Think about this. What should you had been to strip away every part out of your model, abandoning its single most seen element? What would you’ve gotten?
No, it’s not your brand. It’s your identify.
In fact, a model is much more than your identify (or your brand). At its essence, your model is what prospects and purchasers suppose and say about you. It’s your fame magnified by your visibility. And it’s the factor (or issues) individuals affiliate along with your agency of their minds.
However to unleash these associations requires a set off. And for many corporations there is only one set off. You guessed it—your identify.
Your identify is a proxy on your agency and every part your small business represents within the minds of your audiences.
As an emblem of every part you characterize, then, it carries lots of weight. But many corporations give their identify little or no love or thought.
Why is that? And the way can a reputation have an effect on a agency’s fortunes?
These are the questions I wish to reply right now.
Why Your Identify Issues
Give it some thought. You’ll be able to’t have a enterprise with out a identify. With no identify, individuals can’t take into consideration or discuss you. You’d haven’t any referrals. No enterprise. No future.
In fact each agency has a reputation. However some names are higher than others.
What does a foul identify appear to be? I don’t wish to embarrass anybody, so let me offer you a couple of fictional examples*:
An accounting or regulation agency:
Delgado, Roderick, Cannon, Nguyen & Munoz
A consulting agency:
SHM Associates
A expertise agency:
The Digital Transformation Group
What’s flawed with these names? All of it boils right down to the way in which individuals’s minds work. Individuals don’t like complexity. They’re drawn to easy ideas and phrases. In a world cluttered with hundreds of companies and advertising messages, individuals may also have hassle recalling names. So any assist we can provide them could make a giant distinction.
Within the case of the agency Delgado, Roderick, Cannon, Nguyen & Munoz, no person goes to recollect this lengthy string of companion names. Purchasers and prospects do what any of us would do: they lop off every part after the primary identify. They name it Delgado. Individuals will simplify each time. It’d as properly be a regulation of physics. I’ll name it the Legislation of Discount.
In a state of affairs like this, a agency could be good to observe the lead set by their purchasers. Change the identify—or register a fictitious identify (also referred to as a “dba”)—to a single companion’s identify. It doesn’t need to be the primary one within the string, although that could be the best on your purchasers to acknowledge. You may, as an alternative, go for essentially the most fascinating identify within the listing.
If all the named companions have retired or died, shortening the identify will be simple. Many corporations have taken this route, and it makes a ton of sense. A multi-word identify is complicated and troublesome to recollect. A brief identify, then again, matches readily into individuals’s crowded minds.
What about SHM Associates?
To begin with, let’s take a second to understand what’s occurred right here already. Clearly, the Legislation of Discount has been at work. That SHM stood for one thing at one time. Possibly it was a string of names. Possibly three descriptive phrases. In some unspecified time in the future, individuals stopped calling the agency by its full identify, collapsing it like an accordion right into a compact initialism. Earlier than lengthy, the agency began calling itself that, too.
However there’s an issue with initialisms. They’re arduous to maintain straight. “Was it SHM or SMH?” This may result in some embarrassing mixups. And when events sort the URL into their net browser, a transposed letter can cease them of their tracks. Lead circulate suffers. Initialisms are additionally boring and simple to confuse with similar-looking names. (What number of three-letter opponents are you able to consider?) There may be nothing about SHM that’s memorable or fascinating.
Then there’s that “Associates” dangling on the tip like a free muffler. It too will fall away and everybody will name the corporate SHM. Appendages—normally added to make a agency sound extra substantial—simply detract from a reputation and are virtually universally ignored.
Lastly, let’s contemplate The Digital Transformation Group.
At first blush, you may suppose this can be a good identify. In spite of everything, it says precisely what the group does. However there’s an issue. Let’s name it The Legislation of the Generic.
Descriptive names are generic. Whereas they do job of describing the enterprise they’re in, they do a really poor job of distinguishing themselves from the ocean of different generic names within the market. As a result of they describe, in addition they are typically lengthy. Once more, that makes them much less fascinating and tougher to recollect.
And bear in mind what inevitably occurs to lengthy names? Yep. The Legislation of Discount kicks in. Earlier than lengthy, The Digital Transformation Group will grow to be TDTG or, as a result of it’s shorter, DTG. That descriptive identify has simply grow to be an inscrutable initialism.
There’s another excuse generic names are normally a poor selection. They don’t age properly. Likelihood is, the phrases “digital transformation” will really feel dated in a couple of years as some newer, extra swanky time period takes its place. Additionally, companies evolve. Names aren’t so versatile. Many corporations that outgrow their generic, descriptive names flip them into initialisms to keep away from complicated their purchasers and prospects.
Subsequent Steps
Take a tough take a look at your agency’s identify. Is it quick, memorable and simple to pronounce? Is it properly differentiated out of your opponents? Or does it fall into one of many classes above?
It’s by no means too late to vary your identify, and plenty of corporations undergo the method with nice success. The payoff? Improved model retention, tighter differentiation and better model loyalty. Not unhealthy for a selection phrase or two!
For those who’d wish to study extra in regards to the forms of names a agency can have and the way to decide on one, try this quick weblog put up.
Blissful Advertising!
