It feels the same when you’re in the start-up phase, but what you choose as your business name could be the difference between building a business or a job for yourself in the long rum. 

You spend lots of time thinking about a name for your business and you ask your friends, relatives and associates what they think.  Most of the people you seek advice from about your name or the concept for your business are not marketing professionals or business advisors, they are people who love and care about you and are just happy that you are so happy about this idea you’re going to launch.

You go to www.godaddy.com and see if you can secure the name as a dot com and if you can’t you might just choose to alter the name slightly to get it as a dot com or you add a suffix to it like va or roanoke or nrv or something so you can.  I’ve talked to countless people over the years that have searched the name, found that it was available, but instead of buying it for the lofty 10 bucks it would take to secure it, decided to think about it for a day or two only to return to the godaddy the following day to see that it was taken and it is now $1500 or more to purchase it.

I’ve worked with companies before that named their business something like Roanoke Car Repair (sorry if this is someone’s actual name of their business – I just pulled it right out of thin air) and then want to expand to another location 5 or 10 years down the road and the name that they’ve branded won’t really work in the new city they want to expand in.

My simple advice.  Begin with the end in mind.  Your business name is something that will cost you dearly to brand in the mind of your consumer and in your marketplace.  It will take you time and sometimes thousands of dollars to get people to remember your name, what you do, and why you are the best people to use for the products and services you sell.  Your business name is the one thing that you’ll keep and won’t change, probably, for the life of your business.  Take your time, get advice from a marketing professional and business consultant that has bought and sold companies and branded businesses.  Picking the right name for your business may seem simple, but it’s certainly not easy.

One of the biggest mistakes I see small business owners make is that they allow themselves to be sold media instead of buying it.

When you’re sold something you get all caught up in the relationship you have with the salesperson and whether you like who you’re buying from.  You allow that person to give you information from their point of view instead of from yours.  When you’re sold media you usually don’t have a clear marketing plan in place and the timing is set by the person selling it instead of you!

Start today, to buy your marketing products and services.  Here’s what you have to do to turn on the new switch.

1.  Create a marketing plan.  Your budget should be set by a percentage of sales.  For some companies that’s 10% of their gross sales and for others it’s 2%.  There has to be a logical reason for the budget that you are working with for your plan.  If you’re just starting out you might take the amount you expect to make in the first year and create a percentage for marketing based on that.

2.  Do your research.  Determine your positioning strategy and be sure that you know who your target market is.  I mean who your target market REALLY is.  What age is she/he?  Where do they live?  How much money do they make?  Do they have children?  What are their hobbies?  What type of job do they tend to have?  What desire or need does your product or service fill for them?  If your target “persona” didn’t spend their money with you, where would they be spending it?

3.  Once you have your target “persona” do research on what type of media they interact with.  What radio station are they most likely to listen to, what trade publication, what television show, which websites do they visit, are they using Facebook (just because you may not be, doesn’t mean they aren’t, right?).  Search deeply for information not confirmation.

4.  Call the media sources you think might be best and have them give you the information about the listeners or viewers for their programs or stations.  See which one matches the best to your target “persona”.

5.  Once you’ve chosen a media source, get their advice on what has worked for other businesses that have spent a similar amount of money.  Be sure to see, if your spending level is high enough, if they have any “added value” they can include in the overall campaign.  Added value are additional spots added to your paid schedule or a promotion that you can team with the station on.

There’s a whole lot more to being good at buying media but this is the foundation.  If you have a sizeable budget, you might consider hiring someone to help you through the process… well, like me   Give me a call at (540) 815-1300 if I can answer any questions for you or be of any assistance.

Success Accelerator Tip #4 is – GET FOCUSED!  If you want to be a  leader in your industry you have to get focused.  Every marketplace is crowded – really crowded.  You need to find your niche and dig deep.  The first thing you have to do is define your niche.  Can you clearly tell people exactly who you are trying to help with your product or service and how it will help them? 

If your prospect doesn’t know exactly what it is that you do and why it is that you do it, you will not stand out.  Period.  Spend an obscene amount of time getting to the core of what it is that you want to do and why it is that you want to do that thing, and THEN take it to the marketplace.

A great book on this subject is Start With Why with Simon Sinek.

I discovered, at the end of last year, that the word discipline was something I should contemplate for a while.  Am I really disciplined when it comes to my overall health?  Do I show strict discipline when it comes to the top five priorities in my life?  I like fun, exciting projects and things to do; discipline doesn’t seem to match those adjectives.  I did realize, though, that discipline was the only path towards the type of success that I want in a couple of areas of my life.

It’s only discipline that will force me to reach out to 2 more people each day to thank or assist them.  It is only through that process that I will help to grow Synergy to a more resourceful organization.  Those 2 people a day will add up to an abundance of connections that will make me feel that my purpose is being fulfulled and my goals are being met.

Discipline just isn’t sexy.  Making those last calls of the day, having hard conversations that need to take place with certain people to “clear things up” or clarify things that need clarifying.  Those things just aren’t fun.  I don’t look forward to them.  I realize that if I wait to “want” to do the things that I really need to do, I won’t ever do them because I’m never going to “feel” like it.

I do want to have accomplished something in this lifetime that benefits others.  That’s going to take some discipline.  It’s that discipline that all of us need to exercise in order to grow profitable companies and organizations.  We can’t do everything, but we can’t do anything if we don’t have resources and building those resources takes discipline.

If you want to read a great book about excuses, see Wayne Dyer’s Excuses Be Gone.  Great CD set.