It can be a difficult task to undertake to name your business, which is why I thought I would share a few top tips with you in how you can come up with a name for your business.
Personal or Business Brand
The first thing to think about is are you creating a business or personal brand?
• A personal brand – people are buying into you, your skills and expertise and you as a person. Your future plans don’t involve having a team/employees, but just still having you as the face of your business.
Typically a personal brand will be based around your name – for example, Sue Todd Photography or Nichola English – The Wardrobe Provocateur.
• A business brand – you don’t want to be the face of your business and your long term plans are to grow a team of employees, or sell your business in the future.
Once you decide on the above, it’s time to look at coming up with a name.
Grab a piece of paper and pen or a whiteboard as it’s time to get creative and have some fun:
Start writing words down which relate to the services/products you’re going to be offering.
Think about how want people to feel once they’ve bought from you.
What makes you stand out?
What do you want people to say about your business?
Think about your dream customers as well.
Keep writing words which relate to the other words you’ve written down too. You can also look at a thesaurus and dictionary for ideas as this spark off some new words which you may not have considered to begin with.
Once you’ve filled a sheet of paper with words, start going through them and out a star next to any you really like the sound of. Can you put 1-2 or 2-3 words together which is going to sum up what your business is all about?
The Business Name
In terms of the actual name – I would say make sure it’s no longer than 3 words long. This is because it’s really difficult to design logos with more than 3 words in the business name. I know this from experience and with long business names you’re really limited as to how you can design them so they still look nice.
Make sure the business name relates to what you do and is catchy. You want it to roll off people’s tongues.
Also, make sure it’s easy to spell otherwise that’s going to put people off.
And I would recommend checking a Name Checker website to see if the names you come up with are available on social profiles and as domain names too.
Create a shortlist
Once you’ve come up with a few business name ideas, create a short list of the top 3-5 names you like the sound of the best.
Ask people what they think – but be wary about who you ask. There’s that saying ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’… well the same can be said about asking for opinions on anything. If you are going to get anyones opinions, ask your dream customers because after all, they’re the ones who are going to be buying from you! Their opinion counts the most.
If you can, create a poll and ask for them to vote on their favourite as this will help you get a clear idea of what’s popular and what isn’t.
Let me know if you’ve found this helpful in how to come up with a name for your business and let me know if you have any questions.
If you get stuck or have short listed some business names, but you’re not sure about them, post into here and let us vote on them for you as a poll!