Funny one for you. And a true one.

Last week my own AI, Nova tried to tell me one of my clients was beating Nike.

Let me explain that, and I will keep it simple, because this AI stuff is already scary enough without some guy burying you in jargon.

Here is the whole idea. When you ask AI for the best coffee, the best plumber, the best anybody, it does not hand you a page of links like Google. It hands you an answer. A name or two. Landing in that answer is what we call your Pick Rate. Being known is the warm up. Being picked is the ballgame.

So one of my clients, he teaches kids baseball and softball, shows up on my dashboard at fifty nine percent. More than half the time. And I did not throw a party. My stomach did that little flip it does when a thing is too clean.

Here is why. When people ask AI for the best running brand, Nike gets picked about a quarter of the time. Nike. The swoosh. So my dashboard was telling me a baseball coach in a crowded town was doubling the most famous shoe on the planet, one month in.

Nobody beats Nike in a month. We are going to get our clients to that level and past it, and I will not stop until we do. But not in thirty days. A number like that, that fast, is not a win. It is a warning.

So I did the work I love. I sat down and read two hundred of the actual AI answers by hand, one at a time. And the number fell apart. His business name has a common word in it, and the software was counting any answer that used that word, even ones about a company two states away. The rest were tiny hometown questions where he is basically the only name in the room.

The honest number was about twelve percent.

And here is the thing, twelve is good. Almost everybody starts at flat zero, invisible, AI has no idea they exist. Climbing to twelve this early, when even Nike sits at a quarter, means you are on the board and moving. That is a win, and it is his.

Now the part that matters most, especially if all of this AI stuff makes you nervous. The dashboard did not catch the mistake. A person did. Me. My team who we call Guides. Sitting there knowing in my gut it was wrong, then doing the work to prove it and fix it. I built my own AI architecture, Nova, and I am proud of it. But Nova is AI. AI gathers the data. A human is the one who knows when the AI gets confused. That is why there is a Guide on every account we run. Not a dashboard you glance at once a month. A Guide who knows your business.

So here is my promise, and it is the only pitch I have. I will never hand you a shiny number to make you feel good for a week. I will hand you the true one, even when it is smaller, and I will show you exactly how we grow it.

Twelve and a plan beats fifty nine and a fairy tale. Every time.Next week I want to tell you about the other lie. Not the one your dashboard tells you. The one AI tells you when you ask if your idea is any good. I stopped asking it whether I am brilliant and started begging it to tell me why I suck. It stings every single time. It also changed everything.

See you next Tuesday.

Nathan. Lefty Media Co, Kansas City.