John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and has run his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast since 2012. He has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, from Peter Diamandis and Adam Grant to Gary Vaynerchuk and Marie Forleo.
John is also the Co-founder of Rise25, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners and generates ROI through their done-for-you podcast service.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- John Corcoran shares why he joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) San Francisco chapter and how he became a board member
- John explains how being an EO board member has influenced his leadership skills
- John describes his role as Marketing and Communications Chair of EO San Francisco
- How much of a time commitment is expected of an EO board member?
- John shares the benefits he’s gained as an EO board member
- John talks about conferences and retreats EO board members can attend
In this episode…
Are you a member of a leadership organization and considered contributing more? Is being in a position of leadership time-consuming, or does it boost professional growth?
When John Corcoran joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization San Francisco (EOSF) chapter as a board member in 2021, he was already the Marketing Communications Chair for EOSF. After over a year on the board, he’s happy with his decision, despite his busy schedule. John explains the many benefits of being involved in EO as a board member, including growing as a leader, meeting people and learning best practices in other businesses, and sharpening your other skills — all of which you can bring back to your own business. As a member of the board, John says it’s rewarding to have the opportunity to give back and be a more active participant in a community that’s engaged and active with really giving like-minded entrepreneurs.
In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, host Chad Franzen sits down with John Corcoran, the Co-founder of Rise25 and Marketing Communications Chair and board member at EO San Francisco, to discuss his role at EOSF and why he joined the board. John explains how EO has impacted his leadership growth, his time commitment, and the benefits of being an EO board member.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- EO San Francisco
- EO Accelerator
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- Email John Corcoran at John@Rise25.com
- Chad Franzen on LinkedIn
- EO Global Leadership Conference
- Rudy Mutter on LinkedIn
Sponsor for this episode…
EO San Francisco
This episode is brought to you by EO San Francisco.
The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) is a global, peer-to-peer network of more than 16,000+ influential business owners with 198 chapters in 61 countries.
If you are the founder, co-founder, owner, or controlling shareholder of a company generating over $1 million a year in revenues and want to connect with other like-minded successful entrepreneurs, EO is for you.
The EO San Francisco chapter enables leading entrepreneurs in the Bay area to learn, grow, and achieve greater success.
The EOSF chapter was founded in 1991, and today we have over 100 members in industries ranging from marketing to agriculture to tech and professional services.
To learn how it works or to come do a test drive, come join us at www.eonetwork.org/sanfrancisco/.
Rise 25
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.
We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.
What do you need to start a podcast?
When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.
The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.
We make distribution easy.
We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Co-founders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?
Contact us now at support@rise25media.com or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 Co-founders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Episode Transcript
Chad Franzen 0:02
Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show. Chad Franzen here co-host of the show where we feature top entrepreneurs and business leaders sharing their stories. This episode is brought to you by EO San Francisco. The Entrepreneurs Organization, EO, is a global peer-to-peer network of more than 16,000 individual influential business owners with 198 chapters in 61 countries. If you are the founder, co-founder owner, or controlling shareholder of a company generating over $1 million a year in revenues and want to connect with other like-minded successful entrepreneurs, EO is for you. The EO San Francisco chapter enables leading entrepreneurs in the Bay Area to learn, grow, and achieve greater success. The EOSF chapter was founded in 1991. And today has over 100 members in industries ranging from marketing to agriculture, to tech and professional services. To learn how it works or to come to a test drive, join them at EONetwork.org/SanFrancisco. This episode is part of our series profiling various board members of the EO San Francisco chapter and talking about what the board members do in their roles. John Corcoran is Co-founder of Rise25 and is the Marketing Communications Chair for EO San Francisco. He’ll be talking about what the role entails and why he chose to get involved with the board. Hey, John, thanks for joining me today. How are you?
John Corcoran 1:28
Glad to be here? Thank you.
Chad Franzen 1:30
Yeah. Tell me about when you first joined to and how you got involved with the board?
John Corcoran 1:35
Sure. Yeah. So I first joined in 2021, I had been involved in the accelerator program before which I’m a big fan of great program. And then we joined EO. And the funny thing is, like, shortly right after I’d been involved with the board for the accelerator program, and shortly after I joined they, they joke that you kind of get voluntold sometimes to join these things. And that’s what happened with me. So someone said, hey, we’d love for you to be on a committee. And I was a committee of the board. But pretty soon I realized, you know, there’s not been much difference between being on a committee and being part of the board, I think was just their easy way of kind of getting me involved. But I was glad that I did because it really helped me learn more about the organization and really get to know some of the more heavily involved active participants in the in the EO San Francisco community.
Chad Franzen 2:26
So for those, for those who hear about the board but aren’t really sure what’s going on, why would anybody want to get involved with the board?
John Corcoran 2:33
Yeah, that’s a great question. Yeah. And, uh, you know, a lot of people think that, Oh, I got my business and I’m running, I’ve got other responsibilities. You know, a lot of people in EO they’ve participated in a forum, which keeps them busy. Also, I think the reason to do it, first of all, I’ve heard people say that being part of their board and their local chapter, is some people have told me that they enjoy that even more than their forum, which is generally ranked as the thing that people appreciate the most out of being a part of when they’re part of you. So I think that being a part of the board is it allows you to give back, it allows you to meet, as I said, the more active participants. It allows you to practice leadership, it allows you to learn some best practices that you see in other businesses and other chapters that you can bring back to your business allows you to sharpen your saw and get better at different skills that maybe you want to work on, which again, you can bring back to your, your business. So there’s a number of different ways in which you can personally benefit from it. In addition to just the fact that you’re, you’re giving back and becoming a more active participant in a community that is a really great engaged, active, wonderful community of really giving entrepreneurs.
Chad Franzen 3:50
So, as I mentioned, you are the Chair of Marketing and Communications. What do you do in that role?
John Corcoran 3:56
Yeah, so at its core, it’s getting the word out about things that the chapter is up to. So it’s primarily communicating about events that are happening. So you know, these days you couldn’t get across multiple different channels that were commuting, got Slack and email and, and WhatsApp and, and all these kinds of different forms, community text messages, things like that. When I joined, I found that they were already doing a really good job of that they had a really good system in place that people would put in before me. And so I started doing podcasts because that was my background on and I found that that was a great way that we could bring new voices in and share their stories. And also take in one of the big objectives for the chapter was to become a bigger part of the community, so to partner with other companies and organizations, and so I knew from my experience that the podcasts could help to reach out connect with other organizations have a conversation with them on the podcast, and lead to other types of collaboration. So that’s another purpose behind why I did that.
Chad Franzen 5:03
How, how much of your time is it taking how time-consuming is it?
John Corcoran 5:06
It’s not too bad that we have a once-a-month meeting of the board, which is only like an hour and a half. We have stuff throughout the month, like I said, the systems and processes are already in place. So it’s, you know, it’s probably like, at most five hours a month, I think, you know, maybe three to five or something like that, because some of these systems are in place. And most of that is the podcast piece that I did. You know, every once awhile there’s, there’s kind of bigger projects that come along, but it’s not too time-consuming.
Chad Franzen 5:40
What have you personally gotten out of it?
John Corcoran 5:42
Um, well, one big one is just getting to know the other members of the chapter who I wouldn’t be getting to know as well. So, you know, there’s our current president Franca, last president, Rudy Mutter. We got an incoming president who’s in my forum. But you know, if I was just participating in my forum, I’d be getting, getting to know those people better. And then, if I attended some events from time to time that I did get to know people through that. But this is another group, smaller group that I’m getting to know on a regular basis. And there’s been, they’ve had a couple of retreats that I’ve attended, which have been great all-day things where you get to know people, I attended the Global Leadership Conference, which was really cool, as in Washington, DC, and I met some really interesting young members from around the globe, and then got some trainings there and heard some inspirational speakers and things like that. And so on, a lot of people say that they participate in their boards solely so that they can go to the Global Leadership Conference because of the people that you meet there. So that was really actually a big value add for me is like being able to participate in that community being able to participate with the most active members of each individual chapter from all around the globe. And I really enjoyed the opportunity to do that
Chad Franzen 6:56
Are these conferences and retreats only things you can do as a board member?
John Corcoran 7:01
That one is some confusion around it, because you, you, it’s kind of like you, you can get in as a board member, I think you’re pretty much guaranteed that you can get in as a board member, but then they open it up to other people, as well. But depending on availability, this was this past year was a little bit weird in June of 2021. Because we were just kind of coming out of COVID, that was kind of waiting, they weren’t sure what attendance was going to be like, but as a board member, you get kind of first dibs in order to participate in that conference. Oh, and I should also mention, there’s also other conferences, I think one’s called the Regional Leadership Academy, which I have not participated in. But that is only for people who’ve served on their board. And now I’ve heard other people rave about that. I have not attended it yet. But I’ve heard people say that that’s a really great opportunity to really uplevel your skills, learn new skills, and then bring those things back to growing your company.
Chad Franzen 7:59
Is there anything else people should know about being on the board with a role?
John Corcoran 8:03
Um, you know, just that, I personally believe you get out whatever you give into an organization. And I’ve gotten a lot out of being part of, you know, without even having been part of it for too long. And I meet a lot of your members that haven’t done these things yet. You know, for various different reasons, the time is not always right. But if the timing is right for you, if you have some space in your schedule, you’re gonna get a lot out of it, if you can devote yourself to this, this type of role. So I’d say, you know, go talk to other members of the board, some that you know, or reach out to people and just inquire about it. And maybe there’s something smaller you can do kind of like me, I just started in a smaller capacity, and then you can move into the role later, once you’ve kind of gotten to him a handle on it. But that’s what I would say is like, you know, if the timing is ok, in your life in your life, you’re probably going to get enough out of it, that it’s going to be worth your time. And you’re going to bring things back to your business that are going to be valuable for you.
Chad Franzen 9:08
How can people find out more information about to EO San Francisco and specifically, you know, joining the board?
John Corcoran 9:14
Yeah, you know, going to the website. So you know, EONetwork.org/SanFrancisco.
You can learn about the chapter there. We also have a separate website, EOSF.org, where you can check out more information as well. They can reach out to me, John@Rise25.com or connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to answer any questions.
Chad Franzen 9:34
Ok. Hey, sounds good. John. It’s been great talking to you today. Thanks so much.
John Corcoran 9:37
Thank you.
Chad Franzen 9:38
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