Alexis Crites

My career path has taken me through several different positions, and while I initially thought that would be worse for my career, it has actually helped me tenfold in my current role. Being in different types of industries has allowed me to talk to so many people and opened doors for me. I started off wanting to be a teacher and have my degree in teaching and English literature, but I went right out of college into sales. From there, I did marketing with a radio group, and then COVID came around and kind of threw that out the door. I did some marketing and advertising for large agencies in and around our local area, working with national accounts like McDonald's. After getting my life and health insurance license, I didn't necessarily like how the field was represented or representing themselves, but I did see the need for it. That led me to becoming a business development specialist for insurance industries. Now I'm able to talk to different people about their marketing and how they develop it, and what's happening with our programs and how we can fix those or how they're working better for them. I travel for work throughout Central and Southern Illinois, which is wonderful because I was born in Central Illinois but my parents moved me to Southern Illinois when I was young, so I'm able to be home but also be back home throughout the week. Whatever career I'm in, I have to love it, and if I love it, I'm very good at it. I move in whatever career I have pretty quickly because I'm very passionate about what I do.