Would you pony up $65,000 for your business' name? It's shocking that naming firms around Silicon Valley and parts of the world charge this kind of cash, but it's quite easy to see why they can get away with it...
A powerful and original business name is an incredibly valuable asset, something to be treated with respect and research. Some businesses don't take it serious at all, while others realize confusion and ordinary names are deadly; case in point, "DHL" compared to "FedEx".
DHL ...
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Would you pony up $65,000 for your business' name? It's shocking that naming firms around Silicon Valley and parts of the world charge this kind of cash, but it's quite easy to see why they can get away with it...
A powerful and original business name is an incredibly valuable asset, something to be treated with respect and research. Some businesses don't take it serious at all, while others realize confusion and ordinary names are deadly; case in point, "DHL" compared to "FedEx".
DHL now has to spend millions in advertising to constantly remind everybody they are a shipping company with an acronym that doesn't mean squat. Furthermore, their potential customers are running to FedEx who've already subconsciously and comfortably connected their name to shipping services.
To boot, here are some tips to come up with your own $65k small business name:
- Keep it as short as possible; around Four Syllables. For example, Starbucks, Staples, SubZero, Greyhound, Yahoo!
- Find out if the .COM is available.
- Be Different, REALLY DIFFERENT! I feel a perfect example is BlackBerry, also Bluetooth.
- Tie it in to your product, service, industry, but don't be descriptive. For example, think of Viagra (apologies if I grossed anybody out!)
- Make it easy to spell and try to avoid numbers. For example, Dodge compared to Hyundai.
- Legally different than all your competitors
- Think of it in terms of a story. For example, Nike, greek goddess of victory.
- Play off mistakes. For example, Google, the misspelling of "googol"
Let's get honest and look at our name, LittleEngine. It took us a while, but we were able to get the ".com", four syllables, different, we tied it in to our industry and product (small business social network), as well as, it's easy to spell and an inspirational story!
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