Gerald Griffith is the owner and founder of Corridor Publishing, the parent company of Taste of 575 and other brands currently under development. He relocated to Cherokee County in 2009 from Northern Virginia with his wife and kids.
During his time here, Gerald has continued to be very active in the business community. Until 2022, he spent most of his time working as the Executive Producer of an international conference for Professional Voice Actors, VO Atlanta. When that ended, he pivoted to focus on local efforts and interest.
With a degree in computer technology, experience as a combat veteran in the United States Army, and a background in graphic design and printing, Gerald started Corridor Publishing. The company represents several brands, but is currently focused on the Taste of 575, a food and dining guide, and Corridor Printing, a small printing business that offers custom printing services and support.
Gerald is proud to call Cherokee County home and greatly values the many friendships he has established over the years. Through his new business, he hopes to continue making an impact in the area and encouraging others along the way.
Follow Corridor Publishing on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is Fearless formula with Sharon Cline.
Sharon Cline: And welcome to Friday. Fearless formula on Business RadioX. And this is your host, Sharon Cline. And this is where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. And today on the show we have the owner of and founder of Corridor Publishing. This is the parent company that publishes Taste of 575 magazine. I’m very excited to talk to Gerald Griffith. Hello.
Gerald Griffith: Hey, Sharon. How’s it going? Good. How are you? I’m doing wonderful.
Sharon Cline: Yay. I’m so glad to have you on the show. It’s been interesting because I have noticed this magazine like for a couple issues now. And one of the reasons that I had Sylvie on our on our show is because you had interviewed them for your magazine. And so I think it’s funny how our like, worlds kind of all overlap and collide like that. So thank.
Gerald Griffith: You. It’s a small.
Sharon Cline: Community. It is. And now they’re like good friends of mine, which is so crazy. All right, so I’ve been reading your bio and you’ve been around Cherokee County for quite a while, but you started in Jacksonville, Florida, which is where I’m originally from. And then you were in Savannah in the military and you were in radio, which is cool. So tell me about that.
Gerald Griffith: Well, I tend to get involved in a lot of things. My travel time was when I was doing in the military, so when I left Jacksonville, I was in the Army and went to Korea, then ended up back in Fort Stewart, Georgia, and at the time ended up in radio after coming back from Desert Storm. And oh wow, I didn’t.
Sharon Cline: Even know you were at Desert.
Gerald Griffith: Storm. Yeah. So I had a chance to to do a short stint in radio and ended up moving back into Florida, then up north doing it stuff for a while. So my, my degree in technology is kind of what I did in college, things like that. So. Wow. Just dabbled in a lot of different things and have fun learning all the way.
Sharon Cline: You’re like a jack of all trades kind of person, don’t you think? You know, if you’ve got a lot of different skills and a lot of different places. So yeah, the.
Gerald Griffith: Funny thing about that phrase, it’s just a really quick story with that is, you know, most people will say that and they’ll have mixed intent when they say it. Sometimes, but the actual phrase is jack of all trades. Master of none is oft times better than a master of one.
Sharon Cline: Listen to that. I never actually knew that whole phrase. Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: So it was intended as a compliment that a person could do a lot of different things, which meant in the theater world, they were more useful to the production. Oh, instead of someone who was a one trick pony.
Sharon Cline: So that’s you. You’re useful in lots of ways. I like to think so.
Gerald Griffith: So when I heard the whole thing, I was like, Oh my gosh. All this time they were cheating me out of a compliment.
Sharon Cline: Heck, yeah. Yeah. I’m glad to know that whole story. Because it’s funny sometimes that’s referred to me because I have like my, I don’t know, my toe in lots of different places. So I do appreciate the idea of saying, you know, you have a lot of diverse skills that can be plugged into different places. I actually didn’t think about it like that.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah. And a lot of things are like that because, you know, you just have to be able to do different things. Communication skills is an important thing. Being able to talk to people on a lot of different levels, being able to work in a technology space. So when I was in corporate, I would have to work with people in the call center who may have just started working with computers. But I’d also have to work work with the VP or the president of the company, who may also be new to computers, but their place in the company and what they needed from me was different.
Sharon Cline: So you have to shift your energy.
Gerald Griffith: A little bit. You’d have to shift and be able to be very dynamic in that process and then go back to the IT department and talk to people who were tech minded. Yes. So it comes in handy. And I think having grown up in a large family down in the South and always being around different people of different backgrounds, you you get used to talking to people from a lot of different walks of life and things like that. And so it just all layers on top of each other and works out well.
Sharon Cline: It does. I do think that’s a skill. There are some people who struggle in like that social setting, but like if you feel like you can talk to anybody at any time or at least find a commonality, there’s something kind of calming about it. You’re never going to feel like you’re in the wrong place.
Gerald Griffith: Absolutely. Absolutely. And people enjoy that when they feel that you’re not talking up to them or down to them, but you’re talking to them relating.
Sharon Cline: Absolutely. I love that. How did you like being in radio?
Gerald Griffith: I liked it. I did it. I think they gave me a shift. I’m still you know, in hindsight, I look at it, I don’t know if it was just because I was okay at radio or because they couldn’t find anyone else to work the midnight to 6 a.m. shift or something. It was a small gospel radio station there in Savannah, Georgia, on the river. And it was great. It was it was great to go there. And the only hard part about it was the hours between 3 and 5 Oh and that sleep.
Sharon Cline: Oh.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, it was it was tough. I’d be walking around the studio trying to do all kinds of stuff to stay awake.
Sharon Cline: That’s like I always think about how like there are some cultures where that’s like your siesta time, that’s where you nap and then you get up at like 6:00 and then you, you’re up until like ten. But there’s something kind of am oh oh Am Oh, I thought you were talking about afternoon.
Gerald Griffith: This is 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.. Oh.
Sharon Cline: So you work night shifts and all that. Well no, I can’t imagine. Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: I was like, man, that’s a late siesta.
Sharon Cline: I don’t like I was. But although I do get that thing where after lunch, I’m like, so tired. I know, you.
Gerald Griffith: Know, I know. But it was. It was great. I think it was always a good experience. I think back even in the summers, I would go to Fernandina Beach and be in a church setting. And so my brother in law was had a band. They were in a church band thing that they would travel around. And so I would often go with them when I was there and help set up the equipment and things like that. So I’ve always been around that space. I’ve got a brother that’s into music a lot, and so it was a very common thing for me to work in the space of hooking up things and being around people and things of that nature.
Sharon Cline: How did you get involved in the corporate world then with it then? The path. Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: The funny thing is, when I came back and got out of the military and everything, I had a short stint working at Toyota. Oh. But I was doing it stuff. I had always done it. I just never thought about it as a job. And one day I did a test drive with this gentleman. He worked at an IT company and we were just on the test drive, just riding. And he was chatting with me and everything, and I was telling him about the things I had done with computers. And and so we get back from the test drive and before we get out of the car, he said, So why are you doing this? You said you really should be doing something else. You know, you should be working with computers. You definitely know enough about that. And I was like, Well, that’s just something I do for fun, you know? He said, Exactly. That’s the best kind of job to have. Wow. And from there, I just one thing led to another. It was right before Y2K, and opportunities were very plentiful in it at that time. And I went to Philadelphia, and that was that was when I started working in that area.
Sharon Cline: So you were part of the group of people that would say, change your date on your computer before midnight?
Gerald Griffith: You know, I was in it during that time.
Sharon Cline: Yeah. And the stickers that they used to have on the sides of computers that would say, don’t forget to make sure that you’ve backed up your computer because everything’s going to end in.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, No one no one knew what was going to happen. Yeah, it’s like, oh my God, is this like a bad movie or something?
Sharon Cline: But nothing happened. But still, it was it was a concern. So that was interesting. That’s probably a very interesting time to be in it.
Gerald Griffith: It was. But but the cool thing about it was if you had an interest in it, there was somebody willing to train you or teach you things like that. And so it gave me a really big opening to jump into the space.
Sharon Cline: All right. So you were in it in Philadelphia for how long? How long was that your stint?
Gerald Griffith: I mean, well. Technically, I guess I’m still in it because I do some. But I worked at various companies because a lot of the companies were getting bought and sold past that time. So I had the opportunity to find myself in a lot of transitions between one company to another. I went to Nextel and then about six months later they got bought by Sprint and it seemed like every company I’d go to like within six months or so they were bought by some other company which which always made life interesting. But yeah, but again, you just have to kind of get used to the transition. And a lot of those were contract things back then. And so just, you know, I worked at Ikea for a while for their headquarters, though. Interesting, which is just outside of Philadelphia.
Sharon Cline: Did you do it things for them as well? Oh, wow.
Gerald Griffith: I worked in the headquarters, which was behind the main showroom there. They had a small building. It was maybe three levels there. And most people don’t even realize it’s behind the building, but it’s back there and you go and they’d have all the internal workings of that headquarters location for North America.
Sharon Cline: Wow. Yeah. And then okay, so after I’m trying to like, I’m leading up your story to this magazine.
Gerald Griffith: So it’s all good.
Sharon Cline: It’s all good. So what happened after that? Like, where did you go after that.
Gerald Griffith: Ultimately ended up at Washington Gas light in in Maryland? Okay. So I had an opportunity to come down to Maryland did that And. Gosh, I was I was there when 9/11 happened. In fact, I was a few blocks from the Pentagon when nine over 11 happened. So that was that was a very interesting day.
Sharon Cline: Can’t imagine.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, it was. It was it was it was another scene out of a movie. I looked out the window and you could see all these people running. And I kind of stood there a little perplexed as to where they’re running to. Where are they running from? They they didn’t know. They were just running somewhere. I just wanted to have lunch. Whatever was happening was way outside of my control. Wow. But I did it for the public utility there. And so we were in the Virginia area for about eight or about 8 to 10 years. We were there before moving to Georgia.
Sharon Cline: All right. So you get to Georgia, you get here to Woodstock or Cherokee County.
Gerald Griffith: We’ve always lived here in Woodstock.
Sharon Cline: So you’ve seen a huge change in Woodstock over the last, well, I don’t know, ten, 12 years.
Gerald Griffith: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There’s definitely a few more storage facilities and car washes and things of that nature. Absolutely.
Sharon Cline: Pretty soon, a little boutique hotel down the street. I know.
Gerald Griffith: It’ll probably have a car wash for you and.
Sharon Cline: Storage.
Gerald Griffith: And that storage.
Sharon Cline: Funny.
Gerald Griffith: But it’s it’s, you know, the community overall reminds me a lot of the community we moved from in Virginia. So. Life happens around it. It grows, it expands, the roads get wider. It’s that that inevitable conflict between people want better roads, they want better things, but they don’t want more people that that ultimately support those things, you know? So there’s that weird relationship there. But I mean, we moved here, you know, our kids were really young at the time, so they’ve grown up. My daughter graduated from Ottawa High School and now up the street attends KSU, and my son is a junior at Ottawa High School and working on engineering pathway program there and everything. So it’s it’s been good You know we’ve we live in town. Lake so the community was already built out so for us it. A lot of the growth and things that people experience in a lot of the newer communities around here, we don’t have because Townlake was built in the early 90s. Got you. So so it’s pretty stable in terms of once you get off exit eight and you go down there, it’s pretty much it’s established.
Sharon Cline: Yeah, very established thing.
Gerald Griffith: So that’s been really good. And you know, I have to say, we we landed on a really good street with really great neighbors. We met most of them when a tree fell in our yard the weekend we were moving in. Oh my goodness. But the neighbors all came out and probably within an hour or two there were like 20 people out there with some type of chainsaw or something, whatever they had that day. And they helped help break it all down and stack it all to the side. And that’s how I met most of my neighbors. But it’s been great. I mean, you know, when you’re in a neighborhood and we did we used to do movie nights a lot out on out on one of the neighbors driveway and and everything. And you always felt like like I tell my kids, hey, if anything ever happens, do you ever feel afraid you can go to any of the neighbor’s house and you didn’t have to worry about it?
Sharon Cline: Pretty priceless.
Gerald Griffith: So it was really good.
Sharon Cline: Okay. And so now. Ten years later. 11 years later. We have Taste of 575 Magazine. Can you tell me how this came about?
Gerald Griffith: Well, part of what I did during that interim time before starting this at the end of last year, early this year, was that I worked on on a conference that I did for professional voice actors and ran that for ten years. So I was in a lot of event planning and things. But the interesting part about that is that most of the interaction I had was always outside of the community. Which was really odd because here I would run this conference, which ended up being the largest conference of its kind in the world. But then I’d come home and it didn’t mean anything to anybody. They didn’t they didn’t know anything about it. So it was always weird because I’d go down to the hotel and I’m on the stage in front of the hundreds and hundreds of people welcoming to this conference. And then I’d come back home and it’s like, Hey, can you remember to take the garbage out on your way back down to the conference? I was like, Wow, you know, I’m a nobody again.
Sharon Cline: I wish I had gone. I you know, I think I told you I was just starting voice overs before, Right? Right. At the time the pandemic started. And so I never got because they shut. They still.
Gerald Griffith: Have it. Yeah, they still do it. Someone took it over for me back in 22. And so that created an interesting vacuum because when you grow something from 120 or 30 people and then it’s closer to a thousand people, it’s it’s a pretty big transition between those two. But one of the things that that Covid spurred was this realization that while it’s great to deal with people from all over the world and all over the country and everything, that ultimately they’re not my literal community. So when all those things went away because of Covid and we’re shut down, you know, I had to look at I really didn’t have a strong connection to the people and the community as I would have liked to have because so many things were just dependent on things outside of the community. But Covid shot a lot of that down. So you kind of have to start in a little way. And I had connections to a certain business networks and stuff like that, but most of my interaction was outside of the community. So, you know, you fast forward to the time know, I’ve moved beyond the conference and then you’re like, okay, what do you want to do? And one of the things I kind of set out to do even during the conference phase, was figuring out how to to provide some type of resource or services or something that weren’t just dependent on, say, being Woodstock.
Gerald Griffith: And then I said, Well, you know, maybe I’ll do something at the county level. And I was like, Well, there’s already things done there as well. And I was like, okay, well, how do you how do you really tie together something that isn’t like your neighborhood, which would be an HOA level or city or county? And then one day it dawned on me that the one thing we all share in this area is 575. You know, we go up and down the road all the time. You know, if you live in battleground, you probably still go to Kennesaw. If you live in Kennesaw, you may go to Canton, you know, But there’s that spur that that we all travel up and down without even thinking about it. So I decided at that point to treat the area more as a single entity while overlooking the the the existing boundaries. So it’s not about a specific neighborhood. It’s not about a specific city, you know, because there’s six main cities and what I call the corridor, there’s you start down in Marietta, you go into Kennesaw Acworth, Woodstock, Canton, battleground.
Sharon Cline: Truth, You’re.
Gerald Griffith: Right. So altogether it’s about 310mi². It’s a little over a half a million people in there and things like that. So so it’s a pretty big area. But the nice thing about it is that it’s 13 zip codes and there’s so much that happens in it that you’re continually discovering things, which is what spurred a lot of it. Because even now, when I purposely set out to seek things, I still have conversations with people say, Hey, I saw that this location wasn’t in there, you know, you should add them. I’m like, Who are they? Where are they? And they’re like, Well, they’re right down there. They’ve been there like 20 years. I’m like. Who knew, Right. And so you’re constantly finding what I call stuff beyond the tree line, right? You don’t see it. They may not advertise a lot. You don’t know they’re there. And so it’s not even just the food thing. It’s like a lot of things that are just beyond the tree line and you don’t know about them until somebody that you’re talking to one day mentions it to you like, Hey, Sharon, did you know that such and such was over there? And you’re like, No, what? I was driving to wherever to do this. Yeah. And so the goal with it is to. To create resources that allow people to know what’s around them without feeling like, I have to go to Alpharetta, I have to go to Roswell, I have to go to Atlanta. I have to go to Cartersville. I have to go somewhere else where there are so many things right here.
Sharon Cline: Was it natural? Was it natural for you to go the food route and focus on the restaurants?
Gerald Griffith: Well, I think it ended up with the food route because I think we were on vacation somewhere and they had a food magazine. And I said, Well, because I originally started off with a guide to 575, and that was more general purpose. And I found that it was very difficult to try to cover everything for everybody. And then when I went somewhere and I saw that they had a food specific one, I said, you know, that works. Why not create more specific targeted?
Sharon Cline: I love that. It’s needed because there isn’t one exactly like this. Right.
Gerald Griffith: And so this is just one because, again, quarter publishing represents a number of things. So the first one is food and dining. There will be a resource I’ll bring online for outdoors and that’ll cover like your fishing, biking, hunting, swimming, you know, all these kind of things. Anything that doesn’t require a referee is what I call it, a referee. Yeah, because people will say, Well, it’s going to have sports. And I was like, that has referees and no, it doesn’t. But, but boating and things like that. Absolutely. Hiking, biking, all those kind of things. Sure. They can be in there fishing. Yes. Then I want to have one for arts and theater type stuff. So that’s called the arts on 575. And that’s for your theater and galleries and things like that. And then the last one was called The Sounds of 575, and that’s more of your entertainment venues, you know, festivals, events, things like that. So that would be a go to guide for you wanting to know what’s happening in the area. Now, the natural inclination a lot is people say, Well, can’t you just get that off Google or get that off of the online resources and the answer is largely yes, you can. But I can tell you that it was maybe a week or two ago I was sitting there and I pulled up, I think it was Yelp or TripAdvisor or one of those. And I searched for restaurants in Cherokee County. So it brings up these listings and I’m like, Wow, I haven’t even heard of these restaurants before. Well, you know, I hadn’t heard of them before because they weren’t in Cherokee County.
Sharon Cline: Oh, really?
Gerald Griffith: Right.
Sharon Cline: They didn’t specifically make them.
Gerald Griffith: They, they, they put the fact that they’re sponsored in such a nondescript way that when you first look at it, you don’t know that. But none of the ten listings at the very top five on each row, not a single one of them was in Cherokee County.
Sharon Cline: Interesting.
Gerald Griffith: And so and it’s also very distracting. So you go in there and you’re just looking for somewhere to go for brunch and all these listings that keep coming up, you get all excited. But it’s in Atlanta. Yeah, it’s in Alpharetta. Some of them was in Decatur. I was like, How do you get from Woodstock to Decatur?
Sharon Cline: That’s so interesting because it’s like you are specifically putting in an area and it’s not listening to you at all. Yeah, and that’s not helpful. You’re right. It’s frustrating. That’s happened to me as well. So now you have.
Gerald Griffith: That’s why my corridor always focuses on on what’s here. And if something is outside the area, it’ll be very well indicated that it’s a sponsored thing and you know where it’s located or something like that. But the main listings of them are all in this area.
Sharon Cline: What has been the most surprising to you as you’ve had this magazine become published?
Gerald Griffith: Wow. Well, probably the easy part of that is realizing just how many places there are. Yeah. Even when you start off and you start doing your searches, you realize that there are a lot of places that for one reason or another, just don’t show up even when you do a Google search. There are places that I will only find online when I know their name. You do a specific search specifically for their name, but if I just search for barbecue or search for French or whatever, they may never show up. Wow. Because a lot of them just don’t advertise. They they they’re not tech people. They’re restaurant people, small restaurant people. They’re working hard. They do great things. They have great food, great establishment. They just don’t have the bandwidth to take on all the extra stuff.
Sharon Cline: So it’s just been so surprising how many restaurants are out there that no one’s heard of. Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: I mean, there’s over there’s like 115in the magazine right now. Wow.
Sharon Cline: Yeah. Is there one that you just were. Just want to shout to the to the rooftops is so good.
Gerald Griffith: No, because then gonna get in trouble.
Sharon Cline: Oh, I didn’t put you in an awkward position. Didn’t I? No. Well, no, I guess I’m saying, like. Well, they’re kind of gems, right? They’re hidden gems.
Gerald Griffith: So. So that’s where it gets interesting because they really. They all have their strengths. I think they’re unique and. It’s always a little tricky for me to get into one versus another because my mission with this is more so to raise awareness for the community of restaurants or businesses that I’m dealing with. And so it’s not really one versus the other. It’s maybe just finding the ones that fit for you. I tell people, you know, go out and try them all. You know, the goal is that someone doesn’t have to drive to Milton to eat. They can go to Canton and try somewhere new. They can go to Marietta Square and try something new. They can go to ball ground and try something new. Realizing that all I have to do is hop on one road, get off a couple exits away and I can experience something new. But I will say, I will say probably the most unique place if I had to point out something because this is very specific to them. Okay, there’s a nouveau amigos, which is a Mexican restaurant right on Sixes Road. And the unique part about them is that they sit atop a hill, they’re right next to Bab Tavern over there, which I also like, but they’re in a shopping area, so it’s more of a traditional setup. You drive by, you see them there, but Two Amigos is unique in the sense that you really don’t notice them from the road.
Gerald Griffith: I never knew they were there and I was like, What is this place? You know, we were searching something. I was like, Where is this place? And so my wife and I went there for brunch one Sunday and you drive in the parking lot is a little bit on a hill. Then you go on up and then you walk out and there’s this absolutely gorgeous view. Oh, I love out the back. And you can see like the mountains and everything. And so they have this large yard area. There’s a big fire pit. There’s a giant water fountain there. And so I have to say it’s the most unique setting that that I’ve experienced in the area. And there are other places that have great views as well. I know Jay Michael Prime up in Canton as well. They have a nice view, but it’s a small balcony type thing, whereas Los Amigos is like giant space out back. And it was really, really unique in that way. So in those situations, yes, I think some of them are better fit from the place where they’re located and things like that. But as far as the restaurants themselves, they’re each unique. I go to dive a lot. They have great food. They’re right there near Riverstone Bistro, who has a nice rooftop bar as well. And there’s just a number of them that are unique in their own way. That’s why it’s so much fun to to explore, Right.
Sharon Cline: Because there’s room for everyone.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, absolutely. And we continue to find new ones, which is.
Sharon Cline: It’s a crazy. Right.
Gerald Griffith: Absolutely incredible. There’s a place I just discovered the other day. I was coming back and I was on Chastain Road, I believe it is. I was sitting at a traffic light and I saw that this place called Churros and I was like, I think it’s tourist. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. Yeah. It’s a Brazilian steakhouse that just opened, like two months ago, and I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. Let me go over there and stop in. And I went in and I’m a low carb guy, so I eat a lot of meats, you know, kind of thing. And the meats were phenomenal. I mean, they were they were really, really good. I didn’t have to add anything to the no salt, no pepper, nothing. It was just super flavorful meat. And it was all these different types on the skewers and the guy cut it for you and everything. It was great. But they sat down this hill. You really didn’t see them from the road just driving by. And because they were new, they’re still trying to get the word out. So I was able to go in and met the owner for a moment, was able to add them in the latest, latest edition of the magazine.
Sharon Cline: And so do you feel like people are getting to know who you are? Like, can you be the anonymous, just regular customer for now? For now, I’m thinking if people are, you’re going to start getting recognized. And like you said, you like being the under the radar, just regular representative of whatever, you know, normal person who’s eating dinner.
Gerald Griffith: There’s always that trade off because one of one of the the pros and cons, if there’s such a phrase here, is that when you’re in a smaller community, I think it’s harder to stay arm’s length. At some point you’ve got to get in, you’ve got to get in it. You know, you’ve got to jump in and you’ve got to meet people and you’ve got to give them a chance to meet you. Because I think in a larger city, if we were in Atlanta or something like that, or even a lot closer to Atlanta, where you’re you’re sharing, you know, 4 million people. There’s probably hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of restaurants down there. So you can stay a little more arm’s length because it’s more of the business of it all. But I think when you get to communities like this area, people kind of want to know you a little more. They want to meet you a little more. They want to know a little more about you. They want to know how you connect to the community, things like that. And so I think that as time goes on, they see me more, they meet me more, they know that while, yes, I’d love for you to advertise, it’s not a requirement. You know, I’m not going to see you as a worse or better place because you do or don’t advertise with me.
Sharon Cline: Got you. Is there. Is there something you wish you knew before you got started publishing this magazine that could have helped you along the way? Or are there any sort of lessons that you have that you would want to tell somebody else if they were interested in starting a magazine?
Gerald Griffith: Well, probably the best thing to know would have been all the the numbers to the Powerball.
Sharon Cline: Oh, my gosh.
Gerald Griffith: That would have probably shortened the process a lot. But no, I think I think the thing is, having having in high school learned printing and graphics and being able to largely design and put the magazine together myself, I had an assistant who helped me some with it as well. But that makes it a lot easier. I think it’s definitely like anything else, you know, when you look at it from a distance, you think you kind of know what’s what it takes to get going. And as life would have, it is always a lot more to it than than you think it is. But fortunately, in the process, I was able to add a lot of printing equipment and have a background in that. So I’m able to print some of the magazines myself, especially like the samples and things, because the quality is very important and I think that’s what I want people to see when they look at it, is that this is not just some throw out there magazine. I want the images to be great. I want the restaurants to look at it and feel great. There’s a section in the back where, you know, I have the restaurants have an opportunity to add their menu, to showcase what their menu looks like, not what everybody else’s menu looks like, but what theirs looks like. Got you. So that’s an area where I sometimes say that, you know, we grew up there was always that drawer in the house where you toss all the recipes. Well, I want the magazine to be able to be either on the coffee table or in that drawer, because you know that whenever you want to find something to eat, you can easily look through the menus or you can go to the website, taste a five 75.com and you could easily search from anywhere in this area. It’ll show you where you are on the map. It’ll show you the restaurants that are around you. You can filter on different things and it’ll help you and you know that it focuses on this area.
Sharon Cline: So you’ve got a physical printed magazine, but you also have the online version.
Gerald Griffith: Yes, there’s a digital version of it all. The content is also in the website and we’re getting to where I’m adding a lot more content to the website. And ultimately I’d love to be adding in some video segments and things like that. So it’s like one step at a time.
Sharon Cline: But was there any kind of question about having a physical magazine as opposed to something online? We had talked briefly about that. Like so many people go online and do searches for things, but I personally, just as because I’m an old person, I like the physical magazine. I like being able to flip through and look. And there’s just something nice about it.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, I see it as an all of the above approach. So I grew up in a certain age where we learned how to write cursive and we had pencils and paper and things like that. And the funny thing is I talk to people and they, they have this notion almost that because things are digital, that somehow everybody went digital and there’s nobody left. And that is so false. There are plenty of people who don’t have any social media accounts. There are plenty of people who still write checks. They still get the paper, still get the paper. And sure, it’s not as many as there once were, but that’s okay. I think they deserve to have a place where they can sit at the doctor’s office and thumb through a magazine, see beautiful images that represent the dining opportunities and the area. They know they’re fairly close to home. They can drive to them, they can go check them out when they have a chance and things like that. And so it was never a thing of me saying, Oh, well, let’s go all digital and just keep it all easy. No, I have a distributor that puts the magazine out in over 200 and nearly 250 locations around the area, and I’m working on some other things to put it in close to 20,000 homes on a regular basis.
Sharon Cline: So that’s amazing. Yeah, it’s exciting, isn’t it?
Gerald Griffith: It is draining, but exciting, draining.
Sharon Cline: How do you balance your home life and doing this magazine?
Gerald Griffith: Oh, my gosh. I’m glad my wife’s not here with me answering that question. But it’s, you know, I don’t know. I think that. You just take it a day at a time and you you look at it like I do in the sense that you learn to appreciate the process. Because in some ways, as much as small businesses want to start off and grow right out of the gate, there are some things you need to learn along the way. There are some experiences you need to have along the way so that when those bigger opportunities come up, you’re ready for them. You know, there are people I know now that I could reach out to and ask for referrals or ask to give a plug, but I’m waiting till the right time when I’ve gotten to the right place because you don’t want to spend those opportunities early on. And then you get a bunch of attention and all of a sudden you’re really not ready for it because that could be a bad thing because you may never get that chance to make that first impression. And so I think it’s important sometimes as a as a newer publication to to try to find your identity. So in my case, it’s it’s being very specific about who you’re trying to reach. When you see that magazine lying on the table, I want you to know it’s food and dining, whether it’s upright on the front or the back. I want you to know it has something to do with food and dining. And all of the publications will follow that same type of approach.
Sharon Cline: Do you use a specific photographer? Like, do you have resources that way or do you kind of find someone that you need to be able to take a picture of this particular dish at this restaurant?
Gerald Griffith: It varies. I don’t have I have a photographer that I work with for some restaurants who need to upgrade their images. That does get to be a little tricky sometimes because they may feel like they have images that are great, but because of the your vision, the look and feel for where I want the magazine to sit, sometimes I have to find gentle ways to say, Hey, look, you know, I’m not saying yours are bad. They’re just not good for this. This.
Sharon Cline: Oh, interesting.
Gerald Griffith: Because I need the images to speak. I don’t do a bunch of coupon stuff. And there it’s not that kind of magazine. It’s not a penny pincher or a money mailer type things. Those things all have their place. I want the magazine to have a certain look and feel so that when person picks it up, they feel good about the magazine, they feel good about the images. I want that to transfer to. Let me find somewhere in here to go eat, you know, to spend my my time and my money.
Sharon Cline: I love that. On the front, you say don’t travel for more than 100 restaurants close to home. It does make you feel like, well, I don’t have to go all the way over to Avalon or I don’t have to go down south of Kennesaw. You know, I love that you are focusing on people that are directly, like you said, in your community.
Gerald Griffith: Absolutely. I don’t think there’s anything in there that if you were at the farthest tip of ball ground, you could reach the farthest end of Marietta within like 30 minutes, partly because the highway is a thousand an hour.
Sharon Cline: But and it’s 575. Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: But, but that’s the idea that you don’t have to go far. There are a lot of things here. We’re going to be doing some things later highlighting some of even some of the vineyards. We don’t have a lot that are directly and there are couple that are in the area, but they’re pretty close. Yeah, there are vineyards in there. There’s just so many varieties and some of the restaurants are a little higher end than others. But that’s the beauty of it, that if you want to go out that really special occasion, you can do that. If you want to go to something a little more casual, you can do that. But the nice thing about being in the suburbs is that the line between super fancy and super casual is not as structured as it is if you’re in the big city. Truth. You know, we went to an event, my wife and I went to an event at MetLife and we were just fairly casually. But but you know, it was a nice casual, I guess. But we left and we went over to Aspen’s, which is on the on the fringe of, of my area. But it was nice.
Gerald Griffith: I mean, we went in and we had an appetizer. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was a great experience going there. But we just continue to try to find places in there and that is a big commitment I have because sometimes, you know, I want something simple, but I say, You know what, I’m going to frequent places and there and I’ve gotten through probably more than half of them at this point. But it’s fun to go in and there’s probably only been a couple of instances where I’ve elected to reconsider someone being on the list. I’ll put it like that. Interesting. Not that they were bad or anything like that, but the general rule of thumb for me is if I visit a place and I don’t feel like I can encourage you to come, or if you mentioned it and I had to hesitate, I probably would just leave them off. So I don’t want to ever have to hesitate about a place that’s in the magazine. If you were to mention, Hey, we’re thinking about checking out this place, I want to be able to wholeheartedly say, Definitely check it out. Let me know what you think.
Sharon Cline: Well, would you say that you have a fearless formula? Like what? What? What gives you courage? If there are moments where you’re sort of like, I’m in over my head or this isn’t working the way I thought it would like, what is your way that you manage the natural sort of trappings of being a small business owner?
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, well, let me spend that a little bit. I think as a small business owner, you should be over your head because if you’re just standing there, you’re probably not taking any chances. You’re probably not making a big impact on something because you’re playing it safe. You know, the nature of it is that you’re doing something different. You’re doing something that’s not safe. If you want it safe, get a 9 to 5. You know, if you want to venture to gain something big or make a big impact or a huge splash, you’re going to have to get out of out of your comfort zone and again, be understanding of the fact that it’s a process. You know, it doesn’t matter how much you want it to happen. Right now, I we say it’s more akin to farming than hunting.
Sharon Cline: Interesting. How is that how is it more?
Gerald Griffith: Well, if you think about it, like, you know, if I were going to be hunting. Right, I would go and I would get whatever type of tools I need for hunting or traps or rifles or whatever. And if I know generally where to go, I can go. And and then one day I’ve accomplished my hunt. Right? It’s pretty straightforward process. But in farming, it requires a different level of patience. It’s not based on if you can sit in the stand or something for a couple of hours is if you can be patient for months and for weeks. And if you can realize that I’m going to plant this crop over here, it’s not going to even sprout for a while. It doesn’t mean that nothing’s happening. It means that now I’ve got to prep the soil on the other area and then I’ve got to prep the soil on the other area and I got to come back and water and I got to do all these things. It’s a process that takes a lot of time sometimes before you ever even get to the signs that you’re on the right track.
Sharon Cline: So it’s that delayed gratification.
Gerald Griffith: Oh, very delayed.
Sharon Cline: Very delayed.
Speaker3: Extra delayed.
Gerald Griffith: Super delayed. But there’s there’s a certain there’s a certain. Accomplishment to it and you constantly evaluate it. The nice thing is that there are a lot of resources that are available these days. I benefit from a lot of the business relationships that I’ve met in the community. I’ve also participated in the Small Business Development Center down at KSU. And then there’s another organization that started not long ago called Hatch Bridge down at KSU as well. And I go in and be able to work through some business ideas and concepts and conversations and things like that. So I think if people are trying to do things, you know, take advantage of the opportunities that are out there and most of them are programs that are sometimes run by the state or different things, so they’re not expecting you to pay. They know you’re starting and they have resources available to help you, but you’ve got to be willing to put in the work.
Sharon Cline: That’s your fearless formula.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah, but in the work. Put in the work. Take. Take it a day at a time. And sometimes you just. I get to where I’m sitting there sometimes. And I’m on fumes. And I just have to ask myself, you know, have you done everything you could do today? And then you say. Pretty much. It’s okay, Shut it down. Go to bed.
Sharon Cline: I like that. Because there’s a little element of I can’t control the universe. I can only control myself. And what’s supposed to happen will happen. And there’s always like a surrender, you know, to it.
Gerald Griffith: Yeah. When I had this phrase, which I think will be applicable here, when when I was doing the conference, I would say, you know, it’s not my job to make things happen. It’s my job to create an environment in which great things can happen.
Sharon Cline: Nice. So you’re the the behind the scenes.
Gerald Griffith: I like being behind the scenes, but I like I don’t know, you know, I’m so conflicted on that sometimes because I like having an element of presence, but I don’t want it to just be about me.
Sharon Cline: I’m the exact same. I was talking about this recently with Jose Fanciullo, who was on the show with his company Front Porch Advisors, and we were talking about before the show how I like to ask the questions. I don’t like it to be about me. I want it to be about you. But I do ask the question, so there’s like, I’m in it. But it’s more about like, how do you feel at the end of the interview? How do you like do you feel like you were heard? And so it’s funny. It’s like, yeah, I’m part of it, but like I don’t like it about me. I like it about the person who’s here. So but you have to be part of it too. So it’s like.
Speaker3: A little weird, like a.
Gerald Griffith: Funny thing. You know, I was thinking about, as you were saying this and I’m thinking like, well, what would success look like and feel like for me with with, say, the Taste of 575 magazine? And it’s one hand I could say, well, yeah, if I sign up all this stuff and generate all this revenue and that would be true. But I think the bigger prize for me would be able to point to a number of restaurants in there that say. Through the magazine, through the resources surrounding the magazine, that restaurant was able to point to growth. They were able to point to to more people knowing they existed. Because I really try to operate from the mindset that when you win, I win. And when I win, you win.
Speaker3: When wins.
Sharon Cline: Are there the.
Speaker3: Best? Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: And people say, Yeah, but you’re just making money or something like, sure, but guess what? I want my growth of money to be directly connected to your growth of money. And so I want your tail to be full too. I don’t want it to be empty while mine is full because then that doesn’t work long. So I want to get to that place where when you walk in, you know, people can have that that ongoing testimonial that says, Man, it’s so great working with you guys. I love being in the magazine.
Speaker3: Thank you.
Gerald Griffith: It’s great to know we have a lot of tourists that come through the area as well. So one of the things we do is make sure the magazine we have it in 20 hotels and stuff in the area, and we emphasize that in the distribution to make sure that when people visit the area, they tend to look for something to eat, right? So if they’re left to just shopping online, they’re going to end up in those places. They’re going to end up in Alpharetta because that’s what’s going to come up in the search, because those people pay to sponsor to be at the top of those searches, whereas I prioritize everything within the corridor. You know, it’s not to say that someone couldn’t do an app, but I prioritize things that are local. So you can rest assured that there’s always an emphasis on local first.
Sharon Cline: Well, if someone wanted to get in touch with you, either to talk about being in the magazine or kind of talk about advertising in some way, anything, how could they how could they reach you?
Gerald Griffith: The best way is to just go to taste of 575. Com. There’s a link there for advertising. There’s a link there for contact and everything like that.
Speaker3: And like if it’s a.
Sharon Cline: Restaurant owner who’s like, Oh my gosh, no one knows about my restaurant like they would if I was in this magazine, you know?
Gerald Griffith: And the neat thing, too, is that because I do a lot of printing as well, I help restaurants. Some of them now even redesign their menus and I print their menus for them and everything like that.
Sharon Cline: That’s so cool. Little side business.
Speaker3: Yeah.
Gerald Griffith: And so because I’m local, it works out great because they don’t have to order 500 of them at a time. They can order a smaller quantity. We can do the regular paper ones. We can do the synthetic plastic type ones and things like that. And but I always try to work with them. You know, I’m not a very I’m not very good at someone just saying, oh, you know, here’s the file, just print it. I look at it and I go, you know, okay, this looks great. This doesn’t if there are some challenges with it or opportunities to help them do better because I come from a printing background is know I’ll ask you know you know the font looks a little small or something and I noticed that your restaurant has somewhat dim lighting. So if your average patron is 30, 35 years old, dim lighting, small font doesn’t work. So maybe we’ll go to a larger size, or maybe we’ll reduce the number of items on it. So it’s a dialog. It’s a relationship there. Again, I want you to do well, and if helping you improve your menu and your customer experience helps you do well, then that’s what I want to be to you. I want to be a resource provider, not just a vendor.
Sharon Cline: Well, Gerald Griffith, Master of No, Jack of all trades, Master of none. But you have a lot of skills that are very useful. What was the phrase? Whatever that phrase was, it sounds like you’re.
Speaker3: In the exact right trades.
Gerald Griffith: Master of none is times better than a master.
Speaker3: Well, look at how.
Sharon Cline: All these different skills that you naturally have are just being all put together in one very successful publication, you know, and then how you’re impacting the community in such a positive way where you get to see the growth. And wouldn’t it be great to come back in like six months and talk about what you’ve learned along the way and how, you know, the different parts of your magazine? And if you can also point to, like you were saying, restaurants that feel like they’ve been able to really be highlighted and grow because of the gift that you’re giving them, you know?
Gerald Griffith: Absolutely. And that’s and that’s the best part.
Speaker3: Come back when.
Gerald Griffith: You can do well because you help other people.
Sharon Cline: Yes. Yeah. We’ll come back and we’ll talk about it again in like six months.
Speaker3: Or would love to.
Sharon Cline: Yay.
Gerald Griffith: Well, do some on location stuff. We’ll go out and.
Sharon Cline: I would love that too.
Gerald Griffith: Maybe one of the restaurants would be really nice and have a salad and we can just sit there and.
Speaker3: And chit chat.
Gerald Griffith: And chit chat and have some good food and talk about the specials and stuff.
Speaker3: Like that. Okay. Well, I.
Sharon Cline: Don’t see one downside, one not one downside to any of that. Sounds like a plan. All right. Well, thank you for coming to the show and sharing your story. I’m really excited to see where you go. It’ll be really.
Speaker3: Fun. Well, I.
Gerald Griffith: Appreciate you having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Sharon Cline: Awesome. Well, all of you, thank you for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.
