Tweet

Naming your business. Choose wisely.

Guest post by: Ilya Bodner

Article Overview: You can use a business consulting firm to help you decide on a name for your business, but you can also accomplish this yourself. No doubt you'll spend hours brainstorming on a business name that represents your products or services, a name that's both marketable and infused with personality. To help the creative process along, you might surf the internet, browse the dictionary, read trade magazines, check articles written by business consulting firms and bounce ideas off of friends and colleagues

Naming your business. Choose wisely.

NAMING YOUR BUSINESS

You can use a business consulting firm to help you decide on a name for your business, but you can also accomplish this yourself. No doubt you'll spend hours brainstorming on a business name that represents your products or services, a name that's both marketable and infused with personality. To help the creative process along, you might surf the internet, browse the dictionary, read trade magazines, check articles written by business consulting firms and bounce ideas off of friends and colleagues. But as you hunt for the perfect name, keep these questions in mind:

Will your business name receive trademark protection?

A business consulting agency will tell you that allowing businesses to have exclusive use of their name helps consumers identify and recognize brands in the marketplace. For instance, when you buy Smith's brand of wood glue, you'll know that it will be similar in quality to the Smith's glue you bought last time. By contrast, if any company were allowed to call their glue "Smith's Glue," you would never know what you were getting. By allowing just one company to use a name like Smith's, trademark law helps that company to build customer trust and goodwill and to create brands that resonate with the customer.

Is your proposed business name available?

Before you invest too much time and money in a formal name search, take a few minutes to contact the Secretary of State in your state and verify that the name(s) you have chosen are available. This is one more way you can use your own business consulting skills to your advantage.

If your business will have a website, is a similar domain name available?

Nevertheless, you must weigh the sometimes competing concerns of a Web-friendly name with the importance of obtaining trademark protection for the name you choose. Have confidence in your own business consulting abilities when it comes to making this decision.

It is not mandatory in any state to be incorporated in order to run a business. One of the main reasons for forming a legal business entity is to safeguard the owner(s) personal assets. An individual can run a business as a Sole Proprietor (SP), Limited Liability Corporation (LLC), C Corporation (C-Corp), or S Corporation (S-Corp). Two or more owners can run a business as a General Partnership (GP), Limited Partnership (LP), or a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP), or either a C-Corp or S-Corp as well. Each type of incorporation offers different levels of liability, has different tax requirements and advantages, and requires different forms to be filed with the Secretary of State in the state in which the business is to be incorporated.

Related Articles
  The Mother of Name Change Reports
  What’s In a Name These Days?
  Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss Discuss Angel Investing and Naming Companies
  Creating Compelling Headlines For Your Home Page - 3 Tips
  Sales Tip - Top Salespeople Know to Underscore and Not Space Out Serving Their Prospects!
  Sales Tip – Top 3 Ways Salespeople Can Underscore Serving Their Prospects!
  Product Branding Propaganda Basics for Entrepreneur Beginners
  Don't Recreate it Find that Computer File Quickly
  Naming Your Business and Internet Domain
  Career Stock Raising
  Entrepreneurs – You Want Your Customers To Remember You Don’t You?
  Work At Home Internet Businesses: Name No-No’s
  Social, Cultural and Economic Impact of Brand Creation
  SEO Success - Embedding Keywords
  The Power of a Brand Name and how to make your own brand powerful
  Anxiety Free
  ••••••>File Naming Conventions for Top SEO
  Your E-Mail Name Could Hurt Your Career Advancement
  Name your business
  Lead Follow Up Tips for Success

Article Tags: ilya bodner small business owner



Related Forum Posts
Re: 4 Ways to Go From Employee to Entrepreneur - To manage your own business and be an employee at another company is not an easy task. Every minute counts and you should manage your time wisely.Most people do this because they do not trust their business, but the fact is you can still do them both. thanks for the wise advise.
Invest IF you CAN make more money - I would definitely reinvest into my business as I know I could use the $1000 wisely enough to at least double that amount in 6 months. At the moment I always insure that my advertising dollars are well spent on avenues that return my investment within 1 year with minimal long term risk if it does not work. However if you could not find an avenue to confidently invest the $1000 into to get your money back or make a profit I would definitely reconsider the decision to invest back into the business.
Re: Cash up front ... or Royalties? - I'd be inclined to take the cash just because it's guaranteed, but I would make sure I invested it wisely and only used what I truly needed to make the business better. I think this really depends on your past behavior with money management. Some people should never be given lump sums (like my sister-in-law) because they'll blow it all at once. They just don't know how to handle a large influx of cash and something compels them to buy, buy, buy!
Re: What would you do with your last $1000? - I would put into my business certainly. If money sleeps then you will lose it. Nearly the eaxct situation happened with me. I had my last 750$ in my pocket to make money online. If I spent it in a wrong way, I would have to lose my chance to own business on the Internet. But I used it wisely and bought D. Gerl's Insider Secrets to Internet Marketing. Then put the rest of the money into Google Adwords and could save my business. But now..... I would continue my monthly membership on SubmitYourArticles Article Submission Service (37$), buy Revolution Wordpress Theme, maintain monthly membership on J. Humpereys ASC membership program and the rest of money put into Google Adwords and Yahoo Ads. Orxan
Re: Do you have an affinity to making money??? - Hi ideasuniversity, I think we all enjoy making money and hopefully using it wisely, LOL. It is interesting to see that you are getting involved with Aloe Vera products as these seem to have remarkable advantages for health and wellbeing for many people. I almost became involved here a few years back with a company which was called something like Forever Living products who seemed to be very active but ultimately I didn’t follow it up but I can understand your enthusiasm for the products as you can get anything from Aloe Vera toothpaste up over, the range of products is incredible, best of luck with your efforts, regards, Mal.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Local Marketing: 3 Simple Low-Cost Strategies

How to choose your executive coach -1

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Log On

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.