know, you're really core on mission. You

all believe in what you're doing and you're working side by side together to do. You're having to do that face to face. It's probably one of the hardest things I've done. But I think that, you know, you as a leader always have to remember it's not about you. And what I mean by that is I think too often it's pure I'm really sorry. I feel bad. I hope you I thought about you, is it? It's about them. And I know plenty of people go, "Oh, no, no, well, it's just business." Yeah, fine. Okay, but you could be that type of leader if you want. I

chose not to be that person, you know. So, this is about can I help them? What can we do? This is the situation. I would say as well though, I was always far more transparent with my team than I probably was meant to. So, I don't think it's complete shock. >> It's one of these things, right? What you're just saying, it reminds me Remember that PR disaster of the crying CEO on LinkedIn? It reminds me of that, right? Like the guy went, "Oh my god, I'm so so it was the hardest thing I ever did." And it made it all about him right after having

let go, I don't know, what percentage of his team. Post came up again last week. I saw it somewhere, but it's true. Yeah, it's got to be about them because it's their roles, but there is a an element that that that's that whole lead-up period that makes it really hard. And you just said, "Having to do that face-to-face was one of the hardest things I've ever done." Why was that so hard? >> There's an element that I've let go. And uh you know, these are people that are hired, I brought into a situation. Optimistically, we were always going to push through. It was always going

to be a success. Unfortunately, not everything can be. You know, sometimes you take a risk, and the risk doesn't come off. That's just the nature of the beast where it of a risk. But but these were people, even during uncertainty, who were showing up every day. And I think you know, it's far easier to dismiss someone who isn't performing or isn't the right fit or isn't working. But like I said, we'd built something very special. And the work showed as well. I mean, we were kicking on. But yeah, we had a smaller team, with a smaller budget, but we were springing up on people's radars

that we shouldn't be. We were getting into commercially in the room with with with companies against companies that have been in the industry 10, 20 years, you know. And uh we had no right to be there. And and a lot of that is what we were able to produce, the messaging, the look, you know, all the positioning especially. And then having to, I think as well, let these people go then for stuff that is not necessarily there for. It it cuts, and I think you know, going back to running the business, and and and being part of that management team, you know, I must bear

some responsibility for that myself. Maybe I didn't speak up in the right time. Maybe I looked at the wrong project. All of that stuff goes through your head. But unfortunately, the combination of that stuff is, "Sorry, this hasn't worked out the way that we planned. Uh so, we've got to go." You know, I never said that. I had I had a great time. I learned lots. Great experience. Got to experiment, expand my role, expand my remit. But, the other side of it is it didn't all work out. >> There's something there that you that is super super interesting for people listening here, which is that

you the PR angle of it, right? You out-performed brands, you got in the room with businesses that punching above your weight essentially, right? Out-built brands with bigger teams and bigger budgets. Why is that you think? Where does a big marketing budget actively make a company worse at marketing? Or vice versa, where does a small budget actively make a company better at marketing? >> Well, I think so there's a dirty word in marketing. We're not allowed to talk about anymore because we're all finance professionals at but it's creativity. The way I view creativity is is not Yes, there is a certain amount of creativity of of

at the design of the page. But, really I view it problem-solving. All right, so if you if you view creativity as problem-solving, and this is the question that I posed at IDP, how do we get the business onto the buyer's list? And that's all the all that was especially with platform but of the three companies three or four companies that they call, how do we make sure that we're one of them? So, if you start there with that sort of problem, and then you use the toolkit behind that, you know. So, yes we'll use PR, yes we'll use brand and things like that. But, once

you start with that problem, you can then really break it down, you know. So, there is noise, there's a competition for noise. Who can break through? Who could do stuff that people going to find interesting? Everything from the constant stream of product releases, how we did it, how we built it, how we packaged it, to just standing out that if you saw purple we wanted to be purple. They're not aesthetic choices, it's positioning choices. And I think so many And if you look at 10 different platform websites, they all pretty much say the same thing. So, how do you differentiate between any of them if

you're a buyer? Well, the one you pick is probably every matrix or or someone like that because they're top of mind. You know, of course you'd want to put a brand on two short lists. But your your other choice is trying to do positioning which isn't generic. Actually chose to break through. All platforms do multi-language. All platforms do multi-currency. What? Mind-blowing stuff. So, what do you break through? So, you know, we we're talking about the way that we were building product. We we're talking about coding language as we were talking about the ethos and the philosophy behind what we build and how we build. You

know, we were promoting the individuals. We did for a little short time we did something called diary of the CEO where operators would send in questions with SBC. Really cool stuff. That was both about trying to break through the noise, but then also, if you don't have the money to be the loudest, then your message has to do the hard work for you. >> Marketing just helps make sales easy, right? And I think it's such a key point. One of the other things I think it really does, your approach, is it helps in terms of leadership, it helps get your team behind something, right? It

helps create common enemies. It helps them fight fight their corner. Is that how you perceived it as well and how perhaps you didn't have that before? >> Absolutely. I mean, but one of our competitors had 45 people in their B2B market too. They were 10 to one outspending us. And we would find ways to subtly mock them at any opportunity. You know, so that's the So, if you're looking to enter the market, picking a nemesis is a great way to do it. Now, we weren't over There is a way that you can go over and really attack someone, but that's positioning. You've positioned yourself at

the I'm against everything that person is. It's a great way to go into a new market. And I think as well, you know, I love this term at the moment, rented audience. So much of what happens in B2B marketing at the moment is rented audience. If you think about it, this is about if you do paid media. So if you do paid media with SBC or IGB or whomever, and you put up an advert on or you put an editorial in, you're renting their audience. You're paying them for their traffic, right? And it's no different than Google Ads, no different to an affiliate. I mean, even

in SEO or GEO strategy, you're relying on somebody else. And I think the IGB and what someone would do it really hammered down for me the idea that to get real value out of marketing, anyone can shovel it. It's fine. But to build long-term value for a business and for marketing to be proven it's worth, it needs to be building brand, building its own audience, owning the audience itself. This is why the SEO is now being disrupted by AI. But the amount of algorithm changes that Google have gone from LinkedIn is going through now. We talk about this. What works, what doesn't work. And I

know there's a lot of experts, but no one really knows. You know, if AI as it gets cleverer is going to probably beat some of the cheap GEO tricks that people are just recycling from 20 years ago when SEO was first becoming a thing. But you're under complete command of someone else. You're hence renting your own audience. But even then, even if everything's working, it's never going to be the brand where they go, I'm looking for X. Oh, that's X brand. They're on the short list. That process took 60 seconds. Unless you're that brand or trying to be that brand or the second, third, or

fourth brand that somebody can think of in their head. You're you won't always your entire way of monetizing a business is always at risk because Google, ChatGPT, whoever just change how they do it. >> Yeah, and all of that is brand and it's the biggest mistake that CFOs and CEOs make when it comes to to marketing spend, right? So, we will talk talk a little bit more about that. ROI of brand and how long it builds up and and why there's always an argument to be made in a CS shameless to actually invest in branding. >> But this is where I think marketers don't help

themselves because find it is about being taken seriously at a board level. Now, talking to to the chairman, I'm never going to go, "Hey, look at this this wonderful little thing we're putting together." Because that's not where their heads are. But I think what marketing should be doing with that audience is that marketing don't especially B2B stop owning key intelligence. I mean, our name, marketing, we should own market. Now, that is market dynamics, that's customer intelligence. How many marketers go out there and just go talk to the customers? Very few, but you should. You know, marketers should go out there and what do you hate

about us? What do you love about us? You should be doing research and so all of a sudden you then go into these conversations owning the customer. So, it's not about getting bogged down in arguments about ROI, which is fine. Look, we don't live in an isolated bubble, right? Money needs to turn into more money, but if the sole contribution of marketing is to turn marketing investment into ROI, and we all know attribution is impossible to a certain degree. You know, the the classic I click to an ad. Somebody clicks on the Google ad and then they converted and CFO goes, "Why don't you do

that?" But that digital click hasn't captured the article they've read, the advert they saw, the sales rep they spoke of, the online demo that they watched on YouTube, or even the TikTok charity thing we did for internal stuff. The ad was the final bit and we don't make that argument. We go, "Oh, oh, I'm sorry, CFO. Uh yeah, we'll do more of that." And then the inevitable will happen. When all the empirical evidence out there, all the marketing discourse says that that approach is the wrong approach, is a short-term approach. And actually I I think that, you know, is why in so many industries, especially

in B2B, you have major players and you have bit players. You know, somebody who actually invests in growth, the full mix, lets marketing do what they should do, which is inform, be the bridge between the business and the market. And everything they tell, you know, they hands-down win. And then the rest of them are minor players who are nine times out of 10 renting their audience. But they're the ones who go through the CMO every 5 months. They change agencies every 6 months. Their best sales person is the person who answers the leads first. They're not the ones which are dominating a region, growing market

share. They're just part of the market. >> If you'd go back to when you first stepped into that CMO role, and you'd be able to I don't know, go back in time, have a little chat with yourself. What's the piece of advice you would give yourself when you first stepped into that CMO role? >> I think there's a couple of things that I would have stamped my vision onto the business a lot harder as a whole. And when I mean that, I mean board level and management. So, what was my vision for the brand, but also for the business? And you don't do that really

for about a year. That was about being embarrassed to take that sort of stuff to a board. Where in hindsight, that conversation was far more important than I gave it credit for. And I think, you know, I'm not saying that my vision was the company vision, but it was, you know, going back to market and marketing. It definitely was my role to talk to the business, the senior the the board and and and and and whomever about IGP's position within the industry and where we wanted to be and what we wanted to own and what we wanted to build a boat around. And it that's

about the depth. That's about, you know, being a a marketer who's good at marketing and then there's being a marketer who's part of the leadership team within the business. It would have made everything we did that much more powerful. >> Thank you very much. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you wish I would have asked you as a final piece to this brilliant podcast with you? >> No, I think that we we should briefly just talk about the ambassador role. >> Okay, so last question then, you joined you joined the mastermind well over a year ago and agreed to become an ambassador for

for something that probably most people would kind of quietly benefit from, I suppose. Why why put your name to it? What was it that you felt made you put your hand up to become an ambassador and actually made it worth advocating for? >> I think it is my my my own experience, you know, getting my mind and body had a transformational year. And I ended up like I sit on a board for for for a startup. Now, you know, in the smoking area saving lives to to to to joining a board. That would have been insane if you had said that to me though. All

right. I don't know if just it health benefits and and confidence benefits and and and and all that sort of stuff, you know, being around other leaders who have doubts is amazing. And I think, you know, that there's two sides of of masterminds that there are those who need help and there are those who are put into position where they're not fully prepared and they could do with help. The opportunity to make it accessible to those groups is for me is quite There's nothing worse than the idea of somebody being isolated with negativity or indecision when actually there are avenues for help. I think how

few boards there are in this industry, right? So, the CEO has the management team to talk to, but there's always going to be stuff that the CEO can't talk to them about. They don't have a board or they have an owner who definitely is not going to be there to to listen to these things, right? And it's the same for most C-suite. There's going to be stuff that they can't talk to their team about and they can't talk to their CEO about. So, I think for me this is why masterminds great. >> Love it. Thank you very much, Michael. Great podcast. Really enjoyed talking to

you. >> Thanks, Lee. >> Thank you for listening to the iGaming Leader podcast. If you're a VP, a director, founder, or an executive in iGaming making the biggest decisions alone, [music] that's exactly what I've built iGaming Leader mastermind for. Small inner circles of vetted senior executives, weekly hot seats, and accountability from people who understand the effects of the decisions that you need to make. Find out more and apply at igamingleader.com. And a final thanks to our sponsor, Sumsub, full cycle verification platform for iGaming operators. Player onboarding, AML, fraud prevention, all in one place. More at sumsub.com/gambling. See you next week. >> Mhm.

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