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Shara Smith
Healthcare Executive I Business Development I Marketing I Sales
Professional Background
Shara Smith is an accomplished and highly experienced business development, sales, and marketing executive who has dedicated her career to enhancing the hospital and healthcare industry. With a strong emphasis on building relationships and developing innovative programs and service lines, Shara has built a reputation for her strategic mindset and collaborative approach. Her extensive experience spans various vital functions, including business development operations, sales, strategic planning, and growth initiatives. Shara is known for her ability to lead teams effectively, driving profitable volume while fostering an environment of collaboration and success at both the local and corporate executive level.
Throughout her career, Shara has demonstrated her exceptional leadership capabilities, often overseeing complex projects and programs that contribute significantly to organizational growth. Her core strengths in team building, healthcare management, relationship development, and change initiatives have equipped her to lead successful turnaround efforts. Additionally, her expertise in marketing, strategic planning, and customer relations has been instrumental in navigating the evolving healthcare landscape.
Education and Achievements
Shara Smith is currently pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree with a focus on Healthcare Management from Western Governors University, expected to be completed in 2020. Prior to this, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Advertising with a Marketing minor from the University of North Texas, a foundation that has served her well in her career.
Among her many career highlights, Shara has achieved remarkable results that underscore her expertise and commitment to excellence. Notably, she generated over $3 million in contribution margin year over year from 2018 to 2019. This was made possible through the development and deployment of an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Liaison Program across four hospitals for Prime Healthcare, which increased EMS Emergency Department admission volume collectively by 12% in the pilot hospitals.
In addition to her work with the EMS program, Shara successfully created and implemented a limb salvage program at Prime Healthcare, generating $1.7 million in billed charges within just three months at the pilot hospital and achieving $1 million in cash collections during the first six months. This program proved particularly beneficial, as 64% of patients tested were referred to interventional cardiologists, with 14% requiring surgical intervention. This demonstrates her ability to identify key opportunities and execute programs that not only drive revenue but also significantly improve patient care.
At the Dallas Medical Center, Shara emphasized the importance of workers' compensation, orthopedics and spine, and geriatric medicine services, which led to an impressive 400% increase in surgical volume on a year-over-year basis, amounting to 600 cases monthly. Furthermore, her focus on strategic initiatives reduced referral leaks by more than 35%, showcasing her keen insight into market dynamics.
Another significant achievement during her tenure at Dallas Medical Center was Shara's targeted outreach to Hispanic audiences. By collaborating with Las Obras, a Hispanic marketing agency, she successfully increased the Hispanic patient census by over 20% within six months. This initiative highlights her adeptness in leveraging collaborative partnerships to reach diverse populations effectively.
Shara's turnaround efforts at Touchstone Medical Imaging Center further illustrate her proficiency in leadership and management. Under her guidance, the center transitioned from not meeting its goals for modalities such as MRI, CT, Ultrasound, and X-ray to surpassing all expectations. Within just nine months, Shara doubled the territory volume, a clear indicator of her influence and effectiveness as a leader in the healthcare industry.
Career Progression
Shara's professional journey includes several significant roles that have allowed her to hone her skills and contribute meaningfully to the organizations she has served. As Division Manager at Encompass Health, she has played a key role in driving growth and maintaining high standards of patient care across the organization. Her previous experience as the Executive Director of Business Development & Marketing at Prime Healthcare has significantly shaped her capabilities in marketing strategy and execution.
Before this role, Shara was the Marketing Director/Manager at Dallas Medical Center, where she initiated several successful marketing campaigns and programs that elevated the center's standing in the healthcare community. Additionally, her expertise as an Image Consultant at Hair Club for Men and Women, as well as her positions as Marketing Representative at Touchstone Medical Imaging and Southwest Regional Sales Manager at All in One Line, have enabled her to develop a well-rounded skill set that serves her clients and teams well.
Shara also brings valuable experience as an Account Executive at Imagination Branding, where she focused on developing tailored marketing strategies to elevate brand visibility and engagement. Each of these roles has contributed to her evolving expertise in sales, marketing, and relationship building, setting a solid foundation for her to become a leader in the healthcare industry.
Conclusion
Overall, Shara Smith is an exemplary business development executive whose extensive experience and proven track record clearly position her as a leader in the healthcare sector. Her unique combination of strategic planning, relationship management skills, and project implementation expertise empower her to drive growth and enhance service delivery within healthcare organizations. As she continues her journey in the industry, her dedication to transforming healthcare outcomes through innovative programs and strategic initiatives remains unwavering. With her current pursuit of an MBA in Healthcare Management, Shara is not only deepening her knowledge but also reinforcing her commitment to advancing the field of healthcare, ultimately ensuring better patient outcomes and organizational success.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.