John Corcoran: 06:41
Oh, and what one other podcast episode I want to mention is the Systems Simplified podcast by D Clevett. And D is a good long-time friend and client, and she has done such a great job with that podcast. And it’s an area where she helps people. And the podcast is in an area where a lot of companies struggle, which is documenting systems and processes. It’s not sexy, but it is sexy because it’s one of the most important things that you can do in your business. So if you struggle with that, or if you want some tips or tricks or resources for how to get better at that, go check out that show.
Chad Franzen: 07:15
Okay, our next topic, a tool that you like to use. I know that at Rise25, you guys use countless tools and you’re experimenting with countless other tools. What’s one tool maybe that you might recommend?
John Corcoran: 07:27
Yeah. So this one is Pandadoc. PandaDoc is a signature e-signature software, but it’s much more than that. So it’s creating digital documents. But they can be multimedia.
And so we use it for contracts, for agreements, for engagements. And you can create templates and then you can create duplicate versions of those over and over again. And it gives you data around when someone’s checked something, which is helpful to know when people are checking something, and it also allows them to sign and pay directly through their platform. So it’s a really cool tool. And then it plugs in, of course, with Slack and other tools in Zapier. So then it, you know, after someone executes it, after someone signs and pays, then it can trigger your team to, you know, follow through on next steps after that. So I’m a big fan of Pandadoc.
Chad Franzen: 08:19
Yeah, those are some valuable, valuable things that it does. Sounds like someone in your network who in your network maybe has made an impact on you recently.
John Corcoran: 08:28
Yeah. So I’ll say, Todd Task Potomac Business Capital Todd is someone who’s been a friend, a client. He is so generous with his time and his wisdom. Really an expert in M&A, mergers and acquisitions and buying and selling of companies. And every time I listen to his podcast, which is the Second Bite podcast, he shares an insight or an idea or something like that.
That is not something you would anticipate, it’s an idea or some kind of next-level strategy that only comes from someone who’s done what he’s done for as long as he has, and yet he’s someone who leads with true ethics and values. And I think that is really important, especially in the world that he operates.
Chad Franzen: 09:16
Yeah, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Todd myself, and he seems like a great guy. Hey, last topic here. An issue. Now we’ve talked about this. The issue is swallowing the frog. And I really don’t know what that means. Can you give us a quick definition real quick?
John Corcoran: 09:31
Well, it’s good to know that not everyone knows this term, because I was just going to throw it out there and you’re like, well, we need to define it. So I don’t know; I guess maybe I’ve been saying it a lot. So I don’t know if it came from this book. There’s a book called Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy. I read it years ago, so I’m not sure if the phrase comes from it, or vice versa or what, or if it’s a regional saying or whatever.
But what it means for me is, is, is sometimes you just gotta take the thing that you don’t want to do and do it and get through it. And I feel like that has been a bit of my life recently where I’ve had to have I’ve had to do some things that I didn’t want to do. And it’s easy sometimes, especially as an entrepreneur, as an, as a business owner, to design a life around the things that you want to do and avoid the things that you need to do. And fortunately or unfortunately, the buck stops with you and you have to do certain things. If you want a business to be sustainable that you don’t want to do, you have to have a conversation.
You have to be open and honest with yourself or with someone else. You have to talk to someone who’s mad at you. Talk to someone who you know you’ve got friction with. You’ve got to run straight into these situations, or else you sweep them under the rug, and they become bigger and bigger problems. I am someone who I would say is not masterful at that.
I think that I was raised around, let’s just say, a family, that was good at sweeping things under the rug. And so it’s something that I’ve struggled with. And yet I went into practicing law, which is all about friction and confrontation. It’s all about just straight confrontation, talking about the things that you don’t see eye to eye on, or that you have major disagreements or major fights over. Those are two ends of the spectrum.
What I’ve tried to do with my life is I’ve tried to just be straightforward and open and honest and speak plainly. I say that a lot. Speak plainly, because I think a lot of times we can go through our lives and we can dance around things. We can. We know what we want to say, who we want to say it to, but we don’t do it.
And so I’ve tried to move to myself, to a place where if there is something that needs to be said, that I say it, you know, and that doesn’t mean that you, you are blunt and insulting of people or anything like that, because there’s art around it. And, you know, you might want to do a compliment sandwich type of thing, right, where you compliment. And then there’s the harsh truth in the middle and then a compliment on the back end. But I have tried to move towards swallowing that frog and being open and honest and direct and speaking about what I want and what I want to get accomplished.
Chad Franzen: 12:35
So let’s say you, you know that this is something you have to do. And you, you know, like it’s 6:00 tonight. And I know that at 3:00 tomorrow, I’m planning on doing this, and it seems like it’s going to be fine at 3:00. But at 6:00 tonight, it seems like 3:00. Tomorrow is going to be just fine.
And then 3:00 hits my brain will give me several reasons as to why it’s a bad idea to do it at that time. How? How often should you believe your brain when it tells you that?
John Corcoran: 13:03
Well, our brains do have a great way of justifying these things or rationalizing. Right? I think if it’s something that you can get off your plate, if you can just do it and it’s going to take a couple of minutes. You know, I had one of these conversations today. It was eight minutes long.
I was really not looking forward to it for two weeks or so. It was eight minutes. Anyone can get through eight minutes. It wasn’t torture. People have been through torture for much longer than that, right?
It wasn’t pleasant. I was not looking forward to it. I did not want to do it. I feel much better on the other side of that conversation. Right.
And that’s not the only conversation that I had. There have been multiple conversations that have had to have had to have like that. And that’s just life, right? And so, yeah, I’d say if you can do it sooner and get it out of the way. You will probably feel much better about it, but if you do reach that point where you hit that time and then you just be cognizant of if your brain is trying to rationalize it, your brain is trying to justify it, trying to make excuses for why you shouldn’t do it. Remember, you are. You’re going to continue to wallow in a bit of pain, a little bit of anxiety until you get through that thing. That’s why I say it’s like.
Chad Franzen: 14:23
It’s like on TV when you see the guys who are scared to death of skydiving with the parachute. It’s like, you just have to. You just have to jump sometimes.
John Corcoran: 14:29
Absolutely.
Chad Franzen: 14:30
All right. Hey, John, as always, great to talk to you. Thanks so much for having me today. And I’ll look forward to the next of these thought leadership episodes.
John Corcoran: 14:38
Yes. Thanks so much, Chad.
Outro: 14:40
So long everybody. Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
