16 years in business is a long time.
Especially when you consider that over 70% of businesses will fail in 3-5 years.
I want businesses to prosper so as Altrincham HQ hits 16 years in September 2025 I want to share some wisdom that will help businesses go the extra mile.
Write notes. Write Action Points. Be The Change. Share this blog as wide as possible
So far Lessons 1-7 are live. Bookmark this and come back next week for parts 8-16.
LESSON 1: Respect Those That Came Before You
When I started Altrincham HQ in 2009 there was nobody else online promoting the town daily.
People didn’t understand the power of social media.
I knew it was the future.
But before me there were the likes of the Altrincham Chamber of Commerce, the Civic Society, the Court Leet and the Messenger newspaper who’d done it for decades before in the real / analogue world.
Organisations with fantastic people who want the best for the local area.
You have to respect others before you and realise that they walked the hard yards so you too could walk.
I’ve worked with and supported so many of those organisations since.
When we launched our networking events I had the same mindset of respect for those that had walked before us – the Chamber Of Commerce, The FSB, David Bellin’s Bowdon Business Group and SUBS Altrincham, Kirsty James, Sue France, Tricia Peters.
Good people always do this.
I can’t say the same has happened after our launches.
Money and egos often come into play.
People erase the past. They want to burn the past. They don’t learn from those that have walked.
If you’re launching a business right now in 2025, look at those who have gone before you as people to be inspired from and learn from rather than trying to beat them down.
LESSON 2: Network Your Face Off
In my 1st year of business I spent in the region of £1500 networking.
In today’s money that would be around £2000.
But you know what – it really helped to establish my business.
Twice a week I’d get up unreasonably early to be at 8am Breakfast Networking Events to cement the name Altrincham HQ in everyone’s mind.
I didn’t win clients by turning up once.
It took me around 3 months to win my 1st client from networking – that was 24 meetings In that time – but after than it snowballed and I was winning new clients every other week.
It’s part of the reason I give back to the local business community by funding our free networking events for 1200 attendees every year. I know that if people turn up to our events every single month and also other local networking events they’ll massively grow their business.
I sense everybody is launching networking events these days (and some are thinly disguised pyramid selling schemes for 6 people at the top), so feel free to ask which are the great networking events in the area.
LESSON 3: You only need 1 person to believe in you
Most of your friends aren’t going to understand what it’s like running a business.
It’s not their world.
Their world is clock in. clock out.
You can’t waste your time expecting every single person in your friend group to understand and support your business.
You need to realise that your friends are going to share mainstream media or celebrities that don’t know more often than they are your business.
As long as you have 1 person to believe in you – a family member, a partner, a friend – that’s enough.
One person you can shout about your successes with and also share your problems.
One person is enough.
You don’t need to wait for everybody to get on board with you.
LESSON 4: You don’t need to do everything all at once
When I started a business everything felt a lot more relaxed than it is in 2025.
Imagine not working in Marketing and setting up a business.
You’d be as confused as hell.
The Social Media Marketers shout about the importance of social media
The SEO guys about SEO
The Videographers about video
The Personal Brand Photographers about photography
The networking hosts about Face 2 Face networking
And so on.
And that’s before you throw in Bill the Business Coach and Dave Down The Pub
Where do you start? What is gold? What should be put in the bin?
One service we’ve developed is a Marketing And Visibility Workshop where we work with business owners
- We analyse 15 marketing channels and rated their current use out of 10
- We then prioritise the 3 most important marketing channels for the business
- We drill down and looked indepth on quick wins and long term wins for each of those 3 channels
- We look at other 12 marketing channels and suggest quick wins and long terms
- We take out marketing channels that aren’t relevant at all to the business – you shouldn’t do everything
- We suggest at least 5 key people to have 121 meetings with
- We suggest ideas they’d never have thought of
At the moment this is just £175 pp – the price will be rising in 2026
£175 to save thousands of £££s of wastage
Sound fair?
Email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk to get started
LESSON 5: Reviews Matter More Than Anything You Say
This was a lesson we learnt at our very 1st networking meeting.
Paul Henry, a sales coach, did a presentation slot on the power of testimonials.
At the time I had no customers but that advice stuck with me.
I now have over 800 customers reviews.
Most people in my industry have less than 5% of that number and in many cases less than 1%.
Those reviews open big doors for us.
Remember whether you’re paying for a £5 product on Amazon, a £40 meal or choosing which Estate Agent to sell your £450,000 house – you are reading reviews every day.
Reviews also matter for your business.
Here are some statistics on reviews to show you their importance
- 92% of consumers now read online reviews when they are looking for a particular service or product.
- 51% of consumers will select a local business if it has positive reviews.
- 80% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations from people they know.
- Having at least 5 good quality reviews on your website can increase the likelihood of sale by 270%.
- 48% of consumers will visit a company’s website after reading positive reviews.
- 86% of consumers are more inclined to buy a service that has more recent reviews
LESSON 6: Learn from those 5-10 years ahead of you
If you want to build a business – learn from people 5-10 years ahead of you.
Your peers who started at exactly the same time as you can be an amazing support network.
But if you want to learn quickly go to those where you want to be and those that are 5-10 years ahead of you.
I’ve been in business as Altrincham HQ for 16 years now and before than I worked as a freelance journalist and ran an events company.
99.9% of the things you’re going to experience in business I’ve already experienced.
The highs, the lows, the wins, the mistakes.
2 recessions, a pandemic, a cost of living crisis and more.
I can see your problems before you even know they’re coming.
That’s a huge advantage and you’ll get that from anyone 5-10 years ahead of you.
The other thing you’ll get from someone experienced is a bigger black book of contacts to help your business grow.
LESSON 7. Blogging Gives You A Leading Advantage
As an ex-journalist one thing I did when I started up Altrincham HQ is blogging.
I have over 650 blogs of business advice since we started. And all of these 16 tips are going to end up one comprehensive blog.
Why does blogging give me a superpower
- I have 650+ routes into my website – some of those blogs have been read by thousands this year
- It shows off my expertise
- It gives me time to think deeply about marketing and social media
- People buy from me because of these blogs
Despite the advent of Podcasts, Youtube, AI and more … blogging certainly isn’t dead.
And any business doing it will stand out in a world of 15 second reels.
LESSON 8: Door Knocking Breaks Through The Noise
I door knocked in the early days out of circumstance.
Only 20% of businesses were using social media when I launched so I couldn’t rely on them knowing about us from Social Media or even thinking of using google to searching us.
A number of our very early clients came from us simply knocking on doors and saying
“I’m Alex from Altrincham HQ. We help businesses grow via social media and we’ve got big result for that business across the road from you”
I wish I had time for this now as I feel we’re letting ourselves down by not doing and we’re letting businesses down who open in the town.
A DM these days often gets ignored with the digital noise.
LESSON 9: Be Community Minded (All the time)
Altrincham HQ has always been 50% business / 50% community.
And when I say always – I mean when we had 10 followers through to now where we have a community of 100,000+.
So when I talk about the 1 million people reached a month it’s about supporting the ecosystem of local businesses around us.
For instance, shouting on our social media about a leisure centre, Chinese restaurant, or new coffee shop actually drives people through doors.
The whole town benefits. That’s important for us.
We definitely don’t need 1 million views a month for our own content about social media, marketing and business.
LESSON 10: Social Media is the only form of marketing people do every day (so put it at the top of your to do list)
You check social media before you get out of bed.
You check social media last thing before you go to bed.
When it comes to marketing, social media often needs to be at the top of their to-do list as it’s the only form of marketing that people do and consume every day.
Nobody networks 7 days a week.
Nobody updates their website 7 days a week.
Nobody features in the press 7 days a week.
But chances are you looked or posted on social media 7 days a week.
I would say this as a social media company, but it’s true.
If you’re going to do something 7 days a week at least make sure it’s being done to the best of your ability.
LESSON 11 Tell Your Story Often
The easiest way to prove this point is to ask you if you’ve heard any of my biog before?
If so you know the message is getting through.
Repeat your story often
“Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Manchester that has worked with 1000s of businesses developing their social media strategy.
Over the past 16 years Alex has built up an impressive training client list including the BBC, Manchester City, NHS, Selfridges, Costa Coffee, United Utilities, University Of Manchester, Manchester Arndale and many more
Each month Altrincham HQ spend 200+ hours per month managing marketing campaigns for businesses so witness Social Media changes in real time and action them.
A former journalist, whose blogs have been read by over half a million readers, he has also successfully ran an events company putting on 60 events a year which included a 15,000 capacity arts & music festivals in Manchester.
Alex has 800+ customer reviews and is ranked number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.
Altrincham HQ works with businesses across the UK on all aspects of Social Media including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and blogging for business success.
For more info check out http://www.altrinchamhq.co.uk “
LESSON 12: Raise Your Prices Every Year (you probably priced yourself too low at day one)
If you’re not raising your prices every year, you’re taking a pay cut with inflation rising.
I’m not even going to say what I charged when I started out.
It’s embarrassing.
I’m working class, I’m an introvert and as a result I priced myself way too low for my level of marketing experience.
But every year from year 3 I raised my prices every single April alternating between Social Media Management and Social Media Training.
16 years into the business I’m priced at a point I’m happy with, a price our clients are happy with and everyone wins.
Are there people charging more than us? Sure.
Will they be around for the long term and make a profit over 16 years? Unlikely
LESSON 13: Add Extra Value To Your Customers
I want everybody reading this to ask themselves this question
What is the one extra thing you can do for customers above and beyond the services you offer?
One extra thing that’s unexpected, valuable and wows your customers.
For us we have 4 ways we can help people
1. Public Speaking Opportunities at Networking Events
2. PR – A press release published on our Facebook Page to 18,000 people
3. Instagram / TikTok Videos to our Audience
4. Introductions – we have 16 years of contacts
We don’t have to do these.
But we want to see a business fly.
LESSON 14: Launch Your Own Events (doesn’t have to be networking)
In 2019 for 10 years of Altrincham I launched 10 events.
We had Summer Socials, Christmas Parties, Birthday Party, Networking Events, Curry Nights and more.
One of those events still exists to this day: Alex & His Sisters.
I’ve always been a fan of in person events since my days running a live music events company and I actually think with AI becoming more commonplace this will become more and more important.
People want to chat to people not to ChatGPT captions and responses.
The events don’t have to be networking events. And I’ve mentioned that for a reason. I sense everybody has listened to a course on “Launch Your Own Networking Events” and are launching networking events these days (and some are thinly disguised pyramid selling schemes for 6 people at the top).
Could the event be a client meal? A quiz night? A monthly book club? A cinema night? A run club?
Merge your business with your passion.
LESSON 15: You know you’ve made it when you have trolls / haters
One question I got asked recently was “When do you feel you really achieved success?”
It wasn’t when I had a steady stream of new clients coming in weekly.
It wasn’t when I’d worked with some big name brands.
It was when I started attracting trolls.
When someone spends their own time to attack you rather than spending time with their friends and family you actually know your message is breaking through the noise.
I don’t consciously put content out to divide people, but I do know that by putting out messages to our ideal clients someone will take offence or unfollow us.
That is absolutely fine.
Ask me in person about how I’ve lost followers due to No Salmon Sandwiches, Coffee, Not kicking Cats and advising businesses to have a sound marketing strategy before spending money on a photoshoot.
LESSON 16: Say No If You Feel It In Your Gut
If your gut says no.
Walk away.
I know when you’re starting out and you need to pay bills this is a lot harder to do, but it will save you pain in the long run.
When I’ve gone against my gut I’ve had
– Had late night / early morning phone calls
– Clients not deliver their side of the deal
– Be short term clients rather than long term
– To bring in debt collectors to pay outstanding invoices
– In short be an absolute pain
It really isn’t worth the money
BONUS TIPS
Bonus 1: Have A Debt Collector In Your Phonebook
At one stage in your business you’re going to have someone you’ve worked with for years that you trust … that suddenly stops paying.
It’s always the unexpected ones that just go rogue.
Get a debt collectors number in your phone before it actually happens.
And that way your one phone call away from sorting out the problem rather than having the extra problem of finding someone to fix the problem.
Bonus 2: Don’t be afraid to call out malpractice
I worked in the music industry that means I have that age old problems of saying the truth on a world stage.
I’m qualified, experienced and have a track record of delivering results so I when I see bad practice … and in some cases malpractice I talk about it.
I never mention names and I never make it personal – but I will call out things that will harm businesses.
Most of the time it’s the usual things: Engagement Pods, Pyramid Scheme style marketing techniques, not walking the talk, lazy AI copy, bullying businesses into personal branding shoots before they have a clear marketing strategy etc
The latest example of extreme malpractice was a “social media marketer” telling business owners to offer Sept 11th Discounts.
If business owners would have followed that advice it would have been a reputational disaster for them.
I couldn’t stay silent.
My experience tells me you can’t keep silent or you’re complicit in that advice.
Bonus 3: Keep It Fun
I approach everything I do with a sense of fun.
Social Media with a sense of fun.
Networking with a sense of fun.
Business with a sense of fun.
Sure – I’m serious when it comes to growing a business, working with clients. The biggest brands in the world wouldn’t trust me otherwise.
But I do it with a smile and have a laugh at the same time.
