Pros/Cons of Being a Professional  🔗 **Source:** [Pros/Cons of Being a Professional](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFN0WAUDr7c) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [agency-pricing, scope-creep, vibe-coding, fluentcart, client-expectations] > author: Manana No Mas! > source: Manana No Mas! (YouTube channel) > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFN0WAUDr7c > date created: 2026-09-12 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: Pros/Cons of Being a Professional > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > ### 🔗 References > - [Source video: Pros/Cons of Being a Professional (Manana No Mas!, 32:59)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFN0WAUDr7c) > - [Companion article on the same brand's site: Vibe Coding a WordPress Plugin Under Client Pressure](https://manananomas.com/2026/09/12/fluentcart-wishlist-plugin/) > - [DealerGaps.com, the PowerSport Academy diagnostic mentioned at 0:36](https://dealergaps.com/) > - [GoWishCart – Wishlist for FluentCart on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/gowishcart-wishlist-for-fluentcart/) > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** Kurt von Ahnen of Mañana No Más, a WordPress agency, recorded a 33-minute solo live stream. The first 7 minutes cover DealerGaps.com, an AI-driven revenue diagnostic, and lead generation. The remaining 26 minutes tell one client story: a local art-kit seller hired the agency for a $6,000 e-commerce build (FluentCart, FluentCRM, Fluent Forms, LifterLMS-ready). Late in the project the client asked for a wishlist, citing ChatGPT. The one wishlist plugin on WordPress.org didn't work, a second vendor had no working checkout, so von Ahnen vibe-coded a wishlist plugin in about 3 hours and didn't bill for it. > - **Why it matters.** The video puts numbers on scope creep: a $6,000 contract against the agency's usual $12,000, a ChatGPT estimate of $12,500–$25,000 for the same stack, a $1,500–$3,500 line item for the wishlist, and roughly $600 of unbilled time. It also shows AI tools raising client expectations on one side and cutting build time on the other. > - **Key stakeholders.** Small WordPress agencies, freelancers who quote fixed-price builds, the Fluent product family (WPManageNinja), LifterLMS, and small-business clients who research with ChatGPT before hiring. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** Absorbing out-of-scope work keeps a local client happy and meets the Friday fair launch, but trains the client to expect free additions and leaves the agency maintaining an untested custom plugin on a live store. > - **Bottom line.** Von Ahnen names the two options an agency has when a client adds scope at 75–80% completion: pad the bid in advance, or quote the addition. In this case the agency did neither and absorbed the cost. > ## 📖 Main Content > - **Speaker identity.** The channel is Manana No Mas!. The speaker refers to himself as "Kurt" at 4:30 and 9:58 and says he co-hosts the Agency Action show with "Toby". The Agency Action podcast on The WP Minute network lists Toby Cryns and Kurt von Ahnen as hosts, which matches. The manananomas.com homepage shows photos captioned "Kurt Von Ahnen". > - **Diagnostics as lead generation (0:36–5:32).** DealerGaps.com asks dealership owners for their numbers and returns an estimated revenue gain. The speaker's example: $45,000 of training against an estimated $840,000 in added revenue, which he calls "20 times" (the actual ratio is 18.7x). He plans a similar diagnostic for learning-and-development managers that returns an estimated savings figure. A "hot lead," in his definition, has shared contact information and agreed to a conversation. > - **Founder dependence (6:36–7:07).** He asks whether a buyer of the agency ("some guy named Bill") could reproduce results that depend on his networking habits, such as asking every prospect "Who do you know that I should know?" > - **The client project (7:46–12:58).** Another local agency referred an art-kit seller who wanted e-commerce with shipping. The speaker added a CRM, forms, and a future LMS to the stack. The client said she had $5,000; he quoted $6,000, half his usual $12,000, because it would be his first local e-commerce site since moving to town in 2023. The first design put a store inside a website; the client wanted a store with the website behind it, so the team rebuilt the header, hero, and menus. > - **The wishlist request (13:59–16:35).** The client said "for $6,000 I would expect" a wishlist. The site runs FluentCart, which has no native wishlist. The speaker asked whether it should work for guests, which requires user accounts. The client then said ChatGPT had listed a wishlist as something to expect from a $6,000 website. The store has 7 products and no customers yet. > - **The ChatGPT estimate (17:36–25:57).** The speaker gave ChatGPT the same requirements without saying he was an agency, and read the response on screen from a PDF. Line items: discovery $700–$1,500; theme and UI $4,000–$7,000; FluentCart setup $2,000–$4,000; FluentCRM and Fluent Forms $1,000–$2,000; custom wishlist $1,500–$3,500; account experience $750–$1,500; LifterLMS-ready setup $500–$1,500; testing and launch $1,000–$2,000; year-one hosting and maintenance $1,000–$2,000. The low ends sum to $12,450 and the high ends to $25,000, which matches the range he reads out. He disagrees with one pair: he'd price FluentCRM setup above FluentCart setup, because his team builds funnels and automations. ChatGPT's "plausible quote" came to about $20,500 for year one. > - **Plugin search (26:41–28:45).** A WordPress.org plugin, named on the captions as "Go Wish List Fluent Cart" (caption spelling; most likely GoWishCart), installed but didn't work, and its website, support, and email were blocked by Cloudflare. A second vendor sold a $169 lifetime unlimited license but had no working payment gateway. He rules out a new plugin with under 10 installs for client work. > - **The build (29:23–30:38).** In about 3 hours the team built a heart-icon "add to wishlist" button, a wishlist page per user, guest capture by email that creates a user account, remove buttons, and a link to the cart. It started as a WPCode snippet (the caption says "WP code") and became a standalone plugin with button styling options. He's considering offering it to "Juel at Fluent" (caption spelling; unverified) as an add-on. > - **The lesson (31:13–32:36).** Clients add requests 75–80% of the way through. An agency either pads bids enough to say yes, or says the request is out of scope and quotes it, for example at $1,800. Three hours of agency time is about $600 at his rates. > - **Uncertainties.** Nobody outside the video has seen the ChatGPT PDF, and the video doesn't show the vibe-coded plugin's code, tests, or security review. The speaker's hosting figures conflict: $79 a month is $948 a year, yet he says the agency is "closer to 800." > ## 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [0:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFN0WAUDr7c&t=12) Opening and DealerGaps.com > - DealerGaps.com is an in-house AI diagnostic for the PowerSport Academy, which sells service-department training to motorcycle dealers. > - Dealers buy sales training but resist service training. The speaker says trained service departments become profit centers. > - He also teaches certification courses for the "Marine Retailers Association" (caption spelling; unverified) and mentions "Hero Hub" (caption spelling; unverified). > #### ⏱️ [1:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFN0WAUDr7c&t=111) ROI framing > - Example output: a $45,000 training package against $840,000 in added [0:12] Hey folks, how you doing? Uh, hey, maybe you don't recognize me. I cut my beard. Cut my beard a little bit. There you go. Uh, it was getting it was getting itchy. It was like getting in the way, especially with the bicycling I've been doing lately, the breeze, the wind, the whatever. So, I just decided to trim it up. Boom. New day. New day. New me. Okay. [snorts] So, um, I got a couple of things. I got a couple of things I'm excited to talk about. Uh, a, last week I told you guys about dealererggaps.com. [0:36] Dealergaps.com is an AIdriven tool that we created inhouse at Manñana Nom, uh, for our project, the Powersport Academy. And the Powersport Academy sells business training on how to improve your uh, your business, your parts, your labor sales, your operations, things like that. And we I hate to be so transparent, but like we struggle selling this product. It's the best training in the country for motorcycle dealership owners, but we struggle selling the training. Um and not for nothing, everybody struggles selling this training. The Marine Retailers Association, right? I do the certification courses for them. We've been kind of slow there. Uh Hero Hub, they've been kind of slow on the service [1:21] training. Everybody wants sales training, but very few dealers want to pay for service training. They seem to think of services like this necessary evil part of their business. Um, but you know, if they were to actually train people to run those departments, they would become profit centers. And we've proven it over and over and over again by training dealerships. And and our our history, our track record shows unbelievable gains in this space. So, I created this tool called dealergaps.com. [1:51] And now I refer dealers to do your own personal evaluation. Do your own personal diagnostic. You put in the numbers for your business and we'll see uh how much money our training can help you generate, right? And so, if our training is $45,000 and the tool says, "Yeah, you're going to make an extra $840,000 next year," that's a no-brainer, right? It's like I'm going to spend 45 grand and I'm going to make 20 times that in revenue back. Totally doable. Totally makes sense. I love it. [2:21] I love it. So then I kind of got into my head a little bit and I was like, how would I create a similar diagnostic for manana? We focus on enterprise level learning systems for people. And so I thought what if I asked L & D managers, learning and development manager managers, let's say that we put out a diagnostic for them. It's automated. It's AIdriven. Ask them a few questions, right? Um what platform is your LMS currently on? How much do you currently all lot for your e-learning budget? Um do you use in-house or external vendors for course curriculum development? [snorts] Um boom, boom, boom. Okay. So, ask seven or [3:05] eight questions and at the end of those seven or eight questions should be like based on your input our preliminary savings would be $227,000 per year or $80,000 per year like whatever the number is. Manñana because we focus on migrating uh enterprise learning systems from very antiquated, clunky, ugly, overpriced platforms. It's very easy for us to say, "Oh yeah, we can give you a a modern, clean-looking, fun website for your learners, for your students. Uh we can still host all your same learning content. Uh but we can do it at a fraction of your existing budget." And while I say that, it's it's a it's a lot different if someone lands [3:57] on a landing page and it asks them some questions and they go, "Oo, how much do we spend, you know, on our current learning program? How much do we pay an external vendor to create our curriculum? You know, how much do we do?" And so, we're in the middle of building that right now. Uh, I've got a working sample of it up on a URL. Seems to be working pretty well. Um, I'm gonna keep playing with it and seeing what I can really do with it, right? Because because I I don't want it to be flashy and glitzy. I want to be pretty straightforward. Like, [4:30] here's a diagnostic. Fill in these questions. And then boom, put in your name and email. Boom. Here's your results, right? Your results are you could save $200,000 this year on your learning program for your company or your organization. You know, if you'd like to talk to Kurt, click here to schedule a schedule a discovery call. Boom. Bada bang. Right. Um, that's a hot lead coming to you. I don't know what you've folks think or know or whatever about like the idea of like a lead versus a hot lead. Like a hot lead is someone that's already given you some information, that's already shown some interest, has shared their contact [5:05] information with you, and is open to a conversation. That's a hot lead. It doesn't get much better than that. And news flash, when I get people on a Zoom call, chances are we're going to do something together, right? We might not form an actual partnership or have a contract, but we'll do something like like who do you know that I should know? That's my favorite question, right? I'll meet with somebody. They'll say, "Nah, we're pretty set at this time." Blah blah blah blah blah. I'll say, "Well, who do you know that I should know?" And then I'll say, "Oh, you know what? I got a friend that works at another company. [5:32] They're having problems with their LMS." Okay, great. Put me in touch. I'd love to talk to them. And then I get a direct referral, right? Another hot lead. So, I keep running into business pe people in business that are telling me that business is slow or that they're struggling or that they're they're not hitting the ground running, right? And then we're actually having one of our banner years. And I think about the way that I do things. I think about the process that I put into place. I think about um the different, you know, if I was going to say EOS, but it's not EOS, right? It's we have [6:06] processes and procedures in place that lead us to close a client, right? We we have we have meet and greets. We have we have all kinds of engagement manners to to meet people. Uh the podcasts, right? The WordPress meetup, the the Hutch Connect, the all these things, all these things come together. They they create a giant net and it brings that net back to Mñana. And when they make that contact with me, it's my responsibility to optimize that contact. [6:36] Not sell, optimize the contact, right? Who do you know that I should know? What are your issues? What are your pain points? Maybe I can help you, maybe I can't. Um, but those are like the things that I think really help drive our business. Um, which puts me in a weird spot because I don't know that another personality could come in and take over. Like if I sold Mñana Nas to some guy named Bill, would Bill be able to leverage the future of Mñana Nas and do what I do with it? I don't know. I don't know. Because how much of the business is based on my personality? And how much [7:07] of the business is based on what we actually do? That's a great question. Um, here's what I wanted to talk about today. And it's it wasn't about dealer gaps. It wasn't about that. News flash. Um, I vibe coded a plugin today. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. I vibe coded a plugin today. Uh people might be shocked to hear that because I am not like waving the banner for AI very high. Um I am very reluctant to use AI. And let me explain to you how I got kind of like into this corner where I was like I got to do something. So let's do this. Okay. [7:46] Um I have a client. She's local. She's nice. She's a very nice person. Um she doesn't know how the internet works. And so she was referred to us by another agency in town. So, and I've told this story before and I'm trying not to give away all the names, right? But she went to another agency. That agency said, "Oh, what you want, what you're asking for is too complicated. So, we're going to refer you to Mñana Nas, and if he has the time to help you within your span, um, we can make that, you know, hopefully that works for you." And so, we took the gig. We we met with her. [8:20] She's local, so we met at a coffee shop. um very sweet lady, very nice. She is selling um art kits and uh stuff like that. It's it's distributed through this um physical product, right? So, it's e-commerce website selling physical product with shipping, all of these things. And so, that's why the other agency was like, we don't really get into this e-commerce thing. And so, when I met with her, I said, do you ever plan on giving courses? And she said, well, maybe in the future, but not now. Said, bang, Lifter LMS, right? Do you how are you going to track your people? Do you do you have Mailchimp? Do you have [8:54] Active Campaign? Do you have because you're going to end up with a lot of people that you were in contact with. How are you going to organize that? I said, "Well, you need a customer resource management tool." So, boom. We're going to add a CRM. That CRM is going to require forms so that people can sign in or that people can do things with interact within the website. So, we're going to put in a form tool. Boom. [9:14] Okay. So, now we're talking e-commerce, LMS, membership, um, CRM form tool, right? [snorts] That's a pretty good stack. Um, and for the record, that's exactly the stack I love. So, I'm like, "No problem. We can build this for you." She said she had about $5,000 to spend. Now, typically typically this is you're talking 156 $18,000, right? Could be. And and I I don't know why, but like a sweet number for me is $12,000, right? So, so I don't know why cuz I know other agencies would charge more. Um, but for some reason for me like 12 to 13 grand seems like a really fair ask, but here's the deal. [9:58] I am only in this town for 3 years, right? I've been here since 2023. Uh, I've got like five local websites, but this would be the first ecommerce website locally. And that to me has a certain value proposition, right? So, I want someone in town that can go, "Kurt's the dude for e-commerce." Like, I want that to happen. And so, I'm like, "Okay, she's local." She said she had a $5,000 budget. Um, let's tell her it's six. Let's take the 12 grand, let's cut it in half. Um, those of you that run agencies, you might be on the outside of this video right now, and I welcome you [10:32] to come in and comment, chat, ask questions. I'm I'm an open book. I I'm completely open to things. And so, I said, "Six grand." She goes, "Oh, yeah. It's a little more than I wanted to spend." And I said, "Well, you're asking for a little more than I think you understand. Uh, let me run you through what we're going to do, how we're going to do it, what the timeline looks like. [10:51] You want to launch this thing, you know, the second week of September. So, you know, that's only given us, you know, 8 weeks to get this thing done. And I haven't seen any of your pictures, products, content, or anything like that yet. So, um, you know, I'm just trying to shoot you straight. if we're going to build from scratch, you're talking about a semicustom e-commerce website with this, this, and this. She goes, "Okay." [11:14] So, she says yes. She pays. And about a week later, we met and I showed her a sample website, and she hated it. Um, which is fine. Which is totally totally fine. I made a website with a store inside of it. And what she wants is a store with a website behind it. Okay. Two totally different models. Okay. And so she I could tell she was a little upset, but I was like, "Hey, don't sweat it. That's what these first meetings are for, right? This is for us to get used to working with each other and really set the expectations." And so now, don't get me wrong, there's a scope of work on [11:48] this job. But like, which page is the homepage? The homepage or the shop page? That's not a big deal, right? And so I was like, "Let me reformat this for you. I'll redo the header cuz it's not what you like. I'll redo the hero image cuz it's not what you like. We'll put the store up on the front. We'll hide these other pages in the back in a submen. [12:04] will make a secondary menu for that. So, the main menu is going to be about the store and then if they want to see anything else on the website, that's going to be through the secondary menu in a drop down. Does that make sense? She said yes. Uh, showed her what I was talking about. I got her colors, um, redid her logo for her with a different background so it shows up on the header the proper way and we just redid it, you know, and we sent it back to her and she goes, "Oh my god, I love it." You know, I love it. Now, it's not how I would [12:30] build a website, but when you're building a website for a client, it's not supposed to be how you would build your website. It's how they want their website. And so, there's a certain amount of coaching. I don't want to, man, I got to I always got to watch what I say. There's a certain amount of coaching involved, right? Like, I really don't advise that, right? But overall look and feel is that's a very subjective topic and I want to make the client happy. So, I did what she asked and I was really nervous cuz I didn't think it was great, but she was like, "I [12:58] love it. the site's so cute now. And I was like, okay. Um, I am glad that she is happy with the website. Um, here's what comes next. This will happen every now and then. Now, remember, I gave a smoking hot deal. Some people are going to watch this and they're going to say, " $6,000? That's a lot of money." Other people are going to watch this. Just so you know, there's people on the other side of the teeter totter and they're [snorts] going to say, "Oh my god, I don't even touch a project for less than $30,000." Okay, so we have to understand that there's different [13:35] levels. Okay, I work directly with Lifter LMS. I'm part of the Lifter LMS team. I am an expert with Lifter LMS. I am an expert in using e-commerce. I am an expert in Fluent Forms. I am an expert in Fluent CRM. So when you hire the expert at everything, you're going to be at the top end of the grade, not the bottom end of the grade. You're gonna be at the top end of the grade. [13:59] That's just comes with it, right? I've been doing this since 2004. So there's just certain things that are going to come with that. And and I'm not shy about it. I tell people right away like, um, hey, I I'm not the cheapest. I tell people right up front, I'm not the cheapest, but I'm going to get you done on time. I'm going to get it done under budget and you're going to be happy with it when it's done. I mean, you can't do much better than that. So, she adopted this phrase for $6,000. I would expect, you know, well, for what I'm paying for this, it should come [14:35] with. Now, these things that she mentions were not part of the original scope conversation. They just weren't. Now, yesterday it had come up and she was pretty adamant. She thinks that this this shopping cart needs to have a a wishlist feature. Okay. [snorts] We chose not to use Woo Commerce on this project. We chose to use uh Fluent Cart. [snorts] We had a conversation about why we were using Fluent Cart and we stuck with the Fluent Cart. And Fluent Cart, guess what they don't have? They don't have a wish list. Not only that, uh, and I told her, I said, "We'll figure out, we'll figure something out [15:11] for you, but this isn't a this isn't a simple snap your fingers and it's done." This is the problem with everyone talking about AI and vibe coding and WordPress and all the stuff in general is that customers think because they saw it somewhere else, it must be easy, right? like, hey, I was shopping on Amazon and Amazon's got, you know, a wish list feature, so I should have a wish list feature on my website. [15:36] And it's like, okay, Amazon has a development team that manages that whole website. I'm sure they spend millions of dollars a year hosting and maintaining that website. You have an overall budget for the whole year of $6,000. That's going to it's not a plug-and-play thing. And so people people make a lot of assumptions, right? And I said I said I said, 'Well, you're going to want the wish list to do this, this, this. And I started like, do you want it for existing customers? She goes, of course. [16:06] Do you want it for guests? Of course. Do you want it for So how is someone going to create a wish list and save a wish list in your site if they don't have a user account? And she goes, "Well, well, I just they just need it, right?" And that's my point. My point is people that [snorts] don't know don't know. And so I explained it to her in in very I thought a very open nice way. Um I explained it but she said it again like well and then she slipped and she said well when I was talking to Chad GPT and I said you know [16:35] what should I expect for a $6,000 website having a wish list was one of the things and so that's just really stuck in my head that I really need to have this wish list. Keep in mind business hasn't launched yet. There are no existing customers and there's only seven products in the shop page. Okay. [snorts] So is it a requirement to launch the site? Absolutely not. But something was said in the conversation that really made that you know jumped into me, right? And that was chat GBT said I should expect this. So I thought what would happen if I went into chat GBT and let me take this down. Uh [17:10] we we'll take that down. We'll go to a screen share. We'll go to the window. We'll open this up. Make sure it doesn't have anything sensitive in it. I think we're good. Uh, we're going to put that in the scene. And I'm going to use this one where I'm the small person. Okay. So, here we are. And maybe I'm going to move it this way. No, that doesn't work either, does it? [17:36] All right. So, um, yeah, this is just a PDF. So, I went to chat GPT, right? And I said, um, hey, uh, I didn't tell it who I was. I said, I'm a startup business. I want to have a WordPress website that can do e-commerce to sell physical product. I want to have a functional CRM and form tool that integrates with the shopping cart. And I want to be able to offer courses in the future. So, I'm thinking I want to use Lifter LMS uh infinity bundle to go with Fluent CRM and Fluent Form and blah blah blah. And then I said, um, besides all [18:22] of that, besides having that all set up and configured and built as a semi-custom website, [snorts] I also need to have this wish list thing that's going to have this function, this function, this function, this function. And this is what this is what chat GPT says. ChatGpt says, "Yes, I think your proposed stack is quite sensible. Uh, e-commerce first, education platform later. Uh the important thing is to distinguish between a WordPress site that has plugins installed and a semi-custom commerce platform. Your wish list requirement, the Fluent CRM, the customer account experience, the future lifter LMS architecture push this beyond a typical $3,000 WordPress brochure website. And then it lists things out [19:02] says the ballpark. Now, I think this is really good for other agencies to listen to cuz I, you know, I'm a co-host on the agency action show and right now I'm supposed to be recording with Toby, but we we put a pause. We we stuck a pin in it for today. We're probably going to record on Friday instead. But this is interesting. I think I think we'll probably talk about this on the show on Friday, which means you'll see it a week or two from now. [19:27] Discovery, architecture, and planning, right? Where where the whole scope of work comes from. $700 to $1,500. Okay, WordPress theme and UI build, $4 to $7,000. I'm going to tell you as an agency, I think that number is strong. That number is real strong. Um, basic WordPress theme and UI builds. Uh, that's a lot of money. Still, that's what I mean. This came from ChatGBT. Remember, the source for her was ChatGBT. So, I want to make sure that we cover cover things, right? [20:00] Uh, Fluent Cart configuration and customization 2 to $4,000. Okay. Fluent CRM and Fluent Forms integration 1 to2 grand. I think this is interesting. I think the Fluent CRM and Fluent Forms is more timeconuming and difficult to set up than Fluent Cart. But when Mñana Numas sets up Fluent CRM, we don't just install it and turn it on. We configure like basic funnels for the customer and and we do some other things tied to the LMS and [snorts] some automations. And so I think I would probably flip those numbers, right? I would probably say maybe the Fluent Cart is 1 to two grand and the Fluent CRM is is 2 to four. [20:41] Okay, but potato. Okay. Uh custom wishlist functionality 1,500 to $3,500. Custom account experience 750-,500 bucks. Lifter LMS ready architecture. That's not building out courses. That's just installing and setting up Lifter LMS, right? 500-,500 bucks. Testing, launch, and optimization,000 to $2,000. Hosting, backups, security, and maintenance for one year, $1,000 to $2,000. So, we're saying for the first year, she should expect to spend between 125 and $25,000. So, what this tells you is my original number, my $12,000 number is probably in the ballpark, right? It's at the bottom end of that scale. Now, I already told you why I shouldn't be at the bottom end of the scale, but it's local and I [21:36] wanted the work and I wanted to, you know, spread my wings here. And so, um, you know, 12, 12 was like, I don't know why 12 is a sweet spot number for me, but 12 is a sweet spot number for me. It's just a thing. Um, and then I cut it in half, right? So, I wanted you to see like how does this work? How how am I even thinking about this stuff? Um, this here says, you know, chatbt says my sweet spot would be 15 to $18,000. [22:00] Uh, you could certainly find someone to do it for 7,500 to 10 grand, but I'd be cautious. the danger that the developer treats Fluent Cart, Fluent CRM, Fluent Forms, and Lifter LMS as four unrelated plugins rather than designing the site as a unified system. That is exactly my point that I mentioned up at the top here, right? Because when you set up Fluent CRM and Fluent Forms, you want that to have automations and integrations with Lifter LMS, right? You don't want them to be like modular parts of a website. You want them to work together. Okay. Um, at the other end, an agency could easily quote 25 to $40,000 [22:35] if you're getting extensive uh custom UX, product configuration, in integrations, copywriting, photography, branding. We're not doing this, right? She is supplying all of that, so not going to worry about that. Okay. [snorts] Says your software stack isn't actually the expensive part. And then it goes through and it tells you exactly how much the software costs, which I think is really cool. It says the wish list is more important than it sounds. [22:59] Uh-oh. It says, "I'd actually spend some time defining exactly what you mean by wish list." And then it goes through what a wish list does. Persistent customer wish list. Do you want people to store it in the browser? Do you want it to, you know, all these things? And so it does all that. Then it says marketing enabled wish list. This is the one I'd consider for your business. The wish list becomes part of your Fluent CRM marketing engine. For example, blah blah blah. [23:21] Still thinking about it? Product X is getting popular, right? So you set up automations within your Fluent CRM. uh that turns the wish list from a little heart icon into a customer intent data source and it says I'd architect it around the customer, not the products. And it goes through how it would architect um this wish list thing. Okay. I particularly like the Lifter LMS idea. Who wouldn't? Lifter LMS is phenomenal, right? And it says here, um I'd make the architecture Lifter LMS compatible from day one, which is what we've chosen to do. Uh that's an important distinction. [23:54] You don't want to pay someone $8,000 today to build a bunch of Lifter LMS functionality that you don't need yet. Perfect, right? Instead, I'd have the developer establish the appropriate user account architecture and make Fluent Cart, Fluent CRM, and WordPress system. Uh, who won't mess with the Lifter LMS gets in who who won't create a mess when Lifter LMS gets introduced. Perfect. Talks about how how much it costs. [24:16] Perfect. Uh, hosting. It says hosting. I would not put this on a $5 a month bargain WordPress website. uh you're going to look at $400 to $800 a year for hosting. That puts us right in the ballpark. We do uh hosting and maintenance um for around the $800 mark. So, we're we're right in that in that spot, right? Um says you don't need a $300 a month monster server. That is absolutely correct. Right. For the size of her project, $800 a year is going to keep her fine. Um here's what I'd want to include in the developer quote. And then it goes through all of the things [24:49] that we've we've basically done, right? categories, coupons, taxes, transaction emails, uh lists, segmentations, forms, the wish list. It says this deserves its own line in the proposal. Can't stress enough job sold, scope was determined. Uh the wish list is an afterthought. It's very much an afterthought. Okay? So, yeah, it should be something separate and different. Now, I want to talk to you about something different. Now, when Okay, year one maintenance. [25:20] Boom. See all this right here? WordPress updates, plug-in updates, backup, security, uptime, big. We include that with our hosting. And so you don't pay us an extra $100 to $175 a month. We include it with the hosting. And our hosting is $79 a month. So boom, done. Business maintenance, um, update management, minor content changes, all that kind of stuff. I, this is right in the ballpark. If I have a customer that wants this kind of service, 250 to 350 is in the ballpark. Uh bigger companies with more changes will typically see them at $500 a month. Okay, what I consider a very good quote. 168 for [25:57] implementation. Remember we quoted six. $250 a month for maintenance. We don't charge for that. $500 a year for hosting. We're closer to 800. Okay. I consider that very plausible. Something around $17,000 plus $3500 for the first year. So, $20,500. Okay, so quite the deal here. Um, I would not build the site around Lifter. And it goes through the whole thing, right? My target budget. Uh, and it goes through all of that. Here is where Let me take that off and let me go back to this. There we go. Um, and we'll throw this back up. Sure, why not? [26:41] So, after the conversation, I said, "Okay, well, let's see who's got a plugin available for for Fluent Cart to do this wish list thing." And there's one called um Go Wish List. Go wish list Fluent Go Fluent Wish List or Go Wish List Fluent Cart, whatever. I don't who cares. Um, it came right up. It's in the WordPress repository. You can download the plugin. You can activate the plugin. [27:03] Does the plugin work? No, it doesn't. When you click on to go to who made the plugin, it's a Cloudflare blocked website. Um, support Cloudflare blocked. Um, email Cloudflare blocked. Like, like everything is nothing works. Um, so the plug-in doesn't work. The people don't exist. And when I asked Claude about it later, uh, they determined that there were no active installations of this wish list tool. So, it was probably developed when Fluent Cart came out, it was probably never updated. And my guess is that as Fluent Cart changed, it didn't change and it just plain doesn't work. There was another one that Claude recommended to me. Um, this was brand [27:43] new company started in 2026. I believe it was April of 2026. It was $169 [snorts] for an unlimited license um for life. Yeah, lifetime unlimited license. $169. And I thought, well, maybe I'll just buy that. And so I went to buy it and uh they don't have a payment gateway set up. Like they're not a business yet. So they have an idea for a wish list, but it doesn't exist yet. [28:11] Those are the only two resources for a wish list for Fluent Cart that is found on normal search channels. Couldn't find anything else. And for the record, this is client work. So for client work, do I want to buy a brand new plugin that has less than 10 installs? No, I really don't. do I want to um experiment with a client's e-commerce business? I don't want to experiment with it. I want to build it and know that it's right. And so that kind of backed me into a corner and I said, "Okay, let's see if we can't make her happy." Now, remember, I have this PDF in the background. It says how [28:45] much things should really cost, but I've already tried to do what I think is right and help [snorts] this local customer get launched. The fair starts this week. The fair starts Friday. I want her website to be live by Friday. She really wants this wish list, which is a total non-necessary thing. Um, but she really wants it. So, choices. Do I send her an email? Says, "Yeah, for 3500 bucks, I'll build it." That's not really fair, right? Um, in the grand scheme of things, the plugin, if it were available, would be $169. [29:23] So, I spent about three hours today and I vibecoded for the first time a plugin for WordPress. What does the plugin do? The plugin adds a heart adds a button with a heart on it that says add to wishlist. And when they add it to wish list, it goes to a page called wish list. And it lists everything in the wish list. And it's by the person, right? So, if you're logged in, boom. If you're not logged in, it asks you for your email, then it creates a user account. Then, it creates a wish list for that user account. If you're on the wish list and you click remove, it comes [29:54] off the wish list. If you're on the wish list page and you select one of your wishlisted items, you can go direct to the cart to pay for it. So, everything's there. Everything functions, everything works. It took about 3 hours uh because CSS, styling, testing, functionality, all that stuff took time. We initially built it as WP code, right? So like a snippet and then we converted that snippet into a full-blown plugin. So the plugin gives us options for styling the buttons and and things like that. So now I have now I own a plugin um that is a fluent cart add to wishlist plugin and [30:38] now I got to figure out do I put it on other websites and sample it and try it and test it or do I give it to like Juel at Fluent and see if he wants to convert it into an add-on or I don't know what to do. So in any case that is uh what we talk about the pros and cons of being a professional right. Um the project created revenue, the project is creating an educational experience, the [snorts] product is giving us a uh good connection locally here in town. And um overall it's very positive experience. [31:13] But the the thing that happens with customers is you go through discovery, you do the proposal, they accept the proposal, you set the scope of work, and it's almost an invariable, right? It's almost like always 75 80% through the project they go, "Hey, I was looking at another website and I saw, right? Um, and so I should have and it should be easy, right?" And that's that's like the pitfall for people that run agencies. You either need to bid the job with enough padding that if they come to you with a request, you could just say, "Yeah, we can make that happen." Um, or you need to be [31:53] prepared to say, "I'm sorry, that's not covered in the scope of work. That's that's a custom application that's going to cost another 1,800 bucks." Um, how much does 3 hours cost? Well, 3 hours with us is about 600 bucks. So, how do I really feel about that? I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. The pros and cons of being a professional, customers going to be happy. Customer's going to be thrilled. [32:18] Customer's website's going to go live on Friday. The fair opens on Friday and she's going to be in business and that's going to be another feather in the cap for Mñana Tomas. So, we do what it takes to make it happen. And uh I hope that you are having a great day. I hope you found some value in what we talked about today. Um this AI thing is interesting. [32:36] If you want to know how I created a plugin, how I vibe coded, how I connected AI to the website, um, let me know in the comments and maybe I'll do a follow-up live on like how some of these tools I use actually work. All right, I'll talk to you later. I'm going to close out with the uh with my bumper for mountain biking because it's what I love., Pros/Cons of Being a Professional, Manana No Mas!, 01m2bsbm0pr3c6kzf1nj6nkpw0.