As soon as you’ve got your ideas together you will need to get a framework from which to start your business. These are the main areas that you need to consider when starting your business: In Chapter 9, we look at what’s involved in deciding which trading identity would be suitable for your business and also look at what’s involved in VAT. My advice is for you to read Chapter 9 when you feel ready for it. For now though, let’s look at some things you’ll need to consider when christening your new business and where your new venture is going to live.

Deciding On A Name For Your Business

Choosing the right name for your business is important and is something you need to really think about because whatever name you give to your business will need to create the right image for potential customers.

Let’s say you’re planning to organise painting holidays in Cornwall. You could call your business simply ‘Painting Holidays in Cornwall’, but the obvious problem here is that it doesn’t give any more information than the obvious.

Before you go any further you need to ask yourself more questions about your proposed business:

• Are your holidays aimed at the budget-conscious artist looking for cheap hostel-type accommodation with arranged visits to local beauty sites. Or at would-be artists looking for a luxury break, which includes painting tuition and pampering?
• Where in Cornwall are your holidays based?
• What’s your own painting expertise?
• Are painting holidays the only holidays you’re intending to run or will you include other holidays at some future date, such as creative writing courses?

 

Obviously you are never going to be able to answer all of these questions with the name of your business, but you can improve on the initial name by making it less restrictive and more imaginative.

One of the problems with the original name is that it concentrates on two words – ‘painting’ and ‘holiday’.

The difficulty here is that anyone interested in learning how to paint might get the impression that this business runs holidays for seasoned painters and not beginners, while experienced painters might find the word ‘holiday’ a turn off.

But by far the greatest difficulty is that it limits your business from offering anything other than painting holidays.

So what’s the alternative? You could go for something like ‘Creative Breaks Cornwall’.

The advantage with this name is that it conjures up a number of intriguing possibilities without taking away from the core business – painting holidays.

You could also include a strap line on your business advertisements, websites etc:

If and when you decide to offer other types of holidays your business name is not going to hold you back.

Your Business Name Doesn’t Have To Describe Your Business

Your business name doesn’t have to describe or even suggest what your business offers.

Take Amazon as an example. Here we have the world’s largest retailer of books with no mention of books anywhere in the company name. Yet everyone knows they retail books. Although originally marketed as an online book retailer, Amazon now sells a whole range of non-book products including software and games.

The advantage of choosing a name like Amazon is that not only is it easy to remember and intriguing, but the name doesn’t restrict the future growth or diversity of the business. Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is similar.

Beware Of Choosing Cliché Names

It’s also a good idea to avoid choosing a cliché business name. By this I mean something like Green Fingers Gardening Company or Joe’s Bloomers, or Harriet’s Heavenly Pastries etc.

While names like these might seem like a good idea at the time just wait until you discover there’s already more than one of them in the country and suddenly your business isn’t unique after all.