If you spend any time at all on Facebook, you've most likely seen ads for items or services you may be considering purchasing -- or were at least curious enough about to Google -- popping up in your news feed.
I have apparently clicked a few links or done a few searches that have identified me to some data mining operation as a writer. As a result, I get a lot of links telling me I can make big money without getting up off the living room couch. All I have to be able to do is be able to type. No mention of critical thinking, the ability to paint a picture with words or parse and organize complex material.
Nope. All I have to be able to do is be able to type, sign up for some sort of online course, and wait for the writing money to start rolling in. And, while these idiots picked the wrong guy to try to convince that typing equals writing, at least they’re in the right general neighborhood. I am a writer. And I can type. So I will give them a couple of points for that.
However, this morning as I enjoyed my coffee and pondered whether I can, indeed, make a six figure income by typing a couple hours a day from my couch if I only send $10 a month to some bozo in the midwest, a brand new business opportunity popped up my Facebook news feed.
I could make big money, this new ad said, by getting into the online cremation business. The ad featured -- and I swear I am not making this up -- a photo of a man lying face down under a sheet in a bed, with only his bare feet, which looked a little askew, poking out. The implication being that the guy is either dead or so hungover that he will not notice being boxed up by his wife and shipped to me for cremation. (I'd include that pic here, but I can't find it, but here's a screenshot of their ad.)
I’m not sure how this would work. Would I have to send my customers postage-paid boxes for them to package up their departed loved ones? How would I accomplish said cremation? In my backyard? (“Nice guy that Ramminger, but what’s with the big bonfires every night?”)
It seems to me that there are a few bugs to work out with the concept. But the fine folks at Parting Pro don’t seem worried about theses pesky details. Their Facebook page does contain some rants about over regulation of the cremation business (Like maybe requiring one to own an actual crematorium instead of a backyard fire pit?)
But if the big brains at the Facebook Algorithm and Data Mining Emporium AND at Parting Pro think I am a top prospect for an online cremation business, who am I to argue? Maybe I can double down and make big bucks typing from the couch while simultaneously stoking the fires of my new online cremation business.
Something to ponder. The world is my oyster.
Scott Ramminger is a former Washington, DC CEO, now based in Nashville, TN, who has found happiness as a writer and jazz/blues song writer, sax player and vocalist. Check Scott out on iTunes. His latest of four albums "Alive and Ornery," has received rave reviews.