Name Your Company!

Name Your Company!
Choosing your business name will be one of the most important decisions you will make when
you are starting your company. It is the first opportunity you have to package – or brand – your
company for everyone with whom your business will be dealing.
Whenever your company name is heard or viewed in written form, it will be the defining factor as
to how your company is initially perceived (branded) in the mind of your target audience. If your
company manages to stay in business for the next twenty years, the name you chose will still be
with you unless you changed it somewhere along the way.
Many times a prospective business owner is in a hurry and picks a company name that seems to
be appropriate at the time, only to find out later on that it has become a nemesis. That actually
happened in my own case.
My company name, established in 1986, has the name OUT OF YOUR MIND…AND
INTO THE MARKETPLACETM. I taught entrepreneurial classes to inventors and called
the class by the same name. I was soon selling a self-help book, also by the same
name. Then I needed a business name to obtain a business license, repay sales tax to
the SBE, and to file income tax returns. Why not use the same name? And that’s just
what I did. That was fine at the time, but eventually, I became a publisher of
business books and business plan software. I began dealing with large companies,
universities and colleges, and other major clients and venders. It has now been
twenty-one years since I named my company. Others say what a neat name it is.
As for me, I have regretted it for every reason, but one – it is memorable. It does not
reflect what I do (publishing business books and developing business plan software),
it is not a very serious sounding name, and it sometimes embarrasses me to say it in
front of certain audiences with whom I have had no previous business relationship.
However, after twenty-one years, I would be hard-put to change the name and to get
the information out to my expanded marketplace. I have learned to smile and accept
that it is my business name and will be until the business dies. However, I have had
to combat it with a dignified logo, credibility, and incredible customer service.