You may find that naming your business is a complicated process, and this a challenge to many young entrepreneurs. Read more about other’s complications about business branding here. This first step is something that you should tackle quickly because it will give you a jumpstart in the market. Many do not have problems naming their companies, and sometimes, they choose something that their products and services truly embody.
Customers can identify the brands with the products that they are selling, and revenues come pouring in. On the other hand, a lot of starting entrepreneurs may not have any idea about how to pick a term or phrase that will make them more successful later. You can check these tips about choosing the right name for your business to ensure that you are doing everything right.
1. Know the Essence of your Company
The best way to start everything is to determine the essence of your products and services to your customers. It would be best to have a mission and vision statement in your plans, which can serve as unique selling propositions down the road. Identify your target audience and think about how you can further help them. Some of the questions to consider are the following:
- What is your message to your potential clients?
- Do you know your business names’ priorities (like easy pronunciation, unique names, different services, etc.)?
- What should you consider as an abbreviation structure for your company?
- Is it going to be an LLC or an INC?
- What are the existing names of your competitors, and what you dislike or like about them?
2. Do Brainstorming
Once you figure out the details about how specific terms will represent your company, this is the time to mix a little creativity through brainstorming. The more free-thinking and creative you get, the more you can generate words and ideas. There are endless possibilities out there, especially if you go into a company naming website for small businesses to get other opinions. You can ask friends, families, investors, and internet users about ideas as well.
Do the research with your partner or with experts to ensure that you are not infringing on any existing brands. Mind maps, brain dumps, and word associations can be essential tools for the ideas to flow in an unrestricted way.
3. Give Everything More Time
Now that you have a long list of the possible names that will fit your products, services, mission, and vision, it is the right time to do a thorough analysis. You may want to go through all the stuff that you've written from your brainstorming session and sort out everything.
Remove words with similar pronunciation or spelling with your rivals. Remove the non-contenders that you do not feel much about and focus on those that resonate with you a lot. Some of the assessments that you can make are the following:
- Do you have a brand that tells people what you do? Sure, there are existing global corporations like Amazon and Google that do not reveal what they do at first glance, but it can be a tremendous advantage if you choose something familiar.
- Is it unique that it is set apart from other competitors?
- Do people find it easy to remember and spell?
- Does it have an easy pronunciation? This is very important today as technology like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri is now acting as voice assistants to many people.
- Does it represent your branding and business tone? If you are serious about your company, you may want to skip whimsical and funny names that can make others misinterpret you.
As you are getting many ideas, you may want to check about biases and preconceptions before you shortlist the possible names. When you are in this process, you need to give it enough time and distract yourself. For a time, walk away from everything and get into your favorite hobby. After a day, you can review them again and determine the best options out there. Read more about taking breaks here: https://www.verywellmind.com/why-you-should-take-a-break-3144576.
4. Check the Names' Availability
Before you decide to trademark your brand, you need to ensure that it is still available and valid. If it already exists as someone else's shop, domain name, or a popular chain of stores, choose another.
You can check with the US Patent and Trademark Office's website to know more about this step. Run searches on the internet and ensure that others are not using what you have in mind. What is appealing with unique brands is that they can use the terms as domain names when establishing their website. This way, they can generate organic visitors and revenues because people will easily remember them.
You can consider hyphens, abbreviations, and other terms related to you when you see that the one that you want is already taken. Others take the domain .net instead of .com to establish a website.
It is still vital that you begin a brand that customers will only relate to you whenever they want to use your products and services. If some have forgotten to type a hyphen when searching for you on the internet, they might go to your business rivals, where they can type an uncomplicated name on the web and get what they want.
5. Register your Business Name
You may have a limited partnership or limited liability company in the US. When this happens, you need to register the company yourself, and this includes a trademarked name. In the case of general partnerships or sole proprietorships, it is not a requirement to register a business entity on a national level. Instead, the owners can do the registration in the county or city where they are located.
Sole proprietorships may choose to file DBA or “doing business as” so they can use the company name instead of their real given name. The county clerk can process this in the state where they are in. In many cases, others choose to go with a trademark to protect themselves from someone who plans to steal their intellectual property or lawsuits filed by other competitors.