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Who
Should Read This...
- Anyone
looking to name a new business
- Anyone
deciding to rename an existing company
- Anyone
taking their existing company online
Overview
A well thought out name tells your customers what they will experience
when dealing with your company and its products or services. Billion
dollar advertising and marketing firms through a smart creative process
and market research develop great names. We offer a guideline below
for how to develop an effective name and logo without spending a fortune.
Name
Development
A business name may be descriptive of its products and services or non-descriptive.
Use a descriptive name if you are certain that your products or services
will always focus around one industry. If you think that your business
will grow into a multi-faceted company, for example, one that owns restaurants
and distributes food supplies, you may be better off using a non-descriptive
business name so that you will not limit yourself.
A good
technique to developing a name is to take a phrase or word that describes
your product/service and make a variation on it. It is the hope of almost
all naming services, that the name they develop will become synonymous
with the product. For example, the company Xerox© perfected a process
to make b/w copies of a picture or other printed material through a
process called "xerography," hence the company called itself Xerox.
Today people may say, "Please Xerox, this page for me;" when they
really mean please copy this page. A good product with a good name will
stick in people's minds. Duracell© wanted people to know they had a
long lasting battery so they took the first (4) letters from "durable"
which means long lasting. Use this creative process when you develop
your name.
Even if
you have a simple name, don't be afraid to make it more unique by substituting
certain letters with others that sounds the same (e.g. and "s" for a
"z"). This will add to the uniqueness. Remember to not get overboard
substituting every "F" with a "PH," for example. You don't want people
spelling your company name incorrectly repeatedly. Also, keep in mind
the global implications if your business will operate overseas. Does
your company name translate into a not-so-nice phrase? Will substituting
letters for a unique spelling make translating more difficult? If I
use my company name for my domain name, will people repeatedly misspell
it in their browser address window?
If you
cater to a special group of people, or even another country don't be
afraid to use words that may not be English. Remember that your targeted
market would have to warrant this approach. Try something unique like
the brand of electronics "Magnavox" which means "great voice" in Latin.
Many businesses take the name of their owner or founder. There is nothing
wrong with this, especially if you have a very unique product. Many
companies used the names of two founders as the business name, such
as Hewlett Packard©. Even if you are a consultant, sometimes it may
pay to add a word or two to your last name and use that as the company
name. Doe Enterprises Inc. appears more credible than say just
Jane Doe who runs a business using her personal credit cards. This is
why so many ads have popped up over the country for agencies that will
incorporate your business in just a few hours. People feel safer writing
a check to "Your Company, Inc."
A Note
to Small Business about DBA's (Doing Business As...)
A fictious name is any name used in the course of business that does
not include the full legal name of all the owners of the business. If
your business goes by any other name than your own real name, you are
then operating the business under an assumed name (e.g. Janice Doe,
who runs a business called Any-Occasion that sells specialty greeting
cards). In many states, an individual, general or limited partnership,
corporation, or unincorporated association is not allowed to transact
business under a name or designation other than its own name, unless
an assumed name certificate is filed. If you operate under a fictious
name, you must register with the county clerk of each county in which
your business is located to enable creditors and other interested parties
to determine actual ownership. To register your name, you need to obtain
a certificate of doing business under an assumed name (DBA). You can
usually find this form in the stationary section of a store like Staples,
or OfficeMax. You may prefer to just go to the County Clerk's Office
(listed in your local yellow pages) where they also have the forms.
You have to go there anyway to get the forms notarized and pay your
registration fee. One copy is kept on file at the office. Two copies
are given to you, one you keep at your place of business, the other
copy take with you to open your business checking account at your bank.
This will allow people to make checks out to your business name rather
than your name.
Finding
Your Dot.com Name
In an ideal world, your name would describe your product, be easily
translateable into 15 different languages, be one word with less than
eight characters, and be available on the web to just add ".com"
to the end. If you thought finding the name for your company was tough,
then magnify that difficulty by at least a factor of 2. With so many
domains being registered daily, it is almost better to get a domain
name then name your company after it. To add to the complexity, domain
names can end in ".com," ".net," ".org"
and more are on the way. So even if you get the perfect dot com name,
someone else may own the ".net" version. This could then lead
to legal issues over trademarks. When researching names, just don't
check to see if ".com" is available, look at the other possibilities
as well. You may want to register both like we did. Will your company
name be easier to remember or type if you abbreviate it and use that
for the domain name?
As a
side note, almost all 3 letter domain names are taken already by someone.
All we can say is REGISTER, REGISTER, REGISTER
as soon as possible. If that doesn't work, you can always buy a domain
name from someone, but there have been cases where this process could
lead to millions of dollars just to buy a name.
Read
About Logo Development...
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