When you decide to start running a business, you want to come up with the perfect, catchy name that will grab people’s attention and turn them into your customers. Everybody knows how important names are, which is probably why business owners have a hard time thinking of one that they like. You never even realize how difficult it is to think of the perfect term that will come to be your brand, until you start the process.
The worst thing you can do is just sit and wait for the right name to appear in your dream or just pop up unexpectedly while you are washing the dishes and doing something similar. If you were doing it like this, then you’ve probably heard about the incubation stage in the creative process. While that stage is rather important, it won’t yield any results unless you have done some work previously. Incubation works by extracting ideas from your brain while you are resting, but if you haven’t gathered any information previously, your brain will have nothing to offer.
Here’s more about the stages, so that you understand the creative process better: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-4-stages-of-creativity.html
People make one big mistake when they hear about the incubation stage. They skip all other stages and wait for an idea to magically appear in front of their eyes. I hate to disappoint you, but that’s not how things work. You will need to go through all the steps in the creative process in order to get the best results and think of a name that both you and the public will love.
Today, however, I won’t be talking about the whole creative process. Instead, I’ll focus on the first step that is called preparation. That is usually the most difficult step for everyone, because people don’t know where to start and how to do their research correctly. Things get much easier once this stage is successfully completed. Let me give you a few tips on how to do that.
Read, Read And Read Some More
No, I am not saying that you should grab one of those mystery bestsellers, lay back, relax and get lost in some fantasy world. You need to read something constructive, something that is on topic and something that will eventually help you with your goal of finding the perfect name for your business. Reading Stephen King won’t do you much good in this effort.
Open your browser and start your research. There are a lot of useful articles out there helping you understand the elements of the perfect business name. That’s what you should read. That way, you will be able to distinguish between good and bad ideas that you get. You’ll immediately discard the bad ones and focus on making the good ones even better.
Check Out Name Generators
There are rather useful tools online that you can use for getting the perfect idea. Those are called business name generators and they work on the principle of allowing you to choose a category and add some more filters if you want and letting the machine do the rest. Depending on the category and the filters, the machine will provide you with a lot of useful ideas. If you haven’t come across tools like these before, click here to get a better idea about what they are and how they work.
When you use these tools, there’s one important thing you need to understand. You’ll get a lot of useful ideas from them, but you will also get some less good ones. It’s up to you to discern between those, using the knowledge you have gained while doing you research in the previous step. Grab all the good ideas and write them down if that’s easier for you, because you definitely won’t be able to memorize them all.
Think Of Your Own Ideas With The Help Of The Generators
Business name generators are a great tool not only because they offer a lot of good recommendations, but also because they will awaken your imagination. By reading the machine’s ideas, you will be able to think of some of your own. Who knows, one of those just might be the winner. Make sure to write those down too, so that you have a list of possible names.
Narrow The List Down
Once you have generated enough ideas and put the names on your list, it’s time to narrow that list down. Use your guts to determine which ones aren’t that good and scratch them off the list immediately. Make sure to think about your customers in this process and try to keep the names that you believe would be appealing to the public. It’s also important that you like a specific name, but it won’t do you any good if you are the only one who likes it.
In the process of narrowing down the list, don’t forget to take into account all the tips for naming your business which you have learned in the earlier stages. There will definitely be some ideas on the list that you aren’t sure about and you cannot decide whether to discard them or keep them on the list. Since you’re still not making the final decision, it’s best to keep them and figure it out a bit later.
Ask Around
In order to check whether other people would like the name that you are thinking of choosing, you will need to hear what some of those other people think about it. Show your list to some friends and family members, watch their reactions and take their comments into account. If you trust your followers, you can even post the ideas on your social media pages and let people vote for the best one or you can generate a survey on helpfull.com and get thousands of real-time suggestions and feedback, so you can easily validate your choice or even find a better idea.
Let The Incubation Begin
After gathering enough business name ideas, then shortening the list and hearing what other people have to say, it’s time to start the incubation process. This is when you get to relax, do other things, not think about the name at all and just wait for your brain to process all the info that it has gathered. It might take a while, but the perfect idea will definitely pop up this way.