Cam Marston

Uncertainty. It’s not just a headline—it’s the air we breathe. Will markets soar or crash? Unclear. Is getting that degree still a safe bet? Depends on who you ask. Will AI transform your job or take it? Yet to be determined.

We’re living in a world where the rules keep changing. The maps are outdated. The playbooks are shredded. And as humans, we’re wired to avoid the unknown. So how do you move forward when the path is blurred?

You lead anyway.

History’s most admired figures didn’t have crystal balls — they had strong timeless qualities. They practiced habits that built trust, reduced fear, and propelled people forward in the face of ambiguity. And here’s the secret: those habits aren’t exclusive to presidents and pioneers. They’re within reach for all of us—if we commit to cultivating them.

In this energizing and practical session, we’ll explore five enduring, trainable disciplines that help people lead through the fog:

Curiosity. Connection. Initiative. Persuasion. Vision.

These aren’t buzzwords—they’re tools. When embraced with intention, they calm anxiety, inspire action, and turn uncertainty from a barrier into a launchpad.

If you’re waiting for clarity, stop. It may never come. But if you’re ready to lead in spite of it—this is where we begin.

For the first time in history, five distinct generations — Matures, Boomers, Xers, Millennials and Gen Z— may be employed side by side in the workplace. With differing values and seemingly incompatible views on leadership, these generations have stirred up unprecedented conflict in the business world. Effective management of this generational divide is vital to longevity and success. In fact, it is the most important demand your company can make of its leaders. 

In this engaging presentation, Cam Marston teaches how each generation developed its core values, how these values manifest in the workplace today, and why they can all not only operate alongside each other, but do so with extraordinary success. This program provides the generational insight, concrete examples and specific approaches to help frustrated managers build the individual connections needed to boost employee performance and retention. 

As you will learn, the only common ground is the intensity with which each generation holds fast to its value systems. Understanding and respecting those generational biases are critical to bringing out the best in every employee.

We hear it all the time: “Our people are our greatest asset.” But good talent is hard to find and even harder to keep. How do you build your people assets? What do today’s employees want? In today’s multigenerational workforce, Millennials want meaning and freedom, Generation X wants openness and flexibility, Boomers want recognition and authority. Matures like rules and respect. What about the Gen Z, the generation following the Millennials? Each generation has something to offer so every business needs to offer something to each generation.

Retaining employees is far more cost-effective than recruiting and training new ones. This presentation profiles each generation of employee – what will get them on the clock and what will keep them ticking. Cam Marston will help you adapt your recruiting and retention program to suit the ambitions and goals of each generation, choose from the best that each has to offer and realize the full return on investment in your workforce.

Recruiting, training, experience, and institutional memory make your employees your most valuable assets. Effective multi-generational hiring and retention efforts will help ensure that those assets keep working for you and not for someone else.

The first rule of selling remains steadfast: Know your customer. With five distinct generations playing active roles in the buying decisions of companies worldwide, that tenet is increasingly difficult to fulfill. It is no longer enough to be personable and knowledgeable about your product. Changing dynamics require changing strategies. To succeed in today’s business climate, you need to approach each buyer with an informed generational perspective — recognizing the underlying biases, values and expectations that pave the way to “Yes.”

In this presentation, Cam Marston shows you how to create a fast and genuine connection with new customers, sell to your customer’s expectations, build trust between generations, and avoid communication pitfalls

Extraordinary turnover. Mental health awareness and challenges. Diversity and inclusion priorities and backlash. Supply chain nightmares. Confusion about AI. Political divisions. Unpredictable stock market. Inflation forecasts. Partridge in a pear tree. Goodness.

The trends shaping today’s workplace and marketplace are, each on their own, worthy of a headline in a news cycle. But in today’s upheaval, they’re happening simultaneously. Which of the trends making current headlines will impact the workplace and marketplace most? Which ones do employers, managers, sales leaders, and human resources executives need to keep an eye on? Cam Marston has opinions on that…

In 2018, Cam began an old-school, interview-style, terrestrial radio show and podcast called What’s Working with Cam Marston. His goal? To interview professionals from a spectrum of industries across the country who will help his listeners better understand the trends shaping their workplace, the workforce, and the marketplace. Today, over 300 episodes later, Cam shares best practices gained from his continuously growing body of interviews, as well as from proprietary research, to equip each audience with a list of the most important trends, their potential impact, and guidelines on how to address them. This presentation delivers thought-provoking content, curated for your specific industry, to arm each audience with the skills and information needed to get ahead in their industry.

For decades, financial services professionals have focused on demographic groups that are now largely in retirement. The financial services industry grew up with the Matures and the Baby Boomers. Now, new generations with different economic and cultural experiences, as well as different attitudes and expectations, are in the age ranges that make them prime markets for investments, retirement planning, insurance, and other financial products. 

Connecting and building trust with each of these generations? It’s a puzzle and it shouldn’t be so hard. 

Cam Marston understands the attitudes and expectations of today and tomorrow’s generations and what they expect from financial services providers. He knows how they buy, how they value different types of information, what their definition of “expert” is, and how they apply it to financial professionals. He understands their preferred methods of communications, which sales tools to use and how to use them effectively.

The next generation of financial services client has arrived. They will not tolerate being treated the same way their parents were treated. Learn what they want in this exciting and impactful presentation.

Your clients’ fears change throughout their lives. Regardless of whether they are young or old, they likely worry that their financial challenges are nearly insurmountable. They show a brave face to their  family and to their colleagues but inside they tremble, Uncertainty creates fear. It always has. It always will. 

You, the advisor, know better. Your financial training has taught you that few financial challenges are unalterable. You know what to do, what to expect, and what products can address your clients’ challenges. However, sharing your confident outlook requires knowing what your clients’ fears are and how to discuss them. And knowing how to do that, requires knowing a bit more about your  clients. 

Life’s Predictable Fears 

• When in early adulthood, your clients’ fears are largely about themselves and their ability to earn and save

• Later the fears center around children and their future 
• Then your client’s ability to preserve good health and save funds for retirement 
• Then it’s a comfortable and productive retirement 
• Followed by the extraordinary human desire to be remembered 

Each of these life stages require the savvy to know how to communicate appropriately with their client going through these emotions, these phases. 

Supported by data and research, this presentation equips advisors to talk their clients through their fears and equip them to more fully develop long-lasting, fruitful client relationships.

For decades, retirement planning has focused almost exclusively on money. And while financial strategy still matters deeply, today’s retirees, especially Baby Boomers and Generation X, are discovering that the hardest parts of retirement aren’t found on a balance sheet.

This keynote reframes retirement preparation through a generational lens, helping financial advisors better understand the non-financial challenges shaping client outcomes right now. Cam Marston introduces PHASE™ Into Retirement, a practical framework that helps advisors uncover what truly drives retirement satisfaction:

• Purpose – Who am I when the title goes away?
• Health – How do physical and cognitive realities shape daily life?
• Activities – How time is actually spent, not just imagined
• Social – The strength (or fragility) of relationships post-work
• Everyday Routines – The overlooked engine of emotional stability

Advisors will leave with sharper insight into generational retirement blind spots, better language for client conversations, and a clearer understanding of why well-funded retirements still fail – and how to prevent that. 

When presented as a workshop, Cam gives advisors the opportunity to interact directly with the PHASE™ assessment. This hands-on exposure allows advisors to experience how the framework is translated into structured questions, scoring, and insight, providing practical context for how PHASE™ can support client conversations.

This is not therapy, coaching, or role play. It is a professional, research-informed tool designed to complement existing planning processes. PHASE™ Into Retirement equips financial professionals to move beyond numbers, deepen client trust, and guide Boomers and Gen Xers into retirements that don’t just last, but work.

Leading Multi-Generational Teams is an out-of-your-seat, multi-media workshop using fun and engaging methods to expand leaders’ existing knowledge and facilitate new and deeper insight into those whom they lead. Providing multiple application opportunities, the workshop optimizes a leader’s abilities to develop high performance teams and achieve better results on the job.

Participants learn the demographics, historical events, and parenting trends that created each generation’s workplace preferences and how these preferences can become sources of conflict. Awareness, appreciation, and mastery of generational preferences enables leaders to address such conflict productively, if not avoid it altogether. Furthermore, mastery of generational preferences ensures productive team relationships and communications that promote creativity, innovation, teamwork, and performance.

The Gen-Flex® model—a tool for leaders to examine how generational preferences influence their own leadership approach on a case-by-case basis—is central to the workshop. The tool teaches leaders to adjust their approach to minimize generation gaps and lead effectively.

A flexible program, the course is available in half-day and full-day versions.

Not only is Cam Marston a powerful speaker but he is also an exceptional Master of Ceremonies. A  meeting planner’s dream, Cam’s emcee skills rival those of any comedian or other professional host. He is quick on his feet, funny, flexible, always prepared, and skilled at keeping the meeting on track and on schedule. 

As an in-demand expert on workplace and marketplace trends, Cam offers special rate packages that combine his emcee work and a keynote.