Book Cam Marston for a Practical, Funny, Research-Based Keynote on Generations at Work

Depending on the time and duties involved, my fee in North America typically falls between $12,500 – $27,500. In the busy "meeting" seasons of spring and fall the price goes up. In the slower summer months and around the winter holidays, I tend to accept lower fees. If the event is within a short drive of my home in Mobile, Alabama (aka "local"), the price is reduced. If the event demands extensive travel that will take me out of the market for several days, i.e. overseas, the price goes up. If you have a series of events where we can commit to several dates on one contract, the price goes down. Virtual presentations are another cost-effective way to secure my presentations for a lower fee.

Best to call so we can discuss. We try to make it work.

Also, as I am often already booked for a requested date or my fees over an allocated budget, my associate Tim Moore is available to present the Generational Insights' solutions for $4,500 – $8,500 plus travel.

Ideally three to six months out. Spring and fall are my busiest seasons, so the good dates on my calendar go first, and the earlier you reach out, the more flexibility we have on date and fee.

That said, I've pulled together a full presentation with two weeks' notice when the calendar lined up. If you're up against a tight deadline, call rather than email — it's faster for both of us to figure out whether it's doable.

Yes. Virtual presentations are one of the most cost-effective ways to get my content in front of your team, and they're priced lower than a live, in-person event.

Hybrid works too — I'll present live in the room while remote attendees join in. The setup varies enough by event (platform, time zones, how interactive you want it) that it's worth a quick call to get an accurate quote rather than guessing at a number here.

We understand plans change. Our first move is always to look at rescheduling rather than canceling outright — in most cases we can simply move your date to a new one on the calendar. If a full cancellation is necessary, our agreement includes a cancellation fee based on notice given: 50% of the fee if 90+ days out, 100% if within 90 days. The earlier you let us know, the more options we have on both ends. If you're unsure whether you need to cancel or just reschedule, call Helen first — there's often a path that works for everyone.

We work with many speakers bureaus. If you first learned about me from one, please honor their efforts by booking through them. However, most of our work is booked directly with the client. It takes a link out of the chain – easier on all involved. My team is knowledgeable, friendly and quick to respond.

Also, be forewarned, many bureaus have "exclusive" relationships with speakers, meaning the bureau and speaker have agreed that the speaker is only accessible through that bureau and the speaker has been promised a minimum revenue by the bureau. If the bureau doesn't secure enough bookings to meet this minimum, they must pay the difference. What this can often mean is that you'll call the bureau and ask to hire me and the bureau will say, "We know Cam and love him but we know a guy that does just as good a job and is the same price or cheaper. We'll send you this guy instead." Don't let that happen.

No. We work with companies who are interested in our solutions and have a need that we can fill. Company size is irrelevant.

My team and I have made presentations to audiences of multiple thousands in arenas as well as to ten people in a boardroom at a F500 board of directors meeting. We work with all audience sizes. In our conference call prior to the event, we ask for your best guess on audience size – it helps us prepare the appropriate program. For larger audiences the laughs last longer – it's a great feeling – but we need to reduce our content with this in mind to stay within the allotted time. For smaller audiences we can pack a lot in, though many smaller audiences prefer less content and more interaction with the speaker and each other on the topic.

Because I don't simply explain how the generations are different. I show your audience what to do with that information.

For more than twenty-five years, I've studied the generational trends shaping the workplace, workforce, marketplace, and now the retirement landscape. The value is not in labeling people by age. The value is in understanding what different generations tend to notice, trust, resist, and respond to — and then using that insight to communicate better, lead better, sell better, recruit better, retain better, and build stronger relationships.

Plenty of speakers can describe the differences between Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. That is the easy part. The harder and more useful work is translating those differences into practical action: what to say, what to ask, how to follow up, how to make a better first impression, how to avoid unnecessary friction, and how to adjust your message so the other person can actually hear it.

That is where my work lives.

My presentations are built around research, but they are delivered through stories, humor, examples, and practical takeaways. Audiences laugh because they recognize themselves, their coworkers, their clients, their children, and sometimes their bosses. That laughter matters. It lowers resistance. It makes the insight memorable. And once people are laughing, they are much more willing to look honestly at their own habits and try something different.

My content is also constantly evolving. Today's generational issues are not the same ones we were discussing ten years ago. Gen Z is changing expectations in the workplace. Millennials are moving deeper into leadership and household decision-making. Gen X is carrying major management, caregiving, and financial responsibilities. Boomers are redefining retirement. And through my work with PurposeNext and PHASE Into Retirement™, I'm now helping organizations and financial professionals address one of the largest emerging life-stage questions in the marketplace: how to prepare people not just financially for retirement, but personally, socially, and purposefully as well.

When you hire me, your audience gets current research, humor that keeps them engaged, and practical tools they can use immediately. They leave with more than an understanding of generational differences. They leave with a better way to talk to people, work with people, sell to people, lead people, and serve people.

That is why clients bring me back.

My expertise covers all of the generations because understanding Gen Z requires understanding the generations they work for, sell to, learn from, and report to. However, if your priority is a deep focus on Gen Z — how they communicate, what motivates them, how they make decisions, and what they expect from employers or businesses — I can easily customize the content around that generation and the specific challenges they create in your workplace or marketplace.

Read Cam's full guide to managing Gen Z in the workplace →

Due to the limited availability of what we sell – specifically, dates on a calendar – we don't automatically discount for non-profits or government. However, please contact us to discuss your event details, budget, etc. because there are sometimes ways we can accommodate them.

No. Our contracts specifically outline the times when we'll be available to your event. However, when possible, we try to interact as much as we can. Often we're invited to events the night before the presentation and the conversations with attendees usually end up being awkward. "What is it that you do again?" Or, "So, you're here to motivate us tomorrow?" However, when our schedules permit us to stay after the presentation and attend an event with the audience members, it is lots of fun. The presentation builds common ground so we then get stories about how they began to recognize their own teams and children in the content. This often allows us to offer specific advice to people who ask us about their unique challenges.

When you engage us we commit to arriving in your event location's city the night before the appearance, be available for an AV check the day of the event, and on-site in plenty of time prior to the scheduled presentation. The fee also includes one or two conference calls with your event team to discuss your goals for the presentation. On the conference call we'll agree on how long you'll need the presentation to last and whether you want Q&A as a part of it or not, plus go through my standard list of questions that help me get to know your audience. I'll then spend time in my office customizing the presentation to ensure that your goals are met. I don't just give the same canned speech over and over. Also, I am always happy to videotape a personal message to your invitees telling them what I will be bringing to the meeting to help them get excited and interested in attending. You can post this video on your event website or send it in an e-mail to the invitees.

You'll find that we are very easy to work with and our goal is to help you make your event as successful as it can be. So, last minute, on-site questions like, "Can you shorten/lengthen your presentation due to something unexpected?" If we can make it work, yes. "Can you hang around during the break and interact with our attendees?" Again, yes, if we can make it work considering previous commitments or needs to get to the next city, absolutely.

As far as needed. There are no restrictions on how far we'll travel.

Like many other busy speakers who are constantly traveling from one event to another, we have a flat travel fee for all engagements in North America. It is nearly impossible to collect all of the receipts and determine who owes what in a multi-legged trip. We charge $2,500 for each U.S. engagement as this allows us to buy the flexible tickets that permit us to change flights at the last minute due to whatever circumstances the airlines or the weather throws at us. Cheaper tickets severely restrict the changes we can make if changes become necessary, and send the ticket holder to the bottom of the priority list for rebooking. This stipend also covers my off-site meals, parking and/or ground in my home city, tips and many of the other expenses that add up quickly when traveling. This flat travel fee also makes it a tad easier on you – we don't have to bill for expenses after the event and you don't have to spend time cutting another check and checking receipts.

A part of our commitment with this travel fee is that we will do everything in our power to be at your event when disruptions hit. Many times we've driven all night when storms have stranded us at an airport and we've had charter planes (that would have cost us more than the event paid) on hold to honor our commitment to be there.

The client is responsible for arranging and direct billing to their account a hotel room for one or two nights (usually one night but sometimes two nights when presentations are in the evening or after midday on the west coast), ground transportation from/to the airport in the destination city, and the standard AV equipment that has become a part of nearly every meeting these days. We'll send the AV form upon request but there's nothing odd or unique on it.

Good lord, no. Unbelievably, some speakers do. Not me.

No. Certainly not. But I won't turn it down either.

No. While I'm always happy to donate a small handful of one of my books to offer as a raffle item or to give to your leadership team, books are a separate cost. We offer steep discounts when they're purchased in conjunction with a presentation. If you want them signed, I can sign them in advance and have them shipped, I can sign them upon arrival in my hotel room or in a small meeting room, or I can personalize them at a scheduled book signing where I will also interact with conference attendees after my speech. This is a discussion we have in preparation for the event.

Absolutely. Count on it, but I prefer to share them after my presentation as I tweak them up until the last minute. I meet attendees and discuss their businesses and their challenges and continuously add things to my slides. Also, if attendees are given them in advance of my live presentation, it ruins some of the surprise information and humor and can distract them from what is actually happening onstage. The copies will be sent to the meeting planner via email as a PDF document.

Due to the above, I prefer not to send them ahead. Also, having done this for 25 years, I have the AV process down to a science – having learned the hard way what works and what doesn't. Playing them directly from my own computer leads to the best results.

I'm happy to use your template as my opening and closing slide but the interior slide content will be in my own branded template.

As mentioned above, I offer my slides in PDF format as a follow-up to the event. However, I also have standard handouts and/or worksheets that I can send in advance that can be duplicated and placed at each seat or added to any conference website or app for download. We also have series of short management and sales micro-videos that serve as excellent continuing education for conference attendees. Ask about them and we'll send samples or a trial subscription for the videos.

Most of my clients are management, sales, or customer meetings for F500 type companies who are asking us to help them with one of the following:

1. Educating and entertaining their teams and/or customers who are in customer facing roles on how to best engage/sell/provide service to the different generations of customer/client.
2. Educating and entertaining management and leadership on how to recruit, manage, and retain employees.
3. Educating leadership on the generational and demographic trends that are shaping today's workplace and workforce.
4. Taking groups who have had some formal introduction to generational and demographic differences in the workplace and the marketplace and taking the conversation deeper.

I also do a lot of work with associations who bring me to their conferences to share my solutions with their members.

While our presentations will enlighten and entertain nearly every audience, church or religious organizations aren't groups that we feel we can help very much. The same goes for education and school groups. Our focus is business, management, and sales.

Sometimes people assume that I must be a motivational speaker. While my content gets people excited for new opportunities they can create by using it, I'm not a motivational speaker.

Yes. After 25 years I have a lot of research assembled for other clients that I pull from. Occasionally I commission secondary research and gather content for a specific audience at my own cost.

If you would like me to focus more heavily on one or two particular generations rather than all five, that is also an easy customization for me.

No. Lots of humor but nothing you can't take back to your children or your church and repeat.

Like most professional speakers, this is my career's work that I make my living being paid to present. My quoted fees are for live presentations. It is critical that I keep my copyrighted solutions from being recorded and distributed – or posted on YouTube for the world to see for free. However, on occasion we do make exceptions for certain internal and archival purposes which my team would be happy to discuss with you. If you want to videotape my presentation for training purposes, there is an additional contract and an additional charge for this. However, like everything else, we want to make it work with you.

For some groups our fees are too high. For others they are a tiny drop in a huge bucket. For those who can't afford our fees for a live presentation, we have a few solutions that work well:

1. We put on webinars where I deliver my content from afar and it is viewed either in one location or across the nation simultaneously. It's not nearly as effective as a live presentation but it works. We can set up the webinar or use your service.
2. I have four books on the topics – two on management, one on sales, and one for a niche market of financial services. All these books are available on Amazon.
3. We offer micro-videos of about 3 – 4 minutes each that focus on different topics within sales, management, recruiting, and retention. Each video is supported by a worksheet to help retention.

Most of my business is repeat or referral business. This means I do a good job and they want me back. Or they like what I do and send me on to their colleagues to do it for them. It means my team and I are easy to work with, very professional, and are committed to your event's success. I'll stack our professional reputation up to anyone's. We are very proud of our work and our reputation.