Sunday Musings: How To Become Rich and Successful!

Yesterday, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I spent most of the day "babysitting" a friend's retail store; the store next to where we used to have our own art gallery, until about six months ago.

Our friend — the store owner — has cancer and is just too worn out from chemotherapy and radiation treatments to still work six days a week, so we're working for her on Saturdays, as a sort of Mitzvah.

Anyway, a common friend of all of us stopped by to chat, and we got on the topic of starting businesses, and "Making it Big," and the magic formula for success. Of which, of course, there is none...

I suppose it's testament to how jaded we have all become about the nature of business, the world, and the people in it, that the following is "The Fabulous Plan" we put together.

The Following is SATIRE, But It's Absolutely True!

The Hidden Secret to Your Success!

You start by offering "The Answer" to one of life's insolvable problems: How to make lots of money, how to become powerful, how to become happy, how to find the perfect relationship, how to have lots of great sex, how to have 24/7 perfect orgasms or anything along those lines.

You offer your "answer" up as a "Long Hidden Secret." Then you spam the hell out of people, social media and maybe even sketchy tabloid newspublications with some alluring teaser copy about how "All Will Be Reavealed — For Absolutely FREE!" if you just click on the link.

When you click on the link, you end up on a web site with an extensive white paper-like article — filled with "testimonials" from "amazed" buyers — which talks endless about all manners of research, history and alleged facts, without EVER ACTUALLY GETTING TO THE POINT and by the time readers have actually waded through the 6000-word treatise they are invited to actually GET the secret for "Just $49.95! Reduced from our normal price of $299.95! SAVE $250.00!"

What a deal!

Of course, you have never actually sold anyone your "secret" for the full $299.95 but nobody needs to know that. Similarly, nobody needs to know that you don't actually KNOW any secret, you are simply alluding to the fact that you do. Meanwhile, you make sure to bombard your visitors with endless pop-up ads promising great wealth by flipping real estate with no money down... another business you know nothing about, but perhaps some schmoe will pay $99.95 for the "complete information package" to get started on something else you've never actually done.

But back to the Main Event!

Eventually, a few idiots decide to pay "Just $49.95!" for your amazing secret (PLUS $9.95 Shipping and Handling — for a product that actually needs to be neither "shipped" nor "handled"), and with some more persuasive prose, you even manage to sign a few of them up for the "Secret Insider News Bulletins — Just $9.95 a Month!" and the show is on the road!

So now that you have their money, the first step is to email your new signup a lengthy PDF file — that most likely is "corrupted" or perhaps "incomplete" in some way — which marks the first "cut" at which some people are simply going to give up and realize they just don't have the energy to follow through and chase you down (after all, it was only $49.95...) so that's your first cut of profit.

Now, for the ones who DO complain, you email them an intact PDF file which explains the great bebefit and potential of being able to also share this "Amazing Secret" with their friends for just $49.95, of which they get to keep $39.95, and YOU pocket $10.00.

Meanwhile, no ACTUAL SECRET OR AMAZING INFORMATION has actually been shared or sold, only the potential or promise that it "exists" somewhere. We're not sure where. Or IF it even exists.

Of course, in time, people are going to start getting unhappy and they will complain. So you have a ready-to-go backup site dedicated to information about Guinea Pigs all ready to attach to your domain so that one day — when the din of complaints about your scam grows too loud — you simply change what's attached to your primary web domain name and proclaim your innocence as a harmless guinea pig expert whose web site "must have been hijacked" by evil web trolls.

In the meantime, you're sitting in some swank penthouse condo in Costa Rica, sipping mai-tais and watching the sunset... while someone else who was scammed decides they can just modify your own scam slightly to make their own fortune in a similar way.

Lather, rinse, repeat!

Sure, this might all sound like a gross exaggeration... but is it really?

Thanks for reading!

(Another #creativecoin creative non-fiction post)

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Created at 191117 17:08 PDT
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