For 23 years, Dr. Connie Brooks and her family have made Fayetteville their home. Since coming to the area in 1999, Brooks has opened two well-known businesses. Brooks is a native of Lumberton, North Carolina and grew up with the aspiration to become a physician and help people in need. With a Lumbee Native American background, she received a scholarship through the Native American Association.
For undergrad, Brooks attended Western Carolina University and then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obtain her master’s in Public Health. With the completion of the master’s program, she graduated from East Carolina’s
doctoral program.
After moving to Fayetteville from New Mexico, where Brooks practiced medicine working with the Indian Health Service Payback, she made the move to open her first business in 2007.
“I’m kind of an entrepreneur,” said Brooks. “I had helped open a business with my brother-in-law flipping houses before coming here, but in 2007 I was working for individuals and other hospital systems and then I just decided that I wanted to do this on my own.”
The doors to New Hope Family Practice opened in January 2008.
In the beginning, the practice started in an additional office space off of Walter Reed Road that her neighbor owned with three exam rooms. The office is now off Sandhurst Drive with ten employees.
After constant hours of seeing patients and ensuring their needs for care were met, Brooks found herself becoming burned out and not spending quality time with her patients.
“Back 15 years ago, life was easy as a physician, as far as there were not all of these authorizations and hoops you need to jump through,” Brooks said. “Everyday I would be seeing patients and I would have to stop three or four times to get on the phone for insurance or trying to convince them that my patient needs a CT scan or MRI. I would have 20 patients on my schedule a day and I wouldn’t have time to stop and talk to them. I was burning out fast.”
While New Hope Family Practice is still run by Dr. Brooks, her husband now has stepped in and helps look after the patients along with the physician's assistant.
In recent years, due to the challenges placed on many by the pandemic, many businesses have had to close their doors. However, New Hope Family Practice is thriving and looks to continue to providing excellent care to its patients.
New Hope Family Practice is a faith based practice with the mission to provide comprehensive family medical care. The medical team desires to offer patients the best possible care while incorporating faith as a vehicle of encouragement,
strength, and healing.
In addition to routine screening and checkup visits, New Hope Family Practice is equipped to provide routine physical exams, gynecological examinations, sick visits, urgent care, minor surgical procedures (skin biopsies, etc.), spirometry/nebulizers,
cryotherapy, electrocardiogram, and laboratory services.
Ten years later, after hours upon hours helping those in need, Brooks decided to open her second business.
Being a big believer in faith herself, Brooks allowed faith to be a driving force that led her down the path to open Allure Aesthetics & Medical Spa.
“I am a true believer that if the Lord opens that door, then walk through it. If he closes it, then it’s not meant to be,” Brooks explained.
When Brooks made the first step to open Allure, the Lord swung the doors wide open for her, she said.
Allure Aesthetics & Medical Spa offers full-service spa remedies that cater to the aging process. The goal for Allure is to go the extra mile to make customers look and feel good.
“I have to give the glory to God, because I think he really directs us and helps us to thrive the way we do,” Brooks explained.
Allure Aesthetics & Medical Spa specializes in Botox, BEMER therapy, Body FX, dermaplaning, fillers, forma, LED light therapy and more.
“Originally I was working three days at New Hope and two days at Allure but within a month I was hardly advertising and I was booked solid for three months at Allure. That’s when my husband and I decided that I needed to work at Allure more full time,” Brooks added.
In the last four years, Allure has grown exponentially and has become one of the best medical spas in the area. Brooks has accomplished a great deal in a short time frame with her second business, and she says the future is bright for Allure.
As an entrepreneur, Brooks wanted to ensure that her businesses were holding steady and strong.
“God gave me the sense of business and I never took classes for it. I just learned on my own,” Brooks explained.
Recently, Allure has expanded from just Brooks working at the facility to having eight employees.
The decision to expand and hire more employees was an easy one as Brooks was spending more and more time running both business and staying in the office till midnight working on the business aspects of the two facilities.
With the expansion, Brooks hired a manager, a full-time injector, an esthetician, and a nurse practitioner. Brooks is also currently training more people to come on board with ideas of another expansion possibly in the works.
When asked about the process of opening New Hope and then turning around to open Allure a couple years later, Brooks said she had no clue how she was able to do it.
“I think it was Spirit, but all I know is that I would just do one step at a time.” Brooks explained.
In the beginning, Brooks read all she could about business and had many discussions with people who owned their own businesses to get an understanding of the dynamic before opening either one of her practices.
“I did not realize in the beginning that you’re supposed to get an attorney, so I did everything on my own when I started New Hope. And then when I opened Allure, I ended up getting an attorney to make the process a little easier,” Brooks stated.
As both businesses continue to grow and thrive, one thing that Brooks values and upholds with her employees is integrity.
“You’ve got to have integrity to work here, you can’t be dishonest. We also don’t say you have to be a Christian to work here either,” Brooks said.
The practices do have Christian aspects in the offices such as Bibles in the lobby, Our Daily Bread, and Christian music being played. No one is forced to take part, but it is there for those who wish to.
“I know you are not supposed to mix religion with stuff, but I think that for a business to really thrive, you have to mix it. I don’t know how some people can do it without Jesus because both my businesses are doing very well and it’s not anything I’ve done so wonderful but it's because we put Jesus first,” Brooks concluded.
With perseverance, Brooks and her businesses expect to continue on the path the Lord has put her on.