Dogs Love Running! - the blog for pet owners and pet professionals
How to name your dog walking company (or not)
You need a really great name for your dog walking company or other pet related business and you're stuck. Or maybe you've already got a name for your company and want to change it ("rebranding" as the corporate-speak goes). Here are some thoughts:
First, you may not want to follow the lead of Comcast, a huge cable company that also provides related phone, internet, and other services. They're keeping the "comcast" name as the corporate company name, but now calling all their services something else. The new name is "Xfinity" .
As the owner of a pet business, let's look at some easy mistakes you can learn from this:
- Don't have two different names. Why confuse people? (side note: literally, as I'm typing this, an "Xfinity" ad just came on the TV I have playing in the background. "Xfinity" in big bold print in the middle of the screen with "comcast" in the lower right about 1/3 the size of the other name). I'm asking myself, who is it that I'm dealing with? Action for you: have one name on your website, business cards, invoices, and everything else that's printed.
- Don't have a name that makes no sense. What the heck does "Xfinity" mean? If I heard it by itself, it would give me no indication of who the company is or what it does. Action for you: think of a name that actually means something.
- Don't have a name that people can't spell. If I said "Xfinity" and you never saw it in writing, would you think "exfinity" or "xphinity" or something else?
- Worse - a name that can't be spelled is a name that won't be found on search engines. If people don't know how to spell your name, how can they search for you on the internet? If they can't search for you, they'll never find you. And if they don't find you, they'll find someone else. Action for you: ask people to spell your company name after you speak it and see if they get it right.
- Don't make your name boring. OK, so maybe this is the one area where "Xfinity" might succeed. At least I've never heard the word "Xfinity" before. Action for you: are you thinking about naming your pet company "Jane's Pet Sitting"? You may want to think again. (boring!)
- Don't make up a word as your company name. There is no dictionary.com listing for Xfinity. Why might this be bad? See points 2, 3, and 4.
Good luck in coming up with a great dog walking company name!