When you first meet a person usually their face is the first thing you see, and so too it is with a business name. Especially in our technological world today, and with a work at home business, your business name more often than not will be the first introduction of your business to a new client.

A habit most of us have is to form pre-conceived ideas about a person, a business, a sport and other things. This will also happen with your business.

HOW DO YOU DECIDE ON A NAME

-Your business name should have a uniqueness all of its own

- If you have a very good reputation you could use your own name in the business name, but keep in mind that if you want to sell the business at a later stage this could be a draw back with buyers saying that YOU are the name of the business and therefore not want to pay as much for the business.

- It should epitomise your business activity

- Be aware of choosing a business name with geographical names in them because at a later stage, as your business grows, this could limit your business marketing area

- With so much business being done on the internet today it pays not to play around too much with the spelling of your business name. You could use: daze for days. I wouldn't suggest: 4mating for formatting

- Keep the name reasonably simple and short. You can always have a sub-title to describe your business. For example:

BELLA ENVIRO LANDSCAPERS

Creating Eco Friendly Gardens.

Logo: BEL

- Think of a catchy name if you can but if in doubt, leave it out

- Before registering your business name check domain names to see that the one you want or one that you can set up to relate to your business, is free. It is ideal if your domain and busines name match, but that is not always possible. Often though, all you need to do is make a very small change to get a domain name accepted

- Check the name register to see that the name is available for use. This job is a priority. VERY IMPORTANT before you start printing stationery and packaging. If it is free, register it.

Choosing the right business name will make a massive difference to the presence of your business and the ability of clients to remember it.

When you have decided on your business name pay for a graphic designer to design it into a logo. Logos are great for business because once you get known you can use just the logo on packaging, badges, cars and the like. Owning a work at home business needs more work on the marketing side of the business as you do not have a 'face' (shop front), that is why your logo can be so valuable as it can become the 'face' of your homebased business.

Color is very important when it comes to attracting the attention of your buying customer. How many times have you walked through a shopping centre, down the street, or through a market and been attracted by a color. Sure, you may not have gone over to have a look at the product because you did not want that particular item, but the color had caught your attention in the first instance. Remember this when packaging, setting up displays and anything to do with promoting your product.

Write down every conceivable name you can think of, with every derivative, and ask friends for their opinion. Get them to do a vote on the ones you think are the most appropriate and tell you why they think that name is the best. Question every name you choose and make sure that it tells your customers exactly what you do.

Copyright (c) 2009 Kaye Dennan