From Alabama to Kosovo: Contributing to NATO’s Peacekeeping mission
Posted On October 16, 2024
There’s been a lot of discussion in political circles recently about NATO and whether it’s beneficial for the United States to maintain its place within the treaty organization. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” is intimately familiar with NATO, how it operates, and the importance of its mission. Ron McBay is lawyer who is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Alabama Army National Guard who recently served as the Deputy Chief Legal Advisor to the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, commonly known as KFOR. His job was to provide training to soldiers from countries… Read More
Categories: Blog, What's Working with Cam Marston
Maymay made a business out of a YouTube channel, and you can too
Posted On October 7, 2024
Businesses can start from all sorts of places and situations. For Maymay Helms, her business started with a house fire. “In 2011, we lost everything we owned in a fire in our home,” she said. “I had been kind of a fan of YouTube. I’d been watching paper crafters and artists and things that I loved. And I remember saying to my husband: ‘I think I could do this.’” Helms did just that, starting a YouTube paper crafting channel out of a 4×6 closet that now has more than 380,000 subscribers. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
How will new realtor commission rules affect the homebuying process?
Posted On October 1, 2024
There are new rules for realtors’ commissions when you’re looking to buy a house. How will they affect you? Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” had the answer. Alabama Gulf Coast realtor Angelo DePaola, the Coastal Connection, has done a lot of work researching how the new rule will affect realtors and homebuyers. Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a house you went to the realtor who listed that house – the seller’s agent. But in order to ensure that the best interests of the buyer were represented, buyer’s agents became… Read More
Categories: Blog, Real Estate, What's Working with Cam Marston
Effective leadership is not always telling, but asking
Posted On September 19, 2024
It seems only natural for leaders to tell those in their charge what to do. After all, their expertise is part of the reason they became leaders in the first place. But our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” tells us that effective leadership relies more on asking than telling. Bob Tiede is co-author of “Leading with Questions,” which puts forth the idea that asking your employees to join in the process of coming up with ideas and solutions is a more effective way to lead. It’s an idea based in research – some of… Read More
Categories: Blog, What's Working with Cam Marston
Disrupting the old school way: By creating a unique customer experience
Posted On September 12, 2024
Want to disrupt an industry? Most would lean on new technology. But that’s not the only way to do it. How about a radically unique customer experience? That’s exactly what Ron Holt has done to do something most wouldn’t have thought possible – make moving fun. Holt founded Birmingham-based Pink Zebra Moving after his mother-in-law had a terrible experience with another moving company. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” he’d already had one entrepreneurial success, the residential cleaning company Two Maids & A Mop, which experienced rapid growth after utilizing a unique compensation model… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
How to get people to pay for something they can find for free
Posted On August 16, 2024
Why would you pay for something that you can find elsewhere for free? You might if it’s a superior product or service. Or if it’s a service personalized specifically for you. Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” has done just that. Rob Lightbrown is a lifelong weather junkie and former National Weather Service intern who now runs Crown Weather Services, a subscription-based website that serves, essentially, as a personal weatherman for its subscribers. While there is a plethora of weather forecasts available for free on television, the internet and social media, Lightbrown said many… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
Make the customer the hero of your company’s story
Posted On August 1, 2024
Who is the hero of your company’s story? Spoiler alert: It shouldn’t be you. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston” was Stephanie Greenwood, president of Mobile-based IMMIX Strategic. And she says successful marketing is about telling a story. Steve Jobs learned that when he found himself out at Apple and spent time working at Pixar. He then returned to Apple ready to sell the MacIntosh by telling stories — and putting the customer at the center of them. He did it with the tag line “Think different.” “He was inviting people into an opportunity… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Blog, What's Working with Cam Marston
The Author vs. Editor Dilemma: How to become a more effective leader
Posted On July 30, 2024
Have you ever thought of the workplace like an editorial relationship? The authors are coming up with solutions to problems, and the editors are considering the worth of those solutions and recommending ways to make them better. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” has written a book using this analogy to suggest a better method of leadership. Brandon Smith, an executive coach and self-described “workplace therapist,” is the author of “The Author vs. Editor Dilemma,” which has become a trusted go-to guide for many executives and leadership coaches. “What I find is, when things… Read More
Categories: Blog, Parenting, What's Working with Cam Marston, Workplace
The unseen highway: America’s inland waterways
Posted On July 26, 2024
We all know that trucks move a lot of goods and materials in the United States. We see them every day on the highway. What many of us don’t often see, however, is how one-third of the nation’s GDP is transported every year: It’s shipped by boat or barge on inland waterways. About 500 million tons per year are moved across the 12,000 miles of inland waterways in the U.S., and over 540,000 jobs are in some way connected to inland shipping. While we may not see that unless we’re hanging out by the New Orleans riverfront or in one… Read More
Categories: Blog, What's Working with Cam Marston
Are we about to see a ‘ticking debt time bomb’ go off?
Posted On July 7, 2024
Most of us who have had to manage our own finances for any amount of time know by now that carrying and building debt over a long period of time is generally not a good thing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that our government has ever learned this lesson. It has continued to build debt, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, and economist Connor Lokar believes those chickens will soon be coming home to roost. Lokar, our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” says he and his group, ITR Economics, believe we should start to see… Read More
Categories: Blog, What's Working with Cam Marston