Be Brave Not Safe

By launching your own consulting business you are “hanging out your own shingle.”

In order to do so you will need to decide what that shingle will say (name of your company and any tagline) as well as what it will look like (the logo).

Since you’ve taken the prior steps of defining your value proposition (you have done this, haven’t you?) you have a punch-list of items (things that you do exceptionally well) that others would be willing to pay you to do. It is now time to (attempt) translating these into a company name and/or tagline. Before doing so, let’s consider the 2 primary objectives for effectively doing so:

1. Provide your market a “sense” of what you do
2. Allow people to easily find you (on the Internet)

When I was putting the final touches on the plan to launch my business, my mentor said: “So, what are you going to call it.”

My value proposition included:

• Helping companies to:
  • Improve the customer experience and operational performance
  • Drive mission-critical projects to conclusion

As such, after being asked the above question I pondered it for a moment and responded with “Customer Centricity?” with a big question…She said: “That sounds like a great name, do you know if it is available?” I responded: “I have no idea, let’s go search the Internet to see if the domain name is in use.” Thankfully, the name was not in use (in the USA). That said, someone in the UK had registered the domain name (www.customercentricity.com) so I went with www.customercentricity.biz. In fact, someone seems to still be “toying” with the “.com” address. They can have it, as I’ve generated enough noise (more about that later) that if you search on my company name (Customer Centricity) via Google I’ve consistently been listed in the #1 to 3 spot for years 🙂 And, this has served me quite well since a significant amount of revenue has been generated by people finding me online upon doing research on “customer centric” and “customer centricity”.

The other element to consider for your shingle is a tagline or short phrase that backs up your name and/or serves to provide more context around what you do. So, if you were to view the shingle of my consulting practice, it says:

Customer Centricity, Inc.

Planning. Execution. Delighted Customers.

Now, Isn’t that just super-duper sexy? NOT! And, it doesn’t have to be.

Finally, once you have your name and a tagline it is recommended you engage a graphic designer to create a logo for you. This step doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. And, if you need a recommendation for a graphic designer feel free to contact my son (Ian) who is doing some really cool stuff. You can check out his shingle at: www.baffirossi.com.

In summary, the more keywords that your company name and/or tagline contains the easier you (your website) will be found online (via search engines – more about that later).

Click here to review the next article in the series.