Why All Independent High Street Business Owners Should Use LinkedIn

When you think of LinkedIn as a social network you often think of super serious suited execs chatting about management techniques or recruiters looking for the latest graduate

What you don’t instantly think of is high street businesses such as restaurants, retailers, pubs and bars as regular LinkedIn users

In this weeks blog we talk about why it’s an absolute MUST for high street businesses to be using LinkedIn to help develop their business

Let me paint a picture for you …

You have a fledging passionate idea and you have managed to get the funding from the bank, you have the keys to the premises and yet apart from the work men doing the initial fit out, you don’t have any of the professional suppliers in place from designers to marketing companies to accountants to solicitors to insurance.

Let me tell you now – the moment there are signs of a new business coming to town – you will get more visits to your premises by business professionals than you get PPI texts or calls in the average week!!!!

This is not a bad thing – it’s much better to have a face 2 face conversation with a potential service provider, so you can ask any questions you have – but for every fantastically skilled professional that knocks on your door there will be shark after shark after shark and LinkedIn is your way to cut through the BS and the noise and see who really stacks up

Read on if you want to know why and how your high street business should be using LinkedIn

EVERYONE IS AN EXPERT – LINKEDIN ALLOWS YOU TO FIND OUT IF THEY ACTUALLY ARE!!!
We live in a world now where EVERYONE is an self-proclaimed expert

The person knocking on your door will tell you they are an expert – that the services they are offering are amazing, brilliant and that they wipe the floor with the competition

Since I set up Altrincham HQ I’ve met “experts” in every single field of business who have turned out to be anything but. People that have been in business apparently for 20 years that have ZERO testimonials from clients

If you’re a high street business you are able to connect with the expert in front of you and check that they have quality independent testimonials from happy clients

And trust us – unless they’re working for the MI5 – a serious business professional will have a large number of LinkedIn testimonials from happy clients.

TESTIMONIALS FROM THOSE YOU KNOW AND TRUST
If you’ve been to our website before you’ll have seen my biography at the bottom of every single blog stating that I have 100+ testimonials on LinkedIn from happy clients

Now if I can be braggadocios for a second – that’s amazing – about 5 or 6 times the industry average

But I’m also self-aware enough to know that the testimonials that mean more to you are the businesses that are 5 doors down or on the next street to your business

Every LinkedIn testimonial is linked to a specific persons LinkedIn account and that means unlike a testimonials page on a website – they are fully independent reviews that are trackable to an LinkedIn account that someone has put their real name to rather than alias

FREE EDUCATION AND INFORMATION
LinkedIn is a great source of free information, help and advice

Even if you’re not in buying mode, you can still gain a great amount of information that can help to grow your business.

For instance we give hints and tips out every single day on our LinkedIn statuses as well as link to blogs with further information.

Sure there is a small amount of crossover with what we post on Twitter, but we also post a large amount of original content that is exclusive to our LinkedIn audience

LinkedIn pulse articles are also searchable – so whichever area of help and advice you’re looking for, you can be sure there is an article to help you out from experts internationally as well as hyper local

LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS CAN ALSO BE YOUR CUSTOMERS
I’ve said it time and time again – but local businesses are local people as well

People with friends and family that eat, drink and shop local

Now I’m not for a moment suggesting that you start posting food porn or heavy sales messages on LinkedIn – there are other platforms for those messages that would work so much better

But when you connect with someone on LinkedIn it’s another point of contact that will help in your sales process and maybe just maybe they could become loyal customers of yours

As well as being a business man, I’m also an Altrincham resident of 37 years, one of my home towns biggest fans and spend regularly in the high street – the businesses that are in the front of my eyes on social media are often the ones that get the most spend!

CONNECT WITH US ON LINKEDIN
Here is our head honcho’s profile – connect with us and chat to us

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/amccann

MORE INFO
At Altrincham HQ we specialise in growing businesses via effective Social Media Marketing