The Presentation-Chapter 2

The Deck

Any successful pitch has to begin with a deck. This is a Power Point presentation (Keynote for the fanboys) that will outline your marketing strategy. It has to be at least 90 pages long. Despite it’s length, its root message is very simple:

Your company is great!

This strategy will reinforce the greatness of your company.

Did we mention that your company is great?

So with so little to say, how is it possible to create a lengthy presentation? It’s surprising easy as long as you stick to a few simple rules.

Ask questions, then answer them.
It’s really easy to come up with the answers when you’re the one asking the questions. You can focus on all your client’s positive attributes and avoid the deep dark secrets.

Example:
PAGE 1
What does Xcorp do?
PAGE 2
Make great cookies.

PAGE 1
How do your customers see you?
PAGE 2
Warm, friendly and cheap.

PAGE 1
Are there any better cookies out the market?
PAGE2
No!

Repeat everything
Repetition isn’t just the key to advertising, it’s the key to decks. Remember, anything that isn’t said at least three times is never remembered.

Example:
You make great cookies.
You make great cookies.
You make great cookies.

You should use repetition even when you’re making a simple statement. Just make sure to use different words. Example:

PAGE 1
We will strive
PAGE 2
We will work hard
PAGE 3
We will succeed in making Xcorp the best company on the planet.

No only does this add pages to the deck, it also creates a comforting rhythm that will lull the client into submission.

Stats
Statistics are very important, and you will want to list a lot of them.

A beginner might think that it is logical to put a group of statistics on a single page. That is a mistake. If you’re ever gong to reach 90+ pages, each stat must have its own page. Example:

PAGE 1
30% of the focus group liked the cookies.

PAGE 2
20% of the focus group hated the cookies.

PAGE 3
50% of the focus group was confused by the question.

Then you can sum up.

PAGE 4

So in conclusion:

30% of the focus group liked the cookies.

20% of the focus group hated the cookies.

50% of the focus group was confused by the question.

Follow these simple rules and you will have a deck that is so mind-numbingly boring, that the client will approve anything just to get out of the room.

The Presentation-Chapter 1

Presenting creative ideas to the clients is one of the most difficult aspects of the creative’s job. Any activity that combines public speaking, acting and business schmoozing is bound to cause a few heart palpitations. But never fear, The Beef is going to give you a complete guide to presentations. It will explain how to making your ideas shine (and your coworker’s ideas…uh…not shine).

A creative presentation is like theatre, neighborhood theatre, but theatre none the less (dinner theatre if food is being served). And the first part of any successful theatrical production is:

Costuming

What? Costumes? Dude, your analogy sucks already.

Ok, calm down. To successfully present your ideas, you have to appear confident and professional. Your daily attire of shorts, flip-flops and ironic T-shirts is not going to impress the big bosses. So you will have to dress to impress. This means pants AND a long-sleeved shirt AND even shoes. If your client is very conservative you might have to wear a sport coat or even a t-i-e. Women aren’t off the hook either. Save goodbye to the cargo pants and tank-tops and hello to long skirts and blouses. (Note: If your client is a perv, you can stick with the tank-tops.)

Helpful Hint
If you have a conservative client who requires you to dress-up, you need to practice wearing your presentation clothes BEFORE the presentation. If you show up at the meeting in clothes you have never worn before, you are bound to look like some awkward teenager who has forced into formal clothes for a relative’s wedding or funeral.

Ok, you bought some new clothes, you wore them to Home Depot to get comfortable in them. You’re set, right. Not so fast. What if you work for a hot shop? You can’t walk into a presentation looking like a Xerox salesperson. No, for outside-the-box types the dress code is radically different.

Hot shot creatives need costuming too, it’s just a different kind. The trick here is to dress DOWN from your normal work clothes. Trade in your jeans for ripped jeans. Toss out the flip-flops and go barefoot. Spike your hair, show your ink, go nuts.

What you are trying to create is a creative persona.

Woman have a number of looks to choose from, everything from emo to dominatrix.

Men’s options are more limited. In fact there’s only one. If you want to look cool in a presentation, you must try to dress like a 15 year-old skateboarder. I have no idea why looking like a guy whose only goals in life are to get baked and hang out at 7-11 makes clients respect your ideas. But hey, it’s their money.

Helpful Hint
There is an age limit to the skateboarder look. Nothing is more pathetic than a middle-aged man in a Volcom T-shirt trying to pass himself off as a kid. You are not going rail sliding after work. You are going to drive home in your BMW , eat pasta with your wife and watch American Idol.

Late Late Show

Ah, working late. The long hours, the bloodshot eyes, the crappy pizza. Your boss would like you to believe that it’s a normal part of the ad biz. It’s like the tradeoff for not having to wear ties. Well I am sick of hearing this bullshit. So I am going to speak the truth:

If your boss regularly makes you work late, he or she is a shitty manager.

Think about it this way. Let’s say you own 10 factories that make brake pads or something. Three or four times a month, one of your factories has to stay open all night to meet their production numbers. Now, do you think the manager of that factory is genius? Is he kicking ass? Or do you think he’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to schedule his people? Right.

Now your boss does not want you to figure out that they suck at their job, so he or she will try to confuse you with a number of alternative reasons for the late nights.

It’s the staff’s fault.
Uh, you mean the staff you hired? Wow, you really suck at judging people.

You guys weren’t giving me what I was looking for.
Unless I am confused, giving clear, concise instructions to the staff is the manager’s job.

You guys went in the wrong direction.
You sent us that direction! And you didn’t decide on the “right” direction until the night before the presentation.

It’s the client’s fault
It’s your responsibility to create a good working relationship with the client. That’s why you get the free lunches, first-class travel and six-figure salary.

You people didn’t manage your time properly.
How could I with your endless status meetings?

And finally:

Hey, that’s advertising.
Bullshit.

So the next time you’re at the office until 1am, remember why you’re there. Your boss (the guy who makes three or four times as much as you do) fucked up, and you are covering his ass. And to thank you, your boos is going to yell at you and tell you it’s your fault.

Fuckers.

How to get a job in advertising

Chapter 6-Freelancing
So you did a bunch of interviews, but the phone isn’t exactly ringing off the hook. Well, these things take time. And luckily, you did get one phone call. An agency has asked if you would like to do some freelancing, and they want you to start tomorrow!

So what are you waiting for? Put on some jeans and your most ironic t-shirt and head to your first professional advertising gig.

You have arrived.
Well look at you. Your own cube. The crappy hand-me-down computer that no one else wants. You have totally made it. Hey, who’s that next door? It’s your cubical neighbor! Maybe you should pay them a visit. Well, that didn’t go so well. They were kind of…cold. It’s not your fault. You see, as a new freelancer, you are sort of a ghost person. No one is sure if you’re going to be there for a day or a decade. So people tend to be cautious about making attachments. (Note: If you are a wildly attractive man or woman this is not true.)

So with no hope of human interaction, you might as well get to work. What will you be working on? Usually when an agency hires freelancers it’s because they are swamped. So there will be lots of work to do. Copywriters may find themselves writing tons of TV scripts (cool) or even naming a product (shitty). Art Directors may find themselves working on layouts that some other AD started. (If you find yourself completing another AD’s layout, one of two things will be true. One, the other AD will have not labeled his layers. Two, the specs will be WRONG.)

So now that you’re a freelancer. It might be a good time to look at the Pluses and Minuses.

Plus:
The Money-WOW! Look at that day rate! You’re making a fortune. Who cares if you never get a full-time gig? This is way better!

Minus:
You don’t get health insurance. So you either have to self-insure, or you have to real careful crossing the street. And you might want to give Grandma a call and see if anything runs in the family. If you can’t talk to Grandma because she is dead, you definitely need health insurance.

Plus:
I can work anytime I want!

Minus:
You work anytime they want you. Dry spells can be loooong.

Shit! I finally got a fulltime job. Now I have to stop freelancing!
Uh, no you don’t. You see all creatives continue to do freelance work even after they become salaried employees. (Account people don’t get to do this. We figure they make their extra money buy skimming off the media budget.) Many creatives are quite open about doing freelance work, at work. They’ll use company printers to print their layouts. They’ll spend most of the day working on a pitch. I’ve seen creative duck out early when the agency is in full crisis mode, because they have a meeting with their freelance client. You’d think people would get in trouble for this, but almost no one ever does. The Creative directors are probably too busy doing their freelance jobs to notice.

A note on permalance.
Sometimes, when and agency is very confused, it will pay a freelancer for years. This is called permalance. You get all the benefits of a fulltime gig and the high pay of a freelancer. If you ever find yourself in this position, stay there.

How to lose a job in advertising

Sorry for the silence, but things have been awfully tense here at CosmoDemonic. So for all you people out there who are worried about your job, here’s a handy guide to lay-offs:

Always fire people on a Friday.
That’s the rule, but they almost never follow it.

First hired, first fired.
First hired=lowest salary. They’re staying.

Keep the upcoming layoffs a secret.
Management could do a better job at keeping things secret if they all walked around the office banging drums and wearing t-shirts that said, “Layoffs are coming!”

Don’t listen to rumors.
All rumors are true.

If all the VPs took a pay cut…
Ain’t gonna happen.

They're getting rid of all the deadwood.
Deadwood has an amazing, almost inexplicable ability to survive round after round of layoffs. You tell me why.

There nothing you can do to keep your job.
Not true. I suggest begging, bribery or blackmail.

“There will be no more layoffs.”
Until the ones next week.

A severance agreement is just a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo.
That’s why you should have a lawyer look at it.

And finally:

Who’s staying?
Relatives, the boss everyone hates and the guy who never seems to do any work.

Who’s leaving?
The workhorse, the only person at the agency who knows how to build a webpage and the junior copywriter.

"Free" lancing

Sorry there was no Beef this morning. I’ve been busy working on a freelance job.

So with that in mind, here is The Freelancer’s Bill of Rights:

I am not your employee.
If you want me to be available 24/7, you’d better start paying me a regular salary with benefits.

Everything is “On the Clock.”
You can ask me to “think about it over the weekend”, “keep it in the back of my mind” or “check out our website.” But I’m not doing it for free. If I am thinking about your product AT ALL, I’m billing you.

Do not pay me in product.
I’m sure your product is wonderful, but I will not accept it instead of cash. This is not 1873, we are not farmers and I don’t want your chicken.

You must give me information.
You guys live with this product every day. You know everything about it. I only know what you tell me. Don’t send me emails asking me to explaining the benefits of your new microchip if you don’t tell me what they are. For all I know, it could be a new color.

Don’t ask me to tell you who you are.
This usually happens with a new company. A client will ask you to come up with theme lines or tag lines for their logo. They will throw out lots of benefits, lots of strategies, lots of ideas. Then they will tell you to get to work.

What they are really asking you to do is to come up with their mission statement. If a company is asking a FREELANCER to define their business, they are in serious trouble. Run.

How to get a job in advertising

Chapter 5-The Interview

Interviewing is like a little show that you are putting on for your potential boss. You want to prove to him or her that you can dress yourself, show up on time and show up sober. You want to show them that you have a sense of humor, that you can talk about sports, that you can speak in (mostly) complete sentences.

Make sure you arrive at your interview at least 2 hours early. You want the boss to walk in at 9am and see you sitting on the waiting room couch reading your fifth Adweek. It makes you look needy, and bosses love needy employees. If the boss asks you if you want anything, like coffee or water, say, “No.” If they say, “Are you sure?” Say, “No” again.

Now the interview can begin. They may start by looking at your portfolio. The will flip through the pages quickly, only stopping at the truly mediocre ads. If the corner of a printout has come unglued from the page, they will frown and repeatedly press it down with their thumb. If this happens a lot, you probably don’t want to start planning your morning commute.

IMPORTANT! Never point out the spec work in your portfolio. But if they ask you if an ad is spec, be truthful!

Then they will ask you questions. All bosses are different (sort of), but here are a few questions you should be prepared to answer:

What is your biggest success?

What is your biggest failure?

What makes a good ad?

What is your favorite ad?

Are you sure you don’t want some water?

After they have asked you a bunch of questions, you may notice a lull in the conversation. This is very common. Ending an interview is a very difficult task. They can’t hire you on the spot (they have 15 more candidates to interview). They can’t tell you that you don’t have a chance (you might shoot them). They can’t fuck you (lawsuit). So they start to ramble. They talk about commuting times, office parties, football, TV shows. You can’t end the interview either. So the two of you just sit there, talking about last night’s Mad Men, and hoping that that this nightmare will end.

Eventually, the boss will awkwardly announce that they have another meeting. They will say they like your work. They will say they will be in touch. They will say a lot of things.

Get your parking validated at reception, climb in your car and head to the nearest bar.

You need a drink.

How to get a job in advertising

Chapter 4-The headhunter

Okay, you’ve got your book together, your resume is filled with action verbs (Oh, shit, I forgot to mention action verbs!) and your website is in the digg top 10. So now you’re ready to hit the street and go looking for an actual job, right?

Wrong. Looking for a creative position is not something for amateurs to attempt. To succeed, you need the help of professions. You need a headhunter.

There are basically types of headhunters, traditional and staffing agencies.

Traditional
You know those moves where the agent works his ass off to make sure the actor gets the role of a lifetime? Well that’s how traditional recruiters operate. Except you get to do all the work, and they get way more than 10%. Here’s how it works. Take your portfolio to a recruiter and show them your work. They will laugh at you. They will say your book is shit and you need more classes. You’ll go home, polish your book and return in a few weeks. They will laugh at you again, and say you’re not ready for big-time advertising. You’ll go home and polish your book some more. After a few rounds of this, they will begrudgingly agree to take you on as a client. It’s a cruel system but not as bad as…

Staffing Agencies
Sign-up at one of these places and you will never have an empty email box. Every morning you will get tons of emails that look like this:

Direct Mail Copywriter-Health Services and Fast Food-$35/hr-Mid-Town-Duration-4 days-Starts 9/23!

There’ll be fun jobs, cool jobs, really really really inappropriate jobs. Art directors will get listings for writing jobs, writers will get listings for graphic designing jobs. And the money always sucks. Remember, $35 an hour is NOT good money for a creative. So why is the pay so bad? You see, the agency skims a little for their services. Like 100% or 200%. You might take home $250 a day, while the agency is making $500. And if that freelance gig turns into a permanent position, then you’re really fucked. The staffing agency could get half your salary for a year or two. (Read the contract before you sign it!)

Now that you have your headhunter, you are ready to enter the world of advertising. All you have to do is make it thorough one more hurtle. One more armpit staining, dry-throat making, stress test. It’s time for…The Interview.

How to get a job in advertising

Chapter 3-The website

Everyone has a site today. Mothers, grandmothers, quilting bees, hate groups. And for a person looking to get a job in advertising, it is a goddamn necessity. Just do the math. If you have one portfolio, you can send it to one agency. If you have 20 portfolios, you can send them to 20 agencies. But if you have a website, every agency in the world can look at your stuff. You’ll be getting job offers from North Korea!

But before you start writing ads for the great leader, you have to actually put your site together. Logically there are two ways to do this:

1. Do it yourself
2. Have someone do it for you.

There is a third option. Try to do it yourself, but ask a web expert so many questions that all you are essentially doing is pushing keys. I highly recommend this method.

Before you do anything, you will need a domain name. Unfortunately all the good names are taken, so you can either go with a longwinded name like iamanartdirectorandiamlookingforajob.com. Or you can construct a complicated combination of letters, numbers and punctuation marks that kind of spell something (e.g. c@pywr1t3r.com).

Now all you have to do is ask your web expert how to construct a site, add copy, upload images and video, link to your email and add a pdf of your resume.

Done? Good. Now just sit back and wait for the offers to come in.

FAQ
Q: Should I tell potential employers that I built the site myself?
A: Of course.
Q: But what if they hire me as a web designer?
A: No problem. The expert who helped you with your personal site can now help you with your job assignments.
Q: Today’s post isn’t very good.
A: That’s not a question!

How to get a job in advertising

Chapter 2-The Portfolio

(Note: This is for creatives only. Account people can read Fortune or watch Mad Money.)

All new creatives need a spec portfolio. It’s your tool to show a potential employer just how creative you can be when you have no client, no boundaries and no budgetary or legal restrictions. Now first you’ll need a portfolio case…

Oh, I know. “Why do I need a case, Old Man? I don’t live in your meat universe. I’m 100% digital and all my shit’s going up on my website!”

Good point (asshat). But the people who will be looking at your work are old, very old. The kind of people who don’t use email because it’s too difficult to learn. The kind of people who hear the words, “video game” and instantly think of Pac-Man. The kind of people…you get the point. They want to hold your work in their wrinkled, liver-spotted hands. So you will need a physical portfolio.

So as I was saying, the best place to pick up a portfolio case is at your local art supply store. They will have an impressive selection and even more impressive prices. Seriously, $75 for a plastic notebook with clear sleeves. Are you fucking kidding me? I mean, sure, the emo girl working the register has impressive tits, but come on!

Now that you have your super-expensive case, it’s time to put some work in it. Everyone’s portfolio is different, but all junior books must include the following:

• An ad for an adult bookstore.

• An ad that looks exactly like one that appeared in this month’s Archive.

• An ad for a local business that features a huge celebrity (Shia LaBeouf loves Marge’s Muffins!)

• Lots of jokes about shitting your pants.

• An ad featuring pictures of sperm.

• A shaky TV spot you and you friends shot while you were completely baked on Northern Lights.

Okay, now print up your ads, stick them in the sleeves and you have your very first portfolio!

Now all you need is a website.

“Wait, you said we needed a portfolio!”

Yeah, well, you need a website too.

How to get a job in advertising

A sarcastic and extremely unhelpful guide to getting your first job in the exciting world of big-time advertising. Think you have what it takes? Then read on.

Chapter 1-The Resume

Yes, you need one. The people in charge still expect a one-page summary of your life, filled with typos, exaggerations and outright lies.

Name
Yours obviously (It helps if your last name is the same as the general manager’s)

Objective:
Account people should put something boring like, “An entry level position in the account services department of a major advertising agency.” Creatives should write something bizarre and pretentious like, “Pilot a spaceship to the outer reaches of the Delta Quadrant.”

Education
If you went to a school that no one has ever heard of, replace it with a more recognizable institution. Moon Park Community College=Harvard Business School

Employment
As an entry-level person, you will not have much applicable experience. That’s okay. What you want to avoid are those dreaded employment gaps. No agency wants to hire someone, print up a box of business cards, enter their birthday in the agency database, and then see them quit so that they can backpack through India. So fill in those gaps with impressive sounding experience. If you spent a year smoking pot and watching Friends, say you were doing research for a study on how mass media affects the youth market.

Awards
Did your 4th grade teacher ever give you a gold start? Put it in.

Interests
As an entry-level person, this will be a large part of your resume. The point is to make you sound like an interesting person. If you are looking for an account position, make it seem like you have been spending your whole life preparing to be in middle-management. List activities like golf, yachting and big-game hunting. If you’re going for a creative position, list a bunch of strange hobbies like bullfighting, midget tossing or cross-dressing. You MUST say that you play guitar!

Address
Do not leave this out. The person who receives your resume may want to come for a visit. You might want to get a dog.

Tomorrow! The portfolio.

Clothes make the madman

Oh shit, I am going to be late! Okay what am I going to wear today?

It’s hot, I could wear shorts. Fuck no! Remember what your first creative director told you, “Shorts send the wrong message.” Wear shorts and flip-flops to the office and the CEO will think you’re an intern. The only way you can get away with shorts is if you’re good, really good.

Kakis and a dress shirt? Maybe. Untucked or tucked? Well if I tuck, I’ll look like a Xerox salesman. But if I go untucked, I’ll look like an AE.

I know, jeans and a black golf shirt. Perfect! Wait a minute. Didn’t the account sup say something about the client visiting today? Fuck, I can’t remember. Well I can’t risk it. A golf shirt doesn’t say creative and it doesn’t say business. It says I’m a moron who hasn’t figured out how to dress like a grown-up yet.

Hey what about a suit? Shit, I’ve never worn a suit to the office before. Maybe it would be a good idea. The CEO might see me and think I look professional. “Who’s that sharp looking copywriter over there? I like to see a creative dressed up every now and then. Maybe I’ll take him with me on my next client presentation.” Or he might think, “Looks like our copywriter has an interview today. I’d better pump up his salary.” Right, that’s gonna happen. If I wear my suit to work, my boss will just think that another one of my relatives died.

Maybe I could put together an outfit. Something rally cool, really creative. Let’s see, black jeans, ironic t-shirt, sport coat, and….cowboy boots. Oh yeah, that’s it. Now I look like the last douchebag at the bar at closing time.

Shit! Now I’m really going to be late. What am I going to wear? Jeans, shorts, pants, t-shirt, slip-ons, short-sleeves, long-sleeves leather jacket, sweater, Tommy Bahamas, baseball hat…

He was late.

School is in session

Portfolio Center, The Book Shop, Al’s Discount Ad Classes. All creative advertising schools have two things in common; they cost a bundle and they take forever.

Want to learn all there is to know about creative advertising without all the time and expense? Well you’ve come to the right place. Here are the 5 simple rules of copywriting and art direction:


COPYWRITING

1. Don’t rhyme.

2. Outdoor headlines shouldn’t be longer than 8 words.

3. Only capitalize the seasons when you use personification. (e.g., The Summer rushed in like a sprinter on crack cocaine.)

4. Never use semicolons.

5. Make a joke or insightful statement that highlights the product’s benefit.


ART DIRECTION


1. Don’t put anything in the middle of the page.

2. If you want to grab their attention make it big. If you can’t make it big, make it red.

3. No one under 50 uses Futura, Helvetica or Times New Roman.

4. Make the type so tiny you can barely read it, then make it even smaller.

5. Create an attractive layout that highlights the product’s benefit.

There you have it, all the things you need to know to make it the exciting world of creative advertising.

Of course, you still need to learn how to deal with office politics. But hey, Portfolio Center doesn’t teach that either.

References Available

If you’ve been reading the news blogs lately, you may have noticed that our economy is not doing so well (the technical term is, “in the crapper.”) And that means it’s time for all good creatives to roll up their Volcom sleeves and update their resumes.

It’s a good weekend project. Just down a couple of beers, pick your poison (Word, Illustrator, Photoshop) and dive in.

But before you get too far, you’ll have to deal with a major dilemma. Just how creative should a creative’s resume be? (Cue Sex and the City theme music)

Should it have a standard layout, with Objectives, Education and Employment History? Or should it demonstrate your creative abilities?

It’s a tough one. Stick with the old-school style, and you’re liable to look like the dullest copywriter or art director on Earth. Seriously, agencies are crawling with people in suits who can write corporate-speak and create Word docs. Why would they want to hire you?

Of course going creative with your resume can cause problems too. Do it right, and you’ll look like a totally hip and cool creative. Do it wrong, and you’ll look like a pretentious douchebag.

Copywriters like to go for humor. Lots of retro pictures, funny descriptions and a general "hey, this whole resume thing is a load of shit” attitude. A more “emo” cw might write out a wild prose poem, with only vague allusions to advertising and their name buried in anagrams.

Art directors tend to use their resumes as tiny canvases where they can show off their design skills. An 8 ½ x 11 masterpiece filled with teeny-type surrounded by acres of white space (And if there’s room, which there won’t be, name and phone number).

(Oh, and if you do go creative, MAKE SURE IT’S AN ORIGINAL IDEA. You are not the first person to think of doing your resume in TV script form or as a piece of XML code.)

So what should you do? Create a piece of corporate crap or turn up the volume on the wacky knob?

I suppose you could just create different resumes for different situations. Send the straight one to the conservative agency and save the art for the hot shop.

But that seems like an awful lot of work. And it’s time for another beer.

How to get laid(off)

It starts as whispers in the hallways. Then the bosses have a series of mysterious meetings. And the next thing you know…your agency is laying people off.

During a recession, layoffs are a fact of life. So here are a few words of advice for our younger readers:

1. Do not panic! There is probably not a whole lot you can do if your time is up. Working late nights and weekends is not going to save your job. (But it might not be a good time to blow off work and head to the beach.)

2. It probably has nothing to do with your job performance. Here’s how 99% of layoffs work. Your boss’s boss tells him to cut his budget by X dollars. Then your boss sits down with a list of salaries and tries to hit that exact amount. He/she tries out several combinations until he/she hits the magic number. Remember that 1.7% raise you fought so hard for? Believe it or not, that could be the reason why you’re out on the street.

3. Luckily, you’re prepared. Your book and website are completely up… What do you mean they’re not? Then get to work! Immediately demand copies of all your print/TV/radio/web projects. Believe me, you don’t want to be scrambling for samples while you’re cleaning out your desk.

4. Do not doubt yourself. Remember, it is probably not your fault. Do not take a layoff as evidence that you have no talent.

5. Stay in touch with your former coworkers. Reply to their emails, meet them for drinks and update your facebook info. The more friends you have in this industry, the better.

6. You get one week of total booze/drugs debauchery. Any more than that, and you could end up in rehab.

7. Steal everything that’s not nailed down.

8. Dust off your secret project. You know the one I’m talking about.