Remember that time … when you were at a party and were introduced to someone of the opposite sex who was extremely attractive but whose name you could not repeat for the life of you? It’s ok — we’ve all been there before.
Now imagine this same situation occurring in your professional lives, where you have an amazing product or service that you believe will revolutionize the way people conduct business, but nobody can pronounce your company’s name!
Introducing Careerious — that’s Careerious, not Careeralicious, or Curious.
As we discovered in February of 2009, while sitting in our boardroom brainstorming new company names, a company’s name is more than just a name — it’s an identity, branding instrument, sales tool and psychological trigger.
There is more to naming a business than simply being creative without structure. If you’re trying to spread the word about your business, service or product — the importance of an easy, memorable and appropriate name cannot be overstated.
“In today’s branded world, your organization’s name and identity really should function as a total message,” says Julie Mitchell, president of Parcel Design, a design studio that specializes in branding, including name generation.
Take into account who your customers are and how they will buy from you, and whether your company’s name is aiding in this or whether it’s building unnecessary barriers.
Ask around. You would be amazed at the amount of feedback you can get from not only friends and family, but also from colleagues and peers who may shine some light on the issue that you never even considered.
Consider cost. As this is the twenty-first century, many product names and domains have been trademarked and copyrighted, therefore it is worthwhile consulting with your local patent office and doing some preliminary research to see what’s available.
Fit. Think about whether your name accurately fits your business, or whether it throws people off. In other words, is it distracting, and does it matter if your name doesn’t actually have anything to do with your business, like Yahoo! or Google?
Word-of-Mouth. Put yourself in the situation of the aforementioned person at the party, slightly inebriated and socially blissful. Would you remember the name tomorrow morning after waking up slightly later than you usually would?
It was a combination of all of the above factors that lead us to change our name from Careerious to ClearFit.
We’re in the business of finding employees who fit, by scientifically assessing current and potential employees to determine their “job fit” for specific roles within a company, based on clear behavioral attributes rather than relying on tools such as resumes. ClearFit more clearly describes our business.
Mitchell adds: “Generic names encourage generic business, so your name should do more than simply describe something that everyone expects from the service (like Quality Cleaners). What makes a name like ClearFit successful is that it implies a benefit or a promise, is relatively short, and be hard to forget once heard.”
Instead of using Careerious as a brand name, we decided the name should stay where we found it originally, as our tag line: “Are you Careerious?” It’s not a great company name that we can rely on, to help us survive the proverbial WOM broken telephone game.
After having the name Careerious for about two years, the decision was not an easy one, but certainly a necessary one.
So, next time you’re naming a company, make sure you end up with a clear fit — like we did
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