Podcast

I want to address a question I get asked a lot from brand new wedding pros just starting out… but if that’s not you… still hang on with me for a minute, I’m addressing things for you too.

The question is, "can you give me some ideas on how to come up with my business name?".

I do have a list of best practices.

These best practices do apply to choosing your business name, but they also apply to things you might add to your existing business (that’s where it comes into play for you, if you have an existing business and already have your business name).

Could be the name of your packages, your blog, a podcast, a freebie you could offer your audience to help you build your contact list, some of these practices even work for writing email subject lines.

Do a “brain dump”. This is always my go to. Sit down and just get them out. Make a goal of writing down at least 25, then go back and narrow it down to your top 5.

Check everywhere to see if these already exist… Google, Facebook, Instagram, your state’s registries… these vary by state, and definitely consult an attorney where necessary.

Don’t get so cutesy with it that no one would know what it is.

Say what it is. For example, the name of this podcast is The Wedding Pro Show. My free facebook group name is The Wedding Vendors Community. My membership is The Vendors Circle. My actual business name is BridePath, it started out as support for brides to help them get down the path from engaged to married… it has since evolved into full time business consulting and coaching for wedding professionals, but it still applies because that’s what they’re all doing too. You get the idea.

On a similar note, you can use what your ideal client hopes to achieve, or who they are, as you saw in my examples.

I have a free resource that is also a perfect example of being named what the goal is. We even used that in the domain name, it is www.bridepath.com/getleads

It is called 10 Creative Ideas for Getting Leads Into Your Business.

You get the idea.

You can use your name if you’re comfortable with it. Remember if you’re a single woman who plans on changing her name if you ever get married, you may or may not want to use your last name. For example, my daughter is a blogger and her business name is Lauryn Chayce, Chayce being her middle name. She did get married after she created her business, so it worked out well for her.

Don’t use anything too long, it creates opportunity for typos when they’re searching for you. This also applies to domain names and email addresses. I see some super complicated ones that no one would ever remember.

On that same note, you should say the name outloud. Make sure it rolls off your tongue easily. You’d be surprised how much it can trip you up if it doesn’t. You want it to be easy to understand when you tell someone your business name or web address or whatever it is you’re naming. For example, when one word ends in an s (or even an s sound) and the next one starts with an s, it can be really hard to understand.

When we had our entertainment business, it started out as all inflatables. We named it Bounce St.Louis.

I thought it was super clever because that’s what the client wants to do, bounce, and we’re in St.Louis. Plus when we started is was in 2000 and the yellow pages were still a thing, you always wanted to be listed toward the beginning of the alphabet so you would be one of the first ones people called. Yes on the actual telephone, that was even attached to the wall.

But… it was hard to understand. And back then my accent was thicker and that didn’t help. I would say bouncestlouis.com all day long. Probably 50 times a day. I always ended up spelling it out. Even to the point that I found several pages where my little daughter who was always my sidekick at the office had written out bouncestlouisdacom. See what I mean about saying them out loud? It really does matter.

Hot tip:

I posted a question in The Wedding Vendors Community asking their names and how they chose them, several did list the goal of the couple getting married, and have super sweet names. Go check out that post if you’re already in the group, if you’re not, jump in there, it’s awesome.

Thank you as always for being here,

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