Choose the right name for your small business

The name that you choose to us for your small business says more about you and your business than you may realize.The right name can attract customers and the wrong name can definitely put some people off.Your business name should convey that you are an expert, that you are unique and that your business offers something of value.Choosing the right name for your small business may be more of a challenge than you realize.Here are some help tips to get you started:

• Regardless of whether your business name is abstract or obvious, how you market your business name could be the difference.If you already have an business name, it may be better to simply rethink how you market that name than to go through all the trouble of informing all of your customers that you are changing your business name.
• Hire the professionals.Just as an accountant is a smart hire for financial management, hiring a consultant that specializes in helping companies come up with names may be a good investment.Additionally, naming your company can be a complicated process if you consider all of the legal issues that are involved with such things as trademark laws.The downside to hiring a professional is the cost.This could range from a few thousand dollars to $35,000 or more!
• Make sure that your name is meaningful.Your business name should communicate a message.This message should include some of the key elements of your business.Make sure that you know what your business is, so that you can accomplish this step.
• Use your logo to help you.The company name and the company logo should complement each other.If you want your business name to be more abstract, make sure that your logo helps to take some of the mystery away.
• Don't confine yourself.Using the name of a city or the initials of partners is generally not a good idea for naming your business.If you move or expand away from a certain location or have some people leave the business, your name no longer makes sense and you may have to start from square one again.
• Ask for advice from friends or family.The more people you have brainstorming the better.You never know what idea or combination of ideas could be just what you were looking for.
• Your name should be easy to spell and say.If not, word-of-mouth advertising is much more difficult because people will have a harder time repeating your business name.Also, make sure that your name does not have any negative connotations in other languages.(A classic example can be seen in the auto maker who named one of their cars the "Nova."It sounds good enough in English, but in South America the car didn't sell because in Spanish "Nova" means "doesn't go."Not exactly the message the business owners were hoping to send.)
• Consider using new spellings of words that already exist.Sometimes a spelling that is slightly unusual is enough to make your name memorable but necessarily overly complicated or overly mysterious.
• Although you are not required to trademark your business name and some states allow you to conduct business under and unregistered name, you are still obligated to respect the rights of other business owners and not infringe on anyone else's trademarked name.
• You can conduct your own trademark search by searching through the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries.There is an online database of both registered names and the names that are still pending or in the application stage.