How Do You Know it’s Time to Change Your Business Name?
Over the years I’ve had many business owners ask me this question. It can be a daunting thing to think about so thats all the more reason to talk about it.
If you have ever fantasised with the idea of renaming the business or had a moment’s thought that the current business name isn’t suitable – but then it all got too hard and complicated, this article is your key to clarity.
Here are a few things to ask yourself (as the director/s):
- Does our business name reflect what we do / how we do business?
- Is our business name established within a market? (If we change it, would a considerable amount of people not recognise you?). If so, how valuable are those connections to you and are they easy to pivot to a new name?
- Do we need a business reset? (You may have had a change in leadership team / directors, a negative reputation as an employer, or negative reputation as a service provider you’d rather leave behind you.)
- Does our business name limit what we can offer our clients? (Calling yourself Telecom Global but now you want to branch out to an outsourced CFO services as well.)
- Does our business name give clarity when we introduce ourselves or give confusion?
If a name change is looking more likely, there are a few main things to consider
- If we were to change our name, how much of an impact would that make to current clients?
- How much of an impact would a name change make to our current pipeline?
- What within the company will need to change and are we ok to put resources towards that change over the next 3-6 months? (registrations, logo adjustments, website, internal documents, etc.)
Do people understand what your business does when you introduce yourself?
Six months ago, my answer was “no”.
As a brand communications agency, we must be able to clearly communicate.
So, at some stage, you have to bite the bullet and if I put it off, it becomes a haunting thought lingering in the back of my mind every time I introduce myself.
Is communicating clearly what we do important? Yes.
Is congruency important to me? Yes.
When I knew it was time to change the business name from Elloom to Elevate
I had a moment – I had to admit to myself that each time I introduced myself as “Irene from Elloom” I was met with confused looks.
In one-on-one conversation they’d have me repeat it and say “from where?”. I’d reply “Elloom. E, double L, double O, M.”. And I’d still see a look in their eye that said “ohhhh – what the?”).
And that was happening more often than it wasn’t.
I had to admit that to myself with enough strength to know what that meant – we have to “go through” a business name change.
Do I have to go through the laborious process of changing our Pty Ltd?
Not always. Your list of to-do’s gets bigger with updating legals, contracts, existing contracts, getting your accountant involved…
Could you simply update your trading name?
Many businesses do!
It the name change for brand purposes or for restructuring?
Consider your company structure and if you need to consider changing your Pty Ltd or if you could simply register a new trading name to make the pivot less complicated.
How would we tell our clients and market that we’ve changed names?
There’s a whole other article for that yet to be written and if you really can’t wait for that, you’re welcome to shoot me a message to ask.
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