Your business needs a name, and it may be the most important decision you make. The name of your business has a tremendous impact on how customers and investors view you, and in today’s small world, it’s a world-wide decision.
Naming a business is a lot like laying the cornerstone of a building. Once it's in place, the entire foundation and structure is aligned to that original stone. If it's off, even just a bit, the rest of the building is off, and the misalignment becomes amplified. So if you have that gnawing sense that choosing a name for your new business is vitally important, you're right.
Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. It should reinforce the key elements of your business.
Whatever you do, make sure you put thought into picking your company name. And for some reason if you happen to pick a bad company name, stick with it and don’t change it later on. If you happen to change your company name, you will lose the brand value that you have built up over the years. When choosing a business name, keep the following tips in mind:
Easy to pronounce and remember
Forget made-up words and nonsense phrases. Make your business name one that customers can pronounce and remember easily. Skip the acronyms, which mean nothing to most people. When choosing an identity for a company or a product, simple and straightforward are back in style, and cost less to brand. Choose a comforting or familiar name that conjures up pleasant memories so customers respond to your business on an emotional level. Don't pick a name that is long or confusing.
Keep it simple. The shorter in length, the better. Limit it to two syllables. Avoid using hyphens and other special characters. Since certain algorithms and directory listings work alphabetically, pick a name closer to A than Z. These days, it even helps if the name can easily be turned into a verb, like Google me. Choose a name that appeals not only to you but also to the kind of customers you are trying to attract.
Make sure the name is available. This may sound obvious, but a miss here will cost you dearly.Your company name and Internet domain name should probably be the same.
Don’t box yourself in. Avoid picking names that don’t allow your business to move around or add to its product line. This means avoiding geographic locations or product categories to your business name. With these specifics, customers will be confused if you expand your business to different locations or add on to your product line .
Don’t hire a lawyer, hire a law firm
Not only is it important to hire a good lawyer, but you also want to hire a good law firm. Lawyers specialize in different types of law, such as corporate, tax, or litigation. When I hired my first lawyer,he was a one-man show and tried to do everything that I needed. He did a decent job, but he didn’t do a great job because he didn’t specialize in everything I was asking for.
After realizing that my current lawyer wasn’t too good, I decided to contact one of the biggest law firms, thinking that they could solve all my problems. But, I was too small of a client so my work wasn’t given priority, they charged me for every little thing, and the quality of their work sucked.
When looking for a lawyer, don’t just look for a really big law firm; look for a lawyer who will take care of you. Ideally if they work in a decent size law firm, that’s great because someone there will be able to solve your problems.
Hiring is an Investment in Your Business
In many cases, founders who are reluctant to hire even when it’s clear they’re overworked end up kicking themselves later when they realize how much they weren’t getting done while they delayed. Human resources (HR) are a substantial investment for most companies. Having the right numbers of employees with the right mix of skills, abilities, and drive, is critical to the success of any company. Hiring employees can add significantly to your overhead. Moreover, the strategic addition of the right human resources might not show an immediate financial return, but must be cost-effective for eventual financial success.
Evaluating Your HR Needs
Hiring permanent employees is one way to fulfill your HR needs. You can also meet your HR
requirements by:
- Reviewing your work processes (do you need to do it all?)
- Working with contract freelancers for temporary and/or skill-specific projects
- Hiring temporary worker(s)
1. Determine who you need. The better you understand the position for which
you’ll be interviewing, the better you’ll be able to evaluate applications and
choose the best candidates.
2. Create job descriptions and expectations. Not only will these two tools help
you evaluate potential candidates, potential hires will have the information they
need to make informed employment decisions. It’s important that both the
employer and candidates clearly understand the position and expectations.
Otherwise, you might be faced with having hired an employee who isn’t suitable
to your position.
Hire for Potential, Not (Just) Track Record
The ability to see potential, not just evidence of past success is key in hiring. Look for someone who has a strong interest or passion for causes or missions that are similar to yours, and, separately, evidence that the person is really good at what he or she has done before (even if that’s a variety of different things). Unlocking potential has to do with marrying someone’s skills and passions, so even if a person hasn’t yet found a way to truly unleash herself, if your position can do it for her, you’ll likely see results.
Hiring doesn’t solve all of your problems
1. Just because someone did really well in their last job, it doesn’t mean they are going to do well in your company. For example, if they were a rock star sales person that worked for your competitor, it doesn’t mean they will be a rock star sales person for your company.
2. If you want to increase your sales, try to do it yourself before you hire someone. Yes in the long run you should hire employees if you want to grow your business, but if you don’t know what problems these employees will run in to, you will have a tough time managing them.
3. There are a lot more costs to an employee other than their salary. Office space,insurance, computers, and other expenses add up. The biggest of those expenses are probably management expenses to manage your employees.
4. Having virtual employees sounds great at first, but some people aren’t too efficient when they are virtual. If you have any virtual employees consider using efficiency tracking solutions like Rescue Time to see how your employees spend their time.
5. Hire someone as soon as you know that you need them and can afford them, even if it’s tight at first. The extra oomph that another person gives in brainpower,creativity, and sheer legwork is totally worth it. Things that would otherwise take you weeks will be doable in days. Entire work streams will disappear from your to-do list .
Have a business partner
When you have to make all the decisions in your company by yourself, you are more likely to make mistakes. Although I had a business partner with my first business, he wasn’t active so I had to make all of the decisions myself.The cool part about having a good business partner is that they can bring something to the table thatyou don’t have it helps your business to get:
Twice as Much Manpower
When you work with a business partner, you can do twice as much work. A lot of work goes into building a business. You need to do marketing research, networking, research and development, sales pitches, and meet with potential lenders or investors. All of this can overwhelm a business owner. In the early stages of a new venture, you may not have the resources to hire employees to assist you.Thus, you may need a partner you can trust to share the burdens of starting a new business.
Diversity in Skills
A business partner may bring an entirely new skill set to the table. One business partner may have a background in engineering and research, while the other excels at sales and networking. Taking advantage of utilizing the differing skill sets can help the business succeed. In addition, working with a business partner allows you to divide up tasks according to strengths, conserving time and eliminating duplication of efforts.
Different Perspectives
Business owners need an outside perspective to avoid tunnel vision. You might think that you have the best idea or solution to a problem, and readily invest capital into your business plans. Successful entrepreneurs have faith in their ideas, but may need someone else to put things in perspective. The decision-making process becomes easier and more realistic when two or more people objectively evaluate ideas and share their concerns and feedback.
Someone to Hold You Accountable
Some people become lackadaisical when they begin a business. They may have a hard time
maintaining the discipline needed to stay motivated. Partners keep each other on the ball, and hold each other accountable for any mistakes.
Someone to Evaluate Ideas
Business partners talk to each other about their ideas. Many entrepreneurs have trouble maintaining objectivity when initiating a new business idea. A business partner helps you realistically evaluate new ideas and business plans for potential flaws. Your business partner can also build off your ideas,offering more input to refine your plan, so you have a better chance of succeeding.
Ability to Keeps Things in Perspective
Entrepreneurs often ride a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes they become too pessimistic and other times they feel overconfident. Pessimism and too much confidence can both hinder a new business plan. A partner can help you keep everything in perspective and not get distracted by fluctuating emotions. It is never an easy thing to find a great business partner, so don’t rush it. Make sure you get to know the person before you go into business with them. You should also expect to get into arguments and heated discussions, so you better be prepared to deal with him or her.
Don’t be afraid of the unknown
Advice Monkey didn’t accept payments online because I didn’t know how to and I was afraid of all the problems that it could cause. I know that sounds stupid, but as a 16 year old and I didn’t know better.My fear of accepting payments online was one of the biggest reasons my business failed. Instead of being afraid of it, I should have done research on accepting credit card payments and the implications of charge backs.If you are afraid of something that you aren’t too familiar with, suck it up and deal with it. The worse that can happen is that you’ll stumble along the way.
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