Jumpstart Your Business

1. Always check availability by contact the city/county registrar’s office or your State Controller’s Office to make sure that the name is not already registered. Get it registered as soon as you complete this list of to do’s.

2. Check on trademarks with the US Patent and Trademarks Office at http://www.uspto.gov. Consider trademarking your name to prevent someone trying to grab it in the future.

3. Check the availability of the corresponding web site or domain name. Make sure that it isn’t in use and doesn’t point to a site whose business you would not want to be associated with (e.g. porn).

4. If you will be involved in international business make sure that your name when translated does not hold any negative connotations in the foreign language.

5. Avoid names with mutiple meanings; “Natalie’s Body Shop” can mean “Automobile Repair”, “Body Oils” or “A Singles Meeting Place”.

6. Avoid restrictive names that can prevent you from expanding or changing the direction of your business in the future. Example “Pacific Computer Hardware” would have difficulty transforming to selling just software in the future.

7. Avoid words like: “cheap” and “used”. Use instead: “low cost or inexpensive” and “recycled or previously-owned”.

8. Show some creativity. Use something other than your name as all or part of the company.

9. Avoid “AAAA Office Supplies” Very few people use the Yellow Pages these days. They tend to use the search engines on the web (Google) and use the search terms that people use in order to rank businesses in search results pages. Try to use these term in your company name.

10. Try to include any benefits that your customer derives from your product or service. “Painless Dentistry” sounds very reassuring to me.

Filed under: Management