Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

The problem with the names that you like is that they don't give a clue of what your business offers or to who. So, you'll likely want a tagline that helps to clarify your offering. But your offering is quite vague ("Providing SMB Services"), so it'll be doubly hard to educate people what you offer. If you're committed to a wide menu of services to a large number of potential clients (which in itself is a daunting task for a startup), consider a name such as SMB Centric or SMB Consultants.

Graphics and HR are miles apart in terms of their relevance to business clients and in truth, i'm not sure a one-stop-shop approach will work. That said, what's your experience in the fields you plan on offering? More to the point, what's the relevance of the names you've come up with so far?

Although these names might sound great to you (short names or one word names), what terms (not names, search terms) are your clients searching for, either online or off?

The offering elements you describe don't fit logically together under a single business. They address different needs, so anything you say is going to be either too generic or irrelevant to most of your target audience. Narrow your focus -- in terms of services and geography.

The goal should be to communicate a clear, unique and important single-minded benefit for your target audience. That's hard to do when you offer so many different things.

So you want to create a consultancy that can deliver everything from content marketing and business development to human resources and IT technology. And the services you offer will depend upon what the people happen to want/need at the time you happen to come in contact with them. Correct?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...You want a name that will not only represent this business, but also attract venture capital.

Hmmm...I think I got it.

This is either a bad joke, or you have a gross misconception of how to start a business. Either way, in remainder of my response, I'll entertain both. What the hell - We may as well have fun while we're here. Right?!

The business concept you described is essentially a convenience store/shopping mall mashup. Yes, there are large corporate entities in existence who provide a similar gamut of services (e.g. Microsoft).

But here's the catch: they started out with a singular unique product. And after years and years of phenominal growth, they slowly expanded their product lines and services into various fields. They didn't begin with the original intent or idea of becoming what they are today.

Just in case you insist upon creating a start-up that excels in every conceivable area of business; if you really want to attract the venture capitalists, why not add these to your services:

- Website Design (cant forget that one!)
- Logo Design (Ooooo....you can even call it "branding"!)
- SEO/SEM
- Business Attire
- Golf Equipment
- Travel Reservations
- Orange Julius
- Starbucks

Anyway, just for fun, here are some appropriate names for your proposed business.

Consulting Quick Stop

Consult-N-Go

Consubizmall

7-twelve

All-Mart

PipeFire Biz Soulooshunz!

dx_CRazEE_BeAsT_xb (my favorite)



Okay. I obviously had some fun here. On a more serious note, you should heed the suggestions posted by my colleagues and narrow your focus down to one or two key services.

Here's a quick, over-simplified method off the top of my head:

1) Make a list of everything you want to offer.

2) Rank them based on the areas you are most experienced and/or most interested in.

3) Pick the top 1-2 ideas from your list. Put the others away for now...far, far away so you can focus.

4) Research those top picks. Look for industry leaders, competitors, blogs, services, software, etc. Copy and organize everything you find. Use a text document or spreadsheet.

5) Drill deeper and try to identify consistent pain points and problems expressed by the people who use these services.
- Join industry forums and read, read, read. Interact. Ask questions.
- Check out places like Google Trends, Alltop.com, Buzzsumo.com, Reddit, Twitter trends, Facebook Insights.
- Consider using targeted surveys. ( Check out www.aytm.com )

6) Ask yourself if you can provide unique solutions to the problems you discover.

7) Sketch out some rough drafts of the software and/or service you want to test

8) From here, you have several options. All of them involve validating that your product/service is something people are willing to pay for. Dont blow a lot of cash yet. Keep costs as low as possible.

Some rough ideas:
- Get back onto the forums, your network of friends and colleagues, and/or your survey groups.
- Describe your service to them and try to sell it. Think cheap. The focus of this step is to actually get money for your service, not get rich.
- Post a gig on a freelance site such as odesk.com or elance.com. Offer a reasonable fee for quality programmers to take a look and provide quotes on the cost of development.
- If you pay to have something created for you, reach out to your networks and forums for alpha and beta testers. Work out the bugs and refine. Act on the feedback you receive.
9) Launch. (Tons of options here)
10) Keep testing, tweaking, and building.

If at any point in the process you find yourself at a dead end, wasting time, or not getting the results need: STOP it, DROP it, and ROLL on to the next idea on your list. Again, try not to spend a lot of money at first.

The list above is extremely simplified! Research and educate yourself on the best methods. There are blogs that provide this info for free.

Here are a few links:

www.KISSmetrics.com, www.videofruit.com, www.smartpassiveincome.com
www.DuctTapeMarketing.com, www.OKdork.com , www.boostblogtraffic.com
www.copyblogger.com, www.problogger.com, www.AppSumo.com, www.hubspot.com
www.inbound.org, www.WPcurve.com, www.Quicksprout.com, www.getrichslowly.com
www.petovera.com, www.helpscout.com, www.fourhourworkweek.com
www.trafficgenerationcafe.com, www.MarketingProfs.com

You can always come back here and ask questions. Just remember to remind us who you are!


Good Luck!

- Blaine Wilkerson