Book Review – Cameron Mitchell Yes Is The Answer. What Is The Question?

Cameron Mitchell shares his 7 secrets of success in latest book

If you live in Columbus Ohio, you are sure to have heard or even seen Cameron Mitchell. He is just another Columbus resident but happens to have built a vast restaurant empire. His latest book, which came out in November of 2018, Yes Is The Answer. What Is The Question? is a well written autobiographical summary of his highlights as CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurant Group. He takes the reader on a journey of where he came from, his troubled beginnings as a youth who sold drugs, ran away from home, and whose father left their family to creating a 60-restaurant business group based in Columbus Ohio. The book is a must for any business owner and here are some key takeaways I learned while reading it. For a great interview check out the Thermostat interview with Cameron Mitchell here

1. Cameron Mitchell had a few books that helped him on his journey to success. They were: The Customer Comes Second and other secrets of exceptional service, Good to Great by Jim Collins, and Dave’s Way by Dave Thomas. In the book, Cameron mentions a few key books that his company and he followed on the way to successfully building a restaurant empire. Good to Great was a book that they later used to help narrow focus and refine their sales strategy by improving their market portfolio with.
2. Ask Yourself The Five Pillars:
   1. Who are we?
   2. What do we want to be?
   3. Why are we in the business?
   4. What is your role?
   5. What is our goal?
3. Take care of your associates, they take care of guests, guests take care of you. Cameron lays out his plan in clear detail that is a foundation for his company. Being in the restaurant industry and a former sous chef himself, Cameron knew how important it was to take care of staff in the restaurant industry. An industry that he says, has very high turnover rates and in general, does not get taken care of.
4. Make these five people happy and we will be successful. Our fellow associates, our guests, our purveyors, our partners, and the communities in which we do business.
5. Cameron was extremely goal oriented. It is difficult in business to build anything without having goals. Goals help manifest your dreams to reality. In his early 20’s, Cameron wrote down on paper exactly what he wanted to accomplish in the next 15 years and then with laser focus accomplished it. By having an end goal and then working backward he was able to know exactly what he had to do to make his dreams manifest to reality.
6. He had moments of pure clarity. When Cameron was in a rut or a turning point, he was able to, as he says, stop time and see things with perfect clarity where he needed to go. Cameron mentioned being fired from a longtime job as head chef from 55 Restaurant Group not knowing what to do next and suddenly. “It was another of the moments in my life when time stood still and suddenly, I could see with great clarity the direction I should take”
7. Giving back to the community is important. CMR is working with Columbus State in 2019 to build a state of the art Culinary facility for students in Columbus Ohio. Through public and private donations this will be made possible. Cameron has also created the Budd Dairy Co Building to be used for helping out food truck business owners.

This was a great read and a must for any local business owner or person who wants to read an inspiring story and set goals. It was so good that I read it in 2 days! Well written with great pacing. You can purchase the book online or directly at a Cameron Mitchell Restaurant or online here.

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