Monogram your shirts, not your business.

The title "monogram your shirts, not your business," comes from one of Stan Beckwith's excellent books, What Customers Love, and Selling the Invisible. The reason I'm bringing this up is a conversation I just had with on old acquaintance. He and a partner started a business several years ago. It started with the full name, I'll not mention it here, but it's like a lot of small businesses--"OurTown's Computer Experts." As they went down life's road the company adopted its initials, OCE, inc.

As we talked he commented that people in his town were pretty unaware. "Why just this week someone asked me what we did. Can you believe that?" I could.

If you have monogrammed your business, change it quick unless you are willing to spend the billions IBM has to make their monogram known.

The Value of Counsel

I was going blithely down the road, excited about finally changing our company's name to "Sprinkler Bee" when a friend asked, "Are you sure that's what you want to rename your company?" My first thought was, "Of course I'm sure. I'm ALWAYS sure." But some things have been happening to me lately that have made me realize that there is great value in wise counsel--so I listened. And I'm glad I did. It's not a new discovery. The Bible is full of advice about the foolishness of trusting your own ideas. (Proverbs 12:15 "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise." Or, Proverbs 15:22 "Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.")

I had pictures in my head of differing levels of crew titles corresponding to the bee colony metaphor. But would I really want to be referred to as a "worker bee"? And I certainly would object to being called a "drone."

In the "information-per-square-inch" test, did Sprinkler Bee tell the unenlightened who we were and what we did? Did it not seem a little silly?

The questions kept coming. I had not had anything printed yet, but I had gotten an Assumed Name Certificate from the courthouse.

The long an short of it is I have gone back to the drawing board. We still need to change our name, but it won't be to Sprinkler Bee. I have something brewing and will make another post soon.

Meanwhile, I'm listening to friends--good counsel. You too?

A New Name for an Old Company?

Let's consider "Sprinkler Bee."
Here's a name that fulfills a few of the criteria we are looking for:
It's a little different.
It hints at what we do.
The logo helps anchor something about sprinklers.
It only hints at a bee with the yellow and black colors.
It contains accurate information--sprinklers
It lends itself to expansion in marketing--bee, buzz, don't get stung . . .
And, it's "webable." (the site is available)

Sprinkler Bee. Maybe so . . .

Changing your company's name.

In Harry Beckwith’s book, “What Clients Love,” he talks a lot about naming a company. Enough so that he scares me to death at the task. His opening essay on naming is the prediction that George Bush would beat Al Gore because George’s name is George and Al’s name is Al. Really!

In a word study, someone with way too much time on their hands discovered that the name “George” is preferred over the name “Al.” They assemble 85 “random” names that just happened to include every presidential contender since George Washington--yes, Adlai and Calvin were on the list. In every case the “stronger” name came out the victor. The essay ends with just tree words that place a burden squarely on my shoulders: “sweat your name.”

Our old name was born out of our neophyte business. We mowed grass. Period. And we wanted to communicate that by naming our company “Just Lawns.” The trouble with that is our little company was a lot like yours--it enjoyed some degree of success and expanded its services to include landscaping and sprinklers. Sound familiar?

Through the years that followed we have limited our offerings to sprinkler repair. So our old moniker, “Just Lawns” completely mis-informs by implying something we haven’t done in years.

It’s time to change. But to what?

I’m going to close with a list of names we are considering:
GeyserSmith
RainSmith
Sprinkler Bee
Sprinkler Dr.
Sprinkler Kaput

Any input would be glorious. This load’s getting heavy.

P.S. And just in case you think this stuff is easy, your colors even have a say in your success. Look at this HP article.