One Mistake That’s Costing You Every Career Opportunity – Laura Camacho

23:22Laura Camacho:They can definitely hear it. Oh, my gosh. I love that you said that. People don't realize that, that the way that you're sitting and like if you're not smiling, then people can feel it on the other. They can feel it. Yes. They can feel it. Absolutely. And for my high stakes phone conversations, which, you know, most of my work is done on video, but if it's a phone conversation, I'm standing up because I want that energy. If it's a webinar, you know, one to many, stand up because you're going to come across as more relaxed and more confident. Yeah, Tony, that's funny that you say that. I went to this conference, right, by Patrick Bet-David, and Tony Robbins was a guest speaker.

23:58Oh. And he was like, get up. Everybody get up. So he has, like, everybody get up. Everyone's hands are going crazy. And he's like, that's energy. When people could feel your energy in the room, people tend to do better. And in sales, what is sales? It's synergy and energy, which equals production and productivity.

24:17Laura Camacho:Yes. So what you're saying is like it's spot on energy standing up. I speak. I talk with my hands. Like if somebody ever told me to sit on my hands, I think I'd be a mute. Same. Same. But see, even if you're on the phone and they can't see you, they can somehow they sense the energy. Just like when somebody that, you know, calls you on the phone and they say, hey, like, you know, from the way they said hello. that it's not good. You know, one syllable. One syllable. It's so true. I mean, you have so many good points. Are you sure? Have you done sales before? Well, just selling my own stuff. That's really how I, I mean, the PhD, that was nothing compared to, because I started off saying, so Mara, I have a company that teaches communication skills.

25:06Laura Camacho:Would you be interested? Now what's your pitch? Now I'm sure it's so different. What is it now? Yes, it's like, oh, well, did you know that 80 % of high performers do not make it to senior leadership? Ooh, why? Because they don't know how to execute executive presence. They don't know how to talk to people. And it's a totally skill that you can learn. But if you don't make an effort to learn it, you're probably not going to make it to senior leadership, which is fine. You know, you don't. Interesting. That's very interesting. So you would say that people that can't get to the next level, it's usually maybe not all the time.

25:42Would you say it's attributed to poor communication? Yes.

25:45Laura Camacho:And it was not even poor. It's just because communication is always like purpose. So it's good for whatever they're doing. Right. But people don't. This here's an example. So imagine I have a team of, say, five direct reports, but all total 30. And I'm crushing it, doing great. but you my boss you just you have a hard time envisioning me handling 300 people like you just don't see it you know laura she's just a little she's a little introverted and she does great when her comfort zone but i don't see her stretching i don't see you know i just have a hard time envisioning that and you know i've never had lunch or dinner with her so i really don't know her that well even though you know i'm her boss or boss's boss and so it's that it's not that you're a bad communicator but you're not communicating like an executive and you all know that you have to act like you have the job before you get it.

26:41Laura Camacho:Assume the sale. Yes. Assume the sale. I love that. Okay so now I'm really can now now I'm gonna come with my own questions because I like this better. So all right so question for you and I think this would be very helpful. So I lead a lot of sales teams. I have 10 offices across the U.S. I have different leaders of all different calibers. Some people are great communicators. Some people are whatever. They all have their strength. Right. So how would you I have if you have a failing team, let's just say you have a team of salespeople that are that are failing. The leader is doing everything they need to do on paper to be a leader.

27:16What would you say, in your opinion, could help this sales team perform better if the leader could make the sales team like if we could put everything on the leader in order for the sales team to get better, what would be some advice that you'd give to that leader for the sales team to perform better?

27:32Laura Camacho:Well, first of all, my question would be, because I've had this question, variations of this question many times. And the one thing you need to ascertain is, you can be successful in role A, whatever that is. And then you get, because you did so well in role A, you get promoted to role B, and you don't do as well. Right, which happens all the time in the business. Yes, or in a startup, a company had a sales team that was doing fine, and then they added a bunch of AI features to the products, so they needed to sell it at a higher price, and that same team, not all of them, could adapt to that. They were really good at selling, say,$100 ,000 software, but not at a million-dollar software.

28:25Laura Camacho:so you know that's something that you need to look at and i think you know listening to their calls i know that's a standard practice people don't believe it or not a lot of people don't do it we do we listen to their calls we pull their calls but not all the leaders do it yeah you need because and you have to listen it's painful to listen to your own calls it is i mean that's hard but i think that is indispensable in this situation because there's blind spots there There has got to be blind spots either with the leader and the people following that leader. And they need an outside voice, an outside set of eyes to come in and say, you know, you're missing this.

29:07Laura Camacho:And finally, I would say a willingness to experiment. It's a tricky situation. So why don't for the next 30 days, we're going to wear red shirts on Fridays. You know, we're going to all do our calls standing up. We're going to, I don't know, just experiment with different things. I love that. I mean, I love exactly what you said. but it's basically inspect what you expect. Yes. Check the blind spots and then change it up. Be innovative. And it's hard. I think for a lot of people, it's really hard to kind of get out of that comfort zone. It is. Especially the older we get. Yes. The more seasoned, the more, I don't like older, I feel like the more seasoned.

29:41Laura Camacho:No, the thing is though, but you've been, I'm sure they've been rewarded. They've been, it did, you know, whatever they were doing was a great recipe. It was a great formula. It delivered results. So that's when it's hard to change. when you have actually had great results from this old way of doing it. But, you know, the world is changing and people are changing. We're all more distracted. There's, you know, some people, their anxiety is very high. I mean, it's just what worked two or three years ago or five years ago might not work today. But if you have 20 years doing business a certain way, it is hard to like, oh, that's not.

30:24Laura Camacho:good enough anymore. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that people's their personalities are so different from years ago. I think that we have to be more sensitive. I don't know if that's good or bad, because sometimes I want to be like, stop crying. Yes, I have crying leaders. I feel like there should be no crying in insurance ever. I don't know how you feel about crying, but it makes me uncomfortable. And I think it loses. I think sometimes it's appropriate. I do. But I think if you're a constant crying leader, I think it takes, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think it takes away from your leadership ability because it makes you look emotionally unhinged and unstable.

31:01It does, but it could be. Okay, I'm not crazy for that. No, no.

31:03Laura Camacho:So you're not, I mean, maybe this role isn't good for you, even though, you know, before it was, maybe something is going on in their personal life. You know, we all have like a cushion of, you know, certain hours of sleep and levels of stress. And, you know, people can have family members that are sick or their own medical issues or financial issues that can erode that cushion. And that can make them more emotional. And maybe they need a sabbatical or something. I don't know. But something. It's not good. Yeah. I mean, to me, crying is a symptom that something is. Deflection, I agree. There's some kind of deflection going on there.

31:46Yes, yes. And that person just can't stay in the role that they're in. How do you know, I have a question, how do you know when it's time to retire that leader? Because that's hard. That's a hard one. You've been working with somebody, and I struggle with this. This is a big, big, big thing for me. I work with people for a really long time, and then I don't know when to finally, and the business is going down, the productivity is going down, but I have a big problem cutting that person. How do you know when it's time?

32:14Laura Camacho:Well, when they're not being successful, Mara, you want all of your people to be successful. That's part of who you are. And it's not good to be in a job where you're failing. I mean, that's not good. And if you can't pull it together, as you know, a change of scenery does wonders. Maybe in a different company, a different product, the person would be like on fire. but I think you have to look at is this person if they're not successful then why are we pretending that it is you know and I and I think you know that's why we have the the traditional the um what is it called the pip you know like a 30-day 90-day thing like person I you know this doesn't seem to be working out I want you to be successful it doesn't seem like you're experiencing success and I know that's not good for you and I know you're capable of being massively successful you know if I if we're going to give it one more go but otherwise I think you we need to find you a different place so that you can be successful yeah we use the pip the performance plan we use it too I just feel like for me sometimes it's a really hard it is because you care about the person but but Mara you have to go deeper it's like I care about you enough to go through this pain of letting you go and having this hard conversation because I want you to be successful and I know you're capable of a much greater level of success than what I'm seeing.

33:43Laura Camacho:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's important to exercise because sometimes, and I'm guilty of it, sometimes you got to put the we before the me and look at everybody, like the performance. You can't keep people around that are just not performing at the caliber because the only people it really affects. And I know this and I'm giving, I'm saying this, I know this and I keep these people around And it's because you feel for them, but sometimes in sales you can't, or just in business in general, you have to be able to separate. Well, but see, that's also the flip side of your strength of connecting with people.

34:14Laura Camacho:And you sense them and you want them to be happy that you are so aware. You have a hyper-awareness of their emotional state and you don't want the tears and you don't want more chaos. So you have a lot of awareness that not all leaders have. How do you control the chaos within an organization when there's disruption? How do you control that? That is a great question. Well, you have to, I think, put a pause on what you can and really take a look at what's going on. It has to be analyzed to me. I think the mistake is to pretend that it's not happening, to pretend that everything is fine when it's not.

35:01Laura Camacho:I think that all the people involved should in some way have a voice. That doesn't mean that you're going to have anarchy or a mutiny. One example would be giving everybody a note card and saying, what do you think is the number one problem that we have that's causing this chaos? And this, you know, reading them to the group where it's not, you know, you're not just having people rail and rant and go on and on, like whatever can fit on a small index card. And that way you're getting the input maybe and somewhat anonymously. And you're able to, you know, again, go back to the vision. Where do we want to be?

35:44Laura Camacho:What are we trying to achieve here? What do we need to do? What do we need to do differently? Yeah, I love that. And I especially like, it's very, I know about giving like this survey, the anonymous survey, but I especially like what you said, a note card. So this way gives just, let's be concise about the problem. State what it is. Let's not go on about it. Exactly. You list one or two things on a note card. Yes. I just, and I want to like just really pull that out for a second. The note card versus like a blank sheet of a document or whatever. Because people tend to like, they just like have word vomit.

36:17Yes.

36:17Laura Camacho:And then you're like, what are they even, like, what's the problem? So just identify what the problem. I love that you said. That is a key thing that you said is the note card. I'm going to try that. I love that. Because that's putting a limit, you know. I love that. And that's sometimes what's missing is a limit on the time to prepare, the time to deliver. You know, creativity flourishes when you have constraints. Typically, what do you think the problem is if a team is imploding? I think it's leadership, you know. But it could be market disruption. it you know can always be that the product isn't working anymore that it doesn't let's just say you have a good product but the team is imploding what do you think what do you think it is i i would i would look at the leadership of the team i think that's you know fish rots from the head you have to start there and again what for me one of the big learnings with my work coaching these brilliant executives is that someone can be very successful have a great run and get into a place where they're not as successful and you know there's lots of different directions you can take that but you have to recognize that just because you're successful in role a with this product with this combo that you're going to that that's like this magic secret sauce that just no matter what you do, you're just going to be killing it.

37:39Laura Camacho:Yeah. No, it's true. I, a hundred, I believe that. I think when a team starts to implode, you got to look at the leadership. There's usually distention within the leadership team. And that's when everything is starting to like, like if we put you in a role to go research bacteria, I mean, I can, I mean, like, I'm not going to, that'd be horrible. I would never succeed in that role. Yeah. I mean, that's a, Crazy example, but, you know, that happens. If somebody listening wants to grow into a boss others admire, what's the first communication skill you think that they should work on immediately?

38:14Laura Camacho:Oh, thank you for asking that question. And I want this is something to do right now. The next the next time you have to speak, that's not, you know, past the salt. But, you know, in a meeting and a presentation, instead of thinking about, oh, do I know my stuff? Oh, do I look good? Oh, do they think I'm smart enough to say that? I want you to just throw that away. And I want you to focus on how am I helping these people? How am I helping the message, the agenda? Like, why am I speaking? And how can I take what I want to say and make it more attractive, more interesting, actionable? And that is all called being strategic about how you communicate.

39:01Laura Camacho:So it's, you just, you lose that self-consciousness because you're putting on your hat of trusted advisor and whether you're the assistant to the janitor or assistant to the CEO or any role in between, you have some expertise to advise the company on and they need, they will be better off with your expertise. But everybody's distracted and tired and exhausted and thinking about their Amazon packages. So how can you be your own marketing manager for that message and just make it like Mary Poppins said, you know, with a little bit of sugar, it lets the medicine go down. So just thinking strategically, if you start doing that right now, you will automatically get ahead.

39:46So when you say thinking strategically, you mean like something innovative? Do you mean like starting the maybe starting your sales meeting a little differently?

39:55Laura Camacho:Oh, that could be. But thinking now, but it's even going deeper than that. Like you're going to have a sales meeting and you think, what do they need from me the most? Do they need encouragement? Do they need me to wake them up? But you're making your, before you talk, you're thinking, what do they need from me? How can I help them the most right now with this conversation, with this meeting? And that's your strategy. So, yeah, it could be mixing it up, but it also could be, hey, Mara, as my assistant, I don't know what, this little thing that you're doing is not helping us. I need you to do it differently.

40:31Laura Camacho:I need you to do it this way instead of that way. Or, Mara, I have great confidence in you. I see you have so much potential, but I see that your lack of preparation for these meetings is holding you back, and I really hate to see that. So I would encourage you to prepare better for the meetings. I love that. So be a sort of coach. Yes. Be the coach. Be a mentor. We all need that. Yeah. Be the person that's guiding. Sometimes you can't take control, but maybe you're on the side a little bit, just kind of holding your hand. So just knowing the love language of your team and what they need. And that's being the leader.

41:06Laura Camacho:Like, that's leading without authority. Leading just doing it, right? What kind of leadership style do you think works? Like an authoritative type? Do you think like a dictatorship? Do you think leading with love? If you have lots of guns, I think the dictatorship works. My thesis in PhD school was about Hugo Chavez. That's why that makes me laugh. I think situational, like you have to adapt to the situation, and you have to be who you are, and you have to care about the people. But I really, you know, I guess it's my, we all kind of project, but to me it's looking for what do people need and giving it to them.

41:46Laura Camacho:And my personal form of leadership is like seeing the skill or the thing that's missing and trying to help people to find it. Yeah. I would say that I'm the same way. I think I like to lead with love and with purpose and attention. Yes. And just make sure I'm not very, like I'm not an authoritative. I am authoritative and I do like, and I am controlling. But I also know when to kind of move back to the side. Yeah. I like things done my way for sure. But I also know when to like look in. And I know that leading with love is going to be the number one way every single time. And you come in as a dictator.

42:22It doesn't work or lead with fear. It's not going to work. You're not going to render the results. No, you'll get a short term win.

42:28Laura Camacho:But that's it. Exactly. Outside of coaching and podcasting. What's something people might be surprised to learn about you? Oh, my goodness. that I sing in a Latin choir without any musical skill, talent. I've developed some skill very hard, but my husband's a professional musician. And for some reason, for years, he was encouraging me to sing in this choir. I was singing these 10th century songs that monks used to sing. It's very cool, but that is something that's a very niche hobby. Yeah, I was not ready for that. I didn't know that you were going to say that. I have no idea. How many years have you been married?

43:11Laura Camacho:I've been married for the second time. It will be 16 years in July. It's been great. I love being married. Is your husband an introvert or extrovert? He's an extrovert. He's not a flaming, flaming extrovert, but he's pretty extrovert. He's the one. His name is Ruben. Everybody loves Ruben. He's the people person. but he asked me for questions about strategy how should I handle this or why should we because he knows that I this is my daily bread but he's definitely the people person loves to socialize loves you know really he has to he talks with people all day long I love that so looking ahead what excites you most about the future of leadership in workplace culture I think that the world is just kind of, you know, we've shifted since post-COVID with AI, with social media.

44:09Laura Camacho:You know, it's not all pretty. But I think every time we have these shifts, we have new opportunities. And so the people who, you know, just to put a shortcut on it, the people that didn't go to Harvard and the people who don't come from privilege, the people that maybe had some disadvantages, that there is opportunity for those who are looking for it, because precisely because there's a little bit of confusion about investing, about business. I think that, you know, our country, the world is changing. And every time there's change, there are opportunities. So that's what I'm excited to see, you know, how that develops.

44:52Yeah, our world is definitely changing in AI for sure. is taking over. So you better understand that. So if you can sum up in your own words, what, what would be boss I'd like to follow in your own words?

45:04Laura Camacho:Well, I, I love to follow a boss who has a vision that's even bigger than what I have for myself or for the company. I find that so inspiring when somebody can see the possibilities and that's what I look for. A boss who can see that what I think is not feasible, or maybe I'm thinking, oh, I don't even know if we can do that. But the boss says, yeah, we can. That to me is like, I will follow that boss. I like like a rebel boss. A rebel boss. Yes. So I want to highlight your book real quick. Oh, yeah. Let's talk about that wonderful, beautiful book. Tell me a little bit about your book and what inspired you.

45:41Laura Camacho:Okay. Well, it is a repository of my knowledge of communication after teaching and coaching all these years. It is not like a book that you just sit down and read. I wanted people to have a reference book. There's a chapter on having great presentations. There's a chapter on networking. There's a chapter on emotionally intelligent conversations. So, oh yeah, but chapter 11, it turns out, who knew? Chapter 11 is the best chapter. It's the chapter that most of the people, the aspiring senior leaders need. It's about points of view. And that's what people, you know, circling way back to our first question, what do the leaders need?

46:24Laura Camacho:They need to be able to articulate their point of view about where we're going and what we're going to find when we get there. So it's a gold mine of help that's based on situations that I think people will find useful. I love that. It's called The Practical Guide to Effective Communication. And every leader, they always say that the best kept secrets are in books. So I would strongly suggest just from talking to you that any leader or aspiring leader should take a gander at your beautifully written book. And if anybody wants to find you, where would they find you? I would love for you to visit my lovely website, which is called www.speakupwithlaura.com.

47:08Laura Camacho:And there you'll find podcast episodes. You'll find what a description of the executive presence work I do. And all kinds of goodies are waiting for you at www.speakupwithlaura.com. How about any Instagram? You know. Not into it. Not into it. That's what we'll find on your website. Yeah. Yeah. Just go to my website. I'm not doing too much on Instagram. I mean some, but I'm not happy with it. I love that. But, well, you know what? You are a wealth of knowledge. I mean, just talking to you today, I am thoroughly impressed. I don't get impressed by many people, but you are very, very impressive. And for any leader or aspiring leader, I would say, you know, one of the biggest thing is clear communication and being very concise and clear and competent as well.

47:57Laura Camacho:But yes, that helps. And just having those goals out there. So if you are a leader out there, I urge you to really read Laura's book. I'm sure there's a world of wealth in there and knowledge and a whole bunch of cool cheat hacks and all kinds of different stuff going on in your book. But more importantly, you know, leadership is a role that I think most people take for granted. But it's a calling, I think, in life. Yes. Right? It's a calling in life. And it's really putting the we before the me and being that servant type of person. So I just want to thank you for being on today's podcast. Oh, it's an honor.

48:31It was such a blast. I loved everything you had to say. Thank you so much. and hanging out with us.

48:35Laura Camacho:It is my pleasure. Thanks.