Jakin and Sarah Harper of Rareform Agency. You
guys are working in the AI space. I met Jakin
quite a bit ago now. We spent about two hours
in a parking garage after a networking event,
talking shop and getting to know each other.
And I ultimately tried to recruit Jakin. I was
like, dude, come work with me. Let's figure this
out. And then because of life and opportunity,
we're both just productive individuals. We both
just placed forward. And then I accidentally
met Sarah. And she's like, hey, my husband's
shaking. He knows you. And I was like, what?
Oh, the parking garage guy. Yeah, yeah. No, he
kind of shot me down. But but it's all good because
God's timing is what I what I go by. And at the
same time, like I know you've done great things
with your life. And I just I saw the potential
that you just you know, I asked LeBron James.
I would ask him right now. Can you come work
with me? I would love to work with LeBron. But
that doesn't mean it's going to happen. And it
doesn't mean that LeBron's not doing important
things that I'm not. It just is. So visionaries
out there, just know that relationships may come
full circle down the road, years down the road,
or maybe months down the road. And it may be
through a third party connector, such as a wife.
So Jake and Sarah, thank you again for being
here. I would love to hear it. Tell me about
your vision. Where are you guys going with everything
that you're up to? Within just Rareform or our
lives as a whole? Wherever you want to look,
man, anywhere. I got a vision of Ecuador out
this window. It's not the prettiest vision. I've
got better visions elsewhere. But yeah, but wherever
you want to go with it. Well, I think I think
I'd like to start by giving Sarah a springboard.
I know that she originally didn't want to work
in in business. She didn't. She wanted to work.
She used to work at a foster care agency and
she loved the fact that she was able to help
kids. She's a very high drive for. justice and
caring for people and so when she left there
she she's like all right let's start working
with rare form and immediately she was not not
super ecstatic about the business aspect but
then she saw that we were able to actually not
only help other businesses that we actually do
have um some uh non -profits that were able to
help through our system and so talk about that
at all Yeah, so talking about you kind of setting
up with, you know, the Lord has a plan and his
timing is perfect and you can have a sense of
humor. With my time working for the foster agency,
we went through, I believe it was three or four
CRMs plus paperwork. And I got to see kind of
firsthand how that really affected me in my job
being in social work. And so it was I thought
it was hilarious once I kind of made the jump
to reform agency. And that was part of our offerings
with CRM. And my prayer was always because at
some point it just wasn't I was getting very
burnt out. And even if I wanted to stay, I just
things got more expensive. We needed more income
for our family. And so I remember I would pray,
OK, Lord, and you were included on those prayers,
right? Like you heard them. say okay lauren how
can i do this just maybe in a different capacity
and that was me thinking maybe just i i did not
think it was gonna let's just say i didn't think
it was going to be tech at all so then i made
the transition working with um for rare form
with my husband and so um we ended up probably
within that time is when we onboarded about three
or four non -profits and so we got to work with
them um Usually we'll offer discount to work
with them and their price points as best we can.
And so I just, yeah, I had to do, I just had
to laugh. I was like, okay, this is so funny.
Just given my experience with that and I wanted
to be able to help. I just didn't know it was
going to be from a tech technical space or from
this type of capacity. So that's, that's a little
bit of, of my background and my story. That is
so cool. And then, you know, they say, as, as
the scripture says, ask and you shall receive.
Right. Knock and it shall be open. And so you
guys did that. And then it combined and you found
new horizons. And, you know, our weaknesses often
become our strengths, too. Right. And so CRMs
are a weakness for ninety nine point nine percent
of companies. Ryan Dice, digital marketer, once
said in a panel, I would rather eat my left pinky
than build another CRM. And I was the only person
in the audience who laughed out loud. But I had
two SaaS companies that were both CRM companies.
And so I was like, yes, I know that feeling.
I don't need my pinky anymore. So, yeah, it's
a definitely it's a challenge for businesses
everywhere. and the challenges often increase
with the non -profits because they often struggle
with the revenues to to get the types of tools
they need to make their impact so i love that
um tell me about either rare form agency or your
side of the vision jake and what what do you
guys um what are you guys up to and how is it
uh how's it helping your audience who is your
audience by the way uh so with rare form agency
my vision um it actually comes in the form of
a story which is my dad started eight different
businesses growing up that i can remember and
i i was just so used to him every single day
hearing him all the time on the phone just getting
the pulse check just getting the status update
just getting that like he was on top of technology
um he always had the latest and the greatest
but back then not everything was comprehensive
or worked with each other um and so there's a
whole bunch of copying and making sure what's
what's the most recent document stuff like that
and uh when i decided to start my own business
i'm an engineer so first thing i did was list
the dependencies um and all of them required
basically a full -fledged crm that was well handled
um and i said man that's a full -time job in
and of itself why don't i make that my focus
so that i can do that well for myself and care
for other people so that they're not having to
run around stay on the phone all the time and
i'm not trying to My dad's a great dude. He did
a lot of stuff that I want to emulate in my own
life. He's heard me tell this story a lot. He's
honored by it. I want to make it so that men
like him and other business owners, including
myself, can actually come home at the end of
the business day and know that their business
continues operating and they're still adding
value to their community and they can still be
present with their family. That was my vision
in starting Rareform Agency. But that means that
we have to stay on top of technology. And I saw
that I was starting to fail myself in that mission.
Meaning I was the one that had to answer the
call 24 -7. And if I didn't answer the call,
we lost business or someone's feelings were hurt.
And I didn't get to be present with her. And
so I was able to start developing, working with
some AI applications that were able to be really
responsive. on timeframe. And so I was able to
make my own first AI bot that worked entirely
for my business. You can ask what we do. In fact,
we even have a live demo bot where you can say,
hey, this is what I do in my business. Can you
pretend you're my assistant real quick to give
you a feel for what it would look like? And so
we did that. And I guess a big shift in what
I'm doing now in my kind of a new mission is
it's an extension of that. but it's for people
who are like me doing ai building ai solutions
or even customers of ai solutions having proof
that their product is working the way that they
want and that it's adding the value that they're
expecting if you're coming in as a business owner
and you don't know if the call is even being
answered or what the average customer success
rate is or how happy they are how much money
your your phone system is built making you you're
not going to become a massive fan of that product
in fact you might forget to pay the bill one
day so my mission right now is to improve the
lives of agency owners like me by giving them
visibility into the system but also improve the
perceived value of the customers so they can
actually see like instead of that one customer
that called all the way through and complained
Now they can see, hey, I have a ninety nine point
eight percent success rate and I'm being generated
this much revenue and saving this much money.
I get to actually be home with my family. So
it's it's just an extension of that first mission.
Yeah, that's amazing. And I love the way that
you frame the mission, because, you know, you're
one you've learned. For yourself, what that's
like to to want to have your dad around more
in life. And of course, you know, he probably
we all want that. And it wouldn't be nice to
live at Disneyland and have everything always
beautiful. But you allude to the reality that
most people never really get the tangible American
dream that we think about and that we were taught
could have is that you work hard, you get your
house, and then you have time to really appreciate
and be with your family and develop things. And
so you're striving to help. optimize that process.
And I did talk to your AI call receptionist.
It wasn't a long enough conversation to really
grill it. And I wasn't prepared for it. I was
like, oh, I look forward to calling back. I'm
giving it a hard time because it's something
where it's like, one, I love what you said. The
proof that the bot is working. The experienced
entrepreneurs out there, they're careful. with
their brands. They want to make sure that what
they invest in is sound and solid. And you're
one of the more level -headed individuals I've
talked to in the AI space. That's fair. They
just promote. They're just like, oh, let's go,
let's go. We're all AI experts now. And no, none
of us are AI experts. The AI is kind of the expert
and we have to be careful with what we do and
what we're aware that it does. And we can't.
fear that, though, and end up in analysis paralysis.
So we're going to be stuck with the same results
of the past as well. So you said a couple of
things in your form that I want to highlight.
One was interesting that you founded a WordPress
meetup group when you were 12. And I know you
weren't 12 yesterday. Technology was harder back
then when you were 12. How old are you, Jacob?
I'm 32. 20 years ago. 32, man. Yeah. So that
was back when technology was hard. So you had
the meetup back then and you wanted to learn
and there was just no resources and time available.
And then Sarah, you got this quote in here, how
inefficient systems caused major burnout and
turnover and took away from important tasks in
your role. I don't think there's a single person
in the world right now who wouldn't feel like
there are systems that potentially do. those
things in their life there's a lot of people
who could use help with that so you guys are
helping businesses leverage ai technology so
they can stay focused on what's important that's
the vision that you submitted and i really like
the frame of that um i think so many entrepreneurs
get so lost in the day -to -day grind that it
almost even becomes hard to remember what is
most important Where am I supposed to be? What
is my timing? What am I supposed to go back in
time with? So we don't have enough time to dive
in deep today, guys. I'd love for you to come
back, though. Can we bring you back on the show?
That sounds pretty good to me. I'd like to dive
deeper. There's a lot of reasons for that, but
there's so many options for AI right now and
AI gurus, but there is not enough that are leaning
in on proof. There are not enough that are understanding
the comprehensive nature that is required in
order to really move AI forward. And we've got
an AI academy, a first class business as well
that we're working on. But I'm not here to say
like I'm the expert to follow. I'm still figuring
it out too. And I will say for the sake of fun.
i botched my latest ai creation pretty badly
um we're working on creating two ais one called
um one called alfred and one called mr fox for
those of you who are batman fans um you would
know that alfred's the butler and mr fox um was
like the deep dive runner of the enterprise uh
wayne enterprises um and i made a big mistake
i tried to teach both of them Well, I tried to
teach Fox to be simple and it turned out super
robust. Then I tried to teach Alfred to provide
certain details. I tried to refine it into a
bot, a chat GPT that could pretty much answer
all business questions for people. And I learned
a valuable, humbling lesson. Like one, just use
chat GPT for that. those who out there are grok
to just use the mainstream systems for it what
i should have designed it to do was to answer
it was the one guide people to use their own
robust system that already knows them and to
help them realize anything that alfred or mr
fox are providing are strictly within the confines
of what we do and operate with within first class
business um and so it's it's one of those things
where it's like until you spend hours and hours
and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours
and hours playing with ai just know that you're
playing with like a nuclear energy that could
really hurt your business they hurt your results
so if you can if you don't want to do that then
find the human beings who are building holistically
yeah the ones who are going to treat you well
and respect your vision your mission and Again,
that's why I'm going to invite Jake and Sarah
back because I believe in you guys as human beings.
And heck, I need AI help as much as anything.
So do you all want to share any final thoughts
before we wrap up? 30 second final piece of advice
for visionaries out there? I think. 30 seconds.
Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, I know we
talked about. vision. And one of the stories
I love sharing is a client of ours. We got to
see him through starting a business from day
one. He started with us and he's our digital
receptionist service in particular. And so he's
a business owner. He leads a team. He's a youth
pastor. We got to witness him get married, become
a father. And so he wore many, many hats. kind
of similar to your dad and kind of how your story
started and so that's been kind of like we talked
about full circle moment and that's been really
beautiful to witness for um for to see for our
clients um so that's kind of a lot of our vision
and and um mission there as well as to be able
to um allow tools so that people can can do other
things and be uh new brothels is huge about being
involved in community and and things like that
and so um we realized that's That's something
that we find important, but so does our community.
So to be able to provide tools to allow them
to do what's important, including pouring back.
I love that. And visionaries, those of you listening
in, again, we got visions that are off in the
distant future and stuff, but I love that Sarah
tied it back to who are we helping? And how are
we helping them and their lives? We'll see you
guys on the next episode. If you want to join
us in the top right corner, you'll see a button
that says be our guest. Come and be our guest.
Share your vision with us. Let's explore what
you're up to, how you're helping the world. And
we'll see you guys all in the next episode. Take
care, everybody. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.