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Miki Follin CQ Partners

Employee Spotlight: Miki Follin

Miki Follin Employee Spotlight
What drives a great organization is its great people. Someone who makes CQ Partners great for both our employees and our members is Miki Follin. For over six years, Miki has been passionately helping our members to achieve their goals and build successful practices, as well as contributing to CQ Partners’ positive workplace culture. In our recent employee spotlight, we had the opportunity to learn more about Miki and what motivates her to be such a positive force for both CQ Partners and our members.

Q&A with Miki Follin, Assistant Account Manager:

What is your role at CQ Partners?

My current title is Assistant Account Manager. While my title has changed throughout the years, what I really do is I support CQ Partners’ west division accounts. I typically work with a practice’s staff, with a lot of my focus being on helping the front office and supporting the owners with training and onboarding. I also do a bit of sales training.

Tell us a little about your background.

I was raised in Phoenix, Arizona and attended Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island for college, so I got to experience being far away from home on the opposite coast. I loved the area and stayed for about seven years before deciding to move home to Phoenix, but I’m really glad I got to experience all the seasons and a little bit of snow. My bachelor’s degree is in international business, and I also have an associate degree in accounting. Right after college, I worked for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and most recently spent almost 12 years with CVS Pharmacy as a retail store manager and trainer.

The difference that I appreciate between my former position and my current position is the human connection I get to experience. When I get to be involved with helping people hear better, I see their personalities come back and watch tears form as they get to hear their family members again.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I absolutely love onboarding new people. We’ve had to adapt in recent years to occasionally onboarding online but getting to go to a practice and see the way their office operates is exciting. I love welcoming the employee and showing them a little bit about audiology. As someone who’s not an audiologist, speaking to them in layman’s terms about what they’re going to be doing is fun. I get to welcome somebody to and see them progress from a part-time front office person to maybe becoming a dispenser. I’ve seen that on multiple occasions while working through the process, and it’s fulfilling to know that I started with them, and they decided to stay.

What are some of the values that drive your work?

Teamwork is a major value within CQ Partners, but it’s truly one of the most important values in my day-to-day life. When I first joined the company, I was training in the home office. The people that I was working with locally told me to meet as many people as you can in the office because they are going to be so invaluable to me. As a company, we value helping one another. We have so many people that are skilled in many things, and we combine it all to offer the best to our customers. I’m an introvert, so had I not received that advice, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to make sure I learned what everyone did and had expertise in. I learned not only how these things benefit me, but I also got to understand how it all interrelates. I know that I can rely on the sales analytics department, the recruiting department, customer management, and all the other teams.

Tell us about a memorable experience or opportunity you’ve had while working for CQ Partners.

I was working with an owner that was looking to go out on her own. She was very unhappy working in a retail setting, and she was ready to start her own practice. We began to help her work on this, and it was challenging initially. We started from the basics with selecting a location. At first, it was just her and her daughter was pitching in to help hire staff and get another provider on board. In her first year, she saw about $500,000 in revenue, and about $750,000 in her second year. We were able to see her go from feeling unfulfilled in her role, to successfully running her own practice and we felt like we were a part of it. We had the opportunity to help her with hiring, interviewing, managing staff, and more. Running your own business is a major change, but she loves it. Now, she’s talking about expanding and adding more staff. She’s also very involved in industry conventions and CQ Training & Development programs. Seeing success like this is one of the reasons we do what we do.

How do you stay motivated?

Inside of work, I’m motivated by my calendar. Everything on my schedule is planned for when I need to have it done, so everything is broken down. If I know I have a report due weekly, I know what day I’m going to work on it so that it’s completed, and it usually has a little bit of a cushion in case something comes up and I can’t do it. Every project or task has a time limit on it so that I know it’ll be done and I won’t have to worry about it. When it comes to my calendar and timelines for things, I am very diligent.

Outside of work, I’m a big reader. I’m motivated to get things done so I have time to enjoy the things that I like to do. For example, I’ll plan a chunk of time to do things like dishes and laundry, so I have time to read more. I’m also a big sports fan, so if I know a game starts at seven in the evening, I need to plan to have my tasks done prior to that time. I also have a niece that I love spending time with, and I want to be a good role model for her.

What’s something you love to do outside of work?

I spend a lot of time with my dog, Murray. We go for walks and do all the things that dogs love to do. I also spend a lot of time enjoying the city I live in, Phoenix. We have all the major sports teams here, so no matter the season, I can go to a game. There is always something going on, like spring training or the Super Bowl, so it’s easy to be a sports fan here. Everything it really close to me, so I love going to different events and restaurants, and just exploring what Phoenix has to offer.