Finding a Business Name for 'Nature Friendly Products'

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:56:02 GMT

Finding the name Nature Friendly Products for my business name took a long, long, long, long time.

I knew that I wanted the name to clearly communicate that this is an environmentally friendly, sustainable products company. I also knew that I was going to offer multiple products (eventually). This would mean that I would need a strong eco name that wouldn't tie me to, or limit the type of product or service I'd offer. TOUGH!

Consider for a moment how Sir. Richard Branson has branded 'Virgin'. This is a fantastic example of a company that was originally established with a generic business name. As Sir Richard moved into new ventures he simply created a new company under the Virgin umbrella. Virgin Mobile, Virgin-radio, Virgin-Media, Virgin Altantic, Virgin megastores, Virgin Records. These are all sub-brands link into the over-arching brand. Clever. By linking all the brands, the tone of voice across Virgin is unified.

It is vitally important to carefully consider both the short term and longer term business objectives to ensure that the business name you choose clearly communicates with your customers your product or service.

The business name selection process took about 4 weeks. I spent hours researching other companies, brands and structures of company, brand and product. I believe the relationship between a customer and a brand has a huge impact on the sale.

I spent every spare moment I had considering the question - 'what will I name this business?'.

My approach was to create a short list of ideas for my business name. I discussed some of these past my husband, family and friends. I researched word definitions, meanings and cross referenced with a thesaurus. After I had collated a good list of possible business name ideas collated, I visited the two following web sites:

Companies House: I searched this site to determine if the business names I was considering were still available as business names in the UK. (some of my best ideas were already taken - typical!) www.companieshouse.gov.uk
123-reg: Here I searched to establish if the web site domain name was available. www.123-reg.co.uk

Eventually, (after a long time) I had the idea of Nature Friendly Products as my business name. I felt that this name provided a good balance of environmental concern, clearly product related, yet the company name and brand can be expanded upon if required. When I searched for this business name in companies house and 123-reg web sites I found both the trading name and the domain name were available. I'd hit the jackpot!

I registered my company as: Nature Friendly Products Limited.
www.naturefriendlyproducts.co.uk and www.naturefriendly.co.uk are my business url's.

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How do I find time to start my business?

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:25:39 GMT

I am finding it difficult to free up the amount of time required to do all the things that I need to do for this business.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't be working full time whilst trying to start my own business. Ideally, I'd be able to spend all my time working on my business. My reality is that I can't. I have to work full-time. In addition to working, I also need to make time for my husband, family, friends and fulfilling my religious and community responsibilities.

So many demands on my time, have at times felt overwhelming. When this is the case I try to gather myself together, write a list of all the things I need to do by category. (family, work, friends, community, new business). I then allocate time in my diary to spend working on each category in my schedule.

When the allocated time comes around, I work on the items on the list from most important to least important. This system works quite well for me. It also helps me to feel as though I am actually achieving things in the right order.

My business plan is now well underway. I know what I want to do and how I want things done. I’ve listed an order to the items that I need to achieve.

For each category of the business plan I have allocated time. Time for marketing, time for building partnerships, time for packaging, time for speaking with suppliers, time for running market acceptance testing. Overall I feel that by making a plan to deliver the business plan by 'category' and task, I'll be able to achieve the goals of the business.

I’ve found that by structuring my tasks this way I’ve been able to achieve more at work, more at home and more for Nature Friendly.

Every moment of my day counts. This is going to be a hard slog - but I want this more than anything this year. This is the year that I'll always reflect on with pride.