More Than WE Know

Trick or Treat???

Can you tell the difference??

As a followup to my article on phishing, I thought I’d share this recent example I encountered.

I received this email this week supposedly from services (at) paypal (dot) com which certainly looked like a legitimate email address and in fact got through my junk filter.

I was amazed at how brazen the email was in trying to intimidate the reader into providing debit/credit card information. Their reasoning makes no sense and their facts are incorrect - but they say it so authoritatively that you are tempted to comply!

I’ve copied the entire email below so you can see an example of how convincing some of these phishing emails can be. I have removed the links that were included in the email but as you can see there were two of them - both looking like they were pointing to PayPal but were in reality pointing to a Portuguese site!!

I sent this email to spoof (at) Paypal (dot) com and received confirmation that it was Phish and assurance that they would work to disable it.

If you want more info on how to spot a fish, you can take Paypal’s Fight Phishing Challenge at https://www.paypal.com/fightphishing to learn 5 things you should know about phishing. You’ll also see what Paypal is doing to help fight fraud every day.

Fraudulent email: (if you receive this - don’t respond!!)

Dear valued PayPal Customer,

Due to recent fraudulent transactions, we have issued the following security requirements.

It has come to our attention that 98% of all fraudulent transactions are caused by members using stolen credit cards to purchase or sell non existant items. Thus we require our members to add a Debit/Check card to their billing records as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. Your Debit/Check card will only be used to identify you. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the PayPal service. However, failure to confirm your records will result in your account suspension.

We are requesting this information to verify and protect your identity. Federal regulations require all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record identification from all persons opening new accounts or obtaining ongoing payment services. This is in order to prevent the use of the U.S. banking system in terrorist and other illegal activity. For these reasons, PayPal will utilize services provided by various credit reporting agencies to verify the information you submit to us.

Once you have updated your account records your pending PayPal account transactions will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your billing records please proceed to our secure webform by clicking here.

Thank you for your time,
PayPal Billing Department.

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences here

PayPal Email ID PP247—-end of fraudulent email———–So, what about you? Have you seen any phish lately? Been caught by any? Share your experiences and tips below:

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As a follow up on the discussion about effective time management, I was going to write an article about Virtual Assistants, but I found this wonderful article written by Tracy Phaup and decided I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Written by Tracy A. Phaup

Many executives and self-employed business people often find themselves in a position where they are struggling and they sometimes get stuck there. Here are the top 10 signs that you need an assistant to turn it around.

1. Creativity has dropped.

In today’s marketplace being creative is almost a necessity in order to be able to drive a successful business. Competition is fierce and customers are inundated with information.

Protecting your creativity and designing an environment that nurtures it could make or break you in the market place and hiring an assistant could be the deal maker you’re hoping for.

2. You feel overwhelmed.

Nobody operates at their best when they’re feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes just being able to delegate some of the busy work can create just the space you need to start working smarter - not harder!

3. Details are being overlooked.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said that “God is in the details”, and certainly projects and tasks run a lot smoother when attention is paid to them.

Having an assistant working in harness with you means that two pairs of eyes - not one - are looking out for the details.

4. Opportunities are being missed.

If you find yourself smacking yourself on the forehead on a regular basis because you’ve realized you’ve dropped the ball on a great opportunity then you are an ideal candidate for a personal or virtual assistant.

Sometimes self-employed business owners feel that they can’t afford to hire the help they need, but if you’re missing opportunities then maybe you can’t afford not to.

5. The doing has overtaken the managing.

It takes leadership to get to the finish line of running a successful business. If you’re spending all of your time “in the trenches” and never get to the business of actually managing your business then you could be in some very risky territory.

When was the last time you devoted a significant amount of time and energy focusing on managing your business?

If it’s been a while, you might really want to consider taking immediate action on hiring an assistant.

6. You simply recognize the opportunities it offers.

If you’re looking forward to working with an assistant but something is stopping you, then how can you remove the obstacle to making it happen?

Now is always the time to take action.

7. The busy work is consuming your time and energy.

If you spend your entire day working like a demon but don’t feel that you’ve accomplished anything meaningful by the end of the day it may be because the busy work is consuming your valuable resources.

Beginning a brand new relationship with an assistant certainly has a learning curve for both of you, but bringing your assistant up to speed is an investment; throwing your time and energy at the busy work isn’t.

8. You have lots of great ideas that you don’t follow through on.

I’m incredibly creative and brainstorming is one of my strengths, so I know that for me even if I had a battalion of personal assistants I’d still never get to take action on all of my ideas, but having an assistant not only frees up more of my time to take action on the best ones, it also gives me a partner to help me sift out what the best ideas are from the ideas that I find exciting but wouldn’t be a profitable use of my time and energy.

A personal assistant can be a lot more than someone to delegate to if you’re willing to develop the relationship. They could turn out to be your most committed cheerleader as well as your coach and advocate for your highest success.

9. There are never enough hours in the day.

It can be a lot of fun to be engaged in a challenging life and constantly stretching to meet its demands, but if you never get to end your day feeling like a winner then it’s time to step back and re-evaluate how you’re spending your time.

10. You’ve reached a frustrating impasse.

If you’re just throwing up your hands and feeling like you don’t even want to play in the sandbox anymore, you need to expand your team. And maybe the team member you need to add is a personal or virtual assistant.

How could an assistant help to move you through the impasse?

Your partner in saying “YES!” passionately to life,
Tracy A. Phaup
http://www.tracy-phaup.com
———————–

Tracy does a great job of describing the situations that a Virtual Assistant could be useful. The beauty of the arrangement is that you can add help without having the responsibility of a full time employee and a regular payroll. You can hire a virtual assistant for only the hours that you need and for only the tasks that you want - leaving you free to focus on the areas in which you add value to your business.

What about you? Do you have an assistant? What would you use one for? Would you consider hiring one? Why or Why not?

 “It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”

- Henry David Thoreau

 Another week, another goal check-in.  Those of you who read my Saturday discussion of time management     know that I had a bit of an epiphany. 

Time Management isn’t just about finding ways to cram more tasks onto your to-do list, it’s to really ensure that your daily actions are in line with your higher values.

I had already started down that road a few weeks ago when I decided to focus more on my health than on my daily to-do’s.  Now, I’m taking it a step further and ensuring my daily to-do’s are aligned with my larger goals. 

So, Saturday I threw out some urgent tasks and replaced them with ones that are aligned with how I want to live my life - building my business and spending time with family.

Amazingly, after spending all that time on Saturday indulging my passions, I woke up Sunday morning filled with energy to knock off a few of the more mundane tasks that had been on my original list.

I did some quick mental calculations and divided them into several categories:

Delegate -  Groceries, Gas - my husband took over running these errands as he had a few errands of his own to run anyway.  

Divide  - My husband and I both pitched in to pick up clutter, sort through mail and do laundry.  Some  tasks become much less tedious when shared.

Delay -  Since I’ll be traveling for the next three weeks, it’s not urgent that my dry cleaning get taken right away.  

Drop - Some things just aren’t worth doing after all - I was going to organize some files and scan some photos into the computer; But the reason that seemed so important at the time, now escapes me.  

Do - had some office work that only I could do. Did it.

So, my suggestion for this week is to look at your goals and plans for the week.

First, make sure you are putting your health first - eat, sleep, exercise.

Second, ensure your main tasks align with the way you want to live your life. Ask yourself if I got the whole list done, would I still just be treading water, or would I actually be moving in the direction of my dreams?

Third, for the remainder of the tasks - what I think of as maintenance - or the minimum level to run your life and business - see first if you can Delegate them, Divide them, Delay them, or Drop them. And then, and only then, after considering all your other options - then Just Do Them.

Later this week, I’ll continue this discussion with suggestions for finding creative ways to delegate tasks or otherwise get help.

How is your to do list looking? Is it aligned with your goals? Are you focusing on the things that only you can do? 

This week’s carnival includes some really great articles for Women Entrepreneurs.

At the top of the list is the 25th edition of the fantastic Carnival of Small Business Issues, “The Carnarian Edition” hosted this week by John Furst at the E-Biz Booster Blog. It’s hard to pick just one from this selection, but I think Women Entrepreneurs will be both inspired and amused by Yaro Stanak’s article on How to Be an Effective Procrastinator at Entrepreneur’s Journey. Look for this carnival to be hosted at MoreThanWEKnow on Nov 20th!!!

Next up is the 55th edition of Working at Home on the Internet Carnival The don’t-miss article for Women Entrepreneurs is The 13 Top Financial Mistakes that Entrepreneurs Make presented at the Nitro Marketing Blog. This article is the first in a series, and identifies the first two mistakes. It is intriguing enough that you are going to want to come back to read all 13 mistakes - I know I will!!

The E3 Carnival of Success Principles at E3 Success Systems has a lot of inspiring articles. One that Women Entrepreneurs will want to be sure and read is Business Success and Life Tip (#12) - 15 minute increments submitted by Lorraine Cohen at Powerfull Living. Find out how much you can get done in 15 minutes!!

The October edition of Mothers in Business Carnival is up at My Day Off. All overworked Women Entrepreneurs (that would be all, right?) should read Kathleen Gage’s article Are You Losing Money by Doing Your Own Work? posted at Street Smarts Marketing. How much money are you losing by doing everything yourself?

The 28th Edition of the Carnival of Network Marketing has been published at Network Marketing Posts. Women Entrepreneurs interested in more great advice on networking will enjoy Christopher J Brunner’s article on the 411 of Schmoozing at GreatFXBusinessCards. The great thing about this article is that you get a two-for-one. Christopher is actually reviewing and adding his opinions to an article by Guy Kawasaki on the power of schmoozing called Get In Good.

That’s it for the carnival this week - hope you meet some new people and get some new ideas!!

It’s been a cold, rainy Saturday in Connecticut which gave me the perfect excuse to do what I would have wanted to do anyway - curl up with a book.

However, I was able to convince myself that I was being productive since the book I chose was Julie Morgenstern’s Time Management from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule–and Your Life. I rationalized that the time I spent reading it would be saved by the improved time management I would get as a result!!

(hopefully more valid reasoning than the tale about eating celery because the calories spent in chewing outweighed the calories in the celery itself!)

In the end, I didn’t exactly accomplish more tasks - instead I got a different understanding of my relationship with the tasks on my list.

Julie’s book doesn’t just give tips and lists and spreadsheets for organizing your life into manageable chunks. Although her book does have “time maps” as she calls them, it also gives plenty of weight to the idea that there might just be an underlying reason for the mismanagement of time. In other words, I might not be getting some things done, because I’m getting something out of not having them done.

Julie identifies several psychological obstacles which she reviews in detail. Among them are:

#1 - You have unclear Goals and Priorities

#2 - You are a Conquistador of Chaos

#3 - You have a fear of Downtime

#4 - You need to be a Caretaker

#5 - You have a fear of Failure

#6 - You have a fear of Success

#7 - You have a fear of Disrupting the Status Quo

#8 - You have a fear of Completion

#9 - You have a need for Perfection

#10 - You have a fear of Losing Creativity

I really liked this outline of psychological obstacles to time management, because I think they dovetail with the main psychological obstacles to business success. It makes sense that the two are closely linked - we avoid getting things done that might help advance our business for all of these reasons.

Time management, like business management, involves self-awareness. It is not enough just to put more and more tasks on our to-do lists and carve our days into smaller and smaller slices. Instead we need to become aware of our motivations and our fears. What is driving us?

In my opinion, the best way to gain clarity is to spend some time with yourself (perhaps a rainy Saturday afternoon), take out a paper and pen (or a laptop) and write out what would it look like if you really accomplished everything on your to do list.

Would your life look the way you want it to? Or would you simply have gotten a lot of things done but not made any real progress?

If it’s the former then you are on the right track. You are ready to figure out what is holding you back - fear of failure? a need for perfection? worry about how your success will affect everyone around you? putting everyone else first?

Whatever it is, you need to recognize it and own it before you put any more energy into crossing items off your to do list.

And what if the life you imagine after your to-do list is complete, is still not the life you want? Then you need to go back and start over on your to do list. Take off all the items that other people have added, and all of the “should’s” that you have added.

Ask yourself - What are the things you want to do, need to do, feel compelled to your very soul, to do? Those are the ones that belong on that list.

After giving this question some thought, I realized that my most important goals are to advance my business and find ways to integrate it into my life. As a result, my list today went from:

laundry, pick up clutter, clean the bathroom, go to dry cleaners, go to grocery, get gas, fax letter to the bank, scan photos, and do some office work.

To:

Read. Write. Spend time with my husband.

It wasn’t the most efficient way to spend my day. But it feels much more satisfying than if I had crossed every item off of my to do list. I may not have accomplished everything, but I accomplished the most important things.

Understanding the distinction between being efficient and being effective is the most important key to achieving entrepreneurial success.

What’s on your to do list? Does it align with your overall vision and goals, or is it simply a list of tasks that seem to never end and never get you anywhere? Or do you think the answer lies somewhere inbetween?