Mike Cameron - Talks about Leadership, Sales and Emotion

Mike Cameron is a TedX speaker, author, and consultant.  During the interview, we talk about the impact of emotion on the sales process and in leadership.

His book on Amazon https://amzn.to/3qRwhtv

https://www.mikecameron.ca/

So I'm fortunate, to have with me today, Mike Cameron, and he's the author of the book Becoming a Better Man, When Something's Got to Change, Maybe it's You. And he gets going to talk to us about the impact of emotions in the business environment

And, what I realize is, that I literally went from bagging shit to building, running, and ultimately selling a multi-million dollar business. So it just makes a great story. But when I, talk about that, I started my career working at a garden supply wholesale company as an 18-year-old. And I was literally bagging steer maneuver and not exactly a fantastic job at 18, it paid the bills. It bought me a case of beer on the weekend. It did the job and ultimately I worked my way up through the warehouse, ended up driving a truck. 

And that's when I first realized that nobody buys a bag of steer manure because they want to own a bag of crap. They ultimately buy a bag of steer manure because they want that feeling that they'll get when they grow that beautiful Rose Bush or that, that vegetable garden, or what have you. So that was kinda my first taste into the fact that my customers don't buy the thing they buy the feeling, the thing is ultimately going to get them.

And as business leaders and as salespeople this is especially true. Again, for me, the context now, a lot of the time is in violence prevention. But I also do a ton of work in sales and leadership because the things I talk about are the same, it's just, the application is a little bit different.

 Because for me as a salesperson, there are three big pieces, that's ask questions, tell stories, and be authentic. And that would be my overarching framework. But of course, in order to be authentic if I'm giving you a prescribed methodology that doesn't necessarily jive with who you are, either as an individual or as an organization. That's not authenticity.

And again, how we create neural pathways  One of them talks about when neurons that fire together wire together. And so we talk about asking the right questions to help change the thought patterns of our customers. So telling isn't selling. I can tell you all day long that my product, this, my product, that my product can do this. My product will solve your problem.

When I tell you stuff, it's eh, maybe, but whereas if I flip that into questions and I ask you the right questions that starts creating new action it actually starts to physically change your customer's brain and create new ways of thinking. 

So when I again, as simple as do you see how this might change things for you or your organization? What would it look like if you were able to do this again, ask those questions, get the customers to come to their own conclusions?

Mike talks about developing leadership skills, leadership motivation, and the theory proposed by Rene Descartes.