JOY AND WYNN SMITH

When a friend of Wynn Smith’s was hosting a fundraiser, he was left in a crunch when his dealer at the Blackjack table dropped out at the last minute. With no one else to rely on, he asked Wynn to step in and work the table. 

With a twist of humor, Wynn commented, “I’ve never played Blackjack, but I can count to twenty-one.” And just like that he’d become a Blackjack dealer!

While working the table, he recognized a blonde. “She was flitting around like a butterfly,” Wynn says. A month prior, they had met at a state fair when a mutual friend introduced them—sort of on the sly.

At first, Wynn didn’t put much thought into it. Perhaps his friend was of the more, the merrier mentality. But it became interesting when Wynn said his friend nearly drove him crazy—after he’d initially met this woman—asking him, “Well, what did you think about her?”

Having only been around her once, Wynn’s response, “I don’t know. I only know her first name is Joy, but I don’t even know her last name.”

Yet here Joy was again. The same friend who had invited her to the state fair had also extended her an invitation to the fundraiser event—not mentioning Wynn would be there also.

Through conversation, Joy learned Wynn worked with the New Mexico House of Representatives—the last civilian legislature in the country. One year they work thirty days; the next year they work sixty days, but Wynn was only working the winter months. 

Joy had been a cosmetologist and owned a hair salon before going to work with Jheri Redding through several of his companies, including when he started Nexxus hair products. 

Having worked a number of years in corporate America, Joy got burned out and decided she wanted to get back into sales, yet she didn’t really know what type of sales career she wanted. 

It just so happened she was driving down the street in Albuquerque one day when she spotted the gentleman—she had once purchased promotional products from—talking to someone in a parking lot. That light bulb moment came. Wait a minute, were her thoughts. That’s what I want to do. I want to sell promotional products. That would be so much fun.

She took a chance, called and asked if he was hiring. He said, “No. Not really. Why?” 

When Joy told him she’d quit her job and she was interested in selling promotional items, he asked, “Can you start Monday?”

Long story short, Joy took that job and worked for that particular company for five years, falling in love with the industry but falling out of love with the distributor—who got on her last nerve. 

She went to her biggest account and announced that she was leaving to start her own business. Her client encouraged, “That’s great! You should have done it a long time ago.” 

Starting her business was easy. Naming it was difficult. 

Her customer suggested, “Joy of Advertising! I want to open the phone book”—which was a couple of decades ago—“and find Joy of Advertising.” And so her client gave her business its name.

Back at the Blackjack table—after all this exchange of conversation between the two—Joy knew right away what was happening. But it took Wynn a little longer—maybe three to four hours—to figure out they had fallen in love on the second set-up! They never dated. Their friend had skillfully arranged for them to meet twice without them knowing it.

Talk about a fast romance, one week after the fundraiser event, Wynn asked Joy to marry him. Her answer, “Yes. Some day.” 

When that “some day” came, it was as unique as how they met and quickly fell in love. Being a native of Albuquerque, Wynn wanted to marry in New Mexico.  Joy wanted a more formal ceremony. Both thought about having a big wedding. But after combining a list of all the people they knew, a different plan was set in motion and a compromise reached.

At eight o’clock in the morning on May 15th, 1993, Wynn’s friend, a judge, married them in her chambers, but they held off exchanging the rings. After marrying in Santa Fe, New Mexico, they drove to Laramie, Wyoming. 

Approximately, twelve hours later in Laramie, they had a religious wedding ceremony inside the living room of Joy’s preacher’s home where they exchanged rings. Two weddings in one day via eloping!

The expression goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” 

Funny enough, a week before meeting Wynn—and during a conversation with God—Joy said, “Lord, “I am done. It’s you and me, God. I don’t want anybody in my life.”

As for Wynn, he claims to have been a happy bachelor for the past fourteen years, and he wasn’t looking for a bride when he met Joy. 

Not only have Joy and Wynn been married for twenty-eight years, they are a team at Joy of Advertising. If there is an account that causes Joy aggravation, she hands it off to Wynn—and vice versa. “There have been situations where Wynn has tried to pursue accounts that were better suited to my personality,” Joy says. Instead of resorting to firing a difficult client, they simply swap accounts. And that’s how it works!

Learning the hard way, they are very protective of their time. “In 2003, we bought a screen print and embroidery shop because the previous owner was retiring and they saw an opportunity. We worked five or six days a week, fourteen hours a day for sixteen years. And, finally, one day it clicked,” Wynn shares. “And we decided we didn’t have to continue.” 

Joy adds a tip that can benefit others in the promo industry. “We work really, really hard. I know there are distributors that answer their phone at two in the morning or on the weekend. We don’t do that. I have an alarm on my phone, and it goes off twenty minutes before we are to quit work. So when that alarm goes off, we know we have twenty minutes to complete that email or whatever it is we are doing because we leave the office every day at three o’clock on the dot.”

In 2020, when other distributors were struggling through the pandemic, Joy of Advertising had its best year ever, further proving distributors don’t always have to burn the midnight oil twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to beat their personal best.

The Smiths don’t have two-legged children but are very fond of their four-legged animals. “We live on a ranch, so when I leave the office, I’ve got horses, dogs, weeds and fence posts, and all kinds of other stuff to do,” Wynn says.

Disaster relief is their way of giving back. Joy was in Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana in 2005. Out of the numerous things that were needed, Joy got involved with child care. With so many preachers from New Mexico helping out with Katrina, Wynn was asked to do chaplaincy in Albuquerque. Joy is now a chaplain as well. 

Another wing of credit was earned when they learned ham radio operators were needed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina because all the communications were down. Wynn had been a ham radio operator for many years so he had offered his services. Eventually, Joy got licensed as a ham radio operator. 

To this day, they are still heavily involved with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief. 

It comes as no surprise that Joy and Wynn are the only two individuals in the state of New Mexico to hold an MAS. She served as chairman of the MAS CAS Committee and has also been on the Public Relations Committee for four years and just rolled off the Professional Development Committee as chairman. Joy does her share of volunteer chair work with PPAI.

In addition, Joy has worked with the Albuquerque Job Corp since 1996 and is currently the president of the Executive Board. 

As if their charitable hearts can’t grow any bigger, Joy beams, “I have a women’s ministry called Women of Worth. We work with homeless and near homeless women trying to help them get back on their feet. We teach a Bible study at one of the local homeless shelters. We help find them find ways to get into an apartment, to find furnishings and to get medical help.”

Wynn adds, “We have several churches that bring her stuff from their congregations. Maybe a member died, and they bring all the clothes or all the furniture or dishes or whatever, and Joy makes sure it goes to the places where it can be used.”

With heart and soul poured into everything they set their hands to, it’s so fitting Joy and Wynn are part of AIA and have received the Lifetime Achievement and the Fast Track Awards from them. Having been named Best in the City for Albuquerque and also named in the Top Ten Women Owned Businesses is so well-deserved.

No one can out-give God. But God is the One whom the Smith’s walk alongside and place their trust, and the Lord delivered Wynn a win when he crossed paths with Joy!