I have been using Craigslist.org for many years to sell and buy many things (I never use Ebay or StubHub aymore). I have been successful in finding new employees for my companies and tenants for my rental properties. Needless to say I am a HUGE fan!

My admiration for CL grew even greater, a few weeks back when I was in a crunch. My family and another family were traveling to the Boston area to spend the weekend at the Life Is Good Festival (great time BTW) and around 9pm the night before we were informed that the third family that was suppose to join us had a family emergency and would not be able to go….immediately I thought how can I get these sold and not lose money before tomorrow at 11am since they were still selling tickets at the event. Fortunately the CL microchip that has been implanted in my brain (years ago) kicked in and said  “Post them on Craigslist”…..so by 11pm that evening sitting in our hotel room on my iPad I had the tickets posted slightly under the sales price.

By 8am the next morning my phone and my wife’s phone began to ring with calls and text messages of people wanting the tickets and even through Sunday people were still wanting to see if we had them available. We ended up selling them to the first person that called us.

I did not make money selling the tickets however, our losses were less by putting a simple free ad on Craigslist.org.

So before you do anything…..try Craigslist first, you might be surprised.

I don’t know exactly who did the study… but I remember hearing a statistic one time that working in an advertising agency is one of the world’s most stressful occupations. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with that, but I’m pretty sure that those working in any type of advertising agency won’t disagree.

At ProspectMX, we try to do a variety of activities to counter balance the stress of working for one of the busiest web marketing companies around. And almost all of us have different things we do to relieve stress.

Some of us carry Nerf guns around the building and shoot darts at co-workers. Some of us wear t-shirts with funny one-liners that only geeks can enjoy.

And some of us, well… some of us smash pies in the face of our bosses.

Last week, as the culmination of a series of events and activities that raised over $1600 for March of Dimes, the co-founders of ProspectMX donned trash bags and had all of their employees gather outside during a lunch break for an especially sweet event.

Three lucky employees got to live the dream with an opportunity to “pie” Rory Wilfong, Steve Young, and Dave Conklin. And it was all done in the name of raising money for March of Dimes.

Luckily, we caught the event on film…

Rory, Steve, and Dave (along with COO John Fraunfelter, Sales Manager Jim Bradford and Customer Success Specialist Mike King of a real estate marketing company) got pied by individuals who placed the highest bid on a pie during a week long silent auction fundraiser held for company employees in April. All funds raised during the silent auction were given to March of Dimes.

All proceeds raised and donated to the March of Dimes helps fund research and efforts to reduce premature births, birth defects, and infant mortality. To date, ProspectMX has helped raise over $1600 to benefit the March for Babies campaign.

Normally, we keep the commentary on our blog related to the microcosm of internet marketing and how it can help your business succeed. Sometimes, however, a cause is too good to pass up mentioning. Esbenshade’s, a garden center and greenhouse located in Litiz, PA - is teaming up with Youth with a Mission International (YWAM) to provide these temporary houses to the homeless in Haiti.

What Are Hoop Houses?

Hoop houses are low cost, easy to assemble greenhouses. To simply explain it, a hoop house is a greenhouse with a plastic roof draped over plastic piping. The hoop houses Esbenshade’s has sent to Haiti are pre-fabricated and customized at the company’s greenhouse.

According to the team at Esbenshade’s, nearly one million temporary homes are needed to shelter the homeless earthquake survivors in Haiti. To help, they have designed and constructed 14- x 16-foot “hoop houses” that can provide a temporary home for a family of up to five.

How Esbenshade’s Is Helping Haiti

Two hundred homes left a Florida port on Monday. When the houses arrived at the port of St. Marc in Haiti, a team of local YWAM personnel and construction volunteers from the Lancaster-area met the shipment. In total, YWAM plans on constructing 100 homes per acre - in total providing about 1,000 homes for Haiti’s homeless.

Esbenshade’s would greatly appreciate any financial contributions from the public to help continue the Hoop Houses for Haiti effort. The cost for one home (including materials and shipping) is around $300. Anyone in the Lancaster-area who is interested in volunteering their time and energy to assemble the hoop house materials in Litiz are also appreciated. Of course, volunteers are also in high demand in Haiti - for hoop house assembly and a variety of other causes.

Anyone looking for more information on Esbenshade’s Hoop Houses for Haiti program should call 717.626.7007 or visit Esbenshades.com.

Well, it’s that time of year again, and yes, this is the obligatory “Happy Thanksgiving” post. But in all seriousness, as we enter the holiday season, it’s important to reflect on the past year and all the things you have to be thankful for. Quite frankly, it’s something you should do on a regular basis, but let’s face it, most of us only worry about it from November to January.

Tis the Season for Thanksgiving…

I’d love it if the team and our readers could take some time and just give a shout out about what they’re thankful about. At the risk of sounding like a kiss ass, I am certainly thankful to be in the position I am here at ProspectMX. I work with some great people, I’m constantly learning new things… and I’ve got seniority I can lord over other people… kidding, kidding (sort of).

For real though, the internet marketing field is not only an exciting one, but incredible in it’s flexibility and need for creative thinking. Where else can you go out for a few drinks with your coworkers and wind up with tons ideas? Some are brilliant, some are hilarious, some are ridiculous, but all useful. Plus, once executed, those ideas can result in thousands of dollars in revenues from traffic, links, media notice, etc.

It’s a remarkable industry, and it’s nice to be a part of something that continues to grow and evolve.

Thanksgiving Fun Facts

I’m a sucker for fun or little known facts that have no practical use… so, here are some I found to add to my repertoire (and which are guaranteed to make you feel fat!):

• The average person consumes over 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day. (And we wonder why Americans are overwhelmingly overweight…)
• Turkeys can drown if they look up while it’s raining.
• American eat over 530 million pounds of Turkey on Thanksgiving, while more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten on that day.
• Ripe cranberries of good quality will always bounce. (Um, you may want to wash before eating if you experiment with this…)
• Domesticated turkeys can’t fly, but wild turkeys can fly over 55mph for short distances.
• Turkeys can have heart attacks. Apparently when the Air Force conducted test runs and broke the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.

Dang… I feel really, really bad for turkeys all of a sudden. But luckily not quite bad enough to go vegetarian this year. I can’t vouch for the validity of some of those facts… credit goes to the 1-800 Flowers website.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving everyone!

Cool news from out of the ProspectMX camp…

One of our company’s co-founders, Steve Young, has been named to Central Penn Business Journal’s (CPBJ) annual “Forty Under 40″ list for 2009.

Young is the second ProspectMX co-founder to earn this recognition from CPBJ. In 2006, Rory Wilfong was also honored with the same distinction.

While Young plays an important role within ProspectMX, he also manages the day-to-day operations of an Inc. 500  company; the first company Steve, Rory, and Dave established in 2003 that was a finalist for CPBJ’s Emerging Business of the Year Award in 2006.

Young was selected for this year’s Forty Under 40 for “his commitment to business growth, professional excellence and the community.”

Nominations for the Forty Under 40 program ended in late April, and a panel of four judges who have all won the award in the past selected the top 40. This is the 15th time CPBJ has honored the region’s top young business leaders.

Young and the other 39 recipients will be honored at an awards reception on October 23. The winners will also be featured in a special supplement to the October 30th edition of the Central Penn Business Journal.

Central Penn Business Journal is an award-winning business newspaper for Central Pennsylvania that provides more information, analysis and advice for business than any other local publication. The Journal has served the Central PA community for 23 years.

Congrats Steve!