SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the ProLife Team Podcast. Today I'm with uh Sandy, and and Sandy's going to interview me about the history of iRapture.com. So uh welcome Sandy.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hi. Yeah, um, I am super excited to be here and talking about the history of iRapture. I've been with iRapture for um almost two years now, and so um me finding out a little bit more about the background is gonna be pretty fun.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Yeah, I'm excited to go down memory lane. So, how would you like to get started? Or what question do you want to ask first?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, so um you know what I'd love to know more about what where the name of um iRapture came from, and um and how did yeah, how did that come about?

SPEAKER_03 0:53

So um Nick Olson, who was my business partner on day one, um had the great idea of keeping God first. And and so at a New Year's Eve party on the cusp of Y2K, so on the last day of 1999, we stayed up uh to midnight and were brainstorming before and after midnight about what names might be a good fit for this website design company we were starting, and and we were trying to go with the concept of keeping God first, and so we came up with a list of over 90 names, and iRapch.com ended up being the one that resonated or made it to the top, and it was picked, and we liked the name because if you're a Christian, you can say iRapture, and that was really the the main um piece that connected us to the name, along with the desire to to keep God first and picking a name.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Wow, that's interesting. So, how did so like it was just total brainstorming?

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Like there was nothing like it came out of like how yeah, just brainstorming, um, talking after midnight at a New Year's Eve party um when the world could have ended with uh you know going from two you know with the whole with the two the concerns over two characters um and having things get reset. We weren't really too worried about it, um, but we did enjoy brainstorming, you know, at that exact time about this. And then what's really nice about a name that starts at the beginning of a well on January 1st of 2000 is that it's really easy to know how old we are. And so that part's really nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, easy to remember with all those things going on. Yeah, I I I do remember why. Oh my goodness, that's a that is a blast out of the history.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Um everybody wondering if the world was gonna just stop. Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah. So let's back up a little bit. Tell me something that most people don't know about you. Something fun and unexpected.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Something about me. Okay. So a lot of people don't know that I got into the pro-life movement doing Hans and Franz skits. Um, so we were um, there was an acting group that came to my high school when I was a senior, and they were doing these really fun skits, uh, peer-to-peer or students to students. And I ended up really enjoying just their energy and their excitement. And they were essentially talking about waiting until marriage to have sex, but doing it through like very creative um skits that they wrote themselves. And so I ended up joining that group and doing Hans and Fronds and a lot of other skits um at hundreds of venues across Tucson, and um mostly uh schools, some churches. We went to we we went to uh Juvie, but um yeah, doing Hans and Fronds, and we had lots of different versions, and we had our own muscle suits, and yeah, I would say most people don't know that.

unknown 4:27

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

That's awesome. So is this something you um with iRapture? Is this something you always saw yourself doing, like becoming a business owner and doing the media, or is this something just kind of like did it give birth at your your New Year's Eve party? Or how did that all?

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Yeah, um so when I was uh a junior in high school, um after a very inspirational church service, I decided to pray for a year about what God wanted me to do with my life. So I prayed every day, you know, God, what do you want me to do with my life? Like literally as simple as that, for about six months. I didn't pray every day, but I tried. And after six months, um I knew that God wanted me to work with um my own business, work with kids, and work with my church. And initially I had no idea what that looked like. Like I thought maybe I'd be working at a, you know, doing a toy store to raise money for an orphanage group. I wasn't quite sure. But you know, over time it's become really clear that working in the pro-life movement allows me to have a business, work with lots of churches, and help lots of kids. And so, um, and I feel like God's blessed me when I'm hitting on all three of those marks based on that direction from high school that I got by praying every day until I had confidence or knew where God was leading me.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Awesome. So during that journey, when did it come out that you wanted to um move into like marketing and media and um content and so forth?

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Um yeah, I would say um yeah, God seems to open one small door at a time, and I sometimes trip through it or walk through it. Um, but yeah, at first, so you know, a little more back history of iRapture.com is it's it's a DBA, a doing business as name for Melodious Messages, LLC, and and Melodious Messages is often confused with Melodious Massages, but it's actually messages. Um and it's actually turned out to be a really nice name. I really like it today, probably more than I did when I first picked it. So, do you have any idea where Melodious Messages came from or where that root is? No, that's my next question was gonna be So Um So I went to um the Eller College of Entrepreneurship at U of A, and I wanted to start a business right out of college, but I didn't want to have one that was gonna be really busy. I wanted one just so I could understand the process of having a business, and so I I started a singing telegram business. And so that so Melodious Messages is a singing telegram business. I think we only did like five or six singing telegrams in the entire history of the singing telegram uh wave that we had. Um, but I did get to do taxes, I did get to set up you know the the certain parts of the business without having to worry about being overwhelmed with business because that part definitely did not happen. We did have uh an employee, I bought him a guitar um for doing some singing telegrams. Um but what's interesting is that singing a singing telegram business is a service business, and so then after while doing that, or after doing that, I ended up doing drywall in Nogalis, also under Melodious Messages, because that's also a service. I was doing that with my uncles, doing drywall work, working on um construction, and again, all under Melodious Messages, getting the experience of running things through the business, doing the bookkeeping. And and then it wasn't until then you know, Nick Olson and I were brainstorming about building websites and building websites for just anybody, not we didn't have the pro-life um vision like today at all. Um, but we did catch it, we did catch it together, actually. Um, and I would say John Tabor with the Crisis Pranksy Clinics of Tucson was instrumental in a few ways. Um, one was he, well, let me back up a moment. So while starting IRP.com, um, we had very little income because it was a brand new business. And so I was working at the crisis pregnancy clinics of Tucson as a publishing manager, effectively having a full-time job and then doing ireps.com after hours. And and I was essentially helping cover Nick's rent and bills while he was helping grow the business in that very beginning time. And then when it got to the point where I could also, you know, cut back on hours and take a pull a salary from IRP.com, I think that happened in about right around like one and a half years into the business. Um and and so, but essentially I was working as a publishing manager at the crisis practice clinics of Tucson, and I heard about them because of my acting volunteer work with uh with that same group, because that's the group that was housing the USA team, Unified Students for Abstinence. And let me think, where were we going with all this? Um, what was your original question now?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I I I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Yeah, so oh marketing, right. So marketing. So I ended up doing some marketing, well, printing, using a Risa graph, using printers, doing very little design, mostly just printing, doing a lot of brochure printing work for the CPCs of Tucson. And uh I built their first website, and it was the first website that I had ever built, and I made a lot of mistakes. We had the Planet of Salvation and the King James version on the client-facing site. We had one site for all audiences, we had Christian note cards on there. Um, I honestly really just not I did not understand the audience, I did not understand the messaging that goes into you know per audience. And and um, but all to say is we I learned a lot, and and then going down that learning curve, John Tabor ended up um paying half so that Nick and I, not actually was at that point, it wasn't Nick and I anymore, it was um Jeremy LaFever and I, and I believe Matt Maynis, he paid for half so that we could go to a Heartbeat International Conference. And when we went to the Heartbeat International Conference, we were our eyes were open to the need because we had gone through this learning curve with the the CPCs of Tucson going from like making all the mistakes to making a lot less mistakes and understanding that there were two audiences and starting to begin our under education of messaging, and we still had a ways to go, but we were definitely further than the average clinic. And so when we went to Heartbeat's first conference, we were able to see all these websites that were essentially way back to where we were in the beginning, but they hadn't progressed like we had by doing so much research and rebuilding and work. And so we were we saw the opportunity to try and bring other clinics to the same point that we had arrived at at that time with the CPCs of Tucson. And so, marketing, I would say uh God just sort of opened one door after another. I had a natural leaning towards it, but it was not what I was pursuing during these initial months. It was more of um God showing the need and and uh and us just sort of gravitating towards it more so than intentionally going in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

So in 20 sorry, what year was that the Y2K 2000?

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Yeah, in 2000's when we started. And then Nick ended up well, so Nick and I also um were working, so back in that year, we took a full-time job at LR Media, which is a billboard company, and irps.com was still like in its infancy. Um, but then when there was when what when the um 9-11 took place, uh there was a large amount of well, people stopped spending on advertising, and there was a large layoff at Eller Media now, well now clear channel outdoor. Um and so I ended up getting laid off during that very large layoff. Um, I don't feel terrible today because Carl Eller, the person who started Elr Media, also was laid off. And that his last, well, maybe not laid off, but he sold the company for a billion to Clear Channel Outdoor and his last day. Actually, my last day got to be shared by his last day. And I was really sad, but at the same time, that made it made me feel a little bit better that it was because of things outside of you know my control or what I did, perhaps. And it was essentially there's a lot less advertising going on when 9-11 took place, and there was a lot of uncertainty. And so Nick ended up transferring his ownership, his 50% ownership of iRapture.com to me, and I took on the $3,000 of debt that we had. And so, um, because we weren't profitable at that time, we were slightly upside down, but it wasn't that bad. I mean, $3,000 is what it was.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

So you were just doing websites during that time, right? Was that and you were just doing websites during that time?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Um, so I was working for Clear Channel Outdoor with uh but essentially Carl Eller hired both Nick and I. One of the things that was interesting about getting these jobs while we were also trying to build up this brand new company was so we decided to go, we you know, the LR Media website back then was um behind compared to other websites that we had worked on, at least. And and so we made a meeting to go meet with Carl Eller. So we drove to Phoenix, and on the way to Phoenix, we we decided to not try and sell him a website, but rather just listen because he had like 47 years of experience um when it came to business, and we decided just to use this as an opportunity to listen, and so we did that, and he ended up offering us both j full-time jobs, and that was the result of um that meeting. And we did, and we actually ended up building websites for him, um, but we were fully uh employed um on his team, and we were building internal tools um or internal websites, and and um, and so that worked. And he also part of our um negotiation is we wanted to be able to do our own business while on site, working for him full-time. We wanted to be able to use, you know, see if we could use some of the equipment, like you know, some of their resources to get our new business off the ground. And he was very supportive of helping um letting us use, yeah, use uh the office space, letting us work after hours there to get our our company started. And and the and the facilities there were amazing. They had just you know, really nice um space, really nice conference room. Uh it was just an amazing place to be able to spend extra hours working on our own company.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

So what were your um what were your biggest pivotal points? Which points? The pivotal points, like points where you said this is what direction we're moving in, this is how we need to change, this is what we need to adapt to, those type of things.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Yeah. Um, so uh one of one of the pub my first uh employee and also my lifelong best friend uh Jeremy LaFever, um, when he came on board, he he was really good at um negoti yeah um discovering strategic ideas. And so with you know, working with Jeremy, a lot of things took place. One was uh identifying the need for a a client-facing message and website, and then having a separate donor-facing website with message, and and so really working with Jeremy. Uh, I'm not sure if it was me, I'm not sure if it was him, but I know working together, we came up with that concept, and now it's standard across the um movement is to have one site per audience. And I'm not saying that someone else didn't figure it out on their own, because looking back, it seems very common sense. Um but we definitely worked on that together, and then uh I would also say John Tabor with the CPCs of Tucson was very instrumental because he was he essentially helped me hire Jeremy. So he essentially paid uh Jeremy, Jeremy's full-time salary that Jeremy was making in order for him to join my team, and then we did lots of work for John. Essentially, the way that played out was John wanted to see if I would come on and work full-time for him. And I told him I've got this new business, I don't, I just don't have the bandwidth. But I came up with a solution, which was to hire Jeremy, and then between the two of us, we were able to satisfy and fulfill a full-time position, and and so that's what happened. And um essentially Jeremy was working for Sears, I believe, back then. No, or he was working at a call center or somewhere else, maybe it was uh thrifty call car rental. He had a lot of different jobs, I forget which one he went away from, but essentially he came on board and he was and then we started working on strategic planning, and he was really good at making plans to raise money for a clinic, making plans when it came to understanding how to measure the results of the work. And a lot of those concepts that Jeremy and I hashed out together, and I would say he was instrumental in figuring out, um, have played out in helping us along, you know, much further down the road with IRP.com. Um, that's that was very instrumental. So between yeah, John Tabor, Jeremy LaFever. Um, I also would say my wife has been very instrumental when it came to praying. Um, another interesting story is we were there's been many times when we didn't have enough money to make payroll. And so I and it, you know, and I would have anxiety, and I would go to my wife, I'd go to Heather and I'd say, Would you pray? Because you know, we need some money to come in, we need some work. We we don't have enough work right now. And then she would pray, and and then like a few days later, or maybe a week later, I would say, Okay, stop praying because we've got more than we can do. And and that was like a pattern that happened, I don't know, like 12 times a year. It was very recurring. And today, I honestly I don't even have that anxiety doll because it took me a long time to not have the anxiety when the money wasn't there. Um, I'm probably yeah, I would, you know, maybe after 40 or 50, you know, going through this repetition of, oh no, we don't have enough money. What can we do? Let's pray. Heather, will you please pray? And then at working out, okay, please stop. We're we got more than we can do. Um, and yeah, so all that to say is I've learned that, yeah, I mean, God takes care of us. We've never had to take a loan, we've we've gotten really close, but we never did. And um and we've been able to donate a lot of services over the years, and I feel like we went from like being really tight to being really tight and donating, and God has blessed that because and sometimes people will say a workman's worth is higher, which oh no, not people, but the Bible. Um, or people will say you shouldn't, and I would even tell people don't donate your services and their, you know. But at the same time, I feel like God has made it so that we have a mission as a company and a vision. And if part of reaching that mission and vision is making really good marketing accessible, then I feel like we have, and God has proven that we're able to donate and still make payroll. And um, even in the midst of some other financial hardships that sometimes would come up. But um, all that to say is it's been we've we've been blessed and we've been able to bless others.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

That's awesome. So, what would you think is like the biggest aha moment? Like this is made the biggest impact in your um history.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Yeah, I think we're I think we're on this we're on the cusp of the biggest aha moment. Honestly, abortion pill talk, I think, is going to be our biggest um step into helping the whole pro-life movement seriously um reduce chemical abortion. Um, and it's another one of those really common sense uh ideas that I don't know why we haven't been doing this for a lot longer. Um, but the idea of helping someone stop from taking the abortion pill is so much sweeter than helping someone after they've taken the abortion pill and reversing it. Well, that is amazing, but it's so much better to reduce the risk and help someone sooner. And and I believe that's going to be a um the biggest project we have taken to date. And I'm very excited about it.

unknown 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

And that's going to be launching soon, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Very soon. And we're trying to reduce roadblocks so that it doesn't get held up. Um, and again, we're doing it without having, you know, maybe the financial um fortitude that some people might expect to have a new project to have. We're doing it with um minimal, minimal financial um pieces so that we can um not be held back and making it take longer to start. But at the same time, well, learning there's a lot of pieces in play that we're learning a lot of new things while trying to get this prepped. And and um and we do, yeah, there are some there's some big needs there that we're trying to navigate right now. Um, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

So over um over the 20 years, 25, 25 years, 25 years, um there's been a huge change in technology and um what's available and stuff. So how does that like fit into your history and um that would change?

SPEAKER_03 25:05

Yeah, so uh back in the early 2000s, um I remember using Microsoft Publisher to build a website, and then I ended up starting to use Macromedia Dreamweaver. Um, we built many, many websites with Dreamweaver. Um I remember building so many websites with Dreamweaver and Photoshop and getting it down to a science when it came to designing it in Photoshop, cutting, slicing it, putting it into Dreamweaver, and getting a site from like start to finish very easily within a day. I think the fastest site I ever built might have been like six hours. And um, and now we have WordPress, and oh let me back up a moment. So before WordPress, we used to build with uh Expression Engine, Mambo, uh Joomla. We we even built our own CMS called Architect, which we don't support anymore. And but today we use we use WordPress and we have a a huge library of uh plugins that support WordPress in going further, faster and being easy to edit while having advanced functionality. And the amount of time it takes to build a site has not really changed as much as other things, but the but the advanced features are nice. We used to even build websites in an and um macromedia flash and then Adobe Flash before Apple stopped supporting Flash. And Flash was really fun because we could write with uh ActionScript, which is sort of like JavaScript, and we could have advanced functionality, we could have animation, and we could essentially having like data and animation all playing together. Uh, Flash was a pretty unique product when it came to having advanced um functionality over how a website would look and work. Um, and one of the guys we used to work with um ended up getting hired by Google, and so we ended up working with him on several really big projects. Uh over the years, we've worked on um a wide range of projects, um small businesses, we worked on uh a bank website, we've worked on nonprofits, uh churches, um, personal projects for different people, just a wide, wide range of projects. And today we're we're making videos, we're writing content, we're working with Google, we're doing social media work, um, reputation management work. Um, and essentially, you know, when it comes to a marketing project, once you have the skills with certain software, with certain concepts, with certain tactics, um, we can we can apply those to a wide range of scenarios. And we also have a gentleman by the name of Bill Ackerly who has a lot of, he's been very influential as well in like helping me branch out into the greater um marketing space because he's got an advertising agency with him and his brother. And by working with him, we've done a lot of video shoots um with teleprompter and with lighting, uh, with makeup and with with editing and so on to essentially craft really good video content to support our vision and mission for Prancy Clinics.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

So, what do you see the biggest change? Um happen, when did you see the biggest change happen in your structure from going from websites to I don't know, a wide range of full marketing for your clients? And what what triggered that?

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Um so I saw the I saw the change from going from like general websites to pregnancy clinics after we went to our first heartbeat conference, and then I saw the change of going from just websites to a wide range of marketing, really based on what executive directors wanted and what ideas they had. Um, there's some directors in this field that are innovative, like for well, maybe not even directors. Some of them are creative directors or the marketing directors more so than the executive director. Um, like for example, Donna Heckey with Real Options Obrea would often ask us to do something that she identified as a good idea, and then when we did it for her, everyone else would want that as well. And so when we did things for certain people that were, you know, like John Tabor, he would often ask us for something that had not been done before, and he would take a risk by having us build it out, and then when it proved to be successful, everyone else would want it too. And so I would say we really were following the direction of executive directors and marketing directors, and then recycling or sharing the results with other Prince clinics in order, and then that's really sort of like the mantra of our pro-life team concept is do something national grade for one that's really epic and exciting that has some fruit, and then let others replicate it on the cheap. And and then when we tell people you know, this is a mission-based concept. I mean, this is not a profit center, you know, that because the person that we're building that unique thing for is losing out on their first mover's advantage by letting others follow in their footsteps. And then we're also not maximizing the money on the table by letting other people follow in the footsteps on the cheap by leveraging copy paste rebrand instead of you know, here's the the the large nut you got to cover to build this. We're effectively being more open by explaining how we can copy, paste, rebrand, and recycle a good idea that's already been done.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

And that's you know, one of the things that I love about working here is that when you would talk about like getting involved with people who are innovative, and um you never say like, no, we can't do that. It's always like, how could we do this? You know, you're never afraid to take out a project. And it's and sometimes that's scary, but it's amazing too, because it's like, okay, and and when you brought up abortion pill talk. I mean, that was something that came up at the Heartbeat Conference a year ago with Connie approaching. Um, I think her and I talked, and she said, Hey, how would Jacob feel about this? And then pretty soon it was like you just took that on and was excited about, you know, it says it always seems like when there's a new idea, you're right there to um instigate that and be able to move forward with it. And how do you feel about that? I mean, like, is that like sometimes scary, or or do you just like this, just open the door and see where it goes?

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah, I I think it's answered prayer because for I haven't been praying this prayer for many years now, but for a long time, I would pray, God, please let me know what we need to do so we're ready for what's coming down the road. And and you know, with the idea that whether that's for defense or some marketing offense, um, and and by praying that I felt like I was postured and aiming for what's new and needed, so that when you know, when the winds change or when the when the direction needs to change and we need to respond to what's coming down the road, I was I've been you know, I'm I had a desire to to know what's coming in five months or in a year. So I'm trying to be really close to um trying to hear what's coming, trying to look for what's coming and praying about what's coming so that we're prepared and postured to respond and be ready for it. And so I feel like that's those prayers definitely made me position and posture and aim for like figuring out what new thing do we need to build. Because things would, you know, the only thing that's constant is change. Um, one of the books that um John Tabor gave me was Who Moved My Cheese? And the nutshell of that book was you know, things are going to change. If there's anything that you can count on, is that you know, your current place where you're getting this cheese where that in this book is going to dry out, and you're gonna have to go look for some a new place. And that's guaranteed that things are going to change. Um, and I would say in the technology world, it's getting that that the pace of change has increased with AI when it comes to new tools. Um, when it comes to you know, going from building websites that work on a laptop or desktop to having to build them for a smartphone, and then to have smartphones pass desktops, and then to have tablets show up, and then to have smartwatches show up and you know they didn't really take off for having us build websites for smartphones. Um, and then wondering if there's gonna be like large display vehicles coming down the road when people don't have to drive anymore. Like those are things that impact website building. Um and then when it comes to um see technology, um just the way people interact with technology, the way they look at it, um, the way people used to use the phone and now they prefer SMS. Um when it comes to Google, uh, there's been a lot, a lot of changes that happen with Google when it comes to how Google um how you get traffic on Google, how you show up on Google, how you can advertise to be on Google with cash or grants, um, how you can get more backlinks. And some things do stay the same in in the midst of all this change. And then some things will change. So yeah, it's it's a matter of paying attention and following it, and it helps to be in it for a long time because there's a lot of variables. Um and and then one of the biggest changes I would say what happened when I was speaking with um Donna Heckey with Real Options, now Real Options Obrea, um back in 2011, she told me that on her intake forms, uh Google or internet passed word of mouth. And and for a long time, word of mouth had been number one. And I honestly thought word of mouth would always be number one on the intake forms. And yeah, here we are 14 years later, and Google slash internet is it makes everyone knows it's more common than word of mouth, and I think the reason and then back in the day, you people used to use yellow pages, and that used to be on the intake forms, and that one fell off, and that one went, you know, fell off really quick. When it comes to word of mouth, word of mouth did not fall off, it simply fell into spot number two. And honestly, I want to say I think it'll be spot number two for a long time, but uh also I think uh a chat bot could replace Google, um, but it has not yet, but it could. And we're going to have a lot less access to impacting a chat bot um than we would impacting Google. Google's actually been, I know a lot of people like to hate on Google, a lot of people like to pull it, you know, throw mud at it because it's it's it's liberal, but it's actually been it's been more fair than we probably expected or people know about. It's been more fair than um, well, more fair than a chat bot. I believe that I think when it comes to the chatbot space, we're going to find a very different scenario and long for the days of Google. Um, but yeah, essentially Google has replaced word of mouth and the you know, essentially it's like the public sp you know, the public square where you ask for advice on you know look for the answer for a given question that used to be ask a person and now it's ask Google because Google is faster, more accurate, and more anonymous.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Yeah. So do you think chatbot or or like chat GPT or social media, what do you think is gonna be the next biggest impact in change?

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Yeah, I think it might be one of those, but then again, chatbots show up so quickly that I don't know what to call it. Um, Grok, Siri, uh, Chat GPT, there's all there's just so many options. Um it's sort of like, you know, back in the day there used to be newspaper, and then newspaper didn't see radio coming or didn't think radio was going to dominate, and then radio didn't see TV, TV didn't see internet. Um, you know, maybe the cassette tape didn't see the eight-track or the CD didn't see the tape. I mean, or the you know, or uh MP3s or Spotify or you know, I don't know, there's just so many things that replace something else, and the old thing doesn't go away, but it diminishes and fades and becomes less relevant, and the number of options has increased so much. Like just going from like broadcast TV to the internet, YouTube, um, with all these channels and options for playing streaming content, and then having advertisements and can you know, and content has an impact. Um, whether it's on a and so like you know, it used to be all that to say is there's a lot, and I don't really know, but at the same time, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, there's a lot of options, and it's really hard to point because um what I do know is that the number of options has increased, and people still use newspaper, people still use these older methods, um, and they still have impact in a way to a degree. Um, but precyclinics don't really use a lot of these older advertising venues very often, uh, mostly because the cost is higher and there's more targeted lower cost digital solutions that are really targeted that are essentially effectively replacing word of mouth so that it's a top-level piece that needs to be done. Otherwise, we're missing out on what word of mouth used to be.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, it's just everything changes so fast right now, and it's hard, hard to keep up. How do you keep up?

SPEAKER_03 40:05

Um, I often feel like I'm not keeping up, but at the same time, I think I keep up on certain things okay, but I wouldn't say I'm the greatest at keeping up. Um a couple of years ago, I I did a uh a fast during Lent of social media. Um and then I found myself having less anxiety, and then I did it again the following year, and I've actually been able to stay off of it for the most part. Meanwhile, we're making social media content that's driven for clients and donors, but um, and I have team members who are really good at certain things, and so I don't have to be good at everything, and I can stay off of social media and have less anxiety because of that, um, and mostly because we have team members who are really good at social media and and um does not require me to be good at everything, and so that's really nice.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah, yeah. So, what would you say in the past um 25 years? What is one of the most interesting stories you have from your business?

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Um, yeah, I think so. We we were working on a project for Obrea in Washington, and we had just gotten hired, and then two weeks later, um we got an investigory, and most people I I didn't know what an investigory is, so I'm assuming most people don't know what an investigory is, but apparently it's a form you have to answer under oath, and it's limited to 10 questions, but there's no limit to the sub-questions. And I was distraught. I was uh I had anxiety, I was I was scared, I didn't understand you know how to answer these questions because they were asking for things that were impossible, like a document that would explain all of my verbal communications, like they wanted all of our communications, including verbal, and they wanted it documented in a way that was similar to like the Dewey Decimal system or something. It was bizarre. And and um I remember reaching out for help from NIFLA, um ADF. I think I speak I spoke probably to like um Marsha Middleton with Alliance for Life Missouri or Jarrell with Heartbeat. And I remember getting um comforted through prayer and different people, and and then it worked out where ADF provided these um attorneys at no cost in Arizona and in Washington, and we were able to answer all but one question with NA as in not applicable because we didn't start working on that project that we had just gotten two weeks earlier. And normally I would have felt bad about not getting a new project and not starting on it for the first 14 days that we had it, but it worked out that that was miraculous because we were able to answer not applicable, and we didn't even have to answer any of their questions because we didn't start working on the Washington project yet. And then once we sent off the response to the investigory, we started working on their project that afternoon, and so that was really good. And if they would have asked for our California work, we would have had 15 years of um communications that they were asking for. And I'm not quite sure how we would have responded to that, but I would have gone with the advice of ADF, I believe, um, as being a really good source for how to navigate these hard questions. Um, so I think, and that's really sort of helped us understand that was sort of like a prep piece for abortion pill talk because that one has instrumentally helped us establish a desire to be legally uh defensible with our abortion pill talk legal strategy. And so that one's played in there. I would I I guess if I had to say over Overall, God has so many fingerprints and like different stories and scenarios and with how people have interacted with us and and it has a purpose and it helps us yeah, all of it is sort of like a long journey of steps that have helped us um form who we are and where we're going. And God's been very faithful for helping us um learn things through a cre for a variety of creative ways. And um yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest uh takeaway is just simply like whether it's good or bad, we have learned from both, both uh both good and bad um experiences that have then helped us prepare for things coming down the road.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

So what is one of your best memories?

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Oh wow. Um let me think about so one of my fondest memories of this work is going from someone that grew up at a Baptist church who was told very negative things about the Catholic Church. And and really having um Bill Ackerley, who's a a Catholic in my life, um was was sort of like the precursor, but then meeting Sister Paula was instrumental in me going from um you know this old mindset of looking at the Catholic Church and everything that we're different about, everything that we would not agree on. Um I knew exactly everything that I could point out that was wrong, and I had no understanding of all the common ground. And Sister Paula just reflected such this beautiful um persona of someone who was kind, generous, um firm, and and was really just um accepting. And I don't know, something about my experience with Sister Paula really shifted my my view of of nuns, of Catholics, and and I would just say that that's been really, really sweet. Um and and today we work with one third of the clinics we work with are evangelical, one third Catholic, and then one third a hybrid. And and um and I would just say I think very highly of all three groups, um, but my preference would be the the hybrid group model. Um because I believe those who agree that Jesus is God come in the flesh is you know, that's that's our main group. Like that's who we are. And we do have one person on our team that does not agree with that, and we have a policy of one non-Christian at a time, and until Mo gets saved or Mo gets he quits or gets fired, um, he's taking up that one spot. And um and um But all that to say is yeah, that that's our group is we work with those who agree on who Jesus is, and and um and that includes Catholic and evangelicals, and and it's really good to have this bridge, this space where we work together, and we we do have like 80% or maybe more of common ground, and that's really good to focus on, and not to focus on the 20% of differences when it comes to um denominational slash church belief differences, but to really focus on the main pieces that we that we share.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

So to wrap everything up, what would you um summarize for us?

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Um That's a good question. Um take a moment to think about that. Um Yeah, so this podcast, I would say we've had these pillars of sharing God's fingerprints in the stories of people that are in this movement. Um sometimes it's people who have really important things to share, and it's really good to echo and make those stories more accessible. Sometimes it's stories of people who are heroes in the back office, and it's really nice to give them some uh a way of saying thank you by sharing their story. Uh and sometimes it's just simply, you know, you know, echoing and amplifying where God has worked or God has answered prayer or God has intervened and trying to look for where he has shown up. Um and so that's really the the first pillar out of three that we have for this podcast. The other other ones are sharing new ideas that Princeton Clinic directors may not have tried yet, they may not know about, so that we can give them exposure. Not saying they're the best ideas, but saying that they're new at least. And then also um what is our third pillar? Um sharing new ideas, amplifying God's fingerprints, and uh now I'm spacing. What's our third pillar? Um give me a moment and I'll I'll think of it. Oh boy. I gotta forget that. Um let's see. Oh wow. I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna take this time and think of it because I don't want to I I have some downtime air here, but um I could pull up one of my emails and see God fingerprint, what's new, and oh encouragement and to encourage executive directors. So um yeah, really I think those pillars don't just apply to the pro life team podcast. I think they sort of applied, you know, to how we operate um as a company. Like we have a value statement, these values of accessibility, creativity. We have these different values that we hold. Um, but I really like these three pillars as well, which is yeah, God's fingerprints being amplified in stories, as well as uh the new ideas, and then then having an encouraging encouragement or encouraging stories to encourage executive directors in what they're doing. Um, because often I see executive directors um doing this really good work, not having all the answers, and putting themselves into a risky place because that's what you that's what happens when you're in a spiritual fight and their enemy is looking for throwing you know explosive mud, let's call it. Um and and so essentially by encouraging them and also trying to give them like a way of you know honor or saying thank you. So really I feel like I would summarize those three pillars really reflect sort of my heart for where I've been or where God has led me. Like I don't know. I feel like God's done most of the door opening and I sometimes well hopefully I'll walk through. Um, but not always. And but yeah, I I can't really take credit because uh very often I feel like God just turns up the degree slightly and I just don't jump out quite yet. And so I don't feel like I I deserve to know where things are going because I feel like I I'm I'm trying to like walk down this path and I have very limited light. I can I can see like five to ten feet in front of me, but I can't see what's around the bend. But God knows, you know, what's coming down the road and he might help prepare us for um that that next part of the trek. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

That's awesome. Thanks, Jacob. That's been a great story.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

Thank you, Sandy, for yeah, interviewing and doing this. Um would you wrap up the podcast with a prayer and then we can we'll close it out.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Absolutely. And uh there's been so many victories uh in the pro life movement, and we thank you for that. There are so many challenges before us, and so I just pray that you would uh uh just do your work in our lives, uh, help us to see you clearly, uh, just give Jacob wisdom and uh help him to just continue down that path and give him guidance every step of the way. We thank you, God, for all that you're doing and for your grace upon us, and we pray that um you would just continue that and um and just help us every step of the way. Thank you, Lord Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Amen.