Great, so by this point you’ve considered if starting a business is a good idea. You’ve also looked at whether you wish to go the self employed or entrepreneur route, and you decided you’re moving forward with kicking off this new journey of business ownership. What’s next?
I won’t go into a lot of detail about the legal parts of starting a business. You’ll need to register your business with the local, state, and federal government. This includes forming a corporation or LLC, or registering a fictitious business name (DBA, doing business as). While you may hear people just blurt out “get an LLC” or something similar, I would suggest you pay the consultation fee to sit down and speak with an accountant about your plans and get their expert opinion on what is right for your business based on your current and future plans. Once you have the legal stuff taken care of and you are officially open for business you need to get your name out there.
Business names
Here is where I see many people making mistakes, and admittedly I’ve done the same in the past. The business name will reflect who you are so its important to choose a good one, its equally important to choose a memorable one. This is one of those situations when its important to know what business model you are following, entrepreneur or self employed. Let me explain, if you are going the entrepreneur route, then you likely have or should have a budget set aside for marketing. This budget might include a portion set for branding. If you are a one person shop just starting your journey to self employment, you likely don’t have a large fund from business loans, investors, or the like to pull from and create a large marketing budget.
With a budget set aside for branding you can afford to go with a name without a specific meaning (think Nike) and push the name in front of your target audience until they all know who you are and what you’re offering. If you can’t afford to do that, then you should select a name that reflects, or tells your clients what you do xyz plumbing or joe’s computer services for example. This name can also be used as part of your marketing strategy. When people do an online search they generally type the name of the service they are looking for. So if someone types Los Angeles plumber, and that happens to be your business name you are going to be one of the first options they see. Having some unique non descriptive name such as modrooter won’t have the same effect.
Logo
Much like your business name, your logo is part of your identity. There are several things to consider when selecting a logo. There are many ways to get a logo, you can have a logo done by freelance graphic designers on Fiverr for fairly cheap. Unfortunately, while there are many creative designers there and you can get some very cool designs, they aren’t all experts in generating logos, so you’ll end up with cool ideas that may limit you or hurt you in the long run. The easiest thing you can do is use your business name as your logo. Select a font and color scheme and stick to that, however if you want something more creative just keep the following things in mind.
Medium
Consider where your logo will be placed and whether it fits in that medium. This is where just using your business name may not work. For example, consider how your logo will look on a business card, a business letter, and on your car as either a car wrap, magnet, or sticker. Also consider your business online profiles, what are the limitations of sites like LinekedIn, google, Facebook, etc. and will your logo fit within those constraints. What if you choose to get a phone app for your business, will your logo fit as an app?
Color scheme
I would suggest you keep this simple. The more colors in your logo the more difficult it is to place it over different backdrops. If you had a post card made for the holidays and your logo includes a color within the postcard background or picture then it will not stand out well. Same concept applies when putting a background image on your website and behind your logo, it will easily get lost. Consider how your logo looks in black and white, while you may not plan on using it as black and white you might find yourself in a situation where you need to. If your billing platform supports sending out paper bills for example you may not want to print those in color to minimize your cost.
Images
If your logo will have images consider going with something that people can quickly relate to your services. A fish for example if you offer fishing tours, a saw or hammer if your a handyman or contractor, etc. Once again check to see how the image would look if printed in black and white.
There are many more things to consider when it comes to business logos, but I’m not an expert. For that you should find someone who is and have them help you get your logo. You can have a logo done from one person for $25 while another charges $500, but you are likely getting 2 different level of experiences and service. If they did things right, their level of expertise should reflect their pricing. I’ll cover pricing your services in one of my upcoming articles.