Having an exceptional name for your business will make every business card and banner 10X more powerful!  Wouldn’t you be more likely to buy from Sweet Tooth Treats than Company ABC?

You will find, that you can spend less on marketing, but, obtain more customers and make more sales. This is because each time someone sees hears or reads your powerful company name it is meaningful to their needs and motivates them to buy.

Thinking up that awesome name for your company is not as hard as you may think. Relax and let me take you through the six simple steps to help you create your perfect new business name.

Six Steps to Your Best Business Name

1- Get to Know Your Target Customer

Your customer is the most important person you need to influence so start here. Getting to know them will help you to create a name that will strongly resonate with them. The customer profile you will build enables you to evaluate possible names through their eyes.

Who are they? Ask these questions and make a list of your ideal target customer characteristics:

What are their ages, income levels, life stages (parenthood, college graduation, building careers, retirement), occupations (business owners, nurses, students) and hobbies (sailing, reading, hiking)?

What are their values, needs, wants and desires?

Develop a list of your ideal client and be as specific as this; baby boomers who are small business owners, annual income £77K, owns a local service company with 20+ employees, long married, with grown children wants to build the business and retire in 10 years, move to a warmer climate, likes to play golf, and read history books.

 2 - Describe Your Product/Service Benefits

Detail the exact features and benefits of your services and products.  It is critical to know the difference between features and benefits. This is the key to a highly effective sales copy and awesome company names. Find your point of difference.

Features are facts about your products which will add credibility and substance to your sales presentations.

Benefits are the reasons people buy your products because it improves their lives and solves their problems.

To transform your features into customer enticing benefits ask yourself the question - so what?

Here's an example, an umbrella feature is that it is made of water-resistant fabric, has a sturdy handle that is easy to grasp, whereas, its benefit is that it keeps you dry on a rainy day and is easier to hold onto in the wind!

3 - Your Value and Difference From Competition

Using your list of benefits from the step above describe your value proposition and how it is different than your competitors. A value proposition is the Is the solution that your product and service offer.

Begin by studying your competition and making a list of their value propositions. This is invaluable for your crafting your own.

Then make a list of your points of difference and what makes you stand out in the marketplace. Your goal is to discover the singularity of your product and put that into your business name.

Here are some examples of the best value propositions of major brands to inspire you:

• Uber – The Smartest Way to Get Around (focus on the use of smartphones to order transportation)
• Apple iPhone – The Experience IS the Product (focus on the pleasure of the user experience)
• Slack – Be More Productive at Work with Less Effort (focus on workers who achieve want to get more done faster)

4 - Brainstorm Related Words and Phrases

You've done a lot of hard work, now here comes the fun part. Brainstorm words and phrases that will speak directly to your target customer describing the benefits of your company's products.

Create a spreadsheet and think up possible names, phrases or words. Don't stress with having to create the perfect name on your first try. Instead build your spreadsheet with lots of related words, different spellings, and variations of those words.

Find these words by researching names within your industry to start.  I'm not suggesting that you copy another companies name - simply be inspired by them.

There could be a word or two that you could extract from a similar firm, perhaps in another geographic area to avoid conflict and customer confusion, which you can add to your spreadsheet to spark your own creative new name.

Also, you can find ideas by simply thinking about your product type and listing words or using the thesaurus.

An example of brainstorming words for a new bakery business could include words such as these: dessert, baking, bakery, sweet, delight, bread, sugar, treats, cakes, cookies, confections sprinkles, frosting and Krumbs.

When you have your spreadsheet filled with lots words, start to eliminate some that won't work based on these questions:

• Is it easy to spell and remember?
• Is it hard to pronounce?
• Is it easily confused with other companies or types of products and services?
• Is it offensive either in your country or internationally?
• Is it relevant for your products and services?

Now mix up and join words together in different combinations to create possible business names. Continuing with our example of our new bakery, here are a few ideas for possible names:

• Sprinkles Bakery
• Krumbs
• Sweet Delights
• Sweet Tooth Treats

5- Test Possible New Business Names

Your final step is to test your name with your friends, family and co-workers - but most importantly your target customers.

Go through your possible names list and choose the best three and ask for feedback. Just give them the names and tell them your business type and value proposition (the benefit of your product/service and how it solves problems) then ask for their honest opinion.

Do not be defensive nor argumentative about their opinion. They are giving you valuable information so accept it graciously.

Speak to many people, either online, via email, on the telephone or in person to be sure that you are receiving the largest possible sampling of customer opinions.

Also, don't make the mistake of relying on only a few people's opinions or those who are not your target customers. This means do not ask your mother about your new business name for your surf shop (unless she is a champion surfer!), because, most likely, the name that she loves may turn off your cool surfer dude customers.

6- Research Availability of Domain Name and Social Media Accounts

You're in the home stretch now that you've created a shortlist of names and gotten feedback. The last step is to research the availability of domains and popular social media networks.

Here are two sites where you can check the availability of domain names and social media accounts. Don't be too concerned if your exact name is not available.

For domain names, you can shorten your name which is more likely to be available and easier to type into web search engines.

If you decided that your perfect new bakery name is Sweet Tooth Treats and your domain name is not available you could modify it in these ways; by adding a hyphen, your location, or using the .net version; sweet-tooth.com, or sweettoothnyc.com, or sweettooth.net.

Now that you have your great business name with a matching domain name, protect it by registering it by setting up an LLC or registering a trademark.

Best Ways Use Your New Business Name

Congratulations you worked hard to create the perfect name for your new business now let's use it.

The first move is to get your logo designed by professional graphic artists. Here is where you're going to take your great new name and complement it with designs that will visually communicate your product benefits to your customers.

When you have your logo, design completed get your business cards printed, Sales brochures developed, Signs and Banners made here at Colour Graphics.

About the author:

Marsha Kelly sold her first business for more than a million dollars. She has shared hard-won experiences as a successful serial entrepreneur on her Best4Businesses blog http://best4businesses.com. Marsha also regularly posts business tips, ideas, and suggestions as well as product reviews for business readers. As a serial entrepreneur who has done “time” in corporate America, Marsha has learned what products and services really work well in business today. You can learn from her experiences from shopping the internet for tools, supplies, and information to build your businesses and improve lives financially.

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