Choosing a business name can be tricky, but it’s important you put the time into it at the start to make sure it’s right for you because it can be expensive to rename things. You need to think about business name registration, website registration, trademarks, logos and branding. Here are some things to think about when coming up with your business name.
Coming up with potential names
Mind Map
Get a large piece of paper (or many smaller ones if you need) and write down a lot of words.
Start with the obvious ones. What is your industry? What products will you be selling? What problem does your business solve? What do you need to make your product?
Then dig deeper. What will your products look like? Will you be using a theme? Who is your target market? What do you want your customers to feel? Or what is another word that might means or describe the same thing?
When you have a collection of words, look are some of the really common ones, use a thesaurus and come up with some other words for that. Or if you want to be a bit more playful, what are some other languages for those words?
This doesn’t need to be neat. And I find drawing lines to connections helps you to know where they are all. For example, Products – oven mitts – the spoon holder near the stove – kitchen timer. Solutions – today kitchen – nice decor. Yada yada 🙂 Just dump it all down, nothing is wrong.
Is something coming together for you? Do you keep coming back to a word? Is there two words you can join together, or three? Or smoosh together to make a new word even?
For me, I had been a wedding florist for 15 years. I have a King Protea and a Dahlia in my florist logo because I loved those flowers and I wanted to keep hold of part of that. I knew I would always be drawing flowers so I kept coming back to it. It was originally Dahlia Graphic because it was short and sweet and flowed nicely but it did limit me to graphic work whereas I knew I was always going to bounce around. It was actually a university lecturer of mine that said Creative would be better as it gave me room to change. And that’s how Dahlia Creative came to be.
Consider future growth
If you called your business ‘Annie’s Pool Noodles’ and four years later you decide to also make floating drink servers (yes I know my samples are nuts LOL) it will make it hard to market to new products. Whereas ‘Annie’s Pool Accessories’ gives you more room to move. Being too literal can make it hard for you to grow and change.
Using your name
This can be a tricky consideration. Often using your name can be the easiest solution. Peter Plumbing, it’s short and snappy. But what about when Peter gets overworked and needs to bring more people in to work for them. Does it still work? For trades this is a pretty common thing, because trade work is don’t to an industry standard level and isn’t generally personalised. But if Amy Graphics who markets herself as someone who does al the graphic work suddenly starts getting Susan to do it, it can make the customer feel deceived. Is your business always going to be ONLY YOU? Or are you going to grow and allocated work to others?
Using your location
Para Hills Flowers – easy to say and your customers will know where you are. Could be great right? But the problem with it is that you can not protect a suburb name. Any other florists in that area who open in para hills can sell flowers in Para Hills so you will always be fighting for keywords and getting confused with other businesses in your area. Also, if for some reason you have to move, the name might become totally redundant and renaming can be expensive and cause you to loose your customer base.
Say it and spell it
You will be saying the business name a lot, like A LOT! Ask others to say it too. Can they read it easily, do people pronounce it correctly? If you say it, can people write it down correctly? when you combine the words together does it look like something else (this is especially important with social media handles and websites.
Out aloud, introduce yourself from your business name. For example “Hi it’s Amy from Dahlia Creative”. Is it easy to say, because you will likely be saying it a lot so make sure it sounds nice.
Also, say the website address. Will you need to spell some of it out. I often have to spell Dahlia. “my website is www dot dahliacreative dot come dot au, that’s dahlia spelt d a h l i a then creative one word” yes I know its sounds stupid, but again you will be saying this a lot.
Can you actually use it?
Is it available?
Before you get your heart set on it, do all the checks first.
- Google. Yes! Make sure it’s not being used for porn, or for something that’s going to bring bad publicity to your business. It might be available but if people google it then they are going to see a whole lot of OMG first.
- Trademark search. This search for more then just business names, it searches brand names too.
- Business Name register first. This doesn’t apply to all countries, but in Australia we have a business name register, and it’s national wide.
- Website URL availability.
- Social Media Accounts.
With the website and social media, you might have ways arounds it if it’s not available. For example, someone is using dahliacreative on Facebook for a personal username, so I just put dahliacreative.com.au as my Facebook handle. but if dahliacreative was being used for a design related business it would mean potentially lost leeds so I would have rethought it.
Is it allowed?
Some terms are protected. You can get an updated list by visiting ASIC. Using the term bank, even as part of a wider name like Northbank or Banksia can cause your business name registration to be rejected so f your heart is set on using a restricted work get the checks down before you fall in love with it.
What will the Children think?
As an adult, especially an older adult, we can be really out of touch with new slang and interpretations. You can google the term, or you can try urban dictionary, but sometimes terms are exploding in the teen scene before they even reach the internet. Ask some teenagers if there is any other meanings on the words you are liking.
Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to work with in developing your business name. Get in touch if you want another person opinion 🙂
