What Should I Name My Business?

If you’re a loyal reader (and many of you are; thank you), you may remember that last year we kicked off a series called Building Your Business Plan. To me, it’s all connected, so even if we haven’t explicitly been talking about “your business plan,” hopefully you can see the master plan at play. For example, we talking about Profit First, which is a powerful way to set up your business finances.

But way before we start to worry about a new business’s financial structure, people who are starting a business or thinking about re-branding often ask us: “What should I name my business?” Shockingly, we have an opinion 😉 as well as lessons learned from what we did and didn’t do well with the Ellevated Outcomes name.

Please allow me to start with a simple, yet impactful quote as to why this decision is important and will have domino effects over the rest of your business’s lifetime:

Brand creates specific expectations, which command price. And unless you attach your benefits to a name, you’re not building a brand.

Joel Noel-Kapferer

The question of “What should I name my business?” is important because it’s a big part of what your product and service feel like. It’s absolutely part of that seven second first impression and (should) evoke an emotional response.

The challenge? There’s not a perfect formula for a “right” name. Yet I’d challenge that there’s one foundational litmus test to wrap around:

“Does it provoke the feeling you want?”

When going through this process, I always like people to start with a brainstorming session – first with themselves, then quickly followed by work-shopping those ideas with three to five honest, tough-loving people. Really challenge yourself to select people who have different perspective from you and are not your nearest and dearest. You need diverse, unbiased truth. And don’t rush it. If it’s taking a while, you’re probably doing it right.

A few brainstorming guidelines

Does the name…

• Describe your work?
• Promote intrigue and make the recipient think, “I must know more!”?
• Contain words that feel the way you want them to feel? In other words, does the mix of consonants and vowels evoke the feeling you want to leave with an audience or prospective client?
• Have an available domain?
• Give you a favorable SEO response?
• Showcase your business’s values?
  
  

A quick case study on Ellevated Outcomes

The process of naming Ellevated Outcomes took two to three months, over a summer. I point out that it was over a summer, as this actually played a role in brainstorming. I didn’t gather a focus group in a room and get too academic about it. In fact, we landed on the final version around the pool at my aunt’s house in New York – relaxed and in creativity mode.

Of course this was not the first name I started with; but one by one we evolved it to this place, to meet all the guidelines above:

• We literally do ellevate small business’s outcomes (usually by at least 40% in the first year’s topline, with profit outpacing that).
• I was getting client and stakeholder feedback on a shortlist of names, and Ellevated Outcomes was the one, where they kept saying, “I feel like I want to know more when I hear that…” (Also, the double-l creates follow-up questions).
• I wanted it to feel elegant, soft, and approachable – AND grounded, clear, like there was a definitive conclusion. Most of the names I started with were too soft and melodic. I needed one of the words, at least, to have that crisp “t” and hard “c” sound to evoke that feeling of precision and… well, outcome.
• Domain and SEO get a little hairier. Truthfully, the original iteration was “Elevated Outcomes,” but another company (not named that) owns that domain. That’s where I started trying to get more creative about how to make it work – knowing that I wanted to organically build our SEO over time and have the name match the domain.
• But ultimately, modifying the name to Ellevated Outcomes felt like kismet. It’s a little different, promotes intrigue, and speaks to our values of both integrity and inclusion: there’s a thoughtfully crafted “why” behind it, and it’s a subtle nod to femininity and other cultures (French).

Three years later, I love and am proud of our name. BUT there is one thing I’d change if I was doing it over again… I can’t tell you the number of people <cough, men> who tell me, “You spelled ellevated wrong.” When Silver Lining Design originally presented me with word-marks, there were a few that took care to accentuate the double-l so that one could see that it was intentional. However, I wanted it to remain subtle, and I was nervous that it’d attract only female clients, which was never our intention (our client portfolio today is 40% male). But three years later, I see that I could have saved myself lots of questions, misspellings, and likely, incorrect Google searches :/ Lesson learned!

An FAQ: should I name my business… my name?

When given the option, I always suggest against naming your business after yourself. This is a bit controversial, as it’s so common (don’t be mad at me, interior designers! I know how common it is in your industry). It can work. If you’re someone whose business is ________ Consulting or ________ Interior Design, you don’t have to rush out and change it. Just consider these two ideas:

1. If there’s any part of you that thinks you may want to sell your business one day – or have the option to – having a business that’s named so personally may be a hurdle for the future you to overcome. It’s not impossible, but it is harder for a business to have value in its own right when it’s so personal.

2. Then, there’s this subtler effect… At Ellevated Outcomes our niche is small businesses who sell service. Think: interior design, real estate, accounting, health coaching. etc. And think about it: these businesses are highly personal (as they should be!). The value of the work, is largely made up of personality, style, and chemistry.

And with that there’s an interesting, important subtlety. It’s already extremely difficult for the owner to separate themselves from the business. When you add on the layer that the business is the owner’s name, it becomes even more difficult – externally and internally.

Alongside the challenge of moving from owner-operator to owner, there’s actually some complicated, psychological self-worth stuff that gets wrapped up in the mix. This complicates determining value and charging the right price.

But like I said, this is nothing to panic about – it’s just a consideration.

The most important thing remains: does this name denote how I want my business to feel? And am I using that feeling to build a brand?

PS – just a little heads-up as I’m finally getting back into the flow of regular writing! July 4th is my favorite holiday, so I’ll be taking a little break for the next two weeks. Looking forward to seeing you here again on July 15th!