The other day I listened to a lament from an executive coach for women who had misnamed her business. (I’ve disguised her story here slightly, but the problems are real.) She thought she’d been so clever to name her company Queen B Coach – QueenBCoach.com on the web – as this was a pun on several levels. First, she coached women executives who, like queen bees, were the singular stars of their hives, with hundreds of worker bees toiling below them. Second, her first name was Barbara, so she was obviously Queen B of her own company. And third, not just her logo but her entire web site and all her printed materials employed bee imagery extensively.

Alas, her creativity backfired. At least once a week she’d get frantic phone calls from clients saying their emails to her were bouncing, or someone would claim that her web site was down or had been hijacked, although none of this was the case. Unfortunately, few could remember that the “B” in the middle of her company name was just a capital letter rather than the three-letter word that sounded the same. Even when she patiently spelled it out, people often wrote down the name or domain with the logical spelling rather than the correct one.

Barbara had made the mistake of selecting a name that worked visually but not auditorially. When it came to hearing, spelling and remembering what was heard, this name did not work. Indeed, her creativity in making the most of the B/bee pun made it more difficult for clients, vendors and colleagues to render her company name accurately. And in the digital age, where computer addresses that are spelled wrongly go astray, that guarantees lots of communication foul-ups.

To avoid Barbara’s problem, make sure your proposed new company name can pass all three of the following tests. I call them “telephone tests” because the telephone is the most challenging medium for communicating a name with this sort of problem. But the problem can crop up even when a speaker and listener are together in the same room, relying on speech, auditory comprehension and memory to do their jobs without error.

Telephone Test #1: Can someone hearing the name over the phone, without seeing it written down or hearing it spelled, understand the name and repeat it correctly?

Telephone Test #2: Can someone hearing the name over the phone, without seeing it written down or hearing it spelled, write it down correctly?

Telephone Test #3: Can someone who has heard the name pronounced and spelled over the phone remember it accurately?

Before investing in a company name that you spell differently than most people would expect, think about the fact that over the phone you will never be able to simply say the name. You will always also have to spell it, as in “My company is Queen B Coach – that is, Queen B, the letter B, not ‘bee,’ Coach.” And even then, as Barbara will attest, plenty of people will still misremember it.

Far better to have a name that ranks a little lower in cleverness but gets heard, spelled and remembered with greater accuracy and ease.

Author Bio: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names. For a systematic process of coming up with a compelling new name or tag line, download \”19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line\”: http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm

Category: Marketing
Keywords: names,company names,business names,product names,choosing,naming,selecting,generating,mistakes