Here’s the deal. I am going to have my very own business soon … and I need a name for it. I am not too picky about names, but nevertheless haven’t come up with anything good on my own. My main criteria is that it has to sound good when I pick up the phone and say “___________, Laura speaking”.
My name: Laura Ellis
My business: bookkeeping, web design (mainly)
also other office services such as word processing, scanning, photocopying, faxing, pretty much anything you can do with a computer and surrounding equipment.
My rejects:
Ellis Office Services (personable, but try saying it)
Laura’s Bookkeeping & Web Design (Boooooo-rinnnnnng)
Laura’s Stuff and Things (no wait, that’s Ruffian’s sig)
I figure a creative group like this should be able to come up with some good stuff… have fun
Ellis’ E-land
please keep in mind I grew up in a town on Watchung Mountain in New Jersey with a street called Watchung Avenue that leads you to Watchung Plaza in which you will find a small Chinese take-out restaurant called Wah-Chung. Since I thought that was clever, I imagine what I just proposed to also be clever
If you’re going to have a web site – presumably you might well have (web designer) – you should at least give yourself something of a chance of showing up on the engines. Keywords and phrases like ‘web site designer’ are so competitive you won’t get near the first page of results for that but I’d suggest bearing that kind of thing in mind when you name the company. Something that includes ‘Web site design’ and your location (all) in the domain name, title and description would be the start of giving yourself a chance – of course, that only matters if you hope to attract work from the web.
How about Laura’s House O’ Business? Or what about marketing yourself as an organizer? As a bookkeeper, that’s 90% of what you do, anyway, organize people’s lives. It’s a great marketing gimmic, organize your finances, your web business, your life!
I also am fond of Ellis E-land. But you’d probably get sick of it REALLY fast.
I chose my own “special” phone number, and then named the company after it !
First I called the phone company to see what numbers they might assign me. They all started with 843-xxxx. I said to halt the order, and I would get back to them.
Then looked for words starting with those “numbers” T-U-V, G-H-I, D-E-F.
This got me a name starting with THE-xxxx.
I tried dialing about twenty of the words I liked starting with THE- THE-BEST, THE-MOST, THE-…
I ran out of ideas and my son said there was a cable channel cartoon spy, like James Bond, named The Maxx.
That one reached a “not in service” recording so I ordered it.
Then I registered the name downtown and in the papers.
So now my name is my phone number, and customers think I’m a bigger company.
My newspaper adds say " our name is our number THE-MAXX (843-6299)"
I get repeat orders every year from people who say they haven’t seen our ad lately but remembered the number from the name!
One school of thought is to keep the name as esoteric or at least generic as possible, so you can branch out or change your focus or whatever. For instance, what does ‘Amazon.com’ have to do with selling books? Nothing.
I like “The-Maxx”, because it doesn’t describe the business, but it’s catchy and memorable, and sounds pretty authoritative to boot.
Another good example…my wife has a friend whose name is Betsy. Her business name? Best Bets.
I’m for people who say keep it as esoteric as possible. Something catchy like “The Real Thing Office Solutions” or “Got-it Web Designs” You know, something you can hang a jngle on. “Get it at Got-it” “You always want The Real Thing”
Or go crazy… “Free Blowjobs Here Office Support Company”
