Her Story
About Joy
I graduated from University of Georgia in 1997 with a degree in education and started as a middle school teacher. I then taught college classes at a technical college and also taught healthy relationship classes for 2 years at the Forsyth County Jail. About 10 years ago, I took a position at a domestic violence shelter as their outreach education director, where I also did fundraising - my first experience with a sales-type position. I did sales, marketing, and community outreach for that organization, which became my gateway to marketing and sales. I then took a position working for a very large country club doing marketing and event planning. Now I work at OptumMD, where I started in marketing and membership but grew that position into Director of Practice Growth and Development. I worked very closely with the physician owner to open a new satellite office. In my current role, I work out of both our Buckhead and Alpharetta offices, managing marketing strategy with the physicians, recording videos for our website, updating SEO, meeting with prospective patients who may want to join our practice, and meeting with and reaching out to potential physicians, nurses, and admin staff. I also handle community outreach marketing in our new location, going out to local businesses and sharing information about our practice. I'm combining all of the things I've had experience doing in other jobs - growth, marketing, sales, and outreach - into this one position.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Joy
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to having a boss who believes in me and the experience I bring to the table, and who lets me stretch my wings a little bit and try some new things. Even though I had never done anything medical up to this point, my current boss believed in my skill set enough - my marketing skill set and my sales and community skills - to give me the opportunity to take on this new challenge. He's not a micromanager, and that teaches me a lot about trusting in your staff and the people you've chosen, knowing that they are going to do a good job. He allowed me to be the go-to person for recruiting new physicians on his behalf, reaching out to those doctors, asking questions, and vetting them for the next step. The physician that I selected as my favorite is actually the one that he hired, and that really gives me a lot of pride. I also think bringing my real-life experiences to my job has served me well - I don't have any clinical background except for being a mom, being a wife, being a patient myself, but I have a lot of life experience that I'm bringing to the table. I'm always keeping in mind what I want as a patient, what I want as a mom when I'm bringing my kids to the doctor, what about my husband, what about my mother when I'm worried about her care. My boss listens to me too - he's a male, I'm a female, and he listens to what I'm looking for when I'm going to the doctor, what is important to me, even down to decorating our new office.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career guidance I've received has been from my current boss, who has shown me the importance of having confidence in the people you work with. He believed in my skill set enough - my marketing and sales abilities - to give me the opportunity to take on a new challenge in the medical field, even though I had never done anything medical before. He's not a micromanager, and he trusts me to handle important responsibilities like recruiting new physicians and nurses, decorating our new office, and managing both locations. He allowed me to be the go-to person for vetting potential doctors, and the physician I selected as my favorite is actually the one he hired. That really taught me about the importance of choosing people you feel strongly about and trusting that they are going to do a good job. He opened his practice himself 20 years ago and was one of the first concierge practices in Atlanta, so he is a great leader as far as starting something that wasn't there before. Having a boss believe in you and let you stretch your wings to try new things - that's one of the things that makes him one of the best mentors and leaders in my career.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell young women to always think about their own life experiences and bring those to their job. Bring those to the job, no matter how old you are. Even when you're fresh out of college, or just going into a career, even if you don't choose to go to college, think about any of your real-life experiences. I think that gives us the most relatable skills, and I feel like that serves me well with recruiting new patients and staff for our office. I don't have any clinical background except for being a mom, being a wife, being a patient myself, but I do have a lot of life experience that I'm bringing to the table. I'm always keeping that in mind when I am talking to potential new patients - what do I want as a patient? What do I want as a mom when I'm bringing my kids to the doctor? What about my husband, what about my mother when I'm worried about her care? Bringing all of that in has been great for me.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say competition is the biggest challenge. Many doctors in our area are growing weary of seeing such a high volume of patients - a typical non-concierge physician might see between 2,000 and 4,000 patients, but concierge physicians might see much fewer. One of our concierge physicians has 80 patients, and one has 200. Look at the difference. So when physicians are able, they are deciding to maybe open their own concierge practice or join a concierge practice. We've got competition, and I think we need to always be looking ahead for ways to separate ourselves. Some of our doctors are currently doing training for hormone replacement therapy, which is trending right now. GLP-1s - ZetBound, Ozempic - getting specialized in what is trending in our area and all over the United States, trying to work on things to put yourself ahead of the competition, all the time.
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