How to name your business|BYOB 3/3

hello, I’m your host Kaycinho, I’m a digital alchemist, and this episode, is episode number three of a module dedicated to the creation phase of starting your business, so if you haven’t seen the first two episodes, I invite you to check the module playlist by clicking here.

And by the way, this module is the second module of a course dedicated to take you from the burning desire to become your own boss to actually launching your business. So if you want access to the full course (videos will be added until the course is complete) by clicking here.

How to name your business?

So you are ready to create your brand but how should you name it? Let me share with you what helped me along my journey.

How To Name Your Business For A Personal Brand

Well first, if you create a Personal Brand, it’s pretty straightforward: it’s just your name right?

But what if you’re name is John Smith? Or what if your name is Kizwezo Smeureubreu?

The first example is way too common, and the second example is hard to pronounce, let alone write it in a search engine, and I challenge you to repeat it right now without pausing and rewinding this video. That’s what I thought.

So in that case, I would come up with a nickname, close enough, but sexier and if possible, with unique characteristics so that you could easily find an available .com domain name and social medias accounts to reinforce your branding.

And two handy tools you can use to check the availability of a name across domains and social medias are namecheckr.com and namecheck.com.

Now sometimes you may have to compromise the shortness of the name or the ease of pronunciation, but it also really depends on which platform you are developing your personal brand on.

The idea is always the same: try to stand out while at the same time making it as easy as possible for your audience.

Using storytelling elements

One other element that can add a layer to your personal brand is to use storytelling in your brand.

For example, my first name is Kaycy, and something you may not know about me is that I love soccer. Not really playing soccer, although I enjoy that, but I’m really passionate by universal the dimension of soccer, the history, the evolution, the strategies, the stakeholders and the whole drama going on around soccer. I could speak about it for hours.

As a matter of fact the professional soccer world is one of my passions. And if you know anything about soccer, you may have heard of players like Ronaldinho, Coutinho, Robinho and so on. So early on Kaycinho became a natural nickname for me, as I loved debating about the game and about some of my favorite players, like Ronaldinho.

I could have chosen just Kaycy, but it would have been harder to stand out and get that unique feel for my personal brand.

So, now you know where Kaycinho comes from!

Doing your research

Just like we’ll see for the Corporate brand, if you are using a nickname for your Personal brand, you should do your best to research the meaning of it, but it is not as important than it is for a Corporate brand.

For example, if you love soccer you may have heard of the Brazilian player Kaka, who had a great career. But in many languages, Kaka means poop, so not the most sexy of names!

But he was so talented that he played for some of the biggest clubs in the world, and while some people must have made good fun of him when first hearing his name, his bank account didn’t really care, neither did his fans and the goals he scored on the field.

So yes, do your best to research the meaning of your nickname for your main audience, but if you are an A player, it shouldn’t be a problem.

So that was for Personal Brand naming but now let’s talk about Corporate brands naming.

How To Name Your Business For A Corporate Brand

Now there are many ways to come up with a name for a Business Brand, but before we dive in, let’s look at the checklist of what a good branding name is:

A good branding name should be:

• available as a .com domain name and if possible, also available on the main social media platforms
• easy enough to pronounce in the languages of your target market
• memorable
• easy to spell
• recognizable over a low quality phone conversation
• possibly in two or three syllables although it may be longer if it can easily be remembered
• AND, something important, and this is a tough one, you should do as much research as you can regarding the potential meaning of that name in other languages.

And I say it’s a tough one because given the number of languages and dialects on planet earth, it’s almost impossible to check all possibilities but you should at least do your research for your target market.

For example you may have heard of Escrow.com with the tagline “Pay Online Securely with Escrow.com”.

Now the thing is that, in french, when you prononce Escrow, it sounds as the french word “Escroc”, which means “Crook” or “Con artist” or “Scammer”. SO, as you can see, even large corporations can have a hard time with this one.

How To Name Your Business: Practical Tips

Okay, now that we’ve defined what a good name is, let’s move on to practical tips about how to create a business name in 5 steps:

How To Name Your Business: Step One

Define the type of name that would be in accordance with your brand statement.

Are you going after a descriptive name? Or would a creative name fit better?

Each case is different, so make sure your branding statement, that you created in the first video of this module, is solid.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this video.

How To Name Your Business: Step Two

Take the brand statement you’ve created from the first video in this module and write down 10 keywords out of that statement that can describe either your brand, your brand values, your product or your services.

Now the keywords can but do not have to be specifically written in your brand statement, it might just be other words that fit the spirit of your brand statement

• if it helps, go to synonym.com (you will find the link in the description)
• order the keywords per importance, so the first of the list is the most important to you, and then proceed with the second keyword, and so on.

How To Name Your Business: Step Three

Now that you have your 10 keywords, we can use several methods to create business names. You don’t have to use all of them, because although it is quite simple, it can be time consuming.

Now, in my opinion this is not time wasted because we’re talking about a very important part of your branding.

First method:

• create a new spreadsheet in Google Doc, Numbers or Excel, and put all the keywords in the first column, per order of importance
• now for each key word, you’re going to combine it with all the other key words, one at a time, and you’re going to write each combination within the row of the chosen keyword, one combination per column
• repeat the process for each keyword and voilà: now you have ninety name combinations
• now read aloud each of the ninety combinations, and highlight the best ones by comparing them to the checklist we’ve talked about a few minutes ago
• next create a new spreadsheet, that you can name “Name selection” for example, and paste each selected name combination in column one, each on its own row

Second method:

• go to leandomainsearch.com enter the most important keyword of the initial ten keywords you’ve extracted from your brand statement and hit the search button

You will now be presented with a list of name combinations that integrate that specific keyword and that are available as a .com domain name.

That list may be pretty long depending on the keyword you’ve used and up to roughly 5000 combinations in the free version so you’d better grab a cup of coffee!

• you can also reduce the number of combination by filtering only the combinations that start or end with your keyword, and you can sort the results by popularity, length or alphabetical order in the left column of the page
• each time you identify a name that you like, add it to column one of the “Name selection” spreadsheet we’ve created at the end of the First method
• once that is done, just repeat the process for the next keyword, up to keyword number ten if you have the courage

Third method:

• go to wordoid.com, select your options in the left column, such as the language, the quality and the placement of your keyword
• enter the most important keyword of the initial ten keywords you’ve extracted from your brand statement and hit the search button
• you will be presented with a list of name combinations that integrate that specific keyword but watch out because they are not always available as a .com domain name. That list may be pretty long depending on the keyword you’ve used so, just like in the previous method, you’d better grab a cup of coffee
• each time you identify a name that you like, add it to column one of the “Name selection” spreadsheet we’ve created at the end of the First method
• once that is done, just repeat the process for the next keyword, up to keyword number ten if you have the courage.

So you should now have a massive list of potential names in your “Name selection” spreadsheet.

Other tools similar to the tools presented here can help you achieve the same results, I’ve just presented you those I use most, but feel free to name other tools that you love in the comments.

How To Name Your Business: Step Four

Now you’re going to take column number one of your “Name selection” spreadsheet, and report 50% of the name in that column to column number two. So basically to easiest way to do this is to assess the name in row one versus the name in row two and may the best win and make it to column number two.

Then proceed with row number three versus row number four, and so on.

Once you’ve done that, repeat the process with column number three, number four, and so on, until you reach a selection of 3 names.

Next, order those 3 names per order of preference, and when I say preference, sure you can include your personal preference, but you should also assess the names against the good name characteristics checklist that we’ve defined earlier.

Now once you’ve done that go to a name checker service like namecheckr.com and/or namecheck.com. and you will instantly know which names of your shortlist are available across the web and social media.

How To Name Your Business: Step Five

Once you’ve made your decision, order your .com domain name right away. I can’t stress this enough. And I’m talking from experience as I’ve missed a few “perfect” names that were available.

I just thought I’d purchase it later, but later became too late, and the consequence was quite bitter, since someone had registered the domain in the meantime.

So if you don’t want to experience the same thing, just go and get your domain right away! Now at this point, never mind the hosting, just get the domain.

And as we’ll discuss in a later video, I actually advise not to get your domains and hosting at the same place. But more on that in another video

Now for the time being:

• purchase your domain name, at least the .com
• create a gmail email address: it will be useful to register new accounts for your new brand (like Twitter, Pinterest and so on) as well as for your future Google Analytics account
• then start creating your social media accounts right away, don’t worry about the content, just create them, and if possible, chose your brand name for your profile URL and username

How To Name Your Business: Get To Work!

So, as you can see, although you may be lucky and find a great name in a few minutes, (and that’s actually happened to me a few times), the reality of it is that it can be a long process, but in my opinion, taking the time to do it right is totally worth it in the long run.

Now if you have the budget, and lack the time, you can always contract a naming agency, with prices ranging from a few hundreds dollars to tens of thousands of dollars and even more, depending on your brief, and the experience and quality of the Agency.

And if you go that route, make sure you look at the portfolios of Names of the Agencies you contact.

But if you’re in bootstrapping mode, I hope that this video has helped you with a solid strategy to create your brand name.

Now I’m not saying that this is the only strategy to come up with a good brand name, but it is one that I’ve personally used and that helps to create an organized process.

So if you have other good tips or tools to find a great name, let me know in the comments.

How To Name Your Business : Share The Word

If you watched the companion video and if you like it, please give it a thumbs up, as it really helps growing the channel and if you know someone that could benefit from it, I’m going to ask you if you’d like to share it now.

Because let’s face it, there are so many things to do in a day that if you don’t do it now you’ll probably forget.

Now if you want to brand, market and grow your business it in the Digital Age make sure you subscribe to my email newsletter so that you never miss your share of digital alchemy and tips, tools, services and case studies that can help you grow your business online.

So, that’s it for this video, and in the next one we’ll discuss about creating a logo that rocks.

In the meantime, don’t forget to invest in YOUR success!