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Inspirational Speaker, BreakOut Session Leader, Non-putter-to-sleeper Management Retreat Emcee |
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Who is this guy and what does he think he’s doing? |
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In the last 18 months he has fired up 200+ audiences across Canada. This guy wins audiences with humour, passion and a really strong message. —————————————————————————————————–———————— |
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March 2008 – Toronto, ON Chris studied political science for 4 years at the University of Western Ontario. BA? More on that later... He DOES have a keen interest in politics and is FASCINATED with people & what gets us going. At an early age he learned that he could make people laugh. Ask him about his long school-bus rides in junior and high-school.
His first job out of University was selling t-shirts for a fast-growing French-Canadian company called Humeur Design (www.humeur.com). Humeur had begun as a Junior Achievement project 10 years earlier and had grown into a well-oiled sales machine with 8 offices across Canada by the time Chris joined them.
Role-playing, daily tele-prospecting and the 100% commission environment in t-shirt sales gave him the launch he needed into strategic selling. Prospecting, booking meetings, presenting solutions and closing national deals for Purolator, Bell Mobility, Serca Foodservice, Burger King and other large accounts turned out to be great fun for him. Chris would later credit his success to his plantronics headset and to espresso coffee. He now proudly owns over a hundred white t-shirts with designs on them (and a really cool espresso maker too).
It wasn’t long selling t-shirts before he was recruited by Tyco Healthcare Surgical division (www.tycohealthcare.com) to sell capital equipment to hospitals and surgeons. Selling the Tyco Healthcare Valleylab product line (www.valleylab.com) proved an exciting new challenge, which he embraced for several years. One of the things that Chris enjoyed most was the “in-service” seminars, lecturing at the University of Toronto’s Surgical Skills Training Center at Mount Sinai Hospital, guest lecturer at Canadore College in North Bay and many smaller training sessions at Ontario’s largest hospitals.
Recruited by another surgical device company called Stryker Corporation (www.strykercorp.com), he left TYCO and pounced on the opportunity to sharpen his international business skills and relocate to the Middle East.
Stryker Middle East / Africa recruited him from TYCO to join their Stryker team in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (on the southern tip of the Persian Gulf, otherwise known as the Arabian Sea). He loved the Operating Room environment, delivering training sessions to nurses & surgical residents and closing capital & consumables deals with surgeons & their hospitals. He felt this new international experience would look great on a resume.
Up for the challenge, he left Tyco Healthcare, moved out of his Bay Street penthouse (only to look back longingly at the LuCliff building’s south-west corner top floor windows later), packed his belongings into a storage locker and headed to the Stryker Medical Headquarters in Kalamazoo Michigan for training. After the training course and a warm welcome from the International Customer Service team he returned to Canada to await final travel details. Patiently.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Living out of a suitcase was wearing thin. He was eventually advised that due to circumstances beyond Stryker’s control the position for which he had been hired was eliminated and his services would no longer be required. He would later learn that the Abu Dhabi office was closed, the General Manager for Middle East region fired and, along with other positions, Chris’ exciting new position was eliminated.
He leaped up, brushed himself off and plunged head-long into recruiting for surgical, medical, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies with Brock Placement Group (www.brockplacement.com) in Toronto searching in Canada and US for exceptional sales & management roles. He often got a kick out of the voicemails he received from Quebecers who couldn’t believe there was a bilingual Toronto-born salesman speaking French as well as he did. Grill him. He can prove it.
Giving in to the lure of the platform, Chris would often take days off to deliver compelling presentations for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. He began to receive invitations to speak at conferences and began to realize his true passion.
Today he works with people and companies who want to shape their tomorrows & get out of their own way.
He and his amazing (and quite pregnant) wife live in Midtown Toronto with their 1 year old son.
When not at the office and not with his family, Chris enjoys keeping in touch with others. He knows where virtually everyone from his 1st grade class photo is today and what they do for a living. Grill him about this. The same goes for his 7th grade picture and more. He can prove it.
When he is not keeping in touch, he is getting in touch as a Toronto Board of Trade member, Junior Chamber International member, Board of Trade Young Professionals member, Future Leaders of Canada member, Toronto Chapter Colleague of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, and a member of the Schulich/MIT Enterprise Forum. He was recently elected VP Membership & Volunteers for his local provincial riding association.
Even at an early age Chris knew that he enjoyed public speaking. He tape-recorded his first speech in 4th grade when he gave a 4-minute lecture about steam engines. He would later be entered in public speaking competition within his public school and then the regional competition from his high school. Combine that with his first entrepreneurial venture at 8 years old and you begin to see a theme emerging.
Fast forward to his mid-twenties when he attended the Second City Improv Program at Second City in Toronto. Many hours per week for many months he received coaching on his presentation, narrative, tone, stage mechanics and more.
Here’s s guy who stands on a stage in front of 100’s of people and keeps their attention for 2 hours. By himself. With a flip chart, a marker and a bottle of water.
Give him a listen.
Zig Ziglar said it best when he said, “Motivation is like a shower. We need it every once in a while."
Chris Cummins can’t stand television, will not pay for (or watch) cable, loves a challenge, understands the importance of remaining positive, and knows not to congratulate himself or berate himself either. He knows that what really matters is less about what happens to us and more about how we react to what happens to us.
He can be reached at (800) 394-4501 or chris [at] chriscummins [dot] com
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Christopher P. Cummins Enterprises 643 Bay Street, Suite 900, Toronto, ON M5G 1M7 1-800-394-4501 chris [at] chriscummins [dot] com |
