Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Rhiannon Franz and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Aug 25
- 22 min read
📍 📍 📍 Welcome back to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Forman, and today we're diving into the intersection of personal branding, marketing, and authentic connection. Our guest is a powerhouse who has lived on both sides of the creative battlefield, advertising and marketing. She knows what it means to stand out in a saturated world, why everyone today is a personal brand, where they realize it or not, and how to turn failure into fuel from learning to package her services for success, to helping others build visibility without sacrificing authenticity. This conversation is full of insight for anyone looking to elevate their networking game and create more profitable purposeful connections.
So grab a notebook. This is one of those episodes you'll want to revisit. So let's jump in. So I have Rihanna, Franz that is really the expert in both of those fields, and I would like to introduce her to the podcast and see what her background is. Rhiannon. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for today. I am excited to talk with you and talk to your audience today.
Okay. I think just a little bit about your background. Yeah, so I have worked in corporate America for 20 ish years. I worked specifically in the big advertising holding companies. So if you might remember an old TV show called like Donnie Deutsch, and there was an advertising agency called Deutsche.
I worked at that ad agency. If you think of like the Mad Men era, I worked in a. Specific department called Paid Media. So I worked on strategy and how to find audiences and where they're at, consumption, stuff like that. But New York, la, Detroit, I worked on auto, I worked on entertainment, you name it, in the glamorous world of advertising and both the positives and the negatives of that corporate career.
Okay, great. That's great. So it really sounds like you have a lot of experience in the advertising and marketing fields. So let's delve right into the podcast. You come from both advertising and marketing. How do those disciplines approach networking differently and where do they intersect? It's an interesting question because I find that a lot of people lump it all together.
There's even branding, marketing, advertising. What does that even all mean? And I find that it's so interesting how nuanced it actually is, but obviously they all work together. So a nice sort of way to think about it is your brand is what you look like, like your values or your colors or a brand guide.
And then it would be like your mission, your values, which you stand for. That's an important component of your business. You want to always be true to, those things that are core to who you are. That would be like your brand. And that is a, is unique to every single person. But that would be like your foundational thing that you stand for.
Then your marketing is how you're getting the wheels turning of what is your goals of your business and how do you get that brand in front of people? What does that message look like? And so I like to talk a lot about packaging and positioning when I talk about marketing. So it's who you're talking to, what are you trying to sell them?
How are you selling that? What is that message like? And a lot of people. Get confused I'm just gonna talk about me here. I just, I'm gonna talk about me. The difference is that's not what actually lands for a buyer. A buyer is coming to you and they want you to tell them how you're gonna fix their problem.
So you basically. You're basically a problem solver. Exactly. Okay. And so you're positioning and how you market yourself is totally different than your brand. Your brand is me. Maybe you're, you're talking about yourself and it's all about yourself. A lot of people make this mistake and build a website, or they build their social media.
Talking about me. The problem is that's not what people are gonna buy from you. Yeah, it should all ladder back into who you are and they wanna resonate and work well with you. But your marketing should be speaking to your audience and how you're gonna solve their problem. So that's marketing.
And then advertising should be like after that, after you've figured out your branding, you've figured out how you're speaking to people, then you can advertise or maybe you wanna do. Boost a post on Instagram or you wanna, do an ad that's advertising where you take money and you push out your visibility.
And I find that a lot of my clients have come to me for advertising. 'cause that's obviously my background and what I know. And I'll go, okay, yeah, let's talk about your advertising. How much are you boosting posts? Are you buying Google AdWords? Are you doing these things and leaking money? When you haven't done these other things first.
And that's what's been able to help clients navigate these fields because the words all sound the same, but they're actually different things and they need to be done actually in steps. Wow. Very good. I see the difference now. Okay, so you believe everyone is a personal brand. How does someone begin to define and position their intentionality?
Yes, I am a hundred percent of a component believer that everyone is a personal brand and more so now 2025. The latest stat that I heard said that about 23 to 24% of current US jobs has been replaced by chat GPT. Okay, so nearly 24% of US jobs have currently been replaced by chat GPT. That's a scary number, right?
That's especially for those of us that are, business owners. We are service providers. We're providing services to people, and these robots are taking our jobs, right? This is an age old industrial complex, like age old conversation, right? For the modern day where we sit right now, this is the opportunity.
This is the time to switch and turn yourself into thinking differently. Because we have platforms, we have free channels to be able to develop ourselves into a brand. So how many people have a Facebook? How many people have an Instagram? How many people have a LinkedIn? That is your personal brand, and it's something that you as a society probably have natively been doing for years anyway, but we just think of it as oh, it's our friends and our family.
It's just these couple core people. I. But really, if you wanna think about how can Rhiannon, I don't know where to start. Start with your social media. I love Mel Robbins. Anybody you've, like Mel Robbins fans, right? Love Mel Robbins. She has been quoted as saying your social media is not for your friends and family, it's for your business.
So leveraging that platform to be able to speak about the things that you do. Again, not me, but how you help people and the solving their pain points. And so if you start to switch yourself and switch your thinking, just a little tweak. I'm not talking about like overhaul everything, and you have to, hire me to do all this for you, which I would love, but you can do this yourself by thinking of yourself with a little pivot.
So pivot yourself into thinking I'm an expert in and start talking about how and I help people with. So just those two little phrases right there that gives you your LinkedIn headers, your Instagram headers, that gives you the things that you need to be talking about. Your cue cards I'm an expert in and I help you with.
And those two things right there will give you two little pivots. To start your social media talking about that stuff. Just getting your voice out there, talking to your clients about this stuff and turning yourself into that expert that you are. Do you differentiate with the different social media platforms?
Like, when I do LinkedIn, that's basically business. Facebook is more personal. Instagram is more for my reels and things. So do you differentiate between the different social medias or do you, put your faith behind one or two specifically? That is a very good question, and this is always changing.
So the irrelevant thing that I could tell you right now, May 23rd, 2025 when we're recording this mind, you could change in a couple months. That being said, I think the fundamental idea of, yes, LinkedIn is business. Is core to what it is and who the audience is. Like me, I come from corporate.
That's where all my audience is, and I target my message to people on LinkedIn. I am speaking to corporate and ex corporate experts who are trying to cash in on their expertise. So there, I've just explained what I do and I've explained how I help them. And in a short phrase. So LinkedIn is my primary target, and that's, I create content for LinkedIn.
I. That being said, Instagram is now become your resume. So people are gonna check your Instagram to be like, visually, is this expert legit? Are they talking about solving my problem? And give me examples, right? So Instagram is your new resume sounds backwards, right? Whereas LinkedIn is like your authority.
So that's where you wanna be leaning into this expertise that you have, speaking business speak. But your Instagram is absolutely still a business platform and people will still look at Instagram as a place for a double check, or, let me see what this person's really about. Facebook, I agree with you, is primarily friends and family.
It's a bit of an older audience. Those of us, like me I'm Gen X millennial, like I'm a cusper, so I am definitely, was one of the first people on Facebook. That being said, Facebook is still there and very relevant for a lot of my clients. Because they've been there a long time and that's where the people that they know who might not hire them, but know someone who wants to hire them.
And that's that one piece that we forget sometimes. 'cause we think, I don't wanna be salesy, I don't wanna be like just talking about my business all the time. But it's not for those people. It's for the people that they know. So when they, whenever your head, yeah. No, when, whenever I go across the country and I speak on stages, and I go into corporations.
I talk about networking, communication. I'm just, I'm not talking to just those people, but I'm talking to their network of people, so you always have to keep that in mind. Okay. But in a noisy marketplace, how can professionals stand out authentically without feeling like they're selling themselves constantly?
Yeah, I, that is a hard one. And the first thing I would say is taking a look at your goals. What is the goal that you're trying to achieve? And if you need to. Be on social media because you think that will validate, help validate your authority in the space in what you do. Then spend your time there.
However, if you are a, a local business, a lot of local businesses don't necessarily need to spend so much time on Instagram. They don't need to spend so much time. On LinkedIn, they need to be spending their time like on Nextdoor and Yelp and Google Business. Is your Google business page optimized?
Are you the first one on there? Do you have reviews on there, like Google Maps, right? That's where people are searching for what's near me. What is the five star ratings? So every single kind of industry, it's hard to answer that question is where to like. As a business, think about where your expertise is and what to lean into.
It kinda goes back to your business goals. What are you trying to get foot in the door or are you trying to get fit calls? So there's different like levers you can pull on your marketing, but I think fundamentally, I. If you just figure out those statements the, like I'm an expert in and I help you with, and you start thinking in that way of what kind of things you talk about, whether that's a connection call, whether that's on your social media, that will help filter, and then exactly what we were just talking about.
Your audience might not be the person you're selling to. It's the people that they know. And that takes the pressure off. That's just okay, now I can show up and I can say all these things because it's a human nature thing. It'll start to relieve some of that pressure. Okay. Now in the same vein.
Yeah. What mistakes do you see people make when they're trying to market themselves in a network setting? Oh, like a person to person or person to person? Person to person. You can do that. Yeah. I think it's the, I help people with part. Okay. If anyone's ever been to like a BNI meeting or, you've been at I'm mean for me, I like to go to my local Chamber of Commerce meetings.
I was a little like. Not sure what my little intro statement was. Like, what is your one sentence that you just, you close this person. 'cause you're like, oh, I know exactly what you do. And I know some people that would fit that because I find that, especially in local business, chamber of Commerce, B and I, things like that, they wanna help you.
People want to help you with whatever it is. That's why they're showing up to these events. It's people are very open to that. Your whole idea within with a 32nd elevator speech or pitch that you were saying. It's not to say that thir the whole pitch, it's just to get them enough to ask you a question.
Yes, exactly. Once they ask you a question, that opens it up. Yes. That opens up to everything. And you can show your expertise. Of course. Yeah. So mine is for example, I have learned over time, this did not come easily for me, but is I help ex corporate executives. Build visible personal brands to cash in on their expertise.
See? Okay, perfect. That was a longer version, but I could shorten it. I could tweak it depending on who I'm talking to. But that was like the long version of if somebody gives me an intro, what do you do? And I help professionals network and communicate more effectively and efficiently, thus creating more profits.
I. There you go. Yes. That's the exact same thing. Okay. Yeah. Oh now let's get to a little bit of the failing part of what you're going through. Can you share a time you failed at something, be it a pitch, a client or a connection, and what you learned that changed now how you now show up in business?
This is a great question. One of the acronyms I have been told, and I love it, is. Failure is your first attempt in learning. You fail. So it's all a learning experience, and that for me was very hard to change that mindset shift that it's. This is the learning process. So one of the things that I did is I didn't know what my niche was coming out of corporate.
So coming out of corporate and deciding, I'm gonna start my own personal branding, I'm gonna branding agency, I'm gonna do marketing, I'm gonna do advertising. Like I thought, oh, I could do, I know I can do all of it, but I didn't know what I liked. I didn't know what kind of clients I like to work with. I didn't know.
Exactly how to do it. So my advice I tell everyone, just jump in, try it out. Introduce yourself to people. I connected with people, I got intro to people. I gave people packages at cost. So I, wasn't like I was making a lot, up the gate, but like at cost, I was able to produce for my clients what they needed that was, gave me the ability to.
Fail and learn because they knew this is my first foray. I'm not making a profit at this. I'm giving you to this at cost. But I learned a ton and I learned, for example, I don't work well with local businesses. I love you. I love a local business and I will support you, but I don't work well with local businesses.
It's a different. For me, people who come from corporate, I come from corporate, we speak a same language. I don't know how to describe it. It just is, and so having worked with people who came from corporate, it just like things were rocking between us, we vibed really well together, and it was only through that process that I failed.
In that experience. Now, I still launched successful products for my local business clients, and I love them dearly, but whew, that was an experience that I learned from. It was my first attempt in learning. I failed, and then I decided to shift and focus specifically on people who have come from corporate who just, we vibe, we speak the same language.
You don't learn or succeed without failure. That's right, because if what you're doing and everything's going along in it, you have yes men standing around you. You don't learn anything. You just keep on doing what you're doing. Whether it's right or wrong, I don't know, but it's always much better now failure.
I've failed. Listen, I've been a business owner. I've worked corporate. I've done it all. And I can tell you, we don't have enough time to tell you about all my failures. So I know that failure leads to success. That's all. Okay, so what strategies have you used to package your services in a way that resonates and sells, especially in today's fast-paced, brand-driven world?
I love this question because this is what I help my clients do. I have learned how to shift my mindset from trading hours for dollars to packaging expert. Sales. And so from that, it was a big mindset shift for me coming from corporate where I thought I have to, work for this hourly rate. I have to be like a freelancer or fractional.
How many people have heard that word? Fractional. That's a new buzzword right now. Everybody wants to be a fractional, and I'm like, you are literally trading hours for dollars. You're not selling in a strategic package. For me, learning how to package and price my services is, what does that intro offer?
How am I getting somebody to take a small bite, get a big experience of understanding what I do, and then upselling them on my three tiered package packages? All of that is completely clear on my website. Revive marketing.com. It's fully transparent of what my pricing is now. I could up my pricing, I can change my pricing.
This is my pricing as it is right now. But it's visible. It like shows people, oh my gosh, this is the first step and this is the second step. It's very clear and it's easy to buy, and that's what I try to tell people all the time. Make it easy for people to buy from you because they understand what they're gonna get.
And they understand how to buy from you. So put your pricing on your website. I have a lot of debate about that. I hear a lot of hemming hun hawing about it. But let me tell you, the more clear you are about what it is that you're selling and how it's can be purchased will make it easier for people to buy you.
So that's my biggest advice. Great answer. Great answer. Okay. When you think about successful networking, what's more important visibility or value, and how do you balance both? Ooh, that's a tough one. I would go with value. Okay. Value is definitely going to be the differentiator. It's like that word authenticity, like just be your authentic self.
Remember what that means. It's different for everyone. But if you can show your value and you can show what you can bring to people that's gonna break through that noise of visibility to be like, oh, I see what the value is. So again, if you're speaking to their pain point and you're offering a solution with value.
That's gonna, that's gonna break through and connect faster. I agree wholeheartedly. I absolutely agree. Value must come first. Your visibility, that's your website, that's your advertising, that everything will come afterwards, but you have to have to show value and you have to be authentic when you're showing your value.
So all of that will come and yes, I agree with you 100%. How has your network influenced the way you've grown and positioned your business over time? I like this question. I have a communications background. I got my master's degree in communications, so I really, I love networks and the power of.
Communication and the theory of networks. So I have always believed in making sure that I always connect with people from the beginning. And so I have built, for example, my LinkedIn connections over the 20 years and have always been very authentic and reconnecting. So making sure that my network is.
I don't know, maybe respected, maybe they feel like I I'm genuine and that those connections to me are valuable to me. So showing up to networking events, being a part of the ad clubs that I have here in la being a part of a community of advertisers in New York and la. It's definitely been a component of who I am and believing that at some point, if I need to pull a lever and ask a friend for an intro to something like that is a genuine relationship where I feel that.
Of course they would of course, like if I, ask for help, then they're like, oh my God, how can I help you? The hard part has been for me, when somebody asks me, how can I help you? I don't know how to answer. That has been a big challenge for me and a big shift in my mindset going from corporate to being a business owner.
Because in corporate, I knew the answer. I worked for 20 years. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, how I wanted to get there, who da. I knew, but over here, when shifting to being a business owner and the mindset shifts that I've had to take, it has been challenging to figure out what do I need help with?
I don't know. And so that, I would say, has been the hardest part of leveraging this network because of not knowing what to ask for or even when asked for help, what do I even need? So I I can empathize with. Those out there that are going, I have this network, what do I do? The answer that I have found, so just to give a, an answer to that question as well is asking who, who might I might be able to help.
And so somebody asks you, how can I help you? Who do you know that looks like this, that I can help them? And that is at least been a, I had a have a sticky note. I have a post-it that I've put on my computer. So when I have these connection calls, I'm like, what is the question I'm supposed to ask? And having that sticky note on my computer helped me remind me, okay, I'm supposed to ask, who do you know that looks like this, that I could help?
I believe in that so much so that I. Make it a point every week that I put two people together. Oh, okay. I belong to the local Chamber of Commerce. Yeah. I belong to a few networking groups, and what I do is, oh, this person needs a plumber, let's say. Oh, okay. The perfect, I know a plumber. I know a great plumber.
I'm gonna introduce them like Joe. This is Jim. Jim, this is Joe. He's a great businessman. This person needs help. Have at it. Okay. And I let them go. But I make it a point that I do at least two per week. Wow. Because that's as I'm known as a super connector. Yeah, you are. Okay. But that's what I do because I feel, 'cause networking as a whole.
Okay. You have to go into it with what's called a servant's heart. You give, not receive. So you, once you give Zig Ziglar, everybody you know, talks about this and they, if you give enough, then it'll come back around to you. And you'll receive afterwards. But if you go to a networking event or meet with somebody one-on-one, what can you do for that person?
How can you make that person more successful? Yeah. So that's the mindset that, that I go in with. I love that. Okay. What's one piece of advice you'd give to somebody who's starting to build a network with the goal of to, of turning it into a business opportunity? I feel like you just answered that question.
I I think I did. I think I did. But gimme your best shot. Yeah. I think first of all, I. If I am thinking about building the way that I'm building a network for marketing purposes, so for potential future business, is through giving away a freebie. So on my website, I have a corporate cash out blueprint.
I. And it's revived, marketing back slash cash out. I'm sure it'll be in the show notes and it's come to my website. It's on the first button on the website. It's a way to give people something of value in return for their email, right? It's an at value exchange. That has built my email list to then be able to continue giving value about the things that I do.
So when I send an email, I always make sure there's some story in it. I make sure I really spend the time, I come up with a story, some example, some giving value of something authentic and true to me, and an experience that I had. I've, how many times been on so many email lists that are just, a sales, a sale, like five days of sale, things that they're trying to sell.
Like I, that's not gonna continue to get your open rates and it's gonna get people to unsubscribe. So I send two emails a week. One email is the, like a newer story, something of interest. And then I probably have a call to action I have a live event coming up in June, come join my workshop. And then, but it's not hit you over the head, right? It has to have value because again, I'm building this network, so I've given you something of value to get onto my email list. You get something of value in my stories. And then the second one is, my evergreen content. You're in my wheelhouse. This is what's going on.
So that's like the bare minimum of an email. Like again, there's a whole marketing strategy for email. However, building your email list, making it valuable to people and. And feeling connected to the network that you have through your emails is gonna be super important to building whatever business.
Let's say somebody only has 500 people on their email list. What email list would you suggest that they start with? Oh, that to send an email out? Yeah. I only have about 500 on my email list. Five 50, something like that. A very specific niche of people, and it's growing. It's growing, but that's a bit, that's a good number.
If you have 500 people and you need, how many clients do you need, to get to, don't be. Look, if you have 20 people on your email list, I am all about that. Just start talking about it. In fact, 20 people is less of a fear than 500 than a thousand. So 20 people feels oh, nobody could open this email and I'm fine.
I was joking the other day on a call about how. For me, my blog was like, oh, I can write whatever on my blog website. 'cause who's gonna see that? Like I'm not pushing advertising out to that. Like people really do have to come to my website and read my blog. So it gave me this platform to just. Write and start telling stories and doing stories, and then I started just taking those blogs and putting them in my email because I'm writing these stories, so why not do that?
So I just would encourage people, just start writing, just start sending emails at the US laws with all this stuff can spam. People can unsubscribe. They don't wanna be on your email list. Let them un unsubscribe. I was a little hurt at the beginning of people I would see unsubscribe to these people.
Unsubscribe. What what format do you use? What program do you use to send out those emails? Oh, great question. So I use a product called Flow Desk because it's pretty, and I thought that it looked pretty, it wasn't really out of functionality. I like something called Kit. Is very good for if you're doing a lot of events and you have a lot of, yeah, there you go.
See if you have a lot of events, you have things coming up. Kit is very good 'cause it's, you can do workflows off of each of your events a lot easier than flow desks. Flow desks is working on it anyway. MailChimp is free right? For up to I don't know a lot of subscribers. So MailChimp is I think 500.
Okay. MailChimp is free up until 500. Okay. Yeah, so start with free, if that's where you're at. Don't pay for stuff until you feel like, okay, now I'm ready to up level, or now I'm here. There. Just make it easy for yourself. Make it a low barrier of entry and just get started. Yeah.
Perfect, perfect. Okay, let's bring this podcast full circle. Okay. Look, looking ahead. How do you see personal branding and networking evolving in the next five years, and how should people prepare for it? I love that question. I believe that in-person networking, personal branding, I. Is the future. We all went through a pandemic and I call it the great reevaluation.
We all went through something. We all have a pandemic story. Now. We have come through that. We are ready to be back in person. We are ready to be back with people. We need that energy. We're humans. We need that connectivity. We need that networking. We need that energy. You want to be able to walk into a room at a networking event.
Knowing that when you hand a business card to somebody, when they come to that website or when they see you, that it all matches together. I have a example of a friend of mine Tricia. She does personal branding, also her Rebel brand. You meet her, she is just like her, Jenna se quo of who she is out it. It matches for people that want that creative brander, like that works both for her. You go to her website, you go to her social media, right? It's all that brand. And people know when they see her and then when they see her online, they're like, that tracks. That's the person that I want. My stuff is another example.
I work with a lot of ex corporate people. You'll probably see me more in a collar, maybe a bright shirt, right? But a collar. You'll see me a little bit more in a business type of attire because I know that my audience is corporate or x corporate. It just goes well with my brand. It goes well with my audience.
And when you, all of it starts tying together, it that's where you're bringing together, again, the networking. You're seeing me, you're seeing me in person. You're meeting me, and when you you see my personal brand online, it's all coming together. Great. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Brianna, this is, this was such a great interview.
I love listening to your answers. Listen, if anybody wanted to get a hold of you either to be coached to buy some of your product or whatever, how, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you? So my website is revive Marketing, and this is the tricky part. It's, my name is RHI. So it's Rhiannon with RHI.
So it's a play on my name, Rhiannon Revive. So it's revive, R-H-I-V-I-V-E marketing.com. Perfect. Rhiannon, I cannot believe it, but this, it's over. And I thank you so much for coming on my podcast. It was great conversation. Thank you. Okay.
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Well, that's a wrap. Folks, a huge thank you to our special guests for sharing such incredible insights today, and of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners, for tuning in and spending your time with us. Remember, networking isn't about being perfect, it's about being present. So take what you've learned today.
Get out there and make some meaningful connections. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share it with someone. You could use a little networking inspiration. Let's keep the conversation going. You can find me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or my website MichaelAForman.com.
Remember. Until next time. Keep practicing. Keep connecting, and keep building those relationships. This is Michael Forman signing off. Take care and happy networking.
Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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