Branding Birmingham AL

“It took an episode of I Love Lucy for Troy and Nancy Scheer to decide on a name for their Dallas-based marketing and advertising company.

“I saw Desilu as the name of their production company,” Troy says. “We thought about what Troy and Nance could be if combined – Trance. It made the name personal, yet something that fit with what we were doing.”

Sometimes finding a name for your business is as easy as that. And sometimes it’s much, much harder. Follow these rules and you’ll be on the right track.

Let’s Get Serious

“A company name should be hard to forget and easy to spell,” says David Crosbie, CEO of Leostream Corp., in Waltham, Mass. “It can’t be too cutesy, otherwise you’ll be mistaken for an L.A.-based hair salon.”

A company’s name should explain in part what the business does, says Crosbie, who has named three companies including Leostream, a provider of conversion software. He based that name on the first computer ever used in business, the Leo Mark III, and “stream” was added “to convey the idea that this business flowed from the original machine,” he says. “Of course, now everyone thinks I’m fond of lions.”

The right name can make a big difference. Pick a loser and you’ll see potential sales, client contacts and repeat customers flow away downstream.

A good entrepreneur spends as much time naming his business as he does developing his business plan, choosing a market and picking a location.

Author: Lynne Meredith Schreiber

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