Life on the Road

With a new baby in the house, and having been quite ill lately, I haven’t been able to do anything with my home businesses.  I’ll go inactive with Tupperware at the end of this week if I don’t get $250 worth of orders in.

Would you consider helping?  There are lots of great sales and promotions going on…  Check it out at:  Tupperware Blitz (a company site - orders are shipped direct to your door!).

As a thank you for helping me out, anyone who orders before 12 noon on Friday, May 30th will be entered in a drawing for a terrific F.R.E.E. Tupperware package

And anyone who orders $25 worth or more will receive a F.R.E.E. gift directly from me!

Thank you!!

- Tiffany
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Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
                      - I Corinthians 10:31. NKJV

We interrupt this fun family blog to bring you a bit of business info.

This tutorial was put together by my good friend and successful online business owner, Alicia Staz (check out the links to her gorgeous jewelry in her credits at the end!).  It explains what everyone with an online store needs to understand about complying with the laws protecting consumers’ credit card information.

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PCI Compliance is required…this is not an option.  Anyone who accepts credit cards must comply with certain standards based on the number of transactions you complete each year.  It doesn’t matter if you use a payment gateway to process your cards or do them manually.  It doesn’t matter if you use a shopping cart or PayPal… you still must commit to keeping all data that is collected safe.  The PCI Security Standards Council has all the information you will need.  Personally I didn’t get into the technical aspect of it.  I knew I needed it and so I set out to get it done.

Who does PCI scanning?

I happen to have the Hacker Safe certification through Scan Alert - this includes PCI scanning at no extra charge.  Scan Alert also offers a PCI scan for $149 a la carte, so you don’t have to have buy the Hacker Safe certification to get it through them.  That said, there are many organizations that offer a PCI scan, just Google it.  

If you use PayPal, they have partnered with ScanAlert, a Visa and MasterCard-certified PCI vendor, to help their customers comply at no cost for the first year. Enroll online with ScanAlert at: https://www.scanalert.com/SignUp.sa?oc=9673.

So what does PCI scanning entail?  

When you have your domain scanned for PCI compliance it has nothing to do with PayPal, your shopping cart or anything else.  That is a huge misconception!  I left my host because she thought the PCI vulnerabilities had to do with my shopping cart, not her servers.  

When a company scans your domain, they are scanning the servers that your domain resides on.  They do all kinds of checks and challenges to try to “get into” the server - similar to what a hacker might do.  It will completely mess up your website statistics… they are hitting pages randomly, every day.  They are trying to find nonexistent pages so your “404 not founds” will be off the charts.  I know someone said there is a way to block them from your stats program (not register any visits by scanalert.com) but I haven’t figured that out yet.  If anyone else know how to do this, please let me know!

Which hosts are PCI compliant?

Not many that I know about.  The only two options I considered seriously were Hand-On Webhosting and A2 Hosting.  I Googled it and had to really search for hosts that were compliant.  I emailed my list of questions to the ones I found, and surprisingly only a handful got back to me with answers.  

Here is my personal checklist for a host:

1. Do they maintain their own servers?  If not, can they tell me where they are physically located?

2. Do they allow spammers or adult sites to reside on their servers?  If so, it could negatively affect my search engine ratings.

3. Are they Hacker Safe compliant?

4. Are they PCI Compliant?  If they are PCI Compliant they are Hacker Safe compliant because PCI compliance is a step more intense than Hacker Safe.

5. Are their prices reasonable?

6. Are there any negative reports about them online? I Googled the names…

7. Have they been in business for several years?  This is my business and I don’t want someone else’s hobby ruining my business because it goes under.  That is why I want to be with a host that owns the physical servers.  Chances are, if they have invested that kind of money in severs, they are in it for the long haul.

What are the next steps?

Once you choose a host that is compliant and get your site moved to their servers, you will still have vulnerabilities to address.  A PCI scan generates vulnerabilities that may or may not be valid for your particular host.  They are testing based on the worst case scenario and in many cases, there is a reason the host does things in a particular manner, and they have other measures in place to protect the data.  

Once I had a PCI Compliance report that listed the vulnerabilities, I emailed it to A2 Hosting’s Technical Support and they typed up answers to address the issues.  Once I had responded to the issues and completed the PCI Questionnaire, I was considered compliant.  Since I have less than 20,000 transactions a year, I am only required to have quarterly scans to be in compliance.  I printed my compliance report and don’t need to print another one for 3 months.

What is the PCI Questionnaire? 

It is just a list of questions you need to answer that ensures that you personally (and any other people your company employs) are doing everything necessary to protect the cc data.  Do you store it on a secure server, do you password protect the data, etc.

I think that about does it.  If you have any other questions, I can try to answer them, but I am by no means an expert.  I just did what I had to do to become compliant and I think I have detailed it all here.  If any of you want to forward this to others I don’t mind… I only ask that you maintain my signature line as part of the article. : )
Alicia E StazOwner, Designer, Beaded Royalty

http://www.beadedroyalty.com

Visit my blog at: 

http://www.handmade-sterling-jewelry.com

This is the fourth in a series of “Photo Project” themes being posted as part of a contest over at Two Moms in a Blog (go check it out!). 

The assignmet for today was to dislay any photo project, past or present.

The first thing I thought of was the collage of auto advertising for our business that I made from cars in the parking lot at our national convention in Dallas back in July:

This was something we used in our sales team newsletter, to help show the options in advertising - as well as the dedication of those who are successful in the business.

I hope you’ll enjoy this little story I read recently.  It’s cute, but the question it asks us is profound… 

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An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”

The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”

The Mexican said, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.”

The tourist then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos.  I have a full and busy life.”

The tourist scoffed, “I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

The tourist replied, “15 to 20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The tourist laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions? Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos“

Just an advance warning that there may be some periodic downtime over the next couple of days as this domain is migrated over to a new hosting provider.  Unfortunately, time constraints do not permit me to do this in a more orderly fashion.  Read on… 

I’m not one to call people out in public, but I do think the public deserves to know when a company is behaving badly.

For the last couple of years, my websites have all been hosted at Angel Towns.  Although there is not a lot said about, they appear to be a Christian company - Bible verse on the homepage, restrictions about your site content, etc.  And best of all - Cheap! 

So, as I say, things have been going smoothly for a couple of years now.  I have a few minor complaints about the ease (or lack) of using certain features, but I always figured that was part of the price I paid, for the price I paid… if you know what I mean.

Then earlier this week I got an error when I tried to upload a photo to a post I ws writing about Jewel’s First Haircut (very cute!).  After tracking it down in the WordPress Support Forums, I concluded that it must be a PHP Memory limitation on my server.

I logged into my cPanel and checked, and sure enough there was an 8 MB limit there (just as the Forum users suggested), and it was not configurable on the user side.  Immediately I emailed Angel Towns Support, asking why this limit had suddenly appeared, and requesting that it be raised or removed.

The email I got back was probably a form letter, and it explained that the 8 MB limit had been placed on all hosting accounts “as a temporary measure,” and it would be removed “soon.”  Further inquiry yielded the clarification that it would probably be lifted in about two weeks.

Two weeks?!

I can’t post any photos larger than a thumbnail for two weeks?  Not only is that not acceptable for my personal posting, but I have a commitment to Guest Host a really great contest for a popular blog on Monday (make sure to check it out!).

So I emailed again, explained my predicament, and informed them that if they did not remove or raise the limit on my account (which I never agreed to when I signed up, BTW!) I would be forced to move my hosting business elsewhere - and fast.  Well, they never even responded…  Not good business practice, nor good Christian ethics.

I have begun the process of transferring the entire domain to a new provider.  1 & 1 has great features, great service (already used it!), and … Cheap! 

The move includes our business information page at http://www.tiffanyblitz.com, and two complete subdirectory installations of Wordpress which house this blog (http://www.tiffanyblitz.com/blog) and our sales team training website.  Whew!

Keep your fingers crossed that the process goes smoothly, and I’ll be ready for Monday’s BIG CONTEST POST!

I keep asking myself that, but I’m not entirely sure how we ended up here.

We’re in Middletown, which, aptly named, lies in the middle of Cincinnati and Dayton. 

There are a lot of gret opportunities for our business around this area, so we thought we should check it out.  It also looks like an affordable place to buy a fixer-uper house - something we’re considering for the next year or so due to Baby Blessing (due in March).

We were originally thinking of Dayton, but driving around there yesterday quickly nixed that.  At some 200,000 population, it is far more “city” than we want to deal with.  After living so long in Los Angeles (me) and San Diego (Wolf), we understand all the benefits - and don’t think it’s worth it.

Now looking for a bargain, obviously one doesn’t end up in the most upsacle parts of town…  but, really!  One neighborhood we were looking at, Wolf stopped to chat with a man standing outside his home.  The man proceeded to explain how there were lots of nice people in the neighborhood, but the house next door belonged to a peddler of illicit narcotic substances, and there was a man shot in the yard last week…

Ummmm…   No.

So we’ve moved out to the middle ground.

Trivia:  Did you know that Ohio is the only state whose flag is not a rectange?

Might be fun to live in Ohio, just for that! 

Unfortunately, with all the heat warnings and what-not, we aren’t able to fly by the seat of our pants quite as much as we often do.  Boondocking isn’t an option, since our generator won’t run the a/c in extreme conditions.

So we’re actually parked at a mobile home park, where they are willing to rent out their vacant lots to RVs on a daily basis.  What a friendly bunch of people - the man across the street even came over while we were getting parked and gave us each a cold water bottle!  Quite a change from the unwholesome image “trailer parks” often conjure.

Well, off to look at more neighborhoods - and of course put out more business flyers.  It’s nice to be able to get our work done without ever having to go out of our way…

From the hundred things swirling around in my brain, let’s talk about … -POP-

It hit me like a ton of paperclips. For over a year now, Tiffany and I have poured everything into our AmeriPlan business. Whenever I talked to new people about the opportunity, I would tell them how this opportunity was better, and how it was different, and all the great things about the company and its services. I wanted to give them the whole picture. I wanted to give a master presentation. I didn’t see the forest for the trees.

Yes, I think AmeriPlan has the greatest opportunity today, BUT …

All newcomers to any work at home business need to know one thing. OK, maybe two: 1) How much will I need to invest? and 2) Can I succeed?

Question number one will have a different answer for any given opportunity. Also, each person looking into a home business will have to work within their own budget. But as for question number two, I could have given the best presentation about our business and won the hearts of Americans everywhere, but that doesn’t show a new person that THEY can do the same thing. You need a proven system, a system that anyone can use and become successful. My skills (or lack thereof) should not be what makes or breaks my business. I need to step down and not try to be Mr. Congeniality. I need to put on a winning attitude and lead people through a proven system.

Yes, AmeriPlan is a great home business that you can start for only $95. This opportunity allows you to build a business that is yours and you can will it or sell it at any time. You can have a comfortable income working part time or full time. And best of all, you can build a lifetime, residual income in two to four years that will allow you to realize your dreams and retire (not work as hard, some folks don’t like the word retire). In other words, you can build it up to an income level you are comfortable with, stop working, and you will continue to get a check every month. Just go to this link at AmeriPlan or call 212-461-8784 and listen to a short, recorded message about the opportunity we offer.

And there you see the proven syste: Give an introduction and lead the person to a third party information source. I don’t need all of the information. I just need the system. There is of course more to it as you go on into any opportunity, but it’s just more of the proven methods of succeeding in your own home business. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel or prove YOURSELF as the expert. Just prove the system.

 And all these things shall be added unto you.

My good friends over at 4fabmoms have put together a terrific resource for anyone looking into a Home Business.

Visit their blog to read about Direct Sales, and download Your Key to Success - an eBook with some information and articles about Direct Sales, as well as profiles of 11 companies to consider.

(Yeah, we’re in there…)

Gwen Elliott lost everything in a house fire - including her only child.  To add insult to injury, her insurance company will not be covering the loss.

She’s a well-liked member of some of the online mom networking groups, and although I don’t know her personally I am certainly praying for her through this difficult time. 

If you’d like to help, or find out more, visit this site, put up by the team of WAHMs who have banded together to help - The Gwen Elliott Relief Fundraiser. 

I’m not personally part of the group organizing the relief effort, just a fellow WAHM who wants to help out.  We sent off a box of Tupperware to her, and I’m currently trying to figure out how we can do something to help with the AmeriPlan benefits…

Sorry for the absence the last few days.  We made it safely to Bowling Green, Kentucky, which is SO much nicer than crime-ridden Memphis!  It’s weird, but even though I show “4 bars” great reception with my Verizon Wireless Broadband card, I cannot get online here.  (So I’m in a smoothie place!) 

Here’s a nice little video clip from Business Week on Stay-at-Home Mom Compensation.  I know lots of people in the blogosphere are talking about this right now, but I thought I’d toss it out there for you in case you hadn’t seen it.

What I think is most interesting is that that’s “just” for the Mom job.  100 hours a week, $130K+ a year.  Whew!

What about those of us who also work at home?  the way I work, I don’t “Mom” any less, I just magane to fit this in ALSO…  Yikes!  No wonder I’m tired…