Excellent advice > RT @BestSellerBob: Procrastination is expensive. It forces you to pay retail. Plan your spending ahead and save money.

What do you think? RT @IncMagazine: Should you expand your business, or save? http://ow.ly/31xtw Here's what you should consider.

Good thought for the day :) RT @BestSellerBob: Decide that wealth you create will make the world a better place.

Just finished my first post-marathon 4 miler. Knee is a little tender but other than that, all good. Now off to hear a presentation on ESOPs...

I did it! 10.17.2010

My Marathon

Because many of you have asked how it went...

Yes! I survived the Nike Woman's Marathon on October 17th and I am now a proud card carrying member of the 26.2 club!

Truth be told, it was the HARDEST thing I have ever done. Childbirth was WAY easier (I had drugs on board)!

I was just trotting along all the way to mile 21 when I started to fall apart (yes, the WALL). I was so exhausted that I stopped running completely and began a slowwwwwww, longggggg walk towards the finish line.

At one point, the sweeper car came by and said that if I stayed at that pace that I would have get picked up by the van for safety reasons because they were closing the course behind me! So what do you think I said back to him? "HELL NO!! I have come too far and there is no way in hell that I am getting in a van!" Try to imagine how tired and delirious I was at that point. I had been on the course for about 5 hours.

Then suddenly, I saw a vaguely familiar figure running towards me with a fresh lopey gate. As the figure got closer, I realized that it was my brother! He had run 4 miles up the course from the finish in the pouring rain to find me. As soon as I realized it was him I immediately broke down and began to cry! I was exhausted and in pain and he was a knight in shining armor! After a huge wet hug and a kiss, he said as a typical little brother would, "OK, knock it off, we have work to do!"

Then he made me put his ipod on and the tunes instantly gave me a boost. From there we shuffled, walked, trotted, sloshed, cursed and laughed the final 4.2 miles to the finish line. DONE!

I have never been more thrilled to eat a dry bagel in my life!!

At the finish I was greeted by my marathon-running dad with flowers, Dave, Georgia and Blake. My mom was there too with my young nephews but after waiting an hour for me in the rain she had to take the babies back to the car.

So my goal was to finish within the allotted time of 6 hours and 30 minutes and my final chip time was 6 hours and 27 minutes- and I wasn't even the last one on the course (thank goodness)!

It took me until Thursday morning to feel 100% again and I can't wait for my first post-marathon run on Wednesday. Not a bad recovery for 45 year-old muscles!

Overall, it was an amazing experience and I am thrilled that I took the challenge. Believe it or not, my running partner Lisa and I are signed up for another marathon on December 5th.

Hmmm... I have until November 5th to get a refund so we'll see! :)

Thanks to all for your encouragement and support...

xoxo, jgw

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Luv this! RT@BestSellerBob: Today is a gift. No refunds or exchanges. Make it a good one.

YAHOO!!! SFGate: The Giants win the pennant! S.F. beats Philly to head to World Series. http://sfg.ly/cu42tu

I know!! RT @IncMagazine: If you're selling your business, how do you attract the right buyer? Let us know at Ask Inc. http://ow.ly/2XWGb

Fw: Outspoken Media

Excellent read on email marketing... Enjoy! J

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From: Outspoken Media <rae@sugarrae.com>

Sender: noreply+feedproxy@google.com

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:06:59 +0000

To: <jegwhite@bluekeybma.com>

Subject: Outspoken Media

<><>

Outspoken Media

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Email’s Alive, But You’re Doing It Wrong Posted: 21 Oct 2010 09:29 AM PDT I'm a little behind on my blog reading. With SMX East, BlogWorld and other commitments landing side-by-side the past few weeks, I'm just getting back into the swing of things. One thing that caught my eye in the catch up was a post from the ever-brilliant Neil Patel about 7 Lessons Learned From Monetizing Quick Sprout. I have a huge amount of respect and awe for Neil so I was pretty surprised when I heard him declare that email marketing doesn't work. While I think Neil's a rock star, I'm going to disagree on this one. Email marketing isn't dead, but it does need to be woo'd for top results. If you want proof that email marketing isn't dead you can read the Epsilon Global Consumer Email Study that found that 87 percent of Americans said they use email as their primary tool for online personal communication. Or maybe check out our BlogWorld coverage from 2009 where Darren Rowse revealed his newsletter sees TWICE the number of conversions than his very well-trafficked blog. The problem isn't email; the problem is how marketers use email. If you read the comments of Neil's post you'll see him concede that it's possible he didn't see a benefit from email marketing because he "did it wrong" and didn't build his list before he launched his membership program. I think a lot of people who try to get into email marketing inevitably 'do it wrong' or simply don't give it enough time to succeed. To help fix that, here are some ways I think business owners can help themselves do email marketing right. Understand your customers' wants/needs Email marketing can work for a lot of different industry and business types, but it has to be built around your audience and what they want. For me, I respond to "huggy" emails like the newsletter Chris Brogan sends out to his audience. I like feeling that personal connection and take to emails that make me part of the brand. However, that approach isn't going to work for everyone [not everyone has the emotional problems I do]. It could be that your audience subscribes for advanced content, for discounts, to create connections, or to overall feel smarter. Ask your customers what they want…and then take it with a grain of salt. Instead, create some test emails and see which content users best respond to and what gets the most clicks. Like Neil states in his post, actions speak louder than words. Know when people read. Like, really know. It's fairly accepted that your niche has a preferred day/time of day when they like to ignore work and read their email. As a marketer, you want to learn what that day/time is for your audience. Marketing is, after all, delivering the right message at the right time. If you're a restaurant or a business that makes the bulk of its money on the weekend, then you'll probably fare better sending later in the week than on a Tuesday morning. But maybe not. To find out, experiment and watch your stats to see how people interact with your content. Watch open rates, clicks, visits to your site, etc. Encourage social sharing I've spoken with a lot of business owners who say they've decided to can their email marketing campaigns in favor of things like Twitter, blogs and Facebook strategies. Social sites, they say, are the future and where their customers are hanging out. First, remember that it's mostly the geeks who are taking to these social sites. Regular People still really, really like email, so don't totally discount it. Second, why not tie social elements into your email marketing to make it even stronger? GetResponse put together the Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report that examined 500,000,000 messages sent by more than 19,000 users to compare the click through rates of messages with links to social networks and ones without them. What they found was that messages with social calls had a 30 percent higher clickthrough rate. Even more, they found clickthrough rates increased AGAIN with the number of social media icons included. For example, results showed that messages with only one icon returned an average 8.70 percent CTR, while messages with 3 or more social sharing icons generated more than 28 percent higher CTR than messages with one icon, and 55 percent higher CTR than messages with no social sharing icons at all.  Dude! [Also read eMarketer's timely post today about email vs social media's effectiveness.] Create a killer email list We'll be digging deeper into this in an upcoming Outspoken Media post, but your email newsletter will live or die on the list you create. If you're buying lists, you're already dead. So stop. Instead, do it organically and reach out the people who would see value from the content you offer. To help kick start your list you'll want to: Give current customers incentive to join. What will this new interaction with your company give them that they can't get from your Web site? Attract new customers with free content, increased brand access, discounts, a larger voice, etc. Make it easy for others to sign up at check out, from your home page, on your blog, on your Facebook page, etc. Promote the newsletter at every brand touch point. Once you have your list, you want to segment your customers by putting them in buckets to help you send the right message to the right person. Persona marketing works and email is a great place to leverage it. Stop shooting yourself in the foot For email to work, you really need to understand your audience and their habits. You want to soak up every valuable statistic you can in order to better target your message and make it work for your audience. For example, many email programs will allow you to see what email client the recipient of your message is using. That lets you know if you should be designing your email specifically for a preview pane or if someone will have to physically open your message to view it. If you're dealing with a preview pane, then you can move your call to action above the fold so that recipients have immediate access to the most important piece of content. If most of your customers are reading your email in a third-party client, then you'll also want to stay away from large header images since most programs will block them by default. The more you can learn about your audience's reading habits, the more you can tailor your email to them and stop shooting yourself in the foot. Realize when you're spamming…and then stop it Stop me when this sounds familiar – you attend a conference or an event related to your industry. While you're there, you network with people and hand out some business cards. Over the next few weeks you start receiving newsletters from the companies of the people you spoke with. Yup. Those bastards lifted your email address off your business card and added you, without your permission, to their email list. This is spam. It's not even borderline spam. The same Epilson email study mentioned above found that 73 percent of Americans defined spam has "Any email I receive that I did not ask for or subscribe to". THAT is how your audience defines spam. Also, remember that people don't forget. Last year, 32 percent of US consumers surveyed said they stopped doing business with one or more companies due to poor email marketing practices. Just something to snack on. Those are just a few ways I think marketers could improve their email marketing efforts to help them see a better return. Because, despite what some may say in blog posts, email marketing DOES work but you have to spend some time creating your list, segmenting your customers and crafting your message. Otherwise, yeah, you're doing it wrong

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Prospects for Pennies: Finding Gold in Abandoned Ads - WSJ.com

I had a client who doubled his business this way. He would buy phone numbers from his competitors that were closing for pennies on the dollar and have their calls rolled over to his business. Fabulous idea!

Prospects for Pennies: Finding Gold in Abandoned Ads - WSJ.com

I like this! @BestSellerBob: Expand what is possible. Success is not who gets the bigger piece of pie, but who brings more pie to the table.

Here we go!!! Run Juls Run!!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

30 minutes to the Start- wish me luck!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Nervous, excited and now race ready so... lights out!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

My name on the marathon wall at Nike Town w/23,000 of my sister runners! So cool!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Race Weekend Has Begun!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

You have a business plan, but do you have an ACTION plan? Monthly, weekly, daily steps to achieve all of your goals. Measure results too!

Done! 2:49 in POURING RAIN...Yahoo!!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Here we go!!!!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Race morning weather report: RAIN!!! Where's my garbage bag?

Just finished delicious homemade fish tacos at our adorable bungalow. Now it's time to relax and let the body recharge for the big day...

Awesome run/walk running coach Jeff Galloway

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Runners at the Famous Pearl Bakery

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Morning before race morning and it's raining :( duh, it's Portland! Need a plan to keep my shoes dry today so I don't start out on Sunday sloshing @ 5:30am...

Carbo loading at VooDoo Donuts... Bacon & Maple is my fav!!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Beautiful Portland Bridge. Can't wait to run it!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

My Delish Cap from Stumptown!

Julie Gordon White, Principal
BlueKey Business Brokerage M&A
510.812.2233 Direct
License 01347013
www.bluekeybma.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juliegordonwhite

www.pinkbizbroker.blogspot.com

Sent Via BlackBerry :)

Portland Half weekend has begun! Just landed. Great running weather & the team @home is busy sourcing buyers for our Hungarian client. Fab!

So much marketing to do, so many buyers to reply to, so many miles to run... Portland, here I come!

Went live with 2 new business. 1)Fun green lifestyle store. 2) Coffee/Tea and Roaster w/$248K in earnings. Sweet! Ping me for an NDA ASAP!

HUGE CONGRATS to our SF GIANTS!!!

GO GIANTS!!