All right, listen up. I've seen
thousands of dollars get burned by
people making the same dumb AI mistakes
with clients. And I'm about to show you
exactly what can go wrong so you don't
have to learn the expensive way. These
are the kind of mistakes that cost real
money, lose clients, and keep people up
at night. But here's the good news.
Every single one of these is completely
avoidable. Let's get into it. Hey there.
So, if you couldn't already tell, I'm
Nick Ponte's AI avatar. While The Real
Nick is busy helping businesses with
Mina Marketing, Hawaii's fastest growing
marketing agency, I'm here dropping the
latest AI hacks, tools, and money-making
strategies, The Real Nick reads every
single comment on these videos. So, make
sure you comment below. And listen, if
you're serious about landing some AI
subscription-based customers, grab my
four-part AI FastTrack training that I
am currently offering for free. The
links in the description. All right, now
let's get into it. So, here's where
beginners get destroyed. They get so
excited about AI tools that they
basically turn into hype machines. They
tell clients things like, "AI will
completely automate your entire
marketing department." And you know what
happens? Reality hits like a freight
truck. Here's the truth. AI is powerful,
but it's not magic. When you promise
clients that chat GPT will write perfect
sales copy on the first try, you're
setting yourself up for disaster.
Picture this scenario. You're working
with a local restaurant owner. You tell
them you'll set up an AI system that
will handle all their customer service
inquiries. You launch it and within the
first week, the AI chatbot tells someone
with a peanut allergy that the pad tie
is completely nut-free. But it's not.
That mistake could be life-threatening.
The client would be furious. You'd have
to refund the entire project and could
even face legal consequences. And here's
what nobody talks about enough. The
research backs this up. A recent study
from MIT found that 95% of AI pilot
programs at companies are failing to
deliver meaningful results. 95%. That's
not because AI doesn't work. It's
because people are overpromising what it
can do right now. The reality is that AI
needs human oversight. It makes
mistakes. It hallucinates facts. So,
here's what you should do instead.
Underpromise and overd deliver. Tell
clients exactly what AI can do and what
it can. And you know what? Clients will
respect that honesty way more than the
hype. According to Gartner research,
even mature organizations are having
trouble proving value to their CEOs.
Less than 30% of AI leaders report their
CEOs are happy with AI investment
returns despite spending millions.
Mistake number two, ignoring data
privacy like it doesn't matter. This one
can get you sued. No joke, and it's
something a lot of beginners completely
overlook. Here's a scenario that happens
more often than you'd think. You're
working with a healthcare client and
you're using Chat GPT to help draft
patient communication emails. You're
copy pasting actual patient information
into chat GPT to get better context. and
you don't realize that by doing that you
could be violating HIPPA regulations.
The client's compliance officer catches
wind of what you're doing and absolutely
loses it. They explain that any patient
data being entered into a third-party AI
tool could be a massive privacy
violation. You'd have to scramble to
delete everything and pray you don't get
hit with a lawsuit or fine. The scary
part, most people don't even think about
this stuff. But here's the deal. Laws
like GDPR in Europe and CCPA in
California are real. And the fines for
violating them can be massive. In fact,
GDPR fines hit $1.2 billion euros across
Europe in 2024 alone. That's over a
billion dollars in fines in just one
year. And companies are now facing
personal liability, too. The Dutch Data
Protection Authority is investigating
whether they can hold company directors
personally liable for data violations.
If you're working with any business that
handles customer data, you need to be
extremely careful about what you're
putting into AI tools because most AI
platforms use your inputs to train their
models. So, what's the solution? First,
always ask your clients about their data
privacy policies. Second, use enterprise
versions of AI tools that have proper
data protection agreements. And third,
never copy paste sensitive information
into public AI tools. Anonymize
everything. Mistake number three, using
generic AI outputs without
customization. All right, this is the
mistake that makes you look lazy and
beginners do it all the time. Here's the
scenario. A client hires you to write
social media content. You fire up
ChatGpt, type in a quick prompt, and
boom, you've got 10 Instagram captions
ready to go. You send them over feeling
pretty proud. And then the client writes
back, "These are fine, but they don't
really sound like our brand." Ouch. That
one hurts, but they're right. The
problem with AI is that it tends to
produce content that sounds like
everything else on the internet. It's
smooth and grammatically correct, but it
lacks personality. I used to be working
full-time as a mechanic before I got
into this whole AI and marketing thing.
And back then, if someone brought their
car in for a custom job and you just
slapped on generic parts, they'd be
upset. The same principle applies here.
Clients are paying for customized
solutions, not generic AI outputs. So,
here's what works better. Treat AI
outputs as a first draft, not a final
product. generate content with AI, but
then spend time reading through it,
editing it, and adding in details that
are specific to your client's brand
voice and goals. If you're finding this
valuable, make sure to smash that like
button and subscribe. The real Nick
Ponti reads every comment on these
videos, so drop a comment below. And
hey, if you're serious about taking your
business to the next level, grab my
four-part AI fasttrack training that I'm
currently offering for free. It also
includes an exclusive link to try out
the AI software I use in my business for
30 days free. the links in the
description. Mistake number four,
skipping quality control and trusting AI
blindly. This mistake can absolutely
destroy your reputation overnight.
Here's what happens. You get really
comfortable with AI. You start using it
for everything. And because AI is so
fast and so confident, you start to
trust it completely. You stop checking
its work. Big mistake. Huge. Picture
this scenario. You're creating an email
campaign for a real estate client
promoting a luxury property listing. You
use AI to write everything. The client
loves it. You schedule it to go out to
their entire email list of about 5,000
potential buyers. By Friday afternoon,
the phone is blowing up. The client is
furious. Why? Because the AI made up
fake property features. It mentioned a
rooftop pool that doesn't exist. It
claimed the property has ocean views
when it actually faces a parking lot.
The client has angry potential buyers
calling them all day. People who drove
out to see the property are
disappointed. The client threatens to
sue for false advertising. You'd have to
issue a public apology email and you'd
lose that client plus referrals. The
lesson, artificial intelligence
hallucinates. It makes stuff up. It
sounds incredibly confident even when
it's completely wrong. And this is
becoming a huge problem. In 2024, there
were 233 reported AI incidents. That's a
56% jump from the year before. We're
talking about AI systems making
dangerous medical recommendations,
generating fake legal citations, and
spreading false information. Just
recently, a major consulting firm got
caught using AI to write a government
report. And the AI hallucinated fake
research citations throughout the entire
thing. They had to pay the money back
and revise the whole report. So, here's
what you need to do. Every piece of
content that AI creates should go
through a review process. Read it
carefully. Fact check any claims.
Compare it against the client's actual
information. Also, build an extra time
for this review process when you quote
projects. Instead of saying you can
deliver in two days, tell them 5 days.
Clients will appreciate the quality
control. Five, undercharging because you
think AI makes it too easy. This last
mistake is probably the one that costs
beginners the most money overall. Here's
the mindset trap. You start using AI
tools and you realize you can create
things way faster. A blog post that used
to take 4 hours now takes 30 minutes.
And because it's easier for you, you
start to feel guilty charging the same
prices. So, you drop your prices. You
start charging 50 bucks for a service
that you use to charge 500 for. But
here's what you're forgetting. Your
clients don't care how long it takes
you. They care about the value you're
providing. If you're creating a social
media strategy that's going to help them
generate $10,000 in new revenue, it
doesn't matter if it took 30 minutes or
30 hours. Here's a common scenario. A
client needs a complete content
marketing strategy. You'd normally
charge $3,000, but because you're using
AI to speed things up, you quote them
$1,200. They say yes immediately. No
negotiation. And that's when you'd
realize you massively underpriced
yourself. Over a year, you could leave
20 to $30,000 on the table by
undercharging for AI powered services.
Here's the reality check. Using AI
doesn't make you less valuable. It makes
you more valuable. You can deliver
results faster. You can take on more
clients. And the research backs this up.
Companies using hybrid pricing models
that combine subscriptions with
valuebased pricing are seeing profit
margins improve at more than twice the
rate of companies using simple usage
based pricing. Think about it this way.
If a lawyer figures out a way to
research cases twice as fast, do they
charge their clients half as much? No.
They use that efficiency to take on more
clients and make more money. You should
price your services based on the value
you're delivering and the results
clients get, not based on how long it
takes you. That shift in mindset can
completely change your business. So,
let's add this up. Between overpromising
and losing clients, getting sued over
data privacy issues, sending out generic
content that clients reject, putting out
content with errors, and undercharging
for everything. These five mistakes
could cost you thousands in your first
year. But here's the thing. Every single
one of these mistakes is avoidable if
you know what to watch out for. So, let
me give you the quick action steps.
First, be honest with clients about what
AI can and can't do. Second, take data
privacy seriously. Third, always
customize AI outputs. Fourth, never skip
quality control. And fifth, charge based
on value, not effort. Look, AI is an
incredible opportunity. It's opened up
doors for people like me who used to be
working full-time as a mechanic, and now
I'm running a successful marketing
agency and teaching thousands of people
how to do the same thing. But AI is not
a get-richquick scheme. It's a tool and
like any tool, you need to learn how to
use it properly if you want to get good
results. The people who are crushing it
with AI right now aren't the ones who
are just blindly using chat GPT and
calling themselves experts. They're the
ones who understand the limitations, who
add real value on top of the AI outputs
and who treat it as a way to enhance
their skills rather than replace them.
And hey, if you want to go deeper on all
of this stuff, I've got a free four-part
AI fasttrack training where I break down
exactly how to land high-paying AI
subscription-based clients and how to
deliver services that keep them coming
back month after month. I also give you
access to a free 30-day trial of the
best AI software tool that I use to get
clients and run my business. The link is
in the description below. Also, make
sure you join the community. We've got
over 21,000 AI and marketing agency
owners in there who are all learning and
growing together. Link is also in the
description and in the comments. Thanks
for watching. Drop a comment below and
let me know which of these mistakes you
want to avoid. And if you learned
something valuable today, hit that like
button and subscribe because I've got a
lot more content coming your way. I'll
see you in the next one.