Teaches ballet at night for ages 5-18. Before she realized her path to a career in helping others, she wanted to be a ballerina. At a young age Allissa Boren became aware and determined that her career would involve helping others. How? Well, she wasn’t quite sure yet, but that is where University of Texas at Tyler came into play. She received her Bachelor’s in Psychology in 2011. UT Tyler was pivotal in replicating real world situations within the work force, and then implementing those in class. Throughout college she worked in the restaurant industry, and did small marketing projects on the side. The service industry is a great way to make money while in college. You meet so many people (a.k.a. networking), and it’s a good way to keep a flexible schedule for your courses; but it was through marketing that Allissa found a passion for business. She took a few extra business classes, and coupled with her degree in Psychology, felt she was ready to take on the world.

REALITY CHECK! It was much harder to step into her dream job than she had previously thought. She utilized a lot of what UT Tyler had to offer at the time (they were still growing, and fast). She had to quickly learn how to brand herself so that she would stick out above the pile of resumes. In 2009 she took on a job at a dental office here in Tyler for 5 years, Dentistry for Children. She started out as an Assistant to the Office Manager helping with advertising and marketing. Once she received her degree, Allissa was then promoted to Director of Advertising and Marketing to build a profile for Dentistry for Children’s upcoming growth. While she was there, they grew from one office to three, and in three different markets: Tyler, Jacksonville, and Longview. Learning how to effectively target markets in three different areas, with three different profiles, and three different population sets proved challenging, but it was a blast and she learned so much (mostly from her failures). Once she built an effective marketing/advertising plan for DFC, she handed their portfolio over to the new “Allissa”, and went on to further her career.

Over the next several years she worked as a Business Development Consultant in many different industries: Healthcare, Hospitality, Real Estate, Construction, Military Contracting, Technology, Recruiting, and finally finance. Consulting in different industries was fun, fast paced, and a huge learning experience. Developing a business is multi-faceted, and she worked in all areas of development including: handing out pieces of information door to door, answering and making phone calls, creating advertising/marketing campaigns, and selling products and services.

In 2017, a local financial company, Spectrum Financial Group of East Texas approached her with an opportunity she just couldn’t refuse, Director of Operations and Client Relations. The responsibilities include: supervising all processes and operations, general business development, overseeing marketing/advertising/events, general budgeting, assisting in recruiting new advisors and staff, and creating new prospects, plans, and budgets for future business growth. Spectrum Financial Group of East Texas is in the exciting process of changing hands from one generation to the next. The gentleman who is taking over the practice wants to aggressively grow and brand the company locally in East Texas, while still maintaining his focus on helping people build and save their money. Having a smart financial plan is extremely important, and it affects you throughout your lifetime. In this new opportunity Allissa saw a potential to help people, and support a locally growing business. This was the original notion, “The Dream”, when she was young in wanting to help others. She just had no idea it would be with a financial firm in her home town of Tyler, Texas. Spectrum’s home office in Dallas is one of the top 20 finance companies in the United States. They also recently completed an integration with Mass Mutual, just a $900 billion dollar company in our backyard (no big deal). However, East Texas is a different market and pace than the “big city”, and this is where her background and diverse experience in Business Development came into play. Since late 2017 Spectrum Financial Group here in East Texas has grown from 6 agents to 12, has built a modern and fresh advertising/marketing campaign, and are about to add another side to the company in helping businesses with their group health insurance. The buck doesn’t stop there. The potential for growth is exponential in this market and company she has found a home in. The journey wasn’t easy, and as she mentioned before, you learn more in rising from your failures. As Winston Churchill once stated, “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”