Make Marketing Suck Less

3 Creative Ways to Name Your Business

What to name your business is stressing you out! How do you come up with a business name? How do you create a creative business name? 

Before I give you my top 3 creative ways to name your business (ok one is not-so-creative but it’s easy), I want to de-stress you first with this rebel truth about naming your business. 

What you name your business doesn’t matter. Let me say that again…slower and in all caps.

WHAT YOU NAME YOUR BUSINESS DOES NOT MATTER!

Why?

Your audience, your clients don’t really care what you call your business, they care what your business DOES for them. 

More importantly, you can change the name of your business multiple times and no one is going to notice. 

That’s the advantage of being a small business in this big business pond…no one is paying attention to you. 

You can change your business name as often as you change your underwear and no one is going to notice. 

I’ve been in business for 8 years now. My business had 3 names. 

  • Relationally Speaking (terrible, terrible name)
  • Dr. Michelle Mazur
  • Communication Rebel

In fact, the legal name of my business is still Relationally Speaking, LLC, and Communication Rebel is my “DBA” aka doing business as (I’m too lazy to file the paperwork to change everything over). 

Do you know how many people noticed that I change my name? NONE. Zero. 

It’s more important to spend more time spending time on your brand message and all the things it does for your business than naming your business.

Because your audience and your future clients are not here for you. Your brand message or what I call your 3 Word Rebellion is going to be far more important for your business attracting the right clientele.

Now with the pressure is OFF, let’s start the naming game. 

Here are 3 creative ways to name your business.

Creative Way to Name Your Business Option #1: Take the Easy Way Out

The easy way out is to use your own damn name. 

Ok, so it’s not so creative and that’s why it’s easy.

Looking back, I wish I would have skipped the Relationally Speaking stage of my business and just skipped straight to the Dr. Michelle Mazur stage. It would have spared me from having to spell Relationally a million times.

But what if you have a really common name or what if you have employees and you’re not a solo shop or a personal brand? Then play with using the word group or words related to group. 

  • Jane Smith Group
  • The Smith Institute
  • Jane Smith Society
  • Smith & Company
  • The Smith Collective
  • Jane Smith Organization

By the way, I like using onelook.com to find related words. It’s way better than a thesaurus!

Creative Way to Name Your Business Option #2: Smash Words

This is one of my favorite ways to name a business because you get to be silly and creative! 

This is where you take what you do and smash it together with something you love. 

For instance, my expertise is communication and it’s essentially what I do in my business. I love the movie Rebel Without a Cause. This is how I came up with my business’s name Communication Rebel. Boom! 

I don’t know if she did or not, but I can imagine that Laura Belgray used a similar approach. She talks (well writes copy) and loves shrimp – BAM – Talking Shrimp!

Here’s how you can use this approach: 

  • Step one: brainstorm a list of one-word descriptions for what you do. Preferably verbs. 
  • Step two: brainstorm a list of things that you love and make you who you are. Preferably nouns.
  • Step three: Play. Start smashing the words together until you find something that you love. 

Viola, a creative business name!

Creative Way to Name Your Business Number #3: Go Abstract

This is the most difficult way to name your business. This name essentially has nothing to do with you or what your business does. 

In fact, in most cases the name means NOTHING. 

Think about it before Google was Google and Nike was Nike these words were nonsense words. They meant nothing.

You can create a “nonsense” (used lovingly of course) name for your own business. 

How can you do this? 

If you tried option #2 and generated a list word, you could take your word list and take parts of the words from your list and make up a new word. 

For instance, instead of Communication Rebel, I could have named my business Commbel (the comm part from communication and the bel part of rebel…but honestly…this name sucks and just makes me think of Christopher Walken)

via GIPHY

The other option is to take a word that has meaning in another industry or in other areas of life and use it to represent your business. 

Think about Apple. Yes, it’s a fruit. It’s also a technology company that designs and sell gorgeous computer, phones, watches, and so much more. 

Or my favorite example of this is Ash Ambirge’s The Middle Finger Project. You’ve got no mother lovin’ clue what her business does, but you do know to expect that it’s going to have an edgy personality. 

Going abstract to create a catchy business name, gives you endless possibilities for naming your business. 

Final Thought on Naming Your Naming Your Business

At the end of the day, your business name is more important to you than it is to your customer. 

Your brand message, what your business stands for, how it helps your clients, how it builds relationships with those clients is what makes your business money. 

My challenge to you is to spend the next 30-minutes brainstorming a name for your business, pick a name, and get back to the business of transforming your client’s lives for the better. 

Your bottom line will thank you for it!

Create Your One-of-a-Kind Message

Your 3 Word Rebellion is the Key to Growing Your Business & Impact

Yes! I’m ready to rebel!

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