Series: Jump-Start Your Small Business
For those of you who are thinking about or ready to start a business, this series is for you!
Step 1 of 5 – Establish Your Identity
First things first – you need to establish your business’s identity. What is your business name, what platforms will you use to share info and market, how will your customers find you? These are all questions that I strongly recommend you ask at the very beginning to set yourself up for the future!
Why are these questions so important, and why at the start?
You need to make sure that your brand is congruent across the various platforms and places your customers will seek you out. In other words, it needs to be as easy as possible for your potential customers to find you, everywhere you are. Let’s walk through an example so you can see what I mean.
Let’s pretend that I am starting a business making custom wood furniture. I want to call my business “Wood Works”, and I figure I will need a website, a Facebook page, and an Instagram presence, for starters. I need to pre-check each of these things to make sure “Wood Works” is available, else I run the risk of confusing my customers with different names.
First, I check whether some other business already has that name using my state’s Corporate Commission website. If someone else already has that LLC, I need to make some changes. If not, I’m free to try the next step: a web domain/url link. You can also use the services of Legal Zoom for this step, and for filing for your LLC!
Second, I check whether something like www.woodworks.com is available by going to any web domain provider, like GoDaddy, Squarespace, Wix, or Wordpress. Once on their site, search for the website/domain you want – if it’s available, great, move to the next step! If not, you will need to try some variations of your desired name until you find one that is available. You will have to make a judgement call as to whether your company name needs to change in order to match the domain (in my case, my company is “Savvy Maven” and my website is asavvymaven.com – a small difference that I felt wasn’t worth changing the company name over).
Third, I check whether the email address I want is available. Now, this is more for if you are planning on using Gmail for your business email account (i.e. woodworks@gmail.com). If you are securing a business website and domain, you can add on an email service for a small monthly fee, so then your email address could be “info@woodworks.com” or something. NOTE: Gmail is the only email I would recommend if you not planning on using a web domain and having that be your email address. Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and the like are perceived as more social/informal and are given slightly less credence than Gmail if you are a business.
Lastly – check any social media services (like Facebook and Instagram) to see if your company name is available as a page/account. LLC, website, and email are the most critical – you can get by with slight variations within Facebook and Instagram and your customers can still find you with links you provide on your website.
That’s it for Step 1 – Establishing Your Identity. A bit tedious, yes, but well worth the continuity later on so it’s easy for your customers to find you!
Please add a comment if you have any questions, comments or tips on the info I’ve provided, and feel free to share with your entrepreneurial friends!! Next week, we will dive into “Step 2 – Start Putting Your Business Out There”!
Author: Kathy DeCocq