It never fails.

Try and take a couple days off, and the world comes crashing down around you.

After putting in some long hours on my book last week, I had a window of a couple days to recoup while I await revisions from my editor this week.  My wife and I were going to take some nice time for ourselves, which we haven’t had a chance to do in I don’t know how long.

Then…the floodgates from ‘online hell’ open up.

It started with the email about the copycat scam (see last post).  I quickly wrote the post just before heading out the door to try and warn folks about this before I took a couple days off.  I then left, and thought that was all I would have to worry about work for the next couple of days.

Then emails started flooding in to my assistant from readers of not one, not two, but all three of my websites, with complaints of malfunction.  Some people were getting error ‘page not found’  messages, others were getting ‘forbidden access type messages, and even others were getting ‘page has been deleted’ messages.

Then, my blackberry decided not to deliver email to me anymore.

I should point out that all of this is happening while I am on the road, away from my office, trying to spend a nice couple days of relaxation with my wife.

I was, for the most part, blissfully ignorant to all of this (partly because my blackberry was going screwy) until I got a phone call from my online assistant Sasha.  She was instructed to only call me in case of an urgent issue, so I knew before I even picked up the call it wasn’t going to be good.  She had the unfortunate job of filling me in on all of the above.

After a long conversation, lots of long distance cell minutes used up, and much investigation on both of our parts I seemed to have sourced the problem, and it all comes down to spammers yet again.  Read on if you dare…

The first thing you might be wondering is, hey?  When did you get an assistant?  I have had assistants in the past to help me with various web-design tasks, but I just hired a personal online assistant to help me deal with a few other very time consuming issues.  The first of which is email.  Spam filters suck.  They only seem to filter out the good messages, while leaving me all of the crap.  In fact, my daily incoming email has been numbering in the range of 200-300 per day (some days less, many days even more), and has finally reached that point where I simply cannot keep up and still operate my business, and complete my manuscript on time.  Therefore, all of my email is now automatically redirected to my online assistant (which is one of the great things about technology – Sasha is in the united states, and I am in Canada)  She can answer most simple questions, deal with any customer service issues, and can also filter out all of the spam and garbage email that would otherwise take me hours to sort through each day and stress me out.  If there is anything that requires my immediate attention, she is one of the select few people who has my new private email address and can contact me should the need arise, but for most other issues, I don’t even need to get involved.  Think of her has a real live human spam filter.

Another great thing that Sasha can do for me is moderate comments on this blog.  For those of you who like to post comments you have probably noticed that there is a delay between the time the comment is posted and when it shows up.  This is because each comment is actually checked before it is ‘allowed’.  While it would be much easier for me to just leave comments ‘open’, that would mean for every one legitimate comment, there would be about 20-30 comments advertising viagra, online pharmacy, or porn sites.  This is no exaggeration!  Over 90% of the comments are junk.  Because my email addresses are posted on my sites, the spam robots grab them and start pumping out the spam like clockwork.  Thankfully, now Sasha takes care of this for me.  When you post a comment, she checks it for spam, and then allows it if it’s clean..  This keeps the blog free of spam, trash comments, flamers, and people just looking to cause trouble.

Now, because of all these issues with spam, I also recently hired a web programmer to implement anti-spam software into all of my websites.  Basically, this software tracks ip addresses that have been labeled as spam, and then blocks that address from accessing the website.  Sounds good in theory, but it went horribly wrong.

Over the past 48 hours, a bunch of legitimate users have been blocked from the site, receiving any one of the error messages I mentioned earlier.  Basically, if you have ever sent an email to someone and they hit the junk button, even by accident, this software could block you from the my sites.  Needless to say, I flipped my lid.

Of course, this software took action around the same time I left for my mini-holiday.  So now I am stuck trying to deal with this from the road.  I spent the better part of yesterday on the phone with my assistant, and my web programmer trying to get this all sorted out.  I wish it was all resolved, but it isn’t quite yet.

What it all boils down to….

A)  If you can’t access my sites:  The software will be removed, but it might take a few days before it all gets sorted out.  All I can tell you is that it’s not as simple as just deleting the software (I wish!).  Therefore, if you are having trouble accessing any of my sites, please accept my deep apologies and please be patient.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who can access it and who can’t. I also realize the irony of the situation is that if you can read this, you are probably one of the folks who this doesnt apply to.

B)  My blackberry:  I can make and receive calls, but can’t get email anymore.  No idea on this one.  Crap.

C)  Emailing Me:  As of yesterday, all email to me is now going to my assitant.  I do wish I could answer all of your emails personally, but it is simply no longer feasible due to my very busy schedule and rediculous volume of email I get.  However, anyone who is a private coaching client will be given my private email address, direct to me.  If you are a paying client, you get me.  Period.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t be reading or replying to your emails anymore, it just means that I can’t promise that I can get to them all.  I will try to do as many as I can, when I can.  With that being said, If you receive an email from me, it will have MY name in the signature.  If you receive one from my assistant, it will have THEIR signature.  It is the norm in this industry to have your assistant ‘pretend’ they are you in email, but this is not something I am comfortable with.  If you are speaking with me, you will know it.

D) Comments:  Comments will remain moderated, and I read them ALL.  I will also do my best to reply to them all as well.  If you are not a private client with email access to me, then this is the best way to touch base with me.  I want to encourage the sense of community and mutual support on this blog, so I believe this is the best place to devote the majority of my free attention.

So there it is folks.  I am beat-down, tired, and I am sick of staring into my laptop.  I will be taking the next couple days off because there isn’t anything else I can do at the moment with the various issues plaguing me.  If you need anything, my assistant Sasha will be pleased to help you.  Otherwise, feel free to comment and wish me luck!

Just no spam!

Just kidding.

Actually…not really

Coach Rylan