Name Your Business For Effective Marketing

(photo by peter bowers)

Here is a fun exercise you can do while dreaming of your business.

In fact, this is something you will have to do to start a business, and when the time comes, you may not have enough time, so advance work will pay off nicely. The exercise is: Think of the name of your business.

The name of your business is the first and main thing you want people to remember and recognize. It is a marketing tool. Marketing! Does this alarm you? I hope it does. We are talking about business, and business comes with marketing and sales. Be both ambitious and practical in naming your business.

If you are thinking of naming your business after your own name, think again.

Is that really THE ESSENCE of your business? Is your business just a personal extension of you, the business owner? Michael Gerber warns about this tendency of mixing business and yourself in his classic The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It. He has a way to present the issue in a really easy-to-understand animated way, so let me quote a bit from the book.

In (the business’s) infancy, you are the business. It’s even named after you — “Joe’s place,” “Tommy’s joint,” “Mary’s fine foods” — so the customer won’t forget you’re The Boss. . . (your customers are saying) Joe is the best barber I ever went to. . . Your customers are crazy about you. They keep coming, in droves. . . And you love it! But then it changes. Subtly at first, but gradually it becomes obvious. You’re falling behind. . . All of a sudden, Joe, Tommy, and Mary wish their names weren’t on the sign.

Your business is an independent entity.

You may be the only person working for this business, and yet, your business has its own life, its own way to grow, and needs its own system. You might not want to identify with your business too closely. That way, you can see its challenges in a more detached manner. It is your business’s growth issue, its need for better system – and you can’t solve it by stretching yourself thin . . . to thinner. . .

Of course, there are a lot of successful businesses that are named after their founders. Think of Dell, founded by Michael Dell. Or Toyota, Honda, Ford. . . Charles Schwab, Estee Lauder, Philip Morris. . . (Philip Morris changed its name to Altria in 2003, but not because the name reminds of its founder and therefore limits its growth. They wanted a name that doesn’t mean anything nor have any feeling to it, like Altria. Not a wonderful reason of name change. I hope you are proud of the business you are dreaming of and want to express what it is, rather than hiding behind a meaningless name.) If you can detach from your business, the business name that carries your name shouldn’t be a problem. In other words, can you imagine your business growing to the point that doesn’t require your personal presence, and still be okay with that name? Additionally, people instinctively like dealing with other people, so personal name has its advantage, too. Wendy’s, with the mascot of a little girl, sounds and feels close to you.

If not your own name, how do you name your business? This is where the fun and agony start.

It boils down to what message you want to send out to the world about your business. So you really need to think what this business has to offer, who the target customers are, and how it aims to attract and serve the target customers. You want to think of all these things, and put in the essence into the name. A name that says what the business is about, and doesn’t mislead any potential customers. It also needs to sound good – a name that is easy to remember and to pronounce.

In terms of how you want to convey your message about your business, there are two major ways. One is to be descriptive and another is to use the feeling or sensation the name suggests. Examples of descriptive naming are everywhere – this was the standard way of naming. Like MicroSoft or FedEx. Or NorthWest Tax Service. Just don’t be too descriptive and long. The alternative method of exploiting the feelings such as novelty, sexiness, or fun the name suggest can be very effective when used wisely. For example, the blog name Dosh Dosh. I don’t think Dosh Dosh means anything (right, Maki?) but it sounds fun and it is memorable. And the blog has a very descriptive tagline, “Helping you make money online” so once people read this tagline, we know exactly what it is about. It is a different approach from the descriptive name like ProBlogger. Or how about Xerox? It is a made-up name, so it sounded cool. And the business has been so successful that now xerox can mean photocopy in general.

There are more to consider if online presence means a lot for your business. Seth Godin has a blog post titled The new rules of naming (hat tip to Jonathan Fields. His post is another great read on the topic). This article has some tips to improve Google search results by choosing the name well. He also emphasizes the importance of being unique, and advocates non-descriptive names that allows long-term business growth.

Let me illustrate the naming process with the real life example: Yes to Me.

Prior to settling down to this name, I had several other ideas:

• Undoo (Why two Os? Think of Digg, Mixx, Squidoo . . . More about this in the aforementioned Seth Godin’s post.)
• Unjudge
• Free(e) Me
• Successful Entrepreneurs
• Aspiring Entrepreneurs
• Unlimited Possibilities

Now what does this blog (business) has to offer? Inspiring and informative articles about entrepreneurship and personal development. I also offer coaching services to those of you who want personalized programs. Who are my target customers? “Tomorrow’s successful entrepreneurs”. How does it aim to attract and serve the target customers? By sending out clear and consistent message that you can do it, and that it starts with accepting your dreams, and ultimately you, yourself. (Entrepreneurial challenges, like any business challenges, are, in the core, really personal life challenges. Your mental, emotional, and even spiritual strengths and weaknesses will show up as business issues. And this is why I write about personal development in this blog.)

I didn’t go for using my name because my name, Akemi, can be difficult to English speaking people. And again, I want this blog to have its own life even though I am the only writer. I want to focus more on my readers and their needs.

Unlimited Possibilities got dropped because it is such a cliché. You’ve seen something like this in the self-help section of the bookstore. It is too generic it doesn’t describe the content of the blog adequately. I felt Successful Entrepreneurs or Aspiring Entrepreneurs were too descriptive and not fun. Too much to type, too. I came up with the idea of Undoo because I often teach how to unlearn conventional wisdom and judgments to learn new things. But still, Undoo sounds – too silly. Especially for my coaching business. Unjudge came with similar concepts, but I decided it sounds too negative. Free(e) Me? Again, sounds like a new age cliché. While I do believe we are free and hold unlimited possibilities within us, I didn’t think they make good blog names.

So Yes to Me. I like its simplicity and the positive, self-affirming message, which is the core concept of this blog.

My concern is that when readers (yes, like you!) see Yes to Me, do you immediately know it is about you? Yes, it is about you saying “Yes to me.”

I asked about this to a dozen individuals, including my friends and total strangers I grabbed at Starbucks. While this number is not really sufficient to conclude any decision, it did give me some idea. It seems the majority of people did understand it was about self-affirmation. Some did seem to be a bit puzzled, and one asked “To what question?” I did more brainstorming, and couldn’t come up with a name I liked better than Yes to Me. So, here it is.

It is critical to ask others for feedback in your decision-making as entrepreneur.

Ask as many people as possible about your naming ideas. You cannot not-know what you already know. You already know how much thoughts have been put into this name that you like. You also have feeling for it. And this can affect your judgment. So ask to people who are not preoccupied with your endeavor. There are even businesses that specialize in naming businesses and products.

The name of your business will say a lot about the business and how you, as business owner, deal with it. Name it with your passion, but at the same time, think how that name will be received by your customers. The name will be there as long as you run the business, or until you take the trouble to changing the name (which can be costly, not only in financial terms, but also in terms of potential loss of customers) so take time and start thinking!

This post is in the Home Based Business Group Writing Project. The impact of business name is even more prominent for online businesses (often home based).

Thanks to Brad for including this post in Carnival of Sales & Management Success, to Marshall for inclusion in Carnival of Sales & Management - Customer Loyalty.

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