In this episode, I discuss how to name your new business and how I chose mine. Not only that but I’ll highlight some things to look out for along the way.
Naming your business can be really fun, but be careful not to let the process turn into an excuse to delay the launch of your business.
“Done is better than perfect”
In this episode I cover:
- Do you want to be seen as a company or an individual?
- Is the name already in use?
- Does the name have any negative meanings in other languages?
- Is there a suitable domain name available?
- Are all social media handles or usernames available? (and are they the same?)
- Don’t procrastinate launching over coming up with the name of your business.
- You can always rebrand later! (look at Opal Fruits/Starburst and Marathon/Snickers)
How To Name Your New Business
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Previous episode: Introduction to My Journey to VA
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to Episode Two of my journey to be a podcast. I’m your host Mark Smith, aka The Male VA. In this episode, I’m going to cover off how to go about naming your business and how I chose mine and some of the considerations I made along the way.
So first and foremost, my first consideration was do I want to be seen as an individual or as a company larger than, you know, just a one-man band. And for me, I already set up a business where I was essentially pretended to be a web design agency. And actually, really what I wanted to do, or what I want to do this time round is become the brand, myself.
So I want to be the brand. And so I’m going to focus on my personal brand. And so that was my first consideration or urge you to consider whether you want to be able to scale your business up to some sort of agency or larger national, you know, if you’ve aspirations that big, some sort of national company, or whether you just want to be seen as the go-to expert in your field.
So that’s what I did first. And I, as I said, Just wanted to focus on myself really, and my brand and I want it to be that person. And so after that, I came up with some names, and obviously came up with The Male VA, one thing I would get you to do is to do some cheques on any names that you do come up with, and just google them because some words or names can mean different things in different languages. And what I didn’t know, which shouldn’t cause any sort of impact on my business. But what I didn’t know is when you write it all together, in particular, male VA, it is the name of a village or something, and is also something to do with Argentine Tango shoes or something. So if you were to just Google “maleva”, so “male”, “VA”, all together, it brings up some website about Argentine Tango shoes, which I found quite amusing, but shouldn’t impact my business too much. Because obviously, my name isn’t maleva, it’s The Male VA.
So once you’ve established that your new name isn’t going to be offensive, it’s probably best man to cheque was still in Google that this business doesn’t already exist. The last thing you want to happen is for you to register your business started to gain a little bit of traction only to then be served with some sort of registered trademark or copyright infringement notice from a bigger player than yourself, and be taken to court or anything silly like that.
So once you’ve got a suitable name, found it’s not offensive in any other language, it’s definitely worth doing some background cheques, just in Google or maybe on Companies House and for your in the UK, just to make sure that business isn’t already trading, and also in the same field as you just to be on the safe side.
Another thing I had to think about was, is the domain name available that I want. And believe it or not, that should be one, your first considerations if you can’t buy the domain, or at least a very closely written domain, or you can’t put a particular word in front of it to you know, to so you can secure a domain with that brand name in, I would avoid at all costs. It seems silly. But if you are set on something and you can’t secure the domain name, then people are going to have to remember not only your brand name but also your domain name, if they’re trying to find you, in Google. I think that’s just when you’re starting out that is an unnecessary headache to create for yourself. And I think you should just avoid that all costs in the same breath, I would make sure that you can get all of the handles or usernames available on social media.
So I was able to secure The Male VA, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, I think. And although I’m not planning on using all of those, particularly heavily, initially, I have secured them anyway, because the last thing you want to do is create a brand by the domain, get yourself a logo, start getting all your materials and content out there. Only to sign up to Facebook and find out that you’ve got to be I’ve had to be TheMaleVA72 or something like that, or any sort of variation, that would have been a bit annoying.
Now I can just promote myself as kind of at The Male VA on all social media platforms, and it won’t really matter. So once you’ve got your domain sorted, you know, you can get the domain name on a .co.uk or.com, for instance, and you can secure all of the social media, just get on with it.
One thing that I did find was I started to iterate and kind of think what better name is gonna come up with. And actually, it was just an excuse not to launch. And you know, something good enough is better than… what’s the saying? Good enough is better than perfect. And so just launch, it doesn’t matter. Just get your name out there. And as long as you’re reasonably happy with it, and you can secure the domain and the socials, like I said, then just go get out there. If later on down the line, when you’re establishing actually something starts to come of your business, and you need to rebrand, do it.
It worked for large companies like Oprah fruit show my age, who announced our burst and the same for Snickers who used to be marathon which is a little bit before my time. But you know, if big brands like that are well known across the world can rebrand and have seemingly little impact then I’m sure your one-man band or small agency in wherever you are in the UK can survive the same.
So stop procrastinating, pick a name, register domain, get your website up and secure your social media channels and then just go from there. Just get going. The sooner you start to generate business and get your name out there. And that’s really the most important thing.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. If you are looking for more information around starting up a business or around virtual assistant businesses in general, then head over to the website www.themaleva.co.uk/2 and that will give you all the show notes plus links to other episodes and any more information about what I do and what this podcast is around.
See you next time.
