45% of consumers now use AI when they look for a local business. A year earlier it was 6%. Your customer is using ChatGPT to find you. The question is whether you are there. BrightLocal surveyed 1,002 US adults and published the numbers on March 10, 2026. That is not…
Ask a hospital CEO for the core values and you might expect a plaque on a wall. Chris Loftus, CEO of West Henderson Hospital, runs them differently. In this Fargo Talks clip with Jeff Fargo, he walks through the five values his team references every day, including in the daily…
Most owners can't leave their desk for an hour. If your business stops when you step away, you don't own a business. You own a job that pays you. I recorded this on a layover in Detroit, walking to my gate. The tasks I do almost every morning were running…
AI might be lying about your business right now. If ChatGPT cannot read your hours, your location, your contact info or the services you offer, it guesses, and it states the guess as fact. Here is what a guess costs. Air Canada's chatbot told a passenger he could apply for…
Use AI to help decide whether an iPhone 18 upgrade makes sense for you. In this Fargo Walks episode, I explain how to start with the phone you already own and have AI ask for the information it needs before recommending an upgrade. I use my iPhone 15 Pro Max…
AI stopped caring about your Google ranking. Most of what AI cites today does not come from Google's top ten anymore. Ahrefs measured it. In July 2025, 76% of the pages cited in Google AI Overviews ranked in the top ten. By March 2026 that number was 38%. Ahrefs credits…
Adam Clausen was sentenced to 213 years in federal prison. He served 20 years, 5 months and 17 days before walking out in August 2020. In this clip from Fargo Talks, he tells host Jeff Fargo what two decades inside did to his temperament, and why he is grateful fatherhood…
Would AI recommend your business when someone asks who is best at what you do in your city? In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo suggests checking the answer, then asking a follow-up question about the recommendations you get back. He describes running the search while signed out in a…
Real estate agents have some of the worst PR in business. So does AI. In this clip from Fargo Talks, Judd Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder of Ethica AI, breaks down why he works at the intersection of both, and why he thinks two industries with terrible reputations can add up…
You prompt Claude and wait, guessing whether it understood you, while it works. There is a way to know before the answer arrives. Claude shows a thinking indicator while it works: "thinking," "building a response," or a short summary of what it's doing. Click it and Claude shows its actual…
You lost work to a competitor whose proposal was worse than yours. The first decent quote back wins the business, and most owners find that out too late. Speed decides more jobs than quality does. Someone asks three companies for a price. One answers the same day with something adequate.…
Chris Loftus, CEO of West Henderson Hospital, explains how unclear direction frustrates employees. In Fargo Talks Part 10, he walks Jeff Fargo through two versions of the same driving analogy: an instruction to "just drive," then a clear destination, timeline, resources, and support. His point: leaders need to explain the…
Your emails started sounding like a robot wrote them, because one did. Your clients can tell, and most of them will never mention it. AI writes in an average of everyone. Drop a prompt in cold and you get back the voice of the internet: tidy, padded, agreeable, and nothing…
For over a decade, Adam Clausen's physical contact with his fiancée during prison visits was set by the guards: a brief hug at the start, a brief hug at the end, nothing else allowed. That changed one rule at a time as Adam moved through different security levels, and it…
Everybody says they are using AI. Fewer than one in five small businesses has ever paid a dollar for it. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo draws the line between talking about AI and buying it. Playing with a free chatbot is not…
The customer who finds you through ChatGPT is roughly nine times more likely to buy. Your problem is not traffic. Your problem is not being found by AI. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo explains why the gap is that wide. Someone who…
Jeff sat down with Judd Hoffman on Fargo Talks to talk about how AI is reshaping real estate. Here's what actually gets lost in that conversation. In this clip, Judd breaks down the sheer number of roles a real estate agent quietly juggles in a single day, far beyond just…
Your water line breaks at midnight. You grab your phone and ask AI who to call. AI names one company, and that is the decision. In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo flips that around and points it at your business. Open a browser tab, switch to incognito so the…
Eighty two percent of consumers read Google's AI review summary. Most business owners have never read their own. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo explains what that summary is and why it outranks everything you have written about yourself. Google pulls from your…
If ChatGPT is looking for what your business offers, your website is not what gets you found. AI is reading what other people say about you. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo explains where AI actually pulls from. Reviews. Forums. Third-party coverage. Anything…
Your customer is asking ChatGPT about what you sell. If AI does not recognize your business, it recommends one it does. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo lays out how fast the behavior shifted. Pew Research found 44% of US adults now use…
Chris Loftus, CEO of West Henderson Hospital, breaks down how families in southern Nevada can actually evaluate a hospital before they need one. He points to two independent, publicly reported sources. CMS assigns hospitals an Overall Star Rating from 1 to 5 based on five categories: mortality, safety of care,…
Two out of every three Google searches now end without a click. For twenty years the prize was ranking on Google. The prize moved. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo explains what changed and gives you a test you can run in a…
Most owners are standing in the shallow end of AI, waiting for a reason to get in. The water is not getting warmer. Bring me the business problem. fargofactor.ai/contact-us In this Fargo Walks episode, Jeff Fargo makes the comparison directly. He has been in the deep end for over two…
