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 ran his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Since 2012, John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where he has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, including Peter Diamandis, Adam Grant, 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. They help their clients generate ROI through their done-for-you podcast service.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [01:46] Why AI writing may outshine human writing skills
- [05:21] Why AI’s repeated phrases aren’t always a dealbreaker
- [07:27] Top AI coding tools to build websites lightning fast
- [10:04] How humor gives podcasts an edge and keeps them fresh
- [11:57] How to craft a B2B podcast that attracts the right audience
- [14:26] How to seamlessly promote your business through relevant storytelling
In this episode…
In an era where technology evolves faster than ever, how can business leaders use these innovations to stand out and grow their influence? From AI-driven tools to thought leadership platforms, the modern podcasting landscape is changing rapidly. But what does it take to leverage these tools effectively without losing the human touch that makes great conversations and ideas resonate?
According to John Corcoran, a seasoned podcast host and entrepreneur, the key lies in embracing technology as a partner rather than an enemy. He explains that tools like AI and code assistants can enhance creativity and efficiency — helping creators produce better writing, build websites faster, and bring new ideas to life with less friction. John highlights how AI can democratize communication, empowering more people to share their voices clearly and professionally. He also points to thought leaders and podcasters who skillfully align their content with their brand message, turning each episode into both a meaningful dialogue and a strategic relationship-building opportunity.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as Chad Franzen of Rise25 interviews John Corcoran to discuss how technology and thought leadership intersect in podcasting. They explore the smart use of AI in content creation, the rise of no-code tools for entrepreneurs, and lessons from influential podcasters who shaped the industry. John also shares how aligning podcast themes with business goals creates authentic, lasting connections.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
- Quik!
- Rich Walker on LinkedIn
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
- EO Accelerator
- WTF with Marc Maron
- Lael Sturm on LinkedIn
- Ogmentor
- ChatGPT
- Lovable
- Replit
- Cursor
Related episode(s):
Quotable Moments:
- “The best use of AI is to use it as a writing tool, writing aid, you know, to generate ideas.”
- “To just generally denigrate AI and say it’s AI slop, I just think that’s unfortunate.”
- “If you don’t give it good guidelines, it’s not going to output something that is helpful.”
- “You want to have a conversation in your podcast that’s in the vicinity of where you want to end up.”
- “Humor enhances everything. You know, when someone has a sense of humor, it keeps it interesting.”
Action Steps:
- Embrace AI as a creative partner: Using AI tools for writing and ideation accelerates productivity while enhancing clarity and quality.
- Provide clear inputs for better AI output: Setting strong parameters ensures the generated content aligns with your tone, structure, and goals.
- Align podcast topics with your business vision: Keeping conversations in the “vicinity” of your mission attracts ideal clients and collaborators.
- Explore no-code and AI-powered platforms: Tools like Replit and Lovable streamline website creation, freeing more time for strategy and growth.
- Study leading thought leaders and podcasters: Learning from industry innovators refines your approach to storytelling, audience engagement, and influence-building.
Sponsor: Rise25
At Rise25 we help B2B businesses give to and connect to your ‘Dream 200’ relationships and partnerships.
We help you cultivate amazing relationships in 2 ways.
#1 Podcasting
#2 Strategic Gifting
#1 Our Predictable Podcast ROI Program
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 200 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 Amazon Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Cofounders 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?
Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
#2 Our Comprehensive Corporate Gifting Program
Elevate business relationships with customers, partners, staff, and prospects through gifting.
At Rise25, thoughtful and consistent gifting is a key component of staying top of mind and helps build lasting business relationships. Our corporate gift program is designed to simplify your process by delivering a full-service corporate gifting program — from sourcing and hand selecting the best gifts to expert packaging, custom branding, reliable shipping, and personalized messaging on your branded stationary.
Our done-for-you corporate gifting service ensures that your referral partners, prospects, and clients receive personalized touchpoints that enhance your business gifting efforts and provide a refined executive gifting experience. Whether you’re looking to impress key stakeholders or boost client loyalty, our comprehensive approach makes it easy and affordable.
Discover how Rise25’s personalized corporate gifting program can help you create lasting impressions. Get started today and experience the difference a strategic gifting approach can make.
Email us through our contact form.
You can learn more and watch a video on how it works here: https://rise25.com/giftprogram/
Contact us now at support@rise25.com or message us here https://rise25.com/contact/
Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:00
Okay. Today we’re going to change things up a bit and I’m going to be sharing a tool. I recommend an issue affecting this industry, the podcasting industry, a thought leader you should pay attention to, and much more. I’m going to be interviewed today by Chad from Rise25, so stay tuned.
Chad Franzen: 00:16
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:33
All right. Welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, if you’ve listened before that every week we usually have on smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs this week, you’re gonna have to deal with me because I’m going to be the guest, and we’re going to be going through a couple of different recommendations and issues in the industry that I think that you should know about.
And before we get into this, of course, this episode brought to you by Rise25, where we help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that by helping you to run your podcast. We have the easy button for any company to run a podcast. We do three things: strategy, accountability, and full execution. We even invented what some are calling the Wix of B2B podcasting.
It’s our platform Podcast Co-Pilot. So if you want to learn more, you can go to our website rise25.com, or email our team at support@rise25.com. All right. And with that I will turn it over to Chad. Take it away.
Chad Franzen: 01:23
Okay. Hey, thanks so much, John. Great to be here with you today. Let’s just dive right into it. One of the things we’re going to talk about is an issue affecting the podcasting industry.
So maybe you, you know, you kind of are heavily involved in the podcasting industry thing, something you hear chatter about or people constantly going back and forth about what is one of those and what’s what’s your thought?
John Corcoran: 01:46
Yeah, I want to take a bit of a contrarian view here, because I see a lot of people online using this term AI slop and writing about saying that AI is just kind of denigrating AI, mostly Writing, but also it extends to imagery as well. And video. And it’s just this degrading term that people use. And I think a lot of people are using it defensively because they’re afraid of it and they’re not sure what’s happening with it. Now, look, I’ve been a writer my entire career.
I identify as a writer. I worked as a writer in the Clinton White House as a speechwriter for the governor of California. I was an attorney, did a lot of writing, then wrote for Forbes. Okay. But I will say right now that a lot of AI writing, not all is better than I can write and faster.
And so a lot of people don’t agree with that. But I truly believe that’s true. And it’s going to be even more true a year from now, two years from now. So we have to accept that as reality. Now does that mean you can just let go and you can just let AI do all your writing?
Absolutely not. The best use of AI is to use it as a writing tool, writing aid, you know, to generate ideas, things like that. Give it very clear parameters. Very clear guidelines. Be really clear about what inputs you want to give it.
If you want it to do writing based on something else, some other piece of content or a transcript or something like that, and if you don’t do those things, then it’s going to produce bad work. But to just generally denigrate AI and say it’s AI slop. I just think that there’s a lot of people that are acting very defensively, and they are. I’ve seen it before with other industries. Other software comes along and people feel threatened by it, and they just use these terms thinking that that will make it go away.
It won’t. It’s here to stay. And I think that frankly, it’s to our benefit. There’s you know, I was looking it up the other day and something like 60% of people in the United States do not have a college degree. And that doesn’t mean that they don’t have good ideas.
It just means that they didn’t attain a level of, you know, education that teaches them formal writing. And so a lot of times, people like that, you know, they don’t write as well as someone who has a college degree. And the truth is that these AI writing tools can help those people to write a lot better. One other thing I’d like to point out is that, you know, just in the last few years with social media content, stuff like that, the quality of writing that we get used to has degraded. And so what we’re holding, a lot of times people look at good writing, well-organized writing, coherent writing, succinct to the point.
And they say that slop because it doesn’t look like human writing, which is markedly worse. How ironic is that? Right? And so I just think that’s unfortunate that something that is to a higher caliber is considered, you know, called slop because it’s frankly better written than what most humans would be. So that’s my contrarian view on it.
Chad Franzen: 04:51
Do you think that if you let’s say you put you, you know, like, like let’s say for show notes for a podcast. He published something and some of the words like, like I’ve noticed when you have high, when you have an AI, write something for you. Like highlight is a common word used by AI by AI. They talked about this, highlighting the need for blah blah blah. Yeah.
Do you think that if people can tell that it was potentially written for AI because they’ve seen words like highlight that that’s a flaw that we need to guard against, or it’s still good writing and it is what it is.
John Corcoran: 05:21
Look, look, humans do that too. You know, a lot of times people point out something in, in a new technology and they say, you know, oh, like self-driving cars. Oh, they can get in accidents. Well, humans can do. In fact, humans get into accidents right now at much higher rates than self-driving cars do.
You know? And so I think that’s the case where, sure, a lot of the writing might use certain words, vocabulary over and over again. And that’s why I say that, at least as of right now. And we’re recording this at the end of 2025. You need to read over this content.
You need to read over it and look and see if there’s certain words that are used over and over again, or certain ways of phrasing or lack of variety of sentence structure or things like that. That’s why a human needs to look through it. That will be less and less common as the years go by.
Chad Franzen: 06:11
You know, only really a few people sit there and worry about whether or not something was written by AI. If it’s a clear message, it’s a clear message. What’s the difference? Yeah, yeah. What about.
John Corcoran: 06:20
Clarity? I mean, clarity is good, you know? I mean, you know, people will they’ll hold up something that someone wrote on, on Reddit or in an email or something, and it’s run on sentences and it’s not well-structured paragraphs. It doesn’t have headers, it doesn’t have bullets to it. And then they’ll hold that up against something that has headers, has clear sentence structure, has bullets to it, is well organized, and they’ll point to the well organized piece of writing and say that’s AI slop.
And so they’ll run on sentences. They run on paragraph. The lack of coherent sentence structure is authentically human. But it is demonstrably worse. Writing it conveys the ideas in a worse way.
So that’s just the point I want to get across, because so many people are so denigrating right now of it. And it frankly, it’s it’s they’re identifying it because it’s better written content.
Chad Franzen: 07:17
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So AI not necessarily a bad tool for writing if you don’t let it do it all yourself. What about some other tools that you’ve been using lately that you might recommend?