In this short podcast (9 minutes 10 seconds), Debra Templar and Nick Bowditch discuss the over-reliance on some social media tools, like a Facebook Page, by some small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the fact that not all businesses might even need a Facebook Page!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST – OR DOWNLOAD IT FOR LATER.

If you have any questions or topic suggestions for either Debra or Nick, please leave a comment below.

We have just released a new White Paper written by Nick Bowditch entitled, “55 Ways You Can Use QR Codes To Link Offline Marketing With Online Marketing”.

This 21 page White Paper can be downloaded for FREE by clicking here.

The document contains lots of great ideas and tips for getting the most out of these great little codes that provide that elusive link between your offline marketing effort and your online one.

Each one of them has been tried and tested and works really well.

Read the full article here.

It’s easy to fall into one of two diametrically opposed camps at the moment.

The “Oh me, oh my, we are all doomed, doomed I say” mob, or the slightly cocky and arrogant “Hard times? What hard times – stop making excuses, it’s all in your head” gang.

The truth – just like the hole in the doughnut – is probably somewhere in the middle.

It is important not to get caught up in perceptions and make decisions based on the media, community sentiment, or tales of woe from your friends but to closely examine your own business and the things that you can control.

How long since you took your eyes off the economy and focussed down into the heart of your business?

Here are some warning signs that you should be watching out for – the indicators that, as well as the massive changes out in the marketplace, it might now be time to implement some change, some improvements, of your own.

Read the full article here.

“Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold – social media services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world.”

It wasn’t a social media believer like me who said that.  And it wasn’t recent either.

It’s from the Wall Street Journal, in 2009. Many of the comments on the article disagreed, but I wonder if that would be the same in 2011. Maybe they were right after all and the death of email is getting ever closer.

Read the full article by clicking here.

Kicking and Screaming, the brainchild of Australian Retail Expert, Debra Templar and Online Marketing Expert, Nick Bowditch, has launched.

In coming weeks, the first of our podcasts will be released followed closely by our unique TV episodes, all of which focus on dragging existing business kicking and screaming into 2011 and help them not only survive but thrive long into the future.

How will we do this?

By giving them new skills, showing them innovative ways to stand out and, in some cases, pointing out the bleeding obvious!

Who are Debra and Nick?

One of Australia’s leading retailing enthusiasts, Debra Templar, from The Templar Group, just hates bad customer service and stupid business practices. So… she’s on a mission to change them.

“I don’t just want to improve how we do business for the customer’s sake but also that we, as business owners, sell more stuff, make lots more profit, and love our businesses back to life!”

Debra’s tool for change are business coaching programs, business consulting, business seminars, training sessions for staff and/or business owners, keynote presentations, books, articles and CD’s. Her technique is to challenge, tease, cajole – in fact force – us to look at how we do business by asking us to jump the counter and view our systems, our processes, our policies and our beliefs from our customers’ point of view. She then applies her considerable skills and experience to show us ways to be better at what we do (often better than we thought we could be…).

She doesn’t pull any of this stuff out of academic tomes and university courses – she simply shows us how to apply theskills that she has applied to her own and her clients’ businesses over the years whilst actively sharing her passionately held opinions. And she shares her opinions an awful lot!

Basically broke and with his young family expanding quickly, Nick Bowditch, from The Bowditch Group took one of the bravest – and best – decisions of his life and chucked in his city job to start his own travel business, working from home.

He built up that business from a customer database of just four when he started, to more than 4,500 a year later to now more than 10,000 subscribers two years later – all without staff, a shop front, and without any mainstream advertising in print, radio or television – instead opting to promote his new business using Social Media Marketing.

In the last year, he has gone from having one online business to three, his e-books and electronic products have now been downloaded thousands of times, and he is now a sought-after keynote speaker, professional blogger and author.