Seattle, Washington | Palm Springs, California

Jim Comin – Speaker

Mr. Comin has extensive education and experience in public speaking. Training includes four years of Toastmasters International membership where Jim competed in and won several speaking contests in both humorous speech and inspirational speech genres. He wrote and presented many industry speeches around the country including an appearance as key note speaker for the Washington State Chapter of CAI.

Some prepared presentations which may be of interest to you include:

For Association Management Company Executives

We have all been to them, those presentations that say pretty much the same things, like the ones that tell you to terminate your difficult clients and conduct your client board meetings during the day. Nope, this program offers a whole new approach offering six key categories to make your company more successful while eschewing and even proving wrong, some of the industry propaganda that has prevailed.

Did you know that making your company “a good place to work” is not the best strategy? Say what? Yep, that statement is so close, but yet so very far away. There are a bunch more fallacies to address and replace with stronger philosophies. If this one concept piques your interest, let me share the others with you and yours, by scheduling a presentation. Or, if you are just dying to hear my thoughts on this particular concept, simply click the link: jim@jamesCominSolutions.com and ask “Why is a Good Place to Work Bad?” I will share the answer. Oh, and this is not a trick question or a trick answer, it is a true and valuable concept to improve your company and actually make it a better place to work! Say What? Well, yeah, I said it, I said “what.”

This presentation offers a mix of association management company strategies and some great general business concepts. Sounds a bit stuffy, but anyone who knows me knows that I like to have a tad bit of fun too! Well, probably more than a tad bit.

For Association Managers and/or Board Members

A lighthearted, uplifting and empathetic program to remind managers how to work with people, even the difficult “other” people. More importantly, this program is designed to give association managers a “second wind” by helping them realize that even though they get slapped in the face most days, it’s not them! This is partly educational but largely a morale builder. Btw, did you know that a whole lot of your homeowners don’t want to be happy? And that doing things to make them happy, oxymoronically, and clinically tends to make them unhappy! Ouch!

This program is great to present to your client boards of directors if you do any presentations for them.

Try as you may, try as you might, you just can’t win! That’s right, you really can’t. If this doesn’t sound familiar, you must be new here, I mean to the industry. This is a lighthearted and uplifting look at an industry where there are no right answers, an industry where you really can’t win……for after all, there are no right answers…..right for everybody that is. Each answer is going to be wrong for someone. “To cut the tree down or to not cut the tree down”, that is the question, well one of hundreds that we face all the time. To cut the tree down is clearly the wrong answer………to the homeowner who bought their condominium specifically because of that beautiful tree. To not cut the tree down is clearly the wrong answer for the homeowner who bought their condominium 20 years ago specifically because of the beautiful view of the lake…….which that tree has stolen from them.

This is an interactive presentation where members of the audience become mock board members during one portion and where they are contestants in a game show in another. And in the end, they all learn together, the one consistent truism in our industry………that………..”Try as you may, try as you might, you just can’t win.”

Of course we seldom hear this cliche’ sales term in our industry because in most sales presentations we top out at one. If we leave a presentation with one sale, one association that says, “Yes we need you!” then that is the quintessential success. In this session we offer our sales training plan for the all-important sales team of your company.

Is your team good at closing the deals with prospective clients? If you answer no to that question, perhaps you could use more focus on it. If you say yes to that question, then answer this follow up question, “how do you know”? In this program we will:

Review sales presentation techniques of your team with each team member doing a mock sales presentation. Offer feedback as a group.

Discuss presentation strategies specifically designed for association boards of directors.

Discuss possible new approaches to your message and process during presentations.

Discuss methods of tracking your team’s effectiveness.

So that’s it, what we propose to bring to your sales team, in brief overview. But there is so much more that we will flesh out if you wish to discuss further. So, for now we will leave it at that and ask, how many can I put you down for?

Mr. Comin’s fee is $250 per hour. Billable time at this rate includes:

  1. One to eight hours to create and rehearse the program (if one of the programs listed above, probably only one to two hours, if within the genre of past work created, probably two hours to three hours, while if fully customized, closer to six to eight hours)
  2. One hour discussion with leadership team to design refinement of the presentation
  3. One hour to incorporate the refinements
  4. Half hour pre meeting setup
  5. Presentation time (generally one to two hours)
  6. Half hour post meeting post presentation debrief and audience mingling.

*Travel costs: Reimbursement of all hard costs, plus billing for time on the road port-to-port, at $75 per hour, with a maximum of 8 hours per day.