Gaming, Strategy, and the Future of Leadership with Gayle Dickie

What if the world's greatest leadership training ground isn't found in the boardroom but inside the gaming industry?

In this fascinating episode of Commander's Intent, Derek Oaks sits down with global media strategist and gaming industry expert Gayle Dickie to explore how gaming has evolved into one of the world's most powerful ecosystems for leadership, strategy, innovation, and decision-making.

Gayle shares why gaming is no longer simply entertainment. It is a global economic force where millions of people develop critical thinking, risk assessment, collaboration, communication, and leadership skills every day. Together, they discuss how business leaders can learn from gaming communities, why community has become the new competitive advantage, and how successful organizations build trust before they build products.

The conversation also explores leadership, investor pitching, innovation, AI, the future of media, empowering women in technology, and why understanding human behavior is becoming the most valuable business skill of all.

If you're a leader, entrepreneur, investor, educator, or simply curious about where business and technology are heading, this episode offers a fresh perspective on one of the fastest-growing industries in the world and the leadership lessons it has to teach us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Whether it's a business or life, it can cost you everything. Commander's Intent will keep and inspire you how to lead with clarity, courage, and purpose. So if you're your host, retired Air Force Colonel, fire pilot, and your leadership mentor, Derek Oak.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Commander's Intent. I'm here with my co-host Rob, and our special guest today is Gail Dickey. And really, I just met her through a series of friends, and she is a media executive. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about her. Gail brings decades of experience in global media strategy, entertainment, and high-level deal making. She's a former television syndication executive and global media strategist. She now operates at the intersection of games entertainment. And that was really the big draw for me because I know nothing about gaming. I know nothing about that market space. But she deals with technology, infrastructure, and culture, helping shape what she believes is the next evolution of global media. Through venture spanning, gaming, interactive media, tech platforms, and her new Girl in the Game initiative, she focused on how immersive entertainment and connected ecosystems are influencing the way the world engages, communicates, and makes decisions. And as this show is about decision making and how we interact with each other, I thought it would be fascinating for both myself and for our audience to hear from Gail. And I'm going to turn over to her so she can follow up with any introduction that I missed and kind of talk about some of her current projects.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Well, listen, I'm really flattered you asked me to be here today. I was looking at how you structure your podcast, and I was trying to kind of merge what I do with what you do. And, you know, I've spent, you know, years in media and gaming and technology. And one of the things that I think stood out to me is that, you know, most people think that their decisions are coming from logic, you know, alone. And, you know, in fact, they're when they're really coming from perception. So, you know, I'm really on this mission about how we interpret reality itself. And that's what's led me to a new project that I've been working on. But, you know, in terms of gaming, I think we've really underestimated gaming for a long time. I mean, we've labeled it as entertainment when in reality it's, and you guys are related to this, it's one of the most advanced decision-making environments ever created. So every second, players are, you know, evaluating risk, they're thinking about strategy and timing and outcomes. And that's exactly what leaders do. So the question isn't, you know, what can business teach gaming? It's kind of what can business learn from it. So, you know, I think, you know, people who understand that shift are gonna make faster, better decisions in every industry. And I enjoy it because it there's so much to learn every day and it's so fascinating and it's so cross cultures. I speak in Saudi Arabia, you know, I've been over there quite a bit because they are one of the, believe it or not, I mean, they're gonna probably lead in terms of the games entertainment business. And my big preachy moment is whoever controls the media in games will control that whole narrative will control the business. That's kind of my opening statement, if you will, about the games entertainment business.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

No, I I appreciate that. And I'm curious how, you know, as a media executive, I mean, gaming is a lot about media communication, how we interact with people. What was it that made you say, I'm jumping in with both feet? I want to participate in the gaming industry.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Well, it started when I read an article in the New Yorker magazine, I think it's uh 2014-15, about a young girl who's lived in Canada. Her parents wired their computers together and she played strategy games. She's five years old. And me coming from television, I was like, nobody watches TV. Are you kidding? Nope. They played strategy games. Well, this girl went on to become the number one StarCraft II player in the world. And that caught my attention because how I thought about it was, well, wait a second, this is gonna go beyond, you know, just a little side niche business. And because I'd traveled so much, you know, 40 weeks a year selling television shows market by market, I've been in, I don't know, a thousand newsrooms, I guess. And I love the news. I love the fast pace of the news. I find it entertaining and fascinating and aggravating probably at this point. But that's what made me have that aha moment because I thought, wait, somebody's gonna have to cover what's going on here with this games business. And that was the moment where I pretty much came up with, you know, I was on the internet and I said, well, it's gotta be, you know, gamer. And I thought, well, it's the world news. Okay, gamer world news. And I bought the URL and I raised a million and a half dollars. And I went out and I produced what I think is really a pre what I call a premium look to news. If you go to gamerworldnews.com, you can see some of the content that I produce. And so that was kind of it for me. I thought I'm gonna move out of the entertainment business a little bit because I saw what was happening in terms of the movie business. Not let that I'm an Oracle, but you could see what was happening in the movie business and the TV business and streaming and cable was going this way. And, you know, I I like to be uh a little bit more on the cutting edge. And I enjoy the tech. I really do. I get sent a lot of different funny things now and again to try. And uh I really enjoy it. So that was really the motivating factor.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Thanks. So what have been the biggest challenges as you kind of jumped into this new market and really a new culture and a new, really different uh type of person, I think, in in many ways, even though I think they're more common than we think. What have been the biggest challenges for you jumping in with that?

SPEAKER_02 5:44

You know, because I was really in it like 10 years ago, I didn't feel like I had much to prove. There weren't a lot of women in gaming. It's coming along, but it really hasn't hit fever pitch, if you know what I mean. And so for me, I think the challenge was what can I add value to and what can I do differently? You know, I've play most of the games at least once, or I'll experience it once. I actually had somebody come here into my office and I have a lot of big screens and teach me Dota. Because for me, Dota was like, what is going on? You look at the screen, you're like, what? Or, you know, League of Legends, because a lot of people look at a big game like that, which is the biggest game in the world, and they're like, I don't even know what's going on, you know. There was a little bit of a learning curve on that. That was a little bit of the challenge. And then, you know, for me, I've actually just started to make a little bit of a pivot, just deciding which way I wanted to go. You know, do you cover all the big games? Do you cover the indies? Do you just do it all? But what really the opportunity presented itself is to be more, you know, subject matter expert and really talk about it from my perspective in terms of entertainment. I think what syndication gave me was the ability to understand audience. And I think that's a really important aspect. You can't bury your head in the sand and say, I only like, you know, first-person shooters and I don't care about these adventure games. You have to really embrace it all. And I think for me, the challenge was okay, which way am I gonna go? And what I did was I kind of took a little bit of each and saw what really worked and then stayed in that lane. Um and I think, you know, bringing it up to current day, um, if I have the opportunity, I'm gonna focus more on the kids' side of gaming in terms of Minecraft, Roblox, you know, Fortnite, Animal Crossing, that because the kids really not only the future, but you know, they learn those skills, you know, very early. You know, if you go to any restaurant, you see a kid with a screen in front of them at what, four or three, right? So I think that the challenge moving forward, I think those challenges presented themselves, kind of I was malleable in a sense where I kind of moved with the market. But now it's for me, it's just about looking at it from it's one of the largest economies in media and in the world, and you know, it's not a trend. Right. I was once on Fox business. Well, I've been on Fox business quite a bit, but Stuart Varney said to me, he got kind of uppity if you've ever seen him. He goes, Well, it's not a sport. And I go, he goes, it's not. It can't give me, it's not. It's not a sport. And I said, Okay. I said, it's a skill-based sport. And he went, Okay, all right, you got me. Because it is, it's a skill-based sport. Another challenge is people go, oh, you know, they think about kids in the basement playing video games. And then, you know, at my age, a lot of their uh kids are going to college or whatever, and they're panicked that their kids they're sending their kids to, you know, Northwestern or wherever they're going, and they're afraid they're gonna be playing video games the whole time and not going to class. But, you know, they learn how to balance it. And, you know, I really take offense when people, you know, badmouth the video game industry from that perspective because they they're not looking at the whole picture and the good things that come out of gaming. And I think that, you know, you gotta balance it all. But you know, the challenge moving forward is the same as it's always been. It's it's acceptance, it's you know, getting people to understand that it's you know, this complete ecosystem and engagement system and media, and kids learn from it. And they also one of the things I will say is that I always call it it really helps the A diseases. So Asperger's autism, uh ADHD, agoraphobia. They literally can describe it for 20 minutes at a time because it's been proven that it does help. So there's a lot, and it improves your vision because you're focused for 20 minutes. I mean, listen, if you're gonna focus for eight hours, that's a whole other discussion. But I'm just talking in a couple of hours or whatever, and you take a break. And I tell parents, you know, even at you know, four, five, six, seven, you know, I feel like it's okay, but in moderation. And of course, I'm an athlete, so I'm like, okay, when they get to be eight and nine, if they want to play a game for a couple of hours, great, but then you gotta go run around the block and come back, you know, and take a break. You know, I have to do that.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

So all the one answer is yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Go ahead, Rob.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

Well, I was gonna say I want to touch on a couple of things you said there, y'all, because I love what your focus is and I love kind of some of the takeaways that you've taken out of this. One of the things that I've noticed, just like you have, is that people that are our age, you know, our generation enough, they're not as well versed in games. I got lucky, I started playing games as a young kid, and I've used it throughout my career to help me learn things. When I was at the Air Force's strategy school, I couldn't understand, you know, Greek and Roman tactics, and so I found this game called Total War, Rome, and it helped me create battlefields and I could then I could see it and I could visualize it. And I learned through that. So I like the fact that you've been able to pick out that you know there is a way for us to help people learn. We as pilots, we understand it kind of naturally, and maybe we don't understand that we do, but when I go learn how to fly a new airplane, the first thing I do is get in a big video game called the Simulator, and they put me through all my cases. I mean, the first time I ever landed a septic citation for real, I have passengers in the back. They didn't know it. That was my first time ever landing kind of thing with an instructor, but it was because I was already qualified. I'd landed that thing uh, you know, 50 times in the simulator, and it was good enough. So there's some training aspects to it. The other thing is, like you said, there's a negative reaction. I had a conversation with one of my kids' elementary school principals years ago, and we were talking about video games, and she's like, I hate video games, they're horrible. Kids get nothing, there's nothing positive about them. And I was like, no, wait a minute. And I, my daughter, who's she's now has two kids of her own, but I remember sitting here on my lap and playing Sid Meyer's Pirates, and I had the map laid out in front of her because it came with a map that you could lay out on your keyboard. And I had this map, right? And I taught her compass directions as a five or six-year-old. Okay, you know, honey, the pirates in this look. Where are we? We're here. Which way do we have to sail? Well, west, southwest. Okay, perfect. And so I think that that's a market that you know you have kind of touched on that I think we need to learn how to tap. You know, you mentioned Minecraft and and Animal Crossing. So I run a Minecraft server of my own at my house. Well, because that's my kids when they went away to college, we have a Minecraft world that we all play in. And so it's our way to stay in touch with each other and we chat while we're playing. But I actually for a while, and I haven't finished it, but I started developing a school curriculum for teachers to use Minecraft to teach multiple things. You know, I talked about, you know, number one, the first thing I would do if I were a teacher teaching Minecraft, I'd let everybody play. Well, what's gonna happen? Variably, most of the young boys are gonna be griefers and they're gonna be out like blowing everybody's stuff up and stealing stuff. But that leads you directly into, okay, class, how are we gonna handle this? And now you can talk about government and rules and politics and how you do these things. Then you teach them about, you know, the law of the harvest. You know, you you can only build with what you have, especially if you're only playing in survival. So yeah, I I'm a kindred spirit in what I think you've tapped into. I think it's awesome that you're doing that. The big question I would have is how do you take people that are not like you and I and convince them of how to use these games and esports and this instead of shunning our young kids that we say, oh, they're wasting our time because we don't understand it, how do we educate our generation to use this tool more effectively, not only to help ourselves, but to help the next generation succeed?

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Well, I will tell you, if you travel at all or you it's very much changed over the last 10 years because you gotta remember mobile gaming is like the biggest part of the business. So mobile's like 55%. And what people don't think about is women play more mobile games than men. So I think that, you know, you look around, more people are they don't think they're a gamer and yet they're on their phone playing a puzzle game, you know, or they're you know, it just makes me laugh. But you know, I've had friends in the past, they're like, oh, you know, video games are so bad for you, and it's the destruction of society, and you know, it's like the get off my lawn guy, you know, where they're just you know going on and on. But you know, I think what'll happen is as the median age goes up. I mean, if I asked you what do you think is the average age of a gamer is, what would you say? What would you guess?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I'd probably say twenty-three or so. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

So the average gamer is thirty-six, and that's male, and then the average female is about thirty-eight. So you gotta think about Call of Duty's been around over twenty something years.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

So if they were playing it at twenty, they're in their forties now. You know, that as it ages, it go it changes. But I think that um, you know, as time moves on, people are a little bit more accepting. I mean, one of the challenges I think for the business is, you know, the esports, the professional side of it, never really took hold like traditional sports. And all the traditional guys, the basketball players, football players, they all invested thinking, wow, this is the next generation of, you know, sports, etc. ownership. You know, I think it's a young person's sport. I think to be an esports professional, you're not going to be doing that at 30. It's just, it's too hard. I mean, it's just like, you know, where you guys, you know, are military guys, you want to kind of do it when you're young because it's oh yeah, it's a lot of pressure. So, I mean, I, you know, thought a lot about, you know, your podcast and, you know, the intent, you know, the command's intent, right? And I was thinking that, you know, with games, it's like, you know, uh you try and be the best at maybe learn a skill set, people that, you know, work around me that are very much into shooter games and they don't like adventure games, or they're really good at adventure games and they can't do a shooter game. And so I think that people kind of pick their lane. And the biggest controversy in terms of people bad mouthing the games industry are the shooter games. But I believe I'm correct when I say we've never been able to correlate any kind of crime or problem with someone who's been a massive video game player. So I think we're doing still doing pretty good, pretty good with that. And it's just a question of people think they're not gamers and they're on their phone playing a game. I mean, I see it all, I see guys in their 60s on their phone playing a game on an airplane. So, you know, and women, you know, you see it and you're like, what? You know, I mark my words, the next time you guys fly commercial somewhere, just look around. Everybody's on their phone. Oh, it's true. And I try to see what they're playing because I'm, you know, not the kids, but the adult, you know. So it's easing off a little bit. And I think it's, you know, listen, it's like I said, it's the biggest media in the world now. So and it'll only continue. I think the the latest is there's three and a half, three point six million players globally. And between China and the US, it's 50% of the revenue. And it's and it just keeps it growing. It's gonna be, I don't know, $200 billion or something in the next year. So that's amazing. So you know if you don't like it and you badmouth it, I'm sorry, get used to it. It's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

You know, we're glad to have you back, Rob. You lost you for a second there. Yeah. You know, and as Rob was talking, both of you were talking, I consider myself kind of the reluctant advocate. And I have an anecdotal story. This of a friend of mine, you know, when he was a kid, he was at a basketball camp, and his dad he was at a basketball camp, and one of their coaches at Brigham Young University, and one of the players was their you know, coach mentor during the uh the camp. And this kid said, What was it like growing up with a professional basketball player? Because his dad was a professional basketball player, and now he's that at that point he was a general manager of the Phoenix Suns. And the kid stopped for a second, the basketball player stopped for a second and he goes, My all my friends were over at my house and we were playing Nintendo 64, and my dad came home from work early, and he never came home from work early. And he walked in and he started watching us for a minute, and he said, What are you guys doing? He goes, Oh, we're playing this game, and I can't remember what the game was. We're playing this game. And his dad continued to watch for a second, and then he walked over and he picked up the console and he smashed it on his knee and he goes, Now you're not, go out and do something real. You know, I grew up, I did play games. I had my little football and pong, but nothing to the extent that like Rob did. But I, you know, that was his approach. You know, he was a professional basketball player and he had made his money, and his environment was in his eyes much more tangible. And I go, I can kind of relate to that, you know. But then I had a son who had muscular dystrophy, he was not playing any sports, and I reluctantly got him that Nintendo 64, and the joy on his face and really how good he got at that and his ability, you know, he wasn't somebody who could just go hang out at his friend's house. So getting online and interacting with people was a really big deal for him. So that's why I call myself a reluctant advocate, but now I see the value in it on so many levels.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

You know, I mean, also you got to think about you know, people that might badmouth the games industry. I mean, you have to look at it like, you know, gaming isn't a distraction from reality, it's really training for it, right? Yeah. So I think there's so much to be, you know, learned and garnered from it in terms of the good things that it does, you know. It does improve your vision, proven that medically. Like I said, the A diseases and, you know, it's logical thinking, you know, it's reflexes. It it just depends. I mean, I will tell you, if you have a child or a friend that plays like a StarCraft or a Dota or a League of Legends, those are heavy duty strategy games. I mean, I marvel at it. And you wonder why, you know, League of Legends has gotten 80,000 people in a stadium watching a screen, basically, because you can't see them. I mean, you see them. And it's because of the strategy, and you gotta be gotta be smart to play those games. And it is a skill set, there's no question, you know. That's why I call it. It's a skill-based sport, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

So I would ask you about scaling. Really, my question, it's already scaled, it's worldwide, and like we talked about, it's the biggest thing out there. But how do you personally, you know, you have your website and all the interaction that you do, and you work with folks in Saudi Ray Bend, you haven't even talked about your other clients. How do you manage your business? And how do you manage what's next for you and you know what growth looks like for you in the industry?

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah, so I decided a long time ago I didn't want to be a web-based, a destination website. I mean, I looked at IGN and you know, it took them 20 years to get millions of people on their website. So I basically license and syndicate out pieces of content. That was the desire. For me to scale now, we're talking, you know, to some investors about just coming in to really focus on the kids, and I'll bring in kids and I'll scale that because you think back to Steve Jobs, what did he do? I know when my daughter was going to school, we walked in the first day of her school and they were all Apple computers, brand new. And so that generation, she's in her early 30s now, but that generation, they grew up with Apple. And so, you know, my thought is I'd like to get them while they're they're young. I'd like to focus more on those building games like the Minecrafts and the Roblox and you know, certainly Fortnite, because it's just it's fun. And you know, the Animal Crossing, some of the other, you know, younger games. And so that you have to kind of move with the market. You know, I mean, the real big challenges coming up is that the rising costs and making a game, you know, to produce a game, it's millions of dollars in marketing and you gotta hit it. I had a meeting last night about a new project I'm taking on that, you know, if I was gonna promote a game now as opposed to two years ago, it's a completely different situation. If you do it right, you don't have to spend quite as much money. You don't know if it's gonna catch fire, and you know, the timelines are you know longer and all the studios are under pressure. So it's a really tough business right now. I mean, there's been lots of job corrections. You know, since COVID, I think it went kind of crazy hiring everybody and now they're shrinking. And, you know, I think that AI brings opportunity and it brings, you know, it can dramatically speed up the process, but you can't let it kind of take over the creative. And so then, you know, you need to lower your costs. I mean, there's just a lot. And so I strategize about, you know, kind of the best practices and the things to do. But the most important thing I think to keep in mind for the games industry is that community, because that's what really moves the market. So if you can you grow a game, you grow a community. Yeah. You grow a community, you grow a game. You get you gotta think in those terms. And you know, it's just an expensive business. And I mean, you know, you look at console is still growing really pretty well. And every once in a while, you know, a game will catch fire for a while and then it goes down. And then, you know, I have one of my guys calls me and complains all the time about this game and that game and not doing well. And, you know, he wants me to put him in touch with people to talk about it because he's very knowledgeable. He owns a collectible shop. By the time you complain about a game, they've already moved on to the next, you know.

SPEAKER_04 23:11

So I think for me, no, Gail, I was just gonna ask because so I'm an avid watcher of the industry, and I've watched what's happened over the last four or five years, and I have my own thoughts on what I think causes the upheaval. And you know, I'm an investor, so I've been investing I was an economics major in college, so I've been investing since I was 20 years old. And I have a little marker for myself. Anytime a company hires a CEO that hasn't done the business of the company, I start to short that stock because that CEO is gonna fail. Nine times out of ten, they will fail. And this is what I see with the market. Like, take Bethesda. Bethesda was an awesome studio that built all these great, yeah, highly immersive RPGs. They were awesome. And then they got bought out and they got told that you need to make the next Fortnite. Because this is my beef a little bit with corporate America and particularly the media industry, is they chase the next thing. I'm you know, I'm from Washington State, Nirvana comes out in 90, 91, and everybody comes to Seattle to find the next Nirvana and grunge explodes. Well, okay, that's great. It was awesome for Seattle and a lot of bands, but the problem is we didn't need the next Nirvana. We already have Nirvana and we had SoundGuard, and we and so we start chasing. You see it in the movie industry where you got three, you know, national disaster movies that come out in the same year, or you know, vampires become the thing. To me, it's lazy execs. It's people at the top end that are lazy, that don't know their business, that are chasing a dollar. And I'm just gonna be honest because they're chasing a dollar, they don't know squat about what they're even leading. And it's like, why are you even in charge? And so I don't know if you saw, I saw a report about six months ago, maybe a year, of the last year of the top 100 games. 60 of the top selling 100 games were indie projects. They were not AAA, they were not Sort of Go Run because it's that community you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Well, yeah, and I think, you know, listen, the opportunity, the flip side is that, you know, we're also in one of the most innovation times for games. I mean, small teams can create a great game, communities form instantly. Distribution's global, and I think listen, the challenges are definitely getting discovered, right? It's hard to get a game discovered. And it's not necessarily making the game, it's getting people to notice it. So you got thousands of games that launch every year, and you know, the attention has become that kind of real battlefield. I mean, you can build an incredible game, but if you don't have the community and the creators and the influencers, the visibility, you know, marketing is like probably even more important than development because you know, players expect a lot. They want updates constantly. I mean, we used to joke about what is this releasing a game and then having a patch two days later? I mean, what did you release it for? But you know, you got to keep in mind communities are like everything. And so, you know, you really have it's kind of a scary thing. You can get rejected overnight, it can go viral. And then, you know, the studios, I mean, just not so much empathizing, but understanding that, you know, they're under pressure to generate that recurring revenue. And players are really kind of more and more hesitative to, you know, monetization and you know, pay-to-play. So you gotta find the right balance between profitability and then trust. And, you know, I mean, it's just not, you know, like a new game isn't just competing against another title. You know, it's competing against TikTok, it's YouTube, it's Netflix, it's streaming, and everything moves so fast. But I think, you know, for if I was giving advice to someone who wanted to start a game, I mean, wow, the most important thing you can do is, you know, kind of drip it and have a community behind you that can push it out and get it to emotionally connect with people, then you're heading toward, you know, something great. But I, you know, listen, today, you know, making the game is like half the battle. It's building that attention and that trust and that community around it. I mean, that's the game now. It's just really not marketing anymore. It's a product.

SPEAKER_04 27:09

Well, that's the amazing thing about like take Minecraft for instance, right? I bought my Minecraft copy of Minecraft years ago. I think I paid 20 bucks or whatever for Minecraft in 2015 or 2016. I haven't spent another dollar on Minecraft. And yet they continue to update it, you know, two, three times a year. That's the power of community because they just had the movie come out last year, and so it's as big of a and so yeah, I understand what you're saying with the execs, but I do have a problem when I see you know some of these exec companies, and you go to the CEO of EA and say, Hey, what games do you play? And like, oh, I don't really play games all the time. Well then you shouldn't be leaving the company. I'm sorry. You just should. You have no clue what they're talking about. I mean that's yeah, that's time marketing. Like the like the marketing guy that leads McDonald's that can't make a big arch uh you know or that doesn't like hamburgers, yeah. Right, like so that's that's I mean again spot.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, it leads me to uh you know kind of what I was gonna mention earlier as you were talking is that how do you get investors, and you were talking about investors, yeah, yeah. And how do you get investors that are savvy in the gaming industry? You know, they're used to investing in real estate and other forms of media, and all of a sudden they've got this huge market, an exploding market, and what's the right place to jump in? What's the right level to jump in? How do you secure those kind of investors and how do you pitch it to them? I've given a lot of pitches and I've received a lot of pitches.

unknown 28:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And the question always is the bottom line is what's in it for me? You know, what is my ROI gonna be? And exactly what kind of legs does this product have? And if they don't understand at all what you're talking about, how do you sell that?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

So first and foremost, you don't pitch a game, you pitch the ecosystem. Yeah, and that's one of the biggest mistakes people make is they pitch a single title or they get really caught up in the game. I've had people guys call me and pitch their game. I'm a little bit more reasonable, but you know, smart investors, you know, they really want to know is there a community? Is there recurring, you know, engagement, is there IP? And can you expand it? Can it go through the whole cycle of you know, merch and live events and licensing and TV film, whatever? But you know, and you also, I think when you're going after game or investors, you got to show audience before revenue. I mean, like I've said, you know, the audience validation is so much more important early on than any kind of revenue. If you've got a community, I think you could convince somebody and make an investor understand, you know, like as I've said, I beat this drum, but gaming is, you know, the new media. And, you know, a successful game can become so many things. It become a content engine, it can become an influencer engine, you know, commerce, e-commerce, social platform, all in once. You know, community is, you know, really that new moat, I think. And then the team behind you, just like in any investment, when I pitched, you know, for gamer, the team matters more than, you know, the deck, you know, than what you're gonna show them. And I laugh because I've done a lot of presentations in the Middle East. And one of my associates over in Dubai, he's from Australia. And when you want to pitch something, the worst thing you can do is A, read your pitch to somebody, B, put too many words on the screen because you just don't know where to look. And I used to think I used very little words, and I remember we were working on a project together, and he said to me, Yeah, no more than, you know, probably 20 words. And I go, okay, I'll keep it to 20 words, like a page. He goes, No, not a page, the whole thing. Just put pretty pictures up there with a few words, and then you talk through it. And it really kind of made me look back on, you know, kind of the pitch. I mean, I pitched a VC firm, you know, once, and one of the better pitches I've done, but you know, I didn't want to go through the deck. It was one of those kind of very, I won't mention the firm, but very high-end firms where they're waiting for the chairman to come on and they kept saying, Okay, he's coming. He's gonna be on a few minutes. Okay, Gail, okay, you ready? Because okay, he's gonna, okay, here, oh, here he comes. He's like all frenetic. I was like, oh my God. He comes and goes, Yeah, hi Gail, this is so-and-so, so-and-so. And I heard a lot about you. This is great. He goes, Listen, I got a few minutes. Can you just pitch me out in three minutes? I calm as a cucumber from probably being on TV a lot. I said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pitch you in two minutes and 40 seconds. How's that? And he goes, I'm in love. And I pitched him, it was about 245. And he said, that was one of the best pitches I've heard. He goes, Hey, everybody, pay attention. This is how you pitch. So I knew, you know, you gotta squeeze it down. And we're in that attention, you know, deficit economy anyway. Nobody wants to, you know, nobody wants to sit still. And I you have to be very good at reading body language. I mean, when I used to pitch TV shows, the moment I pitched and someone sat back in their chair and crossed their legs, I felt like I lost them. You want them to lean in. Actually, I like speaking at universities about that because I think it's really important to have that eye for when you pitch, and especially you're asking for money, you're representing who they're gonna give money to. So you really have to have it.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Are they thinking about their next pitch and their next meeting, or are they actually engaged in what you're saying?

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Right. Right, exactly. So, yeah. So that's that's my favorite part. I think pitching is my favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

I love it when it goes well. When it doesn't go well, there's nothing more uncomfortable when you know you've missed the mark.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

When you give a pitch and then it could be the wrong audience, too. I mean, if your pitch is, you know, and then I just try to make light of it. But and you know, I learned, you know, I did my MBA studies years ago at University of Michigan, and it was called executive decisions. And one of the most important things I learned from that was to identify what you don't know when you go into a pitch, like I don't know their budget, I don't know what they, you know, things like this, I don't know what they did before, and write all those down, try to answer them the best you can just by research. And then when you give that pitch, you try and get that info from them. So now you've got the full picture because that has stuck with me for 20 years. I think about it every time I pitch. What don't I know? What is it that I don't know? You know, so for anybody that's watching or listening, it's probably the best piece of advice I could give anybody is to really identify what you don't know, write it down, try and get those answers. And if you don't, then use that query right up at the top when you're pitching to get that answer and be able to shift, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

You know, I have a similar but slightly different approach to like going to a room. Number one, what do I want out of this meeting? And number two, who's the smartest person in the room? And I assume it's not me. Because there's somebody out there that's smarter than me, it's a guarantee that's not I can be with a room of 12 year olds, and there's still gonna be somebody smarter than me. And especially when you're talking about gaming or anything like that. Knowing what the purpose of the meeting is and knowing why you're there and asking yourself, I think that's great advice. What do I need to get out of this? And what's the piece of information that I don't have? Because all of us live in our own little cocoons, we have our own blind spots, and true arrogance is when you think you know it all, and that's when you really get burned and you get yourself in trouble.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Right, right. Yeah, listen, I think about that a lot because I a lot of my day is spent either strategically putting a pitch together or helping somebody else do that, or you know, putting that all that media together so that it's concise and it makes sense and you're not wasting people's time, basically. I mean, I'm getting ready to launch a girl in the game as a brand and a platform. And it's not so much about you know, women trying to fit into the system, it's about recognizing like we're part of the strategy and the economy and the outcome. And so, you know, I'm bringing that media, tech, and opportunity together and kind of help start shaping that outcome. I'm excited about it from a standpoint of, you know, my daughter's a singer-songwriter in Nashville, and she's taken a lot of high-level meetings and been in a lot of rooms with a lot of famous people. And she, this is probably last year at one point. She called me, she says, Wow, I just got out of this session. And she goes, I honestly was making these contributions to this song. But when I'd say what I had to say, there were three guys in the room. The one guy would look at me and say, Yeah, okay, that's interesting. Hang on. And then she he'd turn and go, What she said was, but and he'd interpret everything she said to tell these other guys. And she's like, Hello, like, I'm in the room. And I said, Yeah, yep, I get it. You know, and it hasn't it hasn't, it was actually a very it would be a very funny Saturday night skit because she's like, Can you know, can we go up tempo there? And they go, and then he goes, Okay, hang on. Yeah, she wants to go up tempo, and then because she said the whole time. I was just out of my mind, you know. And she's the mother's daughter, so I'm surprised she kept her cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

But I love the name Girl of the Game. I love the name because what you're doing is you're stating the obvious that's not so obvious.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, for me, I mean, I I think it's just about kind of seeing the angles for women who are, you know, we're not like waiting to be chosen, you know. We understand, you know, the lay of the land, the game, I guess, and you know, and then you know, you see how you move. I mean, I think that I'm not worried about getting a seat at the table, you know. I it's really about understanding, you know, the game, the game being the business or whatever you're in to, you know, to do your own thing. And, you know, I've been in just such a plethora of experiences in my career from you know, selling, I will say this, it's kind of funny, but selling TV shows, making sure that I wasn't out at night a lot having dinners because it's all guys. I mean, there were maybe two women I called on in the whole market. And you know, you go to dinner, and back then I'm talking, you know, 80s, 90s, you know, everybody drank a lot more than they do. And I've thrown more than, you know, a few shots of tequila over my shoulder just because, you know, you can't keep up, you know. So kind of learning that balance and understanding and kind of tricks of the trade in terms of how you speak to people and ask them about, you know, who they are and what they do and gaining trust. And you know, I think a lot of the younger girls, like in their 20s and 30s, they really struggle. It's hard. It's really much. I thought it was hard when I was that age, but I think it's harder now. That's why I feel like a girl in the game really can add some value. No matter if you're in the games business or you're in the music business or tech. A girl that I've become friends with, she's the lead Call of Duty, you know, executive in the world. She's been doing it for 23 years. And, you know, they asked her, you know, you play the game, and she started laughing. Oh, you know, why would I do that? You know, but again, you know, it's kind of like leaning into that whole idea that you can really build your future, you can do what you want, you have to have a lot of patience. I think we're in a generation where, you know, even my daughter, she gets so frustrated when someone doesn't immediately that they want immediate gratification. It's like, you know, they might have gone to do their laundry or something. Give them a minute to. I mean, I wrote an article on LinkedIn years ago about the no response response where you send something out and you know them, even when you don't know them. I'm a real believer, like I'm pretty good on LinkedIn where I will pretty much, if someone's pitching me something, I'll just go, thanks for thinking of us, not for me, or not for thanks for thinking of me, not for us. Thanks for thinking of me, not for us. Just to go, and the amount of people that I get that go, oh my God, thank you. Because nobody thinks, you know, nobody responds. I maybe I'm old school, but I like to respond to people and especially kids, kids in college. I probably shouldn't say this, but I have had so many people on LinkedIn, college kids, go, could you just spare 15 minutes? And I do it. I do it 15 minutes, turns into a little longer. But I met some great kids, you know, and they're frustrated, you know. Like, what are you what are you doing? You know, like, you know, and some of them they want to go in a direction that it's not really what they want to do. They just think they want to do it. You know, do what you want to do so you wake up and do it for free. I'm talking to you for free because I like it.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

I I love that you say that. My wife is really good at at talking to everybody, but she I'll answer the door sometimes for solicitors, goes, Why are you answering the door? They're washing your windows. I'm like, because they deserve my respect. Even if I'm gonna say respectfully, no thanks. I don't, I already have somebody wash my windows, they deserve it. And I've often thought on LinkedIn when somebody pitches me, do I just ignore it or do I give them a quick answer? And I think the ones that I struggle with the most are this is something I may be interested in, so I don't give the answer right away. But if it's not something, I feel like I have a human obligation to give them a quick answer so that they can move on. So they don't have this hanging chat of is this person gonna respond to me? You say, no, thanks for your time, but I'm not interested. I think it's so important, it's so missing in society.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Yeah, the only thing I don't like, the things that I don't like about LinkedIn is if someone's pitching me something I obviously doesn't even fit my brand. Then I feel like it's just a massive thing. And I'm like, there's been a few times when I go, Do you know what I do? I've actually said that. And they're like, Yeah, well, I go, Yeah, don't send these to people. Because you, you know, it's a turnoff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, so but even when you say that, you're helping them, you're showing them a good deal of respect by helping them redirect their effort, hopefully redirect their efforts to say, you know, what you're doing is not helping your business. You're trying to expand your business, and you're not helping because you're not being direct and intimate and you're not paying attention to your customer at all. And so I think that's pretty important. Yeah. Well, Gail, I've loved this conversation. I think we'd go for another hour or so, but I'm gonna respect your time because I know you're busy, and I've appreciated I've learned a little bit about the gaming market, and really it's it's just another market, and it's about having expertise in that market. It's about recognizing. It's the biggest market.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Let's let's let's clarify that. Oh, yeah, you're right. Entertainment market in the world.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Derek, let's not forget, I think the important takeaway that at least I took away from this, listening to Gail, is it's really about community. And all of this stuff, I think many of the problems that you and I have talked about on this is really about creating those communities of respect and trust and learning how to nurture those, I think is the hallmark of a real leader. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

I know that's a great insight. Great insight. Gail, I've loved this conversation. Thanks for joining us. And for everybody's yeah, for everyone who's joined us, thanks for being here. If you haven't already done so, subscribe, follow, rate, and make a comment if there's something you don't like. If you want to talk directly to me, go to asterisknow.com and we'll have a direct conversation. And in the meantime, join us the next time. Thank you. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

So that's it for today's episode of Commander's Intend Podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will be entered in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private exclusive leadership coaching package with Derek Oaks himself. So head on over to Commanders and Head Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Derek's Leadership Guide. And join us on the next episode.