From a marketing perspective, I’m trying to figure out the most appropriate name for my RE business. I could go a few different routes and wanted to hear peoples thoughts. I’m not looking for specific suggestions, just direction.
I could use the family name (i.e. Smith Realty) or something more generic (i.e. Premiere Realty or M&G Realty)
Any thoughts?
What type of business? What is your focus?
Many have gone through the same pain you are experiencing. I drove my wife crazy asking her for suggestions and reviewing names I came up with. I had three rental properties and a rehab house purchased before I decided on our name. Bottom line — it doesn’t matter! Your business name will not buy you a house or sell one. As Rich said, what will your business do? Property management, rehabbing, wholesaling?
Depending on your market your business name may become recognizable as you create your brand. It can take a lot of time and advertising dollars. Give us some idea of what you will be doing and I am sure you will get lots of help on here for a name. Best of luck to you.
I’m looking to be a provider of solutions to homeowners and landlords in trouble in my area (CT) hence why I chose CT Homeowner Solution and CT Landlord Solution.
We will be rehabbing and flipping properties, but that’s sort of irrelevant to what I was trying to get at. Whether it’s “XXX Realty, XXX Development, XXX Properties, or XXX Management”, I guess my question is do you think it’s better to choose a name that makes you sound local and specific like Rich does (CT Landlord Solution), something more personal (Smith Realty or Smith Properties), or something more generic (Premiere Realty or Premiere Development)
Of course, using your last name only really differentiates you if it’s not too common a name.
In the end, I know it all comes down how you brand your business, but the name will (hopefully) be with you a long time, and will be part of the first impression that you create.
If you aren’t a licensed realtor that is selling houses as a realtor I would avoid Smith Realty and all variations that involve realty, when I see that word I think realtor. Smith Realestate Investments would be better or something along that line.
As Triton said, it’s not really important what your name is. A lot of great companies are the names of their founders, a lot are purely about the products. I’m partial to including double entendres myself. If my last name was Smith, I would not use my last name. That’s the most common name in America, you’d get lost with all the other Smith’s. If your last name was Boeing or Bechtel, you’d have a shot in differentiating yourself by your name as you said.
Words like “premiere” or “superior” don’t help in inflating the perception of the company to anyone. It really doesn’t matter what your name is…
To help build some brand identity with whatever name you choose, sell your name with the property. Have the listing agents add in every listing something like “this is a ******* renovation, renowned for their unsurpassed quality”, etc., etc. When you’re going for a brand identity, you need a leg to stand on. So figure out why you’re different and better, and sell that as a representation of your company.
I disagree. the name is extremely important.
I always like names that would be memorable and include my target market or geographic location. It also makes a good, easy domain name.
I’m not doing anything with one domain, but plan to launch a marketing plan around it. I bought SadHouses.com. The slogan is “We turn sad houses into happy homes”. It’s your basic motivated seller plan, but the domain and company name are more memorable. It also easily informs people of our mission to solve seller problems while offering something good to buyers.
I was going to do that plan until I became an agent, so want to go back to it once my team is fully set up.
The name is only important once it’s been established. What does Nike sell? What is Google? What is a Cadillac? All of those brand names are meaningless until they are established. You could name your company damn near anything and with the proper marketing, it will stick.
If you name your company “World’s best Real Estate”, no one will buy into that unless you really have the world’s best real estate. If your name was FNUIENIA and you really had the world’s best real estate, FNUIENIA would become the “World’s best Real Estate” without it being said. It doesn’t matter what your name is, it’s more about what you sell and how you sell it.
I know it’s the common idea to explain what it is you do with your company’s name, but so many companies turn their ambiguous name into being synonomous with their product which proves your name is not important. The really good companies turn their company into the name of the products for the entire industry. Kleenex, “Coke”, Vaseline are all examples of this.
all easy names, easy to say, easy to remember… name is extremly important.
First off, you’re allowed to respond with more than 1 sentence or statement.
Nike, Cadillac, and Google are easy to remember because you’ve heard, read, and spoke them 10,000,000 times. Those names are not easy to associate with their products unless you are extremely familiar with them. The name has nothing to do with the success of the company. Companies like Northrop Grumman or Raytheon don’t have a name that are easy to say, but they make many billions of dollars. Science Applications International Corporation is not catchy or easy to remember, but makes billions of dollars.
Going back to my original point, names are not important until they are established. The name of the company does NOT determine success or failure unless the names are totally opposite of the company (you don’t advertise a munitions factory named “The Flower and Fabric Shop”).
Things are only easy to remember when they are drilled into your head, not because they are short, simple, and catchy (as many people think). For that reason, you could name your company almost anything and have success.
Danny - That being said, if you were starting a company today would you choose a name that was catchy or one that described your business.
I agree that your success and reputation depends on much more than just a name, but I think I will ultimately choose a name that clearly describes the business I’m in.
That’s a tough call. I’d run with the first good idea I thought of and only change it if a MUCH better name came to me before I spent too much money on the first one. I like clever names; Microsoft, Petsmart, etc. Catchy names that also describe what you do.
I thought Google was a dumb name when I first heard it. Didn’t make any sense. Same thing for Wikipedia. I think names are important, but branding is key.
When it comes to names, remember there are other issues here as well.
Is it available. Check with your secretary of state to see if the name hasn’t been registered.
Is the domain available. The majority of home buyers look online at homes now, so it is intelligent to ensure an easy to remember domain name.
Now as it comes to names, you can be creative. As stated Google meant what before the company branded itself. Remember when the government forced the breakup of Andersen, well they paid tons of money to a firm to come up with a name and a brand for their new IT consulting. All of the ideas were thrown out. So they had an employeed contest and Accenture was born. When the employeed that won the contest was asked how he came up with the name.
He said it was time to “ACCENT the futURE” in their company. So it is a concocted word. I say, pick any name, then ESTABLISH IT. But you can keep doing business as you think of the name.
I think back to my company’s slogan “Providing Funding Solutions”, I was driving and a Panel van pulled next to me at a light, it was for a copy story. It said, “We are your Copy Solution! All orint solutions provided!”. So I sort of stole it, but the thing is, you never know when it will hit you.
Just chiming in to say that, for the most part, I think the name of the company is very important. Sure, you can throw tons of money into creating a brand, but the word that you’re trying to brand has as much to do with its success as the funding.
Some words just aren’t “brandable” no matter how much you spend. As stated earlier, the name usually needs to be memorable, etc., especially when the company is dealing with consumers as opposed to big business or government. This is why there are companies whose sole purpose in life is to come up with these “brandable” names, and they charge tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so…all before one cent is spent on branding or marketing.
Paul,
I agree that there are some names that aren’t “brandable”. I’d have to say I disagree with with the notion that it’s the actual name that’s memorable. Simple and catchy names are not any easier to remember than difficult and boring names. I work with a marketing consultant firm that I pay tens of thousands of dollars to and I’ve been shown study after study that identifies consumers don’t remember the name for the name. DeeinAustin had a short and simple name she posted in an earlier post that I can’t see as I type this and I don’t remember it because I’ve only seen it once.
The common knowledge is the best names are “Easy to remember”. But little thought it put into WHY names are easy to remember. It has nothing to do with the word, it’s pure branding. Depending on the name, a different branding approach would be necessary but you don’t get to do less branding because you think your name is easy to remember. Your results would be tainted if you asked a company owner if their name was memorable because they think it and see it everyday. When a person drives through the main road of a town, they see hundreds of signs, seeing one of your’s; even if it’s simple and catchy, does not stick out in their mind.
Regardless of a company’s name, if you saw their TV commercial once, you would not remember it unless it specifically pertained to you while you were paying your full attention. If it’s a funny commercial, you’d remember the funny part instead of what the company was selling. Consumers are subjected to thousands of ads every single day, most of which they totally ignored and your ad is just the white noise in the background. It’s like when your wife or girlfriend is nagging you, you nod and say “uh-huh” and have no idea what she said. No matter how simple the “order” was, you couldn’t repeat it 2 minutes after she leaves you alone to save your life. Most consumers are totally tuned-out to their environment and couldn’t recollect the last 3 street signs they passed while driving. The average consumer doesn’t have recon or sniper training to help them remember everything they see regardless of how simple you’d think it would be.