FourBux

My new life plan

I’ve been conducting a study. It may have begun as an impromptu way to pass the time, but over the years, it has become very deliberate and methodical. You have been part of this study, even though you didn’t realize it. Of course, perhaps you realized it as well and I’m not giving you enough credit. I mean there are certainly plenty of examples out there to prove that others have wanted out. Maybe you’re in that camp, too.

I’ve spent almost twenty years of my life on this issue, accrued mountains of data and poring through more statistics than you could shake a stick at, and at last, I have come to a conclusion.

I’ve decided that working every day is too much. Some people are okay with working their whole lives, but I just don’t think that’s for me. At 60-plus, both my parents are still pulling their own weight, and in the spirit of combining the “work smarter, not harder” and “do as I say, not as I do” life lessons they taught me, I’ve begun looking for a better way. And by better, I mean much more money for less work. And by less I mean hardly any at all.

What, you ask, is this golden ticket, this get out of jail free card that would free one from the constraints of the life of the working stiff? A trip to Las Vegas? Winning the lottery? Could be, but hardly a realistic plan. You see, gambling involves risk of losing, and to be honest, I like to play things safe. Plus, if you win the lottery you get your picture on TV and suddenly all those deadbeat people from your past that you thought you were rid of show up at your door.

No, thank you. I don’t talk to you any more for a reason.

Does it involve anything illegal? Of course not. I don’t want to work, and I’m pretty sure if I ended up in prison that there would be work of some type involved. There is nothing illegal, or even immoral about my newfound life plan.

Multi-level marketing? Ha, ha, no. Mostly because, well, unless you’re the first guy in you won’t make any money. I also would like people to like me when it’s all said and done. Plus, this is about making money, remember?

Sorry to Ryan Seacrest you, but I’ll tell you after the break.

Now I know that you’re committed to finding out what the idea is, it makes you worthy of the fruit of my epiphany. I just can’t put this on the home page for everyone to steal, because the market will be flooded and my idea will be worthless. I hope you understand.

I’m going to start an annual awards/ratings program. “What?!?!” you exclaim. “I read an entire page for that?!?!” Yes. But I’m telling you, it’s foolproof. It would work like this:

I send out a mailer to the middle management of the top 15,000 businesses in America, telling them about my new corporate communications competition, called something like the ComNet Awards for Publication Excellence. The mailer asks them, “Do you think you’re the best? Would you like to be considered in a national communications competition?” It’s easy, my slick brochure says. The entry form’s attached.

“It’s only $450 per company,” the brochure soothes. And you can enter up to five pieces. Hot damn!

Middle management is impressed; he needs to show that he’s worth his salary, so he calls up his designer, who is immediately tasked with producing samples of all the coolest designs he’s done over the past year. In a frenzy of activity and a cloud of spray adhesive, said designer cuts and mounts and packages and compiles the most over-glorified Show & Tell project ever. At the same time, the company writer has been told to drop what they’re doing and craft a message about why their communications plan is more effective than that of the other guy.

So, just before the impossibly near deadline, the graphic designers and web designers and writers and editors and strategists bang out a collection of screen shots and customer reviews and traffic metrics and before and afters and mount everything on precision-cut black matte board and ship it off. It’s now safely on the way back to my main headquarters, which is really just be a PO Box near my house. Because, you see, there won’t just be one submission from XYZ Widgets, there will be a thousand companies or more who think that their communications are better than the competition, and who will pony up big bucks for a chance to win a national award.

I’m still debating on the style of award. I could go with the foil-stamped certificate paper, because I can get it in bulk for about 3¢ a piece. Print my logo on it in, laser in the winner’s name and boom! Suitable for framing. Hang it on any wall and you’re instantly an award winning company! Or, I could go with the acrylic engraved paperweight/bookend award, but they would set me back about $1.75 each. But, perhaps that’s just the ticket to get more people to enter. If I only have a dozen or so categories, I’d be out a total of twenty-five bucks when all is said and one.

Of course, for the winners, I’ll supply a web-ready version of the “2008 ComNet Award Winner” for your web site. You can use it, but please make sure that it links back to my site. I will be monitoring it. After all, this is how I make my living.

I’m also a little partial to the “pay for play” method like the JD Power awards. Sure, you can enter my prestigious competition, and you might even win, but if you want to tell anyone that you won it’s going to cost you. A lot. Seriously. Make sure you have a truck full of cash just waiting on stand-by. Because I’ll be checking credit and account balances before a winner is announced, you better believe it.

Either way I decide to go with it, this ensures that I’ll probably only have to work about four, maybe five days a year. I’ll have to pay some big-name people to be on my panel of expert judges, of course, but it’s a small price to pay for the return on investment. I may even get some celebrity judges too, not because they would know anything about effective communications, but because they could really dress up my brochure. Most creative people are overworked and run on caffeine, so we don’t look our best. I’m just being honest here. A celebrity may be just the thing I need. I’ll work that out later.

Maybe after a few years here in the good old US of A we’ll roll out an international competition too. The entry fee may be slightly higher, but you know, with the value of the USD circling the bowl, some things can’t be helped. I really am sorry about that.

But, you say, judging from your remedial-at-best writing ability, are you qualified to host such a competition? Rest assured, of course I am. While I may not know everything about your business, or corporate communications for that matter, but you do. So go ahead and sell me on why your business communications is the best. Its not whether or not you believe it, it’s whether or not you can make me believe it.

All I know is that this is a sure-fire way to money and the life of leisure. It can’t fail, because the business plan hinges on the almost inexhaustible resource that is the collective managerial ego. And friends, I know a thing or two about ego.

Because this morning, just like five or six times a year, we received one of those previously mentioned, poorly designed packets. And sure enough, inside was an entry form with a $450 price tag on it.

My boss couldn’t get down to my cubicle quick enough.

Cheers.