Your business needs to be connected in order to connect to everybody else, well that's pretty obvious, isn't it!

But, if you're not, you won't be able to meet your competition head on and it will disappear - to another plane, and one that you're not able to compete with!. You'll soon find that there's less competition and ultimately you'll have less customers.

The market we are working in is changing all the time; over the past 20 or so years we've moved from a mechanical era to a digital era and now we're entering the virtual era. The price point or entry-level to this virtual market is time. Time to understand the impact on your business, time to understand the technologies that are available and time to invest in your staff to ensure that they are adequately trained.

Hi,

My son has just finished his GCSEs and to his credit, got himself a job shortly after his last exam. At his interview the manager gave him some homework to do in preparation for his second interview, which he started as soon as he got home.

However, his younger brother had other plans and wanted him to go to the local skate park. He told his brother politely, but firmly, "get out of my room, I've got work to do!" (well, maybe not as polite as that, but you get the idea).

You can imagine how I felt when I heard him; on the one hand "proud" that he was applying himself, but on the other hand, quite chastened, thinking about the times I had done something or said something similar.   It's quite surprising what we all do (work-wise) and the hours we put into our businesses, but I guess there's always a cost - and that's always our time.

Hi

I just finished reading a book called 'The Four Hour Work Week' by Tim Ferris, well, what an eye opener. Its not that he has the answer the the meaning of life, but he has an interesting take on it.

Consider this...

Tim Ferris has written about a goal; the ultimate achievement of being independent of the shackles we create for ourselves when we set up and run our businesses. By coincedence, the Profit from Technology web site is about how to implement the automated systems to attain Tim Ferris's goal!

You must read it. It's a Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller as well as being highly commended by Jack Canfield and many other lifestyle "gurus".

I read recently that consultants are not experiencing the same problems as many other industries as businesses feel more comfortable making decisions with the support of consultancy firms rather than making them on their own.

Well, that's why Profit From Technology is different. You'll be able to learn about technology in such a way to get a feel for our approach on what technology should be doing for your company without using a consultant! Eventually, with our support, you can become as aware as you need to be in order that you can concentrate on your speciality.

I know you're busy and that you haven't got the time to spend flicking through page after page on numerous web sites. Which is why we decided the present Profit From Technology more as a Project. A project that could be managed either by you or one of your staff and one that you could dip in and out of whenever you needed to.

It makes me smile when I think of the analogy of a consultant taking your watch to tell you the time!

Bye for now.