Finding a name for your new business is frustrating and time consuming for most entrepreneurs. You can come up with endless lists and then everyone around you gives you a different opinion on which ones are good. It is enough to make your tear your hair out!

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article on a 12-point test for naming your company, designed by Eat My Words - a San Francisco naming boutique, a San Francisco naming boutique, known for playful names including a chain of frozen yogurt stores named Spoon Me, and a home-cleaning robot named Neato. They call it the Smile and Scratch test.
A good company name should have the following qualities:
Simple - one easy to understand concept
Meaningful - customer instantly “gets it”
Imagery - creates a mental picture
Legs - carries the brand; lends itself to wordplay
Emotional - empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens

Scratch the name if it has any of these:
Spelling-challenged - you have to tell people how to spell it
Copycat - similar to your competition
Random - disconnected from your brand
Annoying - hidden meaning, forced or cutesy
Tame - flat, boring, uninspiring
Curse of Knowledge - only insiders get it
Hard to Pronounce

This post is guest blogged by Isabelle Swiderski, Creative Director of Seven25 (http://www.seven25.com), who provides 6 tips on finding the right designer to work with.

Starting or growing a business is like an endless first date. You want your organization to make the right impression and to be memorable for what it stands for. You want it to be recognized and praised for how it expresses and presents itself. Right?

So why is it that some business owners so often come up with flimsy excuses to justify producing their own company’s identity and promotional materials? While I’m the first to try to demystify what we do as creative consultants, there is something to be said for hiring a professional. The most obvious one is that in this competitive market you need to be visible; sending your organization out there without proper branding is just plain cruel - you’re setting it up to be teased or, worse yet, completely ignored.

Here are a few tips I’ve learned over the years to facilitate the process of finding someone who can help put you on the map:
1.Set aside a realistic yearly budget for marketing and design. If you have no idea what design services might cost, call a few studios and get budget quotes. Alternatively go to the library and consult the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: 
Pricing & Ethical Guidelines. It outlines pricing guidelines for design services for organizations of various sizes.

2. Do your homework. Visit the Graphic Designers of Canada’s website —or your country’s equivalent. These sites are full of tips on working with designers and feature links to reputable studios and independent designers in your area.

3. Narrow down your options to 3 studios whose philosophy, size, or aesthetic strikes a chord with you. Consider working with an individual rather than a studio if the size of your budget or project is more suited to it.

4. Meet with them to discuss your specific needs and to see if you might be able to work together. Take a good look at samples of previous work, not to verify that they’ve already done exactly what you need for someone else but that they are able to resolve a variety of design problems in appropriate and engaging ways.

5. Be upfront about your budget and clear about your goals. A designer’s skill set shouldn’t be limited to making things aesthetically pleasing. It should also encompass strategic thinking to find the best ways to overcome your specific challenges and build visibility for your company.

6. Get written estimates from each short-listed candidate outlining the deliverables and, if the deadline is looming, a timeline for completion.

Once you’ve found the right fit, the relationship should be one of partnership where you can each benefit from the other’s expertise to make a better end product. You’ll be on your way to the second date in no time at all!

(Isabelle Swiderski is creative director at Seven25. Design & Typography Inc., a full-service multidisciplinary design consultancy with international experience based in Vancouver, BC. http://www.seven25.com/

My column in this month’s edition of Make it Business talks about how branding can drive sales for any company and it doesn’t involve spending tons of money. I talk to a branding expert who defines 3 key things to consider when building a brand:

1. Define who you are.
2. Stand out.
3. Be clear on who wants what you have.

Read the whole article.

I recently discovered a great blog – Oddee. They describe it as “ A blog on the oddities of our world” and it is great reading. Their recent article is on the unfortunate effects of badly placed advertising.

Here is the follow up to my previous post providing more key points that customers must consider in order to create a succesful Internet brand:

3. Brand Impact:
The top portion of your website is the most important area – it’s the first thing visitors see when they click through to your site: use it to your advantage and make sure what they see has impact. The company logo should be displayed prominently here along with a short tagline that describes concisely what you do. Content should be clear and concise and should quickly get to the gist of your offering. This makes it obvious to prospects immediately that they have come to the right place (or not as the case maybe) saving them time and effort.

4. Keep it simple and clear:
Many companies make the mistake of trying to put too much on their home page making it look busy and all that results is information overload - visitors are confused as to what the company actually does. Bear in mind that the most successful Internet brand is Google (link to www.google.com) whose classic website is plain white with the Google logo prominently displayed then the simple search functionality – it seems stark, but it really works.

5. Your domain is part of your brand too!:
Your domain or url should either reflect your company name or your function exactly: I don’t know how many times I have come across a company in a magazine or newspaper article and have tried to find them on the Internet using their company name but to no avail. When I do finally track them down it turns out that their domain is completely different and has no apparent similarity to the corporate identity. Had these organisations chosen a domain that encompassed their company name or at the very least one that describes concisely what they do it would have been so much more obvious and easy to find.

The keys to building a strong Internet brand include consistency, impact, simplicity and clarity - make sure that the look and feel are consistent with existing marketing efforts; that your message is obvious and apparent; that your brand has impact and your domain is obvious and as a result, your organization you will avoid potential pitfalls, ehance brand awareness and build more brand loyalty.

When creating a web presence, many companies think of technology and web design first with marketing as an afterthought when in reality, their major concern should be the latter: after all the web site is often the first point of contact you have with your potential customer. It’s imperative therefore to consider marketing (and branding in particular) a priority when creating your Internet presence. If you don’t, you could risk damaging this substantial asset considerably. In part one of this two part series I provide some key points that companies must consider in order to create a successful internet brand:

1. If your brand is already working well for you, there is no need to reinvent the wheel:
In most cases companies have already made considerable investment in building brand awareness. Don’t discard this; rather use it to your advantage. Always extend your existing brand image to your on-line presence so that people who are already aware of your brand recognize it easily on the web.

2. Consistency is key:
The company brand should be consistent across all touch points. Use existing corporate logo’s, taglines, fonts and colour schemes on your website to mirror the colours you use in your letterheads, signage and tangible marketing materials (or vice versa). Always include the internet domain or home page on existing corporate materials because driving traffic to your website will serve to further enhance your brand.

I love the practice of branding - it’s my absolute passion. It allows me to answer the call to do two things in life - to create a better visual environment and to connect to people – to have influence.
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Ever wonder how to differentiate yourself or your company in a world where the starting point is excellence? A world where being great at your job, having all the right tools and products - is the commodity-level minimum?
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