What's in a Name
Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:27 am
Okay....we really seem to be stalled on the naming process. I found three articles to perhaps give some direction or jumpstart a few ideas. There are of course 1000's more articles out there, just Google "choosing a company name" 
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[b]Article 1:[/b]
Choosing a Company Name
By: Karl Schmieder
The first impression potential customers will have of your company will be based on its name. For this reason, the name you choose for your company, product or service matters tremendously.
A great name will catch your customers' attention. They will remember it. And, will be motivated to get to know you. A poor name will be quickly forgotten. Worse, it can turn customers off and drive them to your competitors.
Here are a few tips for naming your company or product.
1. Ask Yourself Questions.
To jumpstart the process of creating names, ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers.
* Who exactly are my target customers?
* What problems do I solve for them?
* Should my name describe what we do?
* What words of phrases appeal to my customers?
* What are the three to five most attractive benefits my business brings to customers? Are there word pictures or metaphors that communicate what I do that would be relevant to my customers?
* What are my competitors' names? What kind of name would differentiate me in the marketplace?
By answering these questions on paper, you begin creating a framework that will help you generate names.
2. Devise A Strategy.
Decide what you want your name to do. This will make it easier to:
1. generate names
2. judge the names you develop
Your strategy might be to create a name that reflects your company's mission or defines what you do. Or, you may decide it is important to motivate your customers. Or, you may decide that being different from the competition is most important.
3. Namestorm.
Once you've asked yourself questions and you've devised a strategy, you're ready to brainstorm company names.
* Look at the answers to your questions and jot down words that come to mind and describe your company. Look at those words, play with them. Combine words to create compound words or even create words. Use the thesaurus to find underutilized words similar to the ones you've written.
* Invite friends or colleagues to help you.
* Creative brainstorming means putting aside your internal editor while you create. That means writing down every name while turning off the voice that says, 'That name doesn't work.' The idea here is quantity, not quality.
4. Evaluate.
Once you have a long list of potential names, compare them to your strategy. A "score sheet" based on the criteria you've developed will allow you to quickly eliminate any name that does not meet your criteria.
5. Confirm Availability.
Once you've narrowed your list down, check the United States Patent and Trademark Office's database to see if your name is available for your business. Check the availability of the domain name at any one of the many domain registrars available.
A service like Name Protect (www.nameprotect.com) allows you to check the USPTO, Canadian, European Trademark databases as well as the domain availability all from one place. For a fee, they will also register your name for you.
6. Go Global.
The moment you put your business online, your business goes global. That means that a name that might sound and mean great things to an American audience, might get you in trouble elsewhere. A quick check using the any foreign dictionaries online will help.
If you're not sure, take your short list of names to a linguistic expert who can cover literal translations and idiomatic expressions.
7. Listen.
Say your remaining names aloud. Does a name sound as good as it looks? Do you feel comfortable saying the name when someone calls you? Can a caller understand the name when you answer the phone? Would they be able to spell it easily?
8. Review your strategy.
Again. Go back to your strategy. Take a look at your naming criteria. Then take a look at the remaining names. Are the names meeting the criteria?
9. Choose your finalists.
Look at the remaining company names. Does the name speak to you? Does the name tell your story? Does the name sufficiently distinguish you from the competition? In the end, you alone will be the judge of your name's success or failure.
Finally, a great names takes risks and is appropriate to its unique audience, not to everyone everywhere. This means the name that is most appropriate for your business might be the one that sends a little shiver down your spine.
If that's the case, then you've come up with a great company name. Congratulations!
Karl Schmieder is the President of [url=\"http://www.messaginglab.com/\"]Messaging Lab[/url], a branding and communications firm based in New York that provides naming services and brand development. Their area of expertise includes life sciences, consumer brands, and high technology.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[b]Article 2:[/b]
Choosing a Business Name
By Julie King
Published in 2000
Anyone who has ever spent days deliberating over a business name choice will understand that this seemingly simple activity can be one of the most challenging aspects of starting a new business.
How can you choose a good business name? What should you consider when making your selection? These are just a few things you'll need to consider. You will want a name that can grow as your business grows. A name that has a decent '.com' or alternative Internet name available. A name that does not violate the intellectual property rights of another business or organization with the name you choose, which could put your ability to use the name in jeopardy.
CanadaOne wasn't my first business venture – and it surely won't be my last. Through the process of building several businesses, I've learned a thing or two about choosing a business name. This article outlines some of the things I take into account when naming a company.
Think big
When you are starting your business, you have great plans, but may be thinking more about the details you face today than the possibilities of tomorrow. My recommendation: think about tomorrow when choosing your business name, and think big!
If you are successful with your new business, your choice will be with you for a long time. Not only that, but it could also influence the growth of your business.
For example, someone starting a specialty fast-food restaurant in Moose Jaw, Sask., might have a good reason to choose a name that reflects the local nature – or owner – of the business. However, if they someday find they're in the position to sell franchises, the name Mike's Prairie Diner might not have the same appeal as The Prairie Dog Café.
A business name automatically contains a marketing element; your job is to choose a name that will help your marketing efforts. The name The Prairie Dog Café tells prospective customers a story about the origins of the business, while hinting at its uniqueness. The name Mike's Prairie Diner implies a completely different type and scope of business.
These two names also imply different visual identities. The Prairie Dog Café name could easily be associated with a western motif and an overall stylish corporate identify. Mike's Prairie Diner would seem better suited to a 1950s style with a small, owner-run image.
Don't pigeon-hole your business
Including a descriptive term, such as paralegal, in your business name can be useful when marketing your products and services, as the nature of the business is expressed in the name. In some provinces, such as British Columbia, a descriptive element is a requirement, rather than a choice.
However, a descriptive term may also work against your business as it grows. Businesses are organic entities that evolve around the customer rather than a business plan. In many industries, especially rapidly evolving sectors such as the Internet and information technologies, the core terminology or the services in demand can change rapidly. This can wreak havoc on a business that finds that it has a descriptive phrase in its name that is either out-of-date or inaccurate due to evolution of the business.
My partner and I encountered this problem with our first business, nVision Multimedia. It wasn't long after we started nVision that the majority of our clients were interested in Internet rather than multimedia services. Having the word 'multimedia' in our name confused customers who were coming to us for web work. Because of this and other factors we eventually closed down nVision Multimedia, replacing it with Biz-Zone Internet Group (now Biz-Zone Internet Group, Inc.).
The bottom line: including a descriptive component in your name can help customers understand the nature of your business. However, avoid including descriptive elements that could quickly become out of date or inaccurate.
The sound & spell test
The last thing you'll want to hear from people after you've selected, registered and imprinted your business name on everything from business cards to signage is, "Huh? How do you spell that?" That's where our sound and spell test comes in. Here's how it works.
Scenario 1: Your business is a booming success. You've just booked 30-second radio spots on stations across the country. Your marketing team is working on a series of ads that will drive traffic to your businessname.com.
The test: If someone were to say your business name over the radio, would people be able to remember it? Spell it correctly? Easily translate it into a properly spelled dotcom address for surfing at another time during the day? A good name is something that can be mentioned on the radio or over the phone, without a lot of explanation. A great name does this and is memorable.
Check out your dotcom options
As the Internet reaches a critical mass, owning a good .com domain name has a tremendous value. If you believe the Internet will play an important role in the future of your business, you'll want to factor the availability of dotcom names into your name choice.
It's easy to find out what domain names are available, and which ones are taken. Here are two free online resources that we regularly use to determine the availability of a particular name. To use each service, simply type in the domain name you want to lookup, such as "yourname.com" (without quotes), and hit the enter key or click on the appropriate button.
* [url=\"http://www.checkdomain.com/\"]CheckDomain[/url]
*[url=\"http://www.e-softinc.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?showfr=1\"] E-Soft's World-Wide Whois Gateway [/url]
SmartTip: If you have difficulties finding a .com domain, you may want to look at other options such as a .ca or .prov.ca (where prov is the abbreviation for the province where your business is located).
Tread lightly on trademark & other legal issues
Just because you've found a name and it appears to be available, it does not mean that you are free to use it for your business. If your name conflicts with an existing trademark, tradename or someone's intellectual property, you could find yourself facing a lawsuit and the possible loss of your business name.
If you will be incorporating your business, a Newly Upgraded Automated Name Search (NUANS) – should identify possible conflicts. However, since each report costs $40 to $80, finding out if the name conflicts exist before you order a report can save you time and money.
When searching the database, try different spacing and word combinations to find all possible matches. For example, try 'Prairie Dog', 'PrairieDog', 'PrairieDog.Com', and 'Prairie Dog Café'.
Since trademarks are based on what we hear, rather than what we see, you should also include different spelling variations for your search. For example, look for both Cray and Kray if you are looking to register the name 'Krayton'. Go here to directly search the Canadian Trade-marks Database.
Once you know that your name has no trademark conflicts, you can get a rough indication of other businesses that are using a name similar to your preferred choice if you assume that most incorporated businesses have a business line, and therefore are listed in Canada411 under their business name. Searching this database will help you identify potential name conflicts, and will indicate businesses that use a name similar to your name of choice. Since Canada411 does not cover Alberta and Saskatchewan, you should also look-up the name in the Yellow.Ca database.
Finally, to find out what other businesses are using the same, or similar names, to yours, do a search in one of the major search engines such as Google.ca or Fast: Search.
Finding a name isn't always easy, but if you invest the time and effort, you should be able to come up with a great name for your new business. In the long run, this effort can add considerable value to your business – and the bottom line.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[b]Article 3:[/b]
5 Rules for Choosing a Business Name
From Susan Ward
How to Create a Winning Business Name
What’s a winning business name? A business name that draws business in itself.
Creating a winning business name takes some thought but is one of the most important things you’ll do during the process of starting a business. Starting out with a weak business name is like trying to golf with only one club in your bag. You may sink some shots but it will be a whole lot harder.
So how do you create a winning business name? Get your family, friends and/or colleagues together for a business name brainstorming session and work through these five rules for choosing a business name:
1) A winning business name has to be memorable – but easy to spell.
Obviously, your potential customers and clients need to be able to remember your business name. But they also need to be able to find it easily if they’re looking for it in a phone book, directory or online.
So choosing a business name such as “Crychalwellyn” is a bad idea. Unique is good but difficult spellings are a bad idea.
2) A winning business name needs a visual element.
What popped into your head when you read “Crychalwellyn”? Anything? Most people don’t visualize anything when they read this business name that I invented. But generally we are hard-wired to “see” images when we read or hear language, and incorporating a visual element into your business name can be a powerful aid to customers’ memory (and a powerful advertising tool).
So you want your business name to have a strong visual element to it. The catch is that...
3) A winning business name has to have positive connotation.
Many words have both denotation (literal meaning) and connotation (emotional meaning). A word’s connotation can be positive, neutral or negative, depending on the emotional associations that people generally make. The classic example is the difference between “Mom” (which has a very positive connotation) and “Mother” (which has a neutral connotation). Now you know why they called them “Dad’s” cookies, rather than “Father’s”!
What it means to you is that when you create a business name, you need to choose words that have the positive connotations that you want people to associate with your business – and make sure these connotations are suitable for your business.
If you are starting a trucking business, for instance, you don’t want it to have a weak sounding or negative name, such as “Willow Twig Trucking” or “Kitten Transport”. You want a business name that conveys strength and reliability. A choice such as “Stone Creek Trucking” would be much better. Notice how all these names have a strong visual element.
4) A winning business name needs to include information about what your business does.
Chances are good that your new business is not going to become an international brand. It certainly isn’t instantly going to become as well known as Nike. So you need to be sure that your new business name at least gives your potential customers or clients some clues about what you actually do. That’s why you see so many landscaping businesses that have the word “landscaping” in their name, and hair styling businesses that include words such as “salon” or even “hair designs” in their names.
Including information about what your business does in your business name also makes it easier for potential customers and/or clients to find your business in phone books and directories (both off and online).
5) A winning business name has to be fairly short.
Once again this is vital because you want customers and clients to be able to remember your business’s name (and be able to tell other people what it is)! But it’s also important for promotional purposes. You want a business name, for example, that will fit well on a business card, look good displayed on a sign or in an ad, and perhaps even a business name that will serve well as a domain name and show up well in search if you have an online business. So keep it as short as possible.
And a last tip: think about colours when you’re choosing a business name. Colours will be an important component of your business logo and other business promotion materials and your business web site, and colours have strong emotional associations, too. Red, for instance, is an aggressive colour; its fiery elements are associated with speed, excitement and passion while green is a calming colour associated with growth, renewal and nature. For more information on colours and their meanings see [url=\"http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm\"]Color Meanings and Colors That Go Together[/url] by Jacci Howard Bear.
You’ll want to create at least two winning business names, and three is even better, because once you’ve chosen a business name, the next step is to register it and your first choice may already be taken.
Do you now have a winning business name that meets the requirements of all of the above five rules? Good! Hopefully you’ll be living with the name for your new business for a long time – and it will continue to attract new business.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay...so...any ideas?/lmfao.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':lmfao:\' />
[b]Article 1:[/b]
Choosing a Company Name
By: Karl Schmieder
The first impression potential customers will have of your company will be based on its name. For this reason, the name you choose for your company, product or service matters tremendously.
A great name will catch your customers' attention. They will remember it. And, will be motivated to get to know you. A poor name will be quickly forgotten. Worse, it can turn customers off and drive them to your competitors.
Here are a few tips for naming your company or product.
1. Ask Yourself Questions.
To jumpstart the process of creating names, ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers.
* Who exactly are my target customers?
* What problems do I solve for them?
* Should my name describe what we do?
* What words of phrases appeal to my customers?
* What are the three to five most attractive benefits my business brings to customers? Are there word pictures or metaphors that communicate what I do that would be relevant to my customers?
* What are my competitors' names? What kind of name would differentiate me in the marketplace?
By answering these questions on paper, you begin creating a framework that will help you generate names.
2. Devise A Strategy.
Decide what you want your name to do. This will make it easier to:
1. generate names
2. judge the names you develop
Your strategy might be to create a name that reflects your company's mission or defines what you do. Or, you may decide it is important to motivate your customers. Or, you may decide that being different from the competition is most important.
3. Namestorm.
Once you've asked yourself questions and you've devised a strategy, you're ready to brainstorm company names.
* Look at the answers to your questions and jot down words that come to mind and describe your company. Look at those words, play with them. Combine words to create compound words or even create words. Use the thesaurus to find underutilized words similar to the ones you've written.
* Invite friends or colleagues to help you.
* Creative brainstorming means putting aside your internal editor while you create. That means writing down every name while turning off the voice that says, 'That name doesn't work.' The idea here is quantity, not quality.
4. Evaluate.
Once you have a long list of potential names, compare them to your strategy. A "score sheet" based on the criteria you've developed will allow you to quickly eliminate any name that does not meet your criteria.
5. Confirm Availability.
Once you've narrowed your list down, check the United States Patent and Trademark Office's database to see if your name is available for your business. Check the availability of the domain name at any one of the many domain registrars available.
A service like Name Protect (www.nameprotect.com) allows you to check the USPTO, Canadian, European Trademark databases as well as the domain availability all from one place. For a fee, they will also register your name for you.
6. Go Global.
The moment you put your business online, your business goes global. That means that a name that might sound and mean great things to an American audience, might get you in trouble elsewhere. A quick check using the any foreign dictionaries online will help.
If you're not sure, take your short list of names to a linguistic expert who can cover literal translations and idiomatic expressions.
7. Listen.
Say your remaining names aloud. Does a name sound as good as it looks? Do you feel comfortable saying the name when someone calls you? Can a caller understand the name when you answer the phone? Would they be able to spell it easily?
8. Review your strategy.
Again. Go back to your strategy. Take a look at your naming criteria. Then take a look at the remaining names. Are the names meeting the criteria?
9. Choose your finalists.
Look at the remaining company names. Does the name speak to you? Does the name tell your story? Does the name sufficiently distinguish you from the competition? In the end, you alone will be the judge of your name's success or failure.
Finally, a great names takes risks and is appropriate to its unique audience, not to everyone everywhere. This means the name that is most appropriate for your business might be the one that sends a little shiver down your spine.
If that's the case, then you've come up with a great company name. Congratulations!
Karl Schmieder is the President of [url=\"http://www.messaginglab.com/\"]Messaging Lab[/url], a branding and communications firm based in New York that provides naming services and brand development. Their area of expertise includes life sciences, consumer brands, and high technology.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[b]Article 2:[/b]
Choosing a Business Name
By Julie King
Published in 2000
Anyone who has ever spent days deliberating over a business name choice will understand that this seemingly simple activity can be one of the most challenging aspects of starting a new business.
How can you choose a good business name? What should you consider when making your selection? These are just a few things you'll need to consider. You will want a name that can grow as your business grows. A name that has a decent '.com' or alternative Internet name available. A name that does not violate the intellectual property rights of another business or organization with the name you choose, which could put your ability to use the name in jeopardy.
CanadaOne wasn't my first business venture – and it surely won't be my last. Through the process of building several businesses, I've learned a thing or two about choosing a business name. This article outlines some of the things I take into account when naming a company.
Think big
When you are starting your business, you have great plans, but may be thinking more about the details you face today than the possibilities of tomorrow. My recommendation: think about tomorrow when choosing your business name, and think big!
If you are successful with your new business, your choice will be with you for a long time. Not only that, but it could also influence the growth of your business.
For example, someone starting a specialty fast-food restaurant in Moose Jaw, Sask., might have a good reason to choose a name that reflects the local nature – or owner – of the business. However, if they someday find they're in the position to sell franchises, the name Mike's Prairie Diner might not have the same appeal as The Prairie Dog Café.
A business name automatically contains a marketing element; your job is to choose a name that will help your marketing efforts. The name The Prairie Dog Café tells prospective customers a story about the origins of the business, while hinting at its uniqueness. The name Mike's Prairie Diner implies a completely different type and scope of business.
These two names also imply different visual identities. The Prairie Dog Café name could easily be associated with a western motif and an overall stylish corporate identify. Mike's Prairie Diner would seem better suited to a 1950s style with a small, owner-run image.
Don't pigeon-hole your business
Including a descriptive term, such as paralegal, in your business name can be useful when marketing your products and services, as the nature of the business is expressed in the name. In some provinces, such as British Columbia, a descriptive element is a requirement, rather than a choice.
However, a descriptive term may also work against your business as it grows. Businesses are organic entities that evolve around the customer rather than a business plan. In many industries, especially rapidly evolving sectors such as the Internet and information technologies, the core terminology or the services in demand can change rapidly. This can wreak havoc on a business that finds that it has a descriptive phrase in its name that is either out-of-date or inaccurate due to evolution of the business.
My partner and I encountered this problem with our first business, nVision Multimedia. It wasn't long after we started nVision that the majority of our clients were interested in Internet rather than multimedia services. Having the word 'multimedia' in our name confused customers who were coming to us for web work. Because of this and other factors we eventually closed down nVision Multimedia, replacing it with Biz-Zone Internet Group (now Biz-Zone Internet Group, Inc.).
The bottom line: including a descriptive component in your name can help customers understand the nature of your business. However, avoid including descriptive elements that could quickly become out of date or inaccurate.
The sound & spell test
The last thing you'll want to hear from people after you've selected, registered and imprinted your business name on everything from business cards to signage is, "Huh? How do you spell that?" That's where our sound and spell test comes in. Here's how it works.
Scenario 1: Your business is a booming success. You've just booked 30-second radio spots on stations across the country. Your marketing team is working on a series of ads that will drive traffic to your businessname.com.
The test: If someone were to say your business name over the radio, would people be able to remember it? Spell it correctly? Easily translate it into a properly spelled dotcom address for surfing at another time during the day? A good name is something that can be mentioned on the radio or over the phone, without a lot of explanation. A great name does this and is memorable.
Check out your dotcom options
As the Internet reaches a critical mass, owning a good .com domain name has a tremendous value. If you believe the Internet will play an important role in the future of your business, you'll want to factor the availability of dotcom names into your name choice.
It's easy to find out what domain names are available, and which ones are taken. Here are two free online resources that we regularly use to determine the availability of a particular name. To use each service, simply type in the domain name you want to lookup, such as "yourname.com" (without quotes), and hit the enter key or click on the appropriate button.
* [url=\"http://www.checkdomain.com/\"]CheckDomain[/url]
*[url=\"http://www.e-softinc.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?showfr=1\"] E-Soft's World-Wide Whois Gateway [/url]
SmartTip: If you have difficulties finding a .com domain, you may want to look at other options such as a .ca or .prov.ca (where prov is the abbreviation for the province where your business is located).
Tread lightly on trademark & other legal issues
Just because you've found a name and it appears to be available, it does not mean that you are free to use it for your business. If your name conflicts with an existing trademark, tradename or someone's intellectual property, you could find yourself facing a lawsuit and the possible loss of your business name.
If you will be incorporating your business, a Newly Upgraded Automated Name Search (NUANS) – should identify possible conflicts. However, since each report costs $40 to $80, finding out if the name conflicts exist before you order a report can save you time and money.
When searching the database, try different spacing and word combinations to find all possible matches. For example, try 'Prairie Dog', 'PrairieDog', 'PrairieDog.Com', and 'Prairie Dog Café'.
Since trademarks are based on what we hear, rather than what we see, you should also include different spelling variations for your search. For example, look for both Cray and Kray if you are looking to register the name 'Krayton'. Go here to directly search the Canadian Trade-marks Database.
Once you know that your name has no trademark conflicts, you can get a rough indication of other businesses that are using a name similar to your preferred choice if you assume that most incorporated businesses have a business line, and therefore are listed in Canada411 under their business name. Searching this database will help you identify potential name conflicts, and will indicate businesses that use a name similar to your name of choice. Since Canada411 does not cover Alberta and Saskatchewan, you should also look-up the name in the Yellow.Ca database.
Finally, to find out what other businesses are using the same, or similar names, to yours, do a search in one of the major search engines such as Google.ca or Fast: Search.
Finding a name isn't always easy, but if you invest the time and effort, you should be able to come up with a great name for your new business. In the long run, this effort can add considerable value to your business – and the bottom line.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[b]Article 3:[/b]
5 Rules for Choosing a Business Name
From Susan Ward
How to Create a Winning Business Name
What’s a winning business name? A business name that draws business in itself.
Creating a winning business name takes some thought but is one of the most important things you’ll do during the process of starting a business. Starting out with a weak business name is like trying to golf with only one club in your bag. You may sink some shots but it will be a whole lot harder.
So how do you create a winning business name? Get your family, friends and/or colleagues together for a business name brainstorming session and work through these five rules for choosing a business name:
1) A winning business name has to be memorable – but easy to spell.
Obviously, your potential customers and clients need to be able to remember your business name. But they also need to be able to find it easily if they’re looking for it in a phone book, directory or online.
So choosing a business name such as “Crychalwellyn” is a bad idea. Unique is good but difficult spellings are a bad idea.
2) A winning business name needs a visual element.
What popped into your head when you read “Crychalwellyn”? Anything? Most people don’t visualize anything when they read this business name that I invented. But generally we are hard-wired to “see” images when we read or hear language, and incorporating a visual element into your business name can be a powerful aid to customers’ memory (and a powerful advertising tool).
So you want your business name to have a strong visual element to it. The catch is that...
3) A winning business name has to have positive connotation.
Many words have both denotation (literal meaning) and connotation (emotional meaning). A word’s connotation can be positive, neutral or negative, depending on the emotional associations that people generally make. The classic example is the difference between “Mom” (which has a very positive connotation) and “Mother” (which has a neutral connotation). Now you know why they called them “Dad’s” cookies, rather than “Father’s”!
What it means to you is that when you create a business name, you need to choose words that have the positive connotations that you want people to associate with your business – and make sure these connotations are suitable for your business.
If you are starting a trucking business, for instance, you don’t want it to have a weak sounding or negative name, such as “Willow Twig Trucking” or “Kitten Transport”. You want a business name that conveys strength and reliability. A choice such as “Stone Creek Trucking” would be much better. Notice how all these names have a strong visual element.
4) A winning business name needs to include information about what your business does.
Chances are good that your new business is not going to become an international brand. It certainly isn’t instantly going to become as well known as Nike. So you need to be sure that your new business name at least gives your potential customers or clients some clues about what you actually do. That’s why you see so many landscaping businesses that have the word “landscaping” in their name, and hair styling businesses that include words such as “salon” or even “hair designs” in their names.
Including information about what your business does in your business name also makes it easier for potential customers and/or clients to find your business in phone books and directories (both off and online).
5) A winning business name has to be fairly short.
Once again this is vital because you want customers and clients to be able to remember your business’s name (and be able to tell other people what it is)! But it’s also important for promotional purposes. You want a business name, for example, that will fit well on a business card, look good displayed on a sign or in an ad, and perhaps even a business name that will serve well as a domain name and show up well in search if you have an online business. So keep it as short as possible.
And a last tip: think about colours when you’re choosing a business name. Colours will be an important component of your business logo and other business promotion materials and your business web site, and colours have strong emotional associations, too. Red, for instance, is an aggressive colour; its fiery elements are associated with speed, excitement and passion while green is a calming colour associated with growth, renewal and nature. For more information on colours and their meanings see [url=\"http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm\"]Color Meanings and Colors That Go Together[/url] by Jacci Howard Bear.
You’ll want to create at least two winning business names, and three is even better, because once you’ve chosen a business name, the next step is to register it and your first choice may already be taken.
Do you now have a winning business name that meets the requirements of all of the above five rules? Good! Hopefully you’ll be living with the name for your new business for a long time – and it will continue to attract new business.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay...so...any ideas?