“North Fulton Business Radio,” Episode 217 : Deborah Schwartz Griffin, Creative Connector
Deborah Schwartz Griffin loves to tell the stories of her clients and make connections which build their business. She joined “North Fulton Business Radio” to discuss the work she does as a “creative connector” and some of her success stories. The host of “North Fulton Business Radio” is John Ray and the show is produced virtually by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.
Deborah Schwartz Griffin, President and Founder, Creative Connector
Deborah Schwartz is a proven strategic business development and consultative sales leader with more than 25 years of experience generating revenue and fueling growth for companies and organizations. Known as The Creative Connector™, Deborah brings a wide range of skills to the table, including the ability to build trusted relationships and alliances, identify clients’ needs and develop quantifiable results.
Deborah engages with and serves clients as a consultant and coach through the business she founded in 2001, DSG & Associates LLC. Within each engagement, she works with the client organization as its vice president of strategic business development. In this role, she takes a holistic approach with clients — uncovering their pain points and priorities, as well as the impact those factors have on their business, and helping them develop a plan that drives business revenue and growth and generates a return on investment for all. With that approach, Deborah helps her clients continue to build and enhance their organization’s brand, and access a new network of strategic connections and alliances that furthers their strategic business goals and helps them reach the tipping point in their business success.
Her subject-matter expertise includes the following industries and business sectors: restaurants and franchises; foodservice equipment and supplies; hospitality; business advisory accounting, with a focus on finance and operations; trade associations; nonprofits; event production; print, graphic design and social media; and broadcast sales, television news and production.
Deborah’s list of client success stories includes helping a Savannah, Georgia-based print, graphic design and social media company, Creative Approach, open its second location in Atlanta. She created a business development, sales and marketing plan and executed it, along with a strategic networking process that significantly strengthened the company’s overall presence and generated new customers in the Atlanta market.
Working with the Women’s Foodservice Forum, Deborah retained existing partnerships and generated new and incremental business resulting in more than $100K in revenue during a five-month assignment. While helping an accounting advisory and solutions firm, Trusted CFO Solutions, she created and implemented a sales and marketing strategy and action plan that helped gain a prominent multi-unit restaurant client, which led to gaining more clients in the restaurant and hospitality sectors. In another capacity, she helped the largest dealer of foodservice equipment and supplies in the Southeast, Atlanta Fixture & Sales Company, increase its revenue by 20 percent.
During the six years that she worked with the Georgia Restaurant Association, Deborah started as an independent contractor to develop a strategy for growth and to recruit and retain restaurant, allied and corporate sponsor members. Soon after, she was hired full time and later promoted to vice president of membership and sponsorship sales, where she led business development and sales efforts with her team that doubled revenue during her tenure and grew membership tenfold. She also worked for the leading television station in the Southeast, WSB-TV, for 12 years. Through roles in broadcast sales and as business development/co-op/vendor specialist, she helped pioneer cooperative marketing campaigns that generated over $4 million in new business and nontraditional media revenue from clients in the higher education, homebuilding, associations, health care and retail industries.
Accolades received over the years include an Appreciation Award from the YWCA of Greater Atlanta for her dedication as board member from 2003-2010; a spot on the Women Looking Ahead, 100s list; a Special Recognition Award from the Atlanta Women’s Network, where she previously served as president; a Broadcast Sales Excellence Award and a “Woman Who Made a Difference Award” from WSB-TV; and a Women in Communications Clarion Award for her work as producer on a five-part television series while in Cleveland, Ohio, at WJKW-TV.
As a thought leader, Deborah enjoys speaking to business and nonprofit audiences about strategic business development, relationship selling and more. She also has made guest appearances on numerous TV broadcasts and radio shows and at business leadership conferences.
A passionate volunteer, Deborah currently serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Star-C and is an active member of the Georgia Restaurant Association, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, OnBoard and the United Way of Greater Atlanta’s Cole Society. Previously she served on the board of directors of the Northside Hospital Foundation and the Greater Atlanta Homebuilders Association Sales and Marketing Council. Volunteering at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, The Giving Kitchen and the Atlanta Classical Academy is also a priority for her.
Deborah earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism at The Ohio State University. She starts her mornings with focus, discipline and persistence, running 15 to 20 miles per week and lifting weights. She also competes throughout the year in 5K and 10K races, and in 2016 competed in her first Publix Half Marathon. Deborah lives in Atlanta with her husband Jim.
Find out more at the Creative Connector website or call Deborah directly at 404-630-5535.
*DSG & Associates, LLC d/b/a Creative Connector.
North Fulton Business Radio” is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.
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