With so much importance attached to the image and presentation of a business, people are finding it increasingly difficult to hit upon a unique business name to advertise their products or services.
Recent figures provided by the National Business Register suggest that around a third of new businesses choose names that are either in use already by another business in the same market area or nature of business. Many of these names include terms that are restricted in use by various governing bodies such as ‘International', ‘British', ‘Association', to name but a few, and need permission before they can be used.
When naming a business, it is easy to consider using initials of the owners, place names and even letters or numbers to make sure your name appears at the start of service listings in directories. However, these methods are very popular and therefore usually result in trading names that are either very common and therefore instantly forgettable, or impossible to protect against copying from unscrupulous rivals.
Other pitfalls that can be encountered include choosing titles that may currently be in fashion but may not stand the test of time. This was all too apparent shortly before 2000, as there was a mass scramble to use the term ‘Millennium' as a business name.
More recently, the term ‘Olympic' has become a popular choice in the run up to London 2012,
however using the term ‘Olympic' without permission from The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games Limited is actually an offence!
Many businesses also make the mistake of being very specific when describing the service offered which this could prevent future expansion; for instance, using ‘tiling' in a business name limits the business to just offering a tiling service when using a more ambiguous term such as ‘home improvement' gives a wider scope.
Many businesses are turning to amusing names or play on words such as ‘Balti Towers'. These tend to be more memorable and ensure that a business stands out from the rest, although this may not be a viable option for businesses in specific sectors such as undertakers. For example, ‘Mourning Glory' may not be an entirely appropriate choice!
Lots of business names can paint a picture of the type of product or service offered by the business in question; for example ‘Ace of Spades' would be appropriate for a games shop but would also be suitable for a gardening service. A more extreme example would be ‘A1 Strippers' which could involve either a paint stripping service or more adult activities!
Previous generations of entrepreneurs only had the naming of the business itself to worry about but nowadays the internet plays such an important role in corporate image and communication that websites and domain names are a must for businesses looking to compete effectively. Therefore when choosing a trading name business owners are now recognising the need to check that the corresponding domain name is also available.
However, with the popularity of domain names over the last decade, it is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to locate domain names that are available. To combat this problem, there are now many different suffixes (GTLDs) available, ranging from the more popular .com or .co.uk, to the more recent .biz, .tv, .me.uk, .eu, to name but a few. It is now also considered to be prudent to register several different domain names even if they are not intended for use, for the sole purpose of stopping unscrupulous rivals from buying them instead.
One of the most common pitfalls that budding entrepreneurs encounter is the lack of attention to existing trade marks. Domain names can be checked, various searches can be carried out on business names but if all of these methods show no potential problems, it is still a huge risk to go ahead with printing and advertising without firstly checking to see if a trade mark has been registered already. Defending an action of trade mark infringement can be costly and is the last thing a new business needs to deal with.
In order to avoid these problems, all of the business name, domain name and trade mark searches can be freely carried out on the www.start.biz website. As Shakespeare would have said: "to search or not to search, that is the question."
For more information please visit www.start.biz/home.htm
