Business Name Considerations

What’s in a name?

Your business’s name will likely be a first point of contact for your customers.  Consequently, it must engage and connect your customers with your products and services the moment they see or hear it.

Besides the communications aspects of your business name, it must be communicate-able.  When identifying your ideal business name, consider the following:

• Trademark Availability: Confirm that your chose name hasn’t been trademarked by someone else. Keep in mind that if your company/product/service name is similar or could be confused with a trademarked name then it’s not available.  Search the government’s database of registered trademarks at uspto.gov.
• Local Company Name Availability: Not all company names are trademarked and your local government might also require you to register a unique company name. Check with your local business license office and Secretary of State, county, and city websites.
• Domain Availability: In today’s world, if you don’t have a website you don’t have a business. Check that your business’s name .com, .net, .biz, etcetera and/or some reasonable abbreviation is available.  Keep in mind that email addresses and memorability often benefit from shorter URLs.

Final Thought…

Business names are more than just your company’s name.  They include those names assigned to your:

• Company
• Products and Product Lines
• Services and Service Lines
• Product/Service Features
• Production and Delivery Methods