What does your voice sound like?
Use representative emails, notes, or transcripts to build a reusable voice file. Ask AI to identify patterns it can support: how direct you are, phrases you use, and language you avoid. Real examples tell it more than “make this professional and friendly.”
Who is this message for?
Provide the relationship, what happened, the relevant facts, and what you want to happen next. Your voice file cannot supply those details. The same request may need different wording for a longtime client and someone you have never met.
Would you actually send it?
Read the draft as a message to that person. Check facts, tone, and anything you would never say. Use only communication you are authorized to use in an appropriate AI environment. Keep the useful voice file for the next draft, but keep your judgment over each message before it leaves your hands.
Sources
Sources
- Fargo Walks: “Your AI Email Backfires,” Jeff Fargo, August 14, 2026
- OpenAI: Prompt engineering best practices for ChatGPT
- OpenAI: Business data privacy, security, and compliance
- OpenAI: Data Controls FAQ
Transcript
Verbatim from the Fargo Walks clip, as recorded.
Here's the best way to piss somebody off. With AI and business, you go into ChatGPT or whatever and say create an email for whoever about whatever, and you send it, that person gets it. You're like this son of a bitch. That's AI. Instead, if you want to win more and get more business in the door and monetize with AI, you record every single meeting that you have. You put in all your text messages, everything, and you ask for AI to create for you a brand voice. And with that brand voice master file, you then can create emails, text messages, notes to people, whatever. And then it's much more like you and a lot less AI slop. I'm Jeff Fargo. I could help streamline and scale your business with AI. Go forth.