Name every important piece of your businessTable of Contents
Why You Should Name Every Important Asset in Your Business
If you have a proprietary framework or method for doing something, that framework needs a memorable name.
If you have a piece of software, a course, a book, or useful product—it all needs a name.
Memorable names not only help you sell your best work, but they also stick in the reader’s mind.
Instead of creating some bland, boring, vanilla name for your business, it’s time to rock your customer’s socks with a name that sticks.
Naming is more important than you might think. There’s popular advice out there that says names don’t really matter and, “just slap a name on it and launch the thing.”
Your name can make the difference between a customer and a lost sale. Names have the power to attract or repel.
Let’s get your product named in a way that customers can’t forget.
Why Name Your Product?
If you have even a single teaspoon of success, eventually someone will try to rip you off.
Unfortunately, there are many more copycats than original thinkers. I see this happen frequently. When you are eventually on the receiving end of a copycat, your best defense is a great name.
If your name is the top in a category, you become the go-to choice. All the other fish must say, “we are the Uber for fisherman,” or whatever.
A name is hard to compete with. Sure, your competition can always attack you from different angles (UI, outcomes, customer service, deliverables, bells and whistles), but they can’t touch your name.
Products with a great name become the gold standard to which all other products in the category are measured.
When you have a name (I got this idea from a fantastic marketer named Ben Settle) you create a character for your product—a unique face to each facet of your business.
These ‘characters’ become part of your world. When someone’s inside your world it makes the process a lot harder for anyone to compete with you.
What Makes a Great Name?
A great name is memorable and easy to understand. In a minute, I’ll share multiple ways you can name your product.
For now, let’s got through some names that work and names that don’t…
Names that work:
- Five Minute Rule
- Four-Hour Workweek
- Copyblogger (website for marketing)
Names that don’t work:
- Larry’s Magic Pie Recipe
- The Business Leader’s Spreadsheet Formula
- ‘Bookkeeping Software for Accountants and Students 9000’
Names should be no more than four words. Three is better. Good names sound good. They are unique and memorable. There are multiple ways you can attack your new name:
- Alliteration (every word starts with the same letter)
- Rhyming
- A clear outcome (Five Day Fitness)
- A mystery name (the Spruce Goose formula)
- A numbered name (Tribe 1K)
…or you can include multiple principles together and make your name even more memorable.
No matter which name you choose, be sure it sounds positive. Negative names are customer repellant. You don’t have to sound clever or silly, but the name you choose should convey optimism, joy, or hope. Not pessimism, loss, or failure.
We want to buy things that improve our current situation, not make us feel worse about it.
What Should You Name?
Not only should your core product and business have a name, but you should also name any proprietary piece of your product.
Names are mysterious.
Names open loops and our brains want to close the loops by understanding what you sell. We don’t like unanswered questions. We’ll click your link, watch your video, or listen to your lesson, just so we can close the open loop of your name.
If you have a special formula for problem-solving, you’ve got a course, worksheet, a step-by-step method, or some ‘secret sauce’ you reader can’t get anywhere else—name it!
Names are great marketing tools.
You can use your names in sales letters, social posts, ads, videos, and emails.
Don’t define what the name means.
Your reader must subscribe, buy your course, or click a link to find out more. These automatic, open-loops, are just one of the added benefits of naming everything that isn’t bolted to the floor.
When you name your entire suite of offerings, you’ve got individual recognizable labels you can call-out. For example, if you’re introducing yourself you can say you’re the creator of three courses, The Five-Second Executive, Deals for Donuts, and the Leapfrog Framework.
Your names alone can be a conversation-starter. Plus, great names are a lot more audience-captivating than a direct, boring elevator pitch about what your company does. We’ve heard them all before.
Names Brand Your Work
Every piece of intellectual property (IP) you name is another tool for your brand.
You’ll develop a library of named ‘characters’ under your business. The names are a powerful shorthand when you refer to them in your content.
You can use these names in your bio too (August Birch, the creator of the Tribe 1K Masterclass). These fascinating names not only add to your legitimacy, they also provide intrigue and make you stand out from all the other copycats on your niche.
Names help you build your brand.
If you create content and ads around your names, you also build a quick way for people to recognize and remember you next time. Maybe your prospect doesn’t buy today. But next time she watches your video the internal light bulb will flicker.
We remember great names. We don’t remember lists of features, benefits, or rusty elevator pitches.
Research Your Name
Search the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) if you want to get serious.
At a minimum, search your name ideas on Google and the various social sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you can’t find the name anywhere, you win! If needed, grab all the social media handles for that name before you start talking about it publicly.
If your name is unique to your product and your process, customers can’t help but pay attention to you. Don’t skip the research step. There’s nothing worse than putting effort into a name someone else is using.
Why Names Work Better than Non-Names
Let’s picture two scenarios for a spreadsheet training course. You have three benefits:
- A five-part framework for building a spreadsheet in ten minutes
- A proven method to save the user $247 every time she uses the course
- A copycat technique that allows you to peek under the hood of other people’s successful spreadsheets, so you don’t have to start from scratch
Alone, these might all be great benefits, but without a strong name we don’t have a shorthand way to talk about these benefits publicly, while creating intrigue at the same time.
Let’s look at the first example.
Make this benefit the Five in Ten Formula. Now, we can tell prospects “using our Five in Ten formula we’ll have your spreadsheet done before lunch.”
For the next benefit, maybe we name it the Cash Vac, “Put money in your pocket every time you use this training with the Cash Vac module.”
Last, we’ve got this copycat technique. Let’s give it a fun, mysterious name, “Using the Merlin Method, I’ll show you how to legally steal you competitor’s best work without them knowing you were on the room.”
See the power of a great name?
Names Make You an Instant, Valuable Expert
If you name all the core elements of your business, you’ll quickly become an instant expert, or leader in your niche. Names elevate the value and status of a product. If you want your next book, course, or piece of software to carry more value to the customer–name it.
The product name is the beginning.
Name every proprietary step of your process, every checklist and ritual. If you created something new and unique it’s time to put your stamp on it. Not only do great names make your work harder to copy, we’ll see you as more of an expert.
Your thing has a name.
We relate to names. When we see a name it becomes more tangible and relatable. Good names help us understand what you sell before we spend the time to make a buying decision. A good name will help lure the right customers and repel the non-customers.
If you’re in a competitive niche it’s important you give yourself the biggest advantage you can. A great name will separate you from the rest of the noise. You have a system, a named, valuable way of doing things. All the others just have a list of features.
Names should not be taken lightly.
I used to believe the same, incorrect beliefs. That any old name would work. No one cares about your name. And that you shouldn’t spend much time on your product name. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Names matter.
Take the time to develop a name that sticks. And don’t forget to name every piece of your business that’s unique to your way of doing things. We’ll appreciate the names. We’ll remember the names. And it’s likely will give more value-weight to the products you offer.
August Birch is an author, email expert, and entrepreneur from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make more work that sells and sell more work once it’s made. When he’s not writing or teaching, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.