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It’s All In The Name

What’s in a name? Just about everything when it comes to small-business success. The right name can make your company the talk of the town; the wrong one can doom it to obscurity and failure. If you’re smart, you’ll put just as much effort into naming your business as you did into coming up with your idea, writing your business plan and selecting a market and location. Ideally, your name should convey the expertise, value and uniqueness of the product or service you’ve developed.

There’s a lot of controversy over what makes a good business name. Some experts believe that the best names are abstract, a blank slate upon which to create an image. Others think that names should be informative, so customers know immediately what your business is. Some believe that coined names (names that come from made-up words) are more memorable than names that use real words. Others think most coined names are eminently forgettable. In reality, any type of name can be effective if it’s backed by the appropriate marketing strategy.

Do It Yourself?

Given all the considerations that go into a good company name, shouldn’t you consult an expert, especially if you’re in a field in which your company name will be visible and may influence the success of your business? And isn’t it easier to enlist the help of a naming professional?

Yes. Just as an accountant will do a better job with your taxes and an ad agency will do a better job with your ad campaign, a naming firm will be more adept at naming your firm than you will. Naming firms have elaborate systems for creating new names, and they know their way around the trademark laws. They have the expertise to advise you against bad name choices and explain why others are good. A name consultant will take this perplexing task off your hands–and do a fabulous job for you in the process.

The downside is cost. A professional naming firm may charge anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $35,000 or more to develop a name. The benefit, however, is that spending this money now can save you money in the end. Professional namers may be able to find a better name–one that is so recognizable and memorable, it will cut down your costs in the long run. They have the expertise to help you avoid legal hassles with trademarks and registration–problems that can cost you plenty if you end up choosing a name that already belongs to someone else. And they are familiar with design elements, such as how a potential name might work on a sign or stationery.

If you can spare the money from your startup budget, professional help could be a solid investment. After all, the name you choose now will affect your marketing plans for the duration of your business. If you’re like most small-business owners, though, the responsibility for thinking up a name will be all your own. The good news: By following the same basic steps professional namers use, you can come up with a meaningful moniker that works . . . without breaking the bank.
What Does It Mean?

Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. To be most effective, your company name should reinforce the key elements of your business.

Gerald Lewis, whose consulting firm, CDI Designs, specializes in helping retail food businesses, uses retail as an example. “In retailing,” Lewis explains, “the market is so segmented that [a name must] convey very quickly what the customer is going after. For example, if it’s a warehouse store, it has to convey that impression. If it’s an upscale store selling high-quality foods, it has to convey that impression. The name combined with the logo is very important in doing that.” So the first and most important step in choosing a name is deciding what your business is.

Should your name be meaningful? Most experts say yes. The more your name communicates to consumers, the less effort you must exert to explain it. Alan Siegel, chairman and CEO of Siegel & Gale, an international communications firm, believes name developers should give priority to real words or combinations of words over fabricated words. He explains that people prefer words they can relate to and understand. That’s why professional namers universally condemn strings of numbers or initials as a bad choice. On the other hand, it is possible for a name to be too meaningful.

Naming consultant S.B. Master cautions business owners need to beware of names that are too narrowly defined. Common pitfalls are geographic names or generic names. Take the name “San Pablo Disk Drives” as a hypothetical example. What if the company wants to expand beyond the city of San Pablo, California? What meaning will that name have for consumers in Chicago or Pittsburgh? And what if the company diversifies beyond disk drives into software or computer instruction manuals?

Specific names make sense if you intend to stay in a narrow niche forever. If you have any ambitions of growing or expanding, however, you should find a name that is broad enough to accommodate your growth. How can a name be both meaningful and broad? Master makes a distinction between descriptive names (like San Pablo Disk Drives) and suggestive names.

Descriptive names tell something concrete about a business–what it does, where it’s located and so on. Suggestive names are more abstract. They focus on what the business is about. Would you like to convey quality? Convenience? Novelty? These are the kinds of qualities that a suggestive name can express.

For example, Master came up with the name “Italiatour” to help promote package tours to Italy. Though it’s not a real word, the name “Italiatour” is meaningful. Right away, you recognize what’s being offered. But even better, the name “Italiatour” evokes the excitement of foreign travel. “It would have been a very different name if we had called it ï¿½Italytour,'” says Master. “But we took a foreign word, ï¿½Italia,’ but one that was very familiar and emotional and exciting to English speakers, and combined it with the English word ï¿½tour.’ It’s easy to say, it’s unique, it’s unintimidating, but it still has an Italian flavor.”

Before you start thinking up names for your new business, try to define the qualities that you want your business to be identified with. If you’re starting a hearth-baked bread shop, for example, you might want a name that conveys freshness, warmth, and a homespun atmosphere.

Immediately, you can see that names like “Kathy’s Bread Shop” or “Arlington Breads” would communicate none of these qualities. But consider the name “Open Hearth Breads.” The bread sounds homemade, hot, and just out of the oven. Moreover, if you diversified your product line, you could alter the name to “Open Hearth Bakery.” This change would enable you to hold onto your suggestive name without totally mystifying your established clientele.

Begin brainstorming business names, looking in dictionaries, books and magazines to generate ideas. Get friends and relatives to help if you like; the more minds, the merrier. Think of as many workable names as you can during this creative phase. Professional naming firms start out with a raw base of 800 to 1,000 names and work from there. You probably don’t have time to think of that many, but try to come up with at least 10 names that you feel good about. By the time you examine them from all angles, you’ll eliminate at least half.

The trials you put your names through will vary depending on your concerns. Some considerations are fairly universal. For instance, your name should be easy to pronounce, especially if you plan to rely heavily on print ads or signs. If people can’t pronounce your name, they will avoid saying it. It’s that simple. And nothing could be more counterproductive to a young company than to strangle its potential for word-of-mouth advertising.

Other considerations depend on more individual factors. For instance, if you’re thinking about marketing your business globally or if you’re located in a multilingual area, you should make sure that your new name has no negative connotations in other languages. On another note, Master points out, if your primary means of advertising will be in the telephone directory, you might favor names that are closer to the beginning of the alphabet. Finally, make sure that your name is in no way embarrassing. Put on the mind of a child and tinker with the letters a little. If none of your doodlings make you snicker, it’s probably OK.

Chuck Brymer, president of naming firm Interbrand U.S.A., advises name seekers to take a close look at their competition. “The major function of a name is to distinguish your business from others,” Brymer observes. “You have to weigh who’s out there already, what type of branding approaches they have taken, and how you can use a name to separate yourself.”
Making Up a Name

At a time when almost every existing word in the language has been trademarked, the option of coining a name is becoming more popular. Perhaps the best coined names come from professional naming firms. Some examples are Acura, a division of Honda Motor Co. coined by NameLab, and Flixx, a name CDI coined for a chain of video rental stores.

Since the beginnings of NameLab, founder Ira Bachrach has been a particular champion of the coined name. He believes that properly formulated coined names can be even more meaningful than existing words. Take, for example, the name “Acura.” Although it has no dictionary definition, it actually suggests precision engineering, just as the company intended. How can that be? Bachrach and his staff created the name “Acura” from “acu,” a word segment that means “precise” in many languages. By working with meaningful word segments (what linguists call morphemes) like “acu,” Bachrach claims to produce new words that are both meaningful and unique.

“One of the reasons a new company is formed is that it has new value; it has a new idea,” Bachrach contends. “If you adopt a conventional word, it’s hard to express the newness of your idea. But as long as it’s comprehensible, a new word will express that newness.” Bachrach also admits, however, that new words aren’t always the best solution. A new word is complex and implies that the service or product you’re offering is complex, which may not be what you want to say. Plus, naming beginners might find this type of coining beyond their capabilities.

An easier solution is to use new spellings of existing words. For instance, CDI’s creation: “Flixx.” “Flixx” draws upon the slang term “flicks,” meaning movies. But the unusual spelling makes it interesting, while the double “X” at the end makes it visually appealing. Just as important, “Flixx” is more likely to be available for trademarking than “Flicks,” a factor that’s especially important to a chain operation interested in national expansion.

After you’ve narrowed the field to, say, four or five business names that are memorable, expressive and can be read by the average kindergartner, you are ready to do a trademark search.

Must every name be trademarked? No. Many small businesses don’t register their business names. As long as your state government gives you the go-ahead, you may operate under an unregistered business name for as long as you like–assuming, of course, that you aren’t infringing on anyone else’s trade name.

But what if you are? Imagine either of these two scenarios: You are a brand-new manufacturing business just about to ship your first orders. An obscure company in Ogunquit, Maine, considers your name an infringement on their trademark and engages you in a legal battle that bankrupts your company. Or, envision your business in five years. It’s a thriving, growing concern, and you are contemplating expansion. But just as you are about to launch your franchise program, you learn that a small competitor in Modesto, California, has the same name, rendering your name unusable.

To illustrate the risk you run of treading on an existing trademark with your new name, consider this: When NameLab took on the task of renaming a chain of auto parts stores, they uncovered no fewer than 87,000 names already in existence for stores of this kind.

That’s why even the smallest businesses should at least consider having their business names screened. You never know where your corner store is going to lead. If running a corner store is all a person is going to do, then, he doesn’t need to do a trademark search. But that local business may become a big business someday if that person has any ambition.

Ensuring that your name is going to be federally registerable is important. Also make sure that the individual states that you want to do business in will let you do business under that name. Enlisting the help of a trademark attorney or at least a trademark search firm before you decide on a name is highly advisable. The extra money you spend now could save you countless hassles and expenses further down the road. Try to contain your excitement about any one name until it has cleared the trademark search. It can be very demoralizing to lose a name you’ve been fantasizing about.
Trademark Classes

There are many misconceptions about trademarks and service marks and the level of protection provided for them under the law. One of the first misconceptions is that a trademark is all-encompassing. In fact, trademarks and service marks are filed under a specific class or classes. (For a complete list of eligible classes, visit the “International Schedule of Classes of Goods and Services” at the USPTO website.) There are 45 classes to choose from when filing for a trademark or service mark. Companies can file under one class or multiple classes depending on the nature of their product or service.

For instance, if a company has a registered trademark under class 15, musical instruments, another company using that same name in the pursuit of doing business in the category of musical instruments would potentially cause confusion in the marketplace and infringe upon a registered trademark. However, if a company does business within a different class, say class 1, chemicals, the potential for confusion would be extremely unlikely.
Conducting Your Own Trademark Search

If you’re going to search on your own, the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries (PTDL) nationwide have directories of federally registered trademarks and an online database of registered marks and pending registration applications. You can also use product guides and other materials available in these libraries to search for conflicting marks that haven’t yet been registered. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) websitelists PTDLs in your state.

The site also has a free database of pending and registered trademarks; these are usually entered in the PTO database one to two months after filing. You can also contact the PTO at (800) 786-9199 for general information about trademark registration or to ask about the status of specific trademark applications and registrations.

It’s also a good idea to search the web and see if anyone is using the name without having registered it. Do this with more than one search engine for the most thorough results. Also, check with domain name registrars like Network Solutionsto see what’s available. This can help you find other businesses using your chosen name or similar names, and it can also help you narrow down your choices. If you can’t have your top choice of a business name as a .com domain, you might want to consider alternative spellings, choices or top-level domains (i.e., “.net” or “.us”).

If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with three to five business names that pass all your tests. How do you make your final decision?

Recall all your initial criteria. Which name best fits your objectives? Which name most accurately describes the company you have in mind? Which name do you like the best?

Each company arrives at a final decision in its own way. Some entrepreneurs go with their gut or use personal reasons for choosing one name over another. Others are more scientific. Some companies do consumer research or testing with focus groups to see how the names are perceived. Others might decide that their name is going to be most important seen on the back of a truck, so they have a graphic designer turn the various names into logos to see which works best as a design element.

Use any or all of these criteria. You can do it informally: Ask other people’s opinions. Doodle an idea of what each name will look like on a sign or on your business stationery. Read each name aloud, paying special attention to the way it sounds if you foresee radio advertising or telemarketing in your future. Professional naming firms devote anywhere from six weeks to six months to the naming process. You probably won’t have that much time, but plan to spend at least a few weeks on selecting a name. Once your decision is made, start building your enthusiasm for the new name immediately. Your name is your first step toward building a strong company identity, one that should last you as long as you’re in business.
Filing a DBA

Now that you’ve decided upon a name, do you need to file a DBA? If you’re structuring your company as a sole proprietorship or a partnership, a dba (“doing business as”) or fictitious business name allows you to legally do business under your new business name (rather than your own name). You may be required by the county, city or state to register your fictitious name.

Procedures for doing this vary among states. In many states, all you have to do is go to the county offices and pay a registration fee to the county clerk. In other states, you also have to place a fictitious name notice in a local newspaper for a certain amount of time. The cost of filing a fictitious name notice ranges from $10 to $100. Your local bank may also require a fictitious name certificate to open a business account for you; if that’s the case, they can tell you where to go to register. In most cases, the newspaper that prints your fictitious name ad will also file the necessary papers with the county.

In most states, corporations don’t have to file fictitious business names unless the corporations do business under names other than their own. For example, using dbas allows your corporation to run several businesses without creating separate legal entities for each one. But if you’ve just got one business that’s a corporation, incorporation documents have the same effect as fictitious name filings do for sole proprietorships and partnerships.

Selecting Your Salary

It’s an age-old question that faces every entrepreneur: What do I pay myself? There are a lot of different ways to answer that, but the two most common are:

Pay yourself enough to get by. At least during startup until you are operating in the black. The argument here is to minimize your overhead in order to decrease the amount of capital required to make your business a success. Also, by reducing your overhead, your net loss will decrease or your net profit will increase, providing the business with lean operating requirements until it is well established.
Pay yourself what you are worth. Build that into your business plan so you have an accurate portrayal of how much capital you will need in order to finance your business. By paying yourself what you are worth, you aren’t painting an artificial portrait of the business that will change once you reach the black–operating costs will remain the same.

So how do you know what is enough to get by and what you are worth? You have to do some planning and simple mathematics, and then budget that amount into your income and cash-flow projections so that you know how much operating capital you will require during the formative stages of your company’s development.

What happens when you reach break-even and grow beyond that point? There are many factors that go into the equation, such as legal form of operation and tax requirements. You need to balance your needs against what you feel you are worth, what you need to get by, what the business will be able to sustain, and how your income as well as the business will be taxed.

Projecting Your Salary

As we mentioned, there are two methods you can use to determine your pay during startup. The first is paying yourself enough to meet basic living requirements. Depending on your situation, that means enough income to cover your bills, food and other miscellaneous living expenses. Strike all other discretionary items from your life for a while and get used to just the bare necessities. If you are used to dining at fine restaurants seven days a week, get used to going down to the local McDonald’s maybe once or twice a week.

To begin planning your pay, you need to put together your own personal financial statement that lists all your living expenses and any credit cards with outstanding balances as well as short-term and long-term loans. This may be one of the most difficult things you’ve ever had to do because you don’t want to leave anything out. You want to make sure that your income from the business will be enough to cover your expenses.

The personal balance sheet should include a list of common items you’ll need to consider when determining your monthly living expenses. Generally, if you can pay-down any debts before going into business, you’ll not only decrease the amount of income you’ll require each month, but also improve your personal net worth, which is important when it comes to borrowing capital to fund your business.

Once you’ve listed amounts for each of the items on your monthly budget, add them all together. This is the amount you will need to pay yourself in order to meet your basic requirements. Remember when putting together your list to include all your expenses. That doesn’t mean just monthly, but quarterly, semiannual and annual expenses. You must provide yourself with complete information. After all, you will be living on this income for at least six months to a year.

The other system from which you can project your salary is basic worth. How much do you feel you are worth? That’s a very subjective question. After all, what you feel you are worth may not be what your value is on the market. Of course, many people go into business for themselves because they want to achieve a degree of financial security for themselves and their families. Naturally, you’re going to assume that you will pay yourself a basic minimum of what your current market value is plus a little more. And that is exactly how you will set up the equation to determine what your monthly draw will be from the business.

To determine your basic worth, start by writing down your current salary or hourly wage. That is what your market worth is at this point in time. This is what you want to make at a minimum going into the business. But market worth isn’t basic worth. There is a difference. Basic worth is your market worth plus a percentage increase based on three to four times the rate of inflation.

Why is there a percentage increase from market worth? As we mentioned, market worth is a minimum, a starting point. It doesn’t take into consideration the increased responsibilities of running a business and your value to the business as its owner. With these factors taken into consideration, your basic worth is determined using the following equation:

MW/12 x (I x 4) = BW

In this equation, market worth (MW) is your total annual pay minus any bonuses or overtime. Divide the annual market worth by 12 to get a monthly amount. Then multiply this by the inflation percentage (I) multiplied by 4.

For instance, suppose you are making $15 per hour at your current job. At $15 per hour, your annual pay would be $31,200. Your annual pay of $31,200 would then be divided by 12, resulting in a monthly income of $2,600. At the time you are determining your basic worth, the rate of inflation is four percent. Multiply four by four, and the percentage which you will add to your current monthly income is 16 percent. Your basic worth would be $36,192 annually.

Of course, these are just recommended models to use when determining what you will pay yourself during the period of startup to break even. You can use any type of system you wish. The idea is to provide you with a realistic figure that’s fair and equitable.

Break-Even and Beyond

Determining your salary during the planning stages of startup is important because you need to include your income in the financial statements you will produce in order to obtain financing for your business. Even if you are financing the venture yourself, you need to have this information in front of you; otherwise, your overhead won’t be practical and any income, break-even and cash-flow projections you will perform will be inaccurate.

Any bank or investor looking through your plan will check your financials very carefully. They’re going to look at these projections to make sure you can repay the loan from the profits of the business. If they hold equity in the business, they need to determine how great a return they can expect from their investment. They’re going to check the cash-flow projection to make sure you have enough to cover your own draw and living expenses until the company is profitable, unless, of course, you have a separate income.

Keep in mind that during the first year of business, it typically takes three to six months to break even. Once you reach break-even, though, do you change your salary? If you think you can, then you will make one of the most common mistakes an entrepreneur can make.

Just because you’ve reached break-even, that doesn’t mean your company is profitable, or is even stable. If you’re paying yourself just enough to get by, raising your salary is going to increase your overhead, which will require a greater amount of revenue from the business in order for expenses and income to match. In other words, you’ve just thrown your business into the red again. If you’re paying yourself your basic worth, then you shouldn’t need to raise your salary, at least for a while.

After you’ve reached break-even, the best method to increase your pay is to tie any income above your fixed salary to the growth of the business. Therefore, if the company grows 10 percent during the first quarter after break-even, take your base salary and add a 10 percent bonus to it.

Continuing with this example, if your base salary is $3,016 per month as determined in our example of basic worth, you would multiply that number by three (the number of months in a quarter) and add 10 percent. Therefore, you have:

3,016 x 3 + 10% = $905

You would give yourself a bonus of $905.

After your first full year in business, once you’ve passed break-even, reevaluate your business to determine its annual growth and increase your salary accordingly. As an example, suppose company sales have grown 50 percent during the first year after break-even. Your current salary level is $36,192, based on the basic worth example. Multiply that salary by 150 percent and you will come up with your new annual pay, $54,288. You can retain the bonus income after the first year of break-even if you like. After all, why not compensate yourself for the increased performance of your company?

There are, of course, other factors you need to consider when determining pay. For instance, what happens when the rest of overhead, excluding owner compensation, grows faster than the rate of sales on a percentage basis? Most of these expenses are required in order to operate your business. Sure, you may be able to trim a little fat from the budget by removing any discretionary purchases, but the fact remains that if overhead grows at 12 percent, and sale grow 10 percent, it is only a matter of time before you find yourself in trouble. By increasing your base salary by 10 percent, the rate of sales growth, you are only hastening this crisis.

In order to keep your total overhead, including owner compensation, at a comfortable level in relation to income, you will have to take that rise in overhead into consideration when you determine your salary level. To do this you need to determine how much your overhead is, excluding your salary. For instance, suppose your annual overhead minus owner salary is $180,960, your salary is $36,192, and sales are $312,000. If you add during the first year after break-even, the company’s sales grow by 10 percent of sales. Now, but overhead minus owner salary grows by 12 percent to $202,675, or about 60 percent of total sales. Your raise in pay cannot exceed 70 percent, so you will be unable to give yourself a 10-percent raise unless you want to cut into your profit. Instead, you would give yourself a four-percent raise for a total of $37,600 annually.

Keeping your costs under control means checking rapid growth of your overhead costs. But no matter what you do, overhead will rise on annual basis due to inflation alone. Your objective is to try and keep it in line with the growth of sales.

A lot of people fail to realize that when you’re self-employed, the legal form under which you operate your business directly affects the way the IRS views your tax status and, therefore, will have some bearing on how you pay yourself.

The easiest way to get into business is as a sole proprietor. A sole proprietor doesn’t have any partners to worry about, nor a corporate identity to hide behind. As a sole proprietor, the buck stops at your desk and nobody else’s. If you get tagged with a lawsuit, you face the liability. It’s as simple as that.

On the other side of the coin, if your company does well, you reap the profits. Under a sole proprietorship, profits from the business and your personal income are treated the same by the IRS. There is no distinction.

After deducting all your overhead expenses on Schedule C of Form 1040, the resulting profit is your income and you are taxed on that portion, including a tax for social security under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

A partnership is a totally different vehicle from the sole proprietorship in terms of operations, but from the point of view of the IRS they are practically the same. Any profit generated through a partnership is treated as personal income. Instead of completing Schedule C of Form 1040, however, partnerships must file Form 1065, U.S. Partnership Return of Income.

If your business is organized as a corporation, you will get paid a salary like other employees. Any profit the business makes will accrue to the corporation, not to you personally. At the end of the year, you must file a corporate income tax return.

Corporate tax return may be prepared on a calendar- or fiscal- year basis. If the tax liability of the business is calculated on a calendar year, the tax return must be filed with the IRS no later than March 15 each year.

Reporting income on a fiscal-year cycle is more convenient for most businesses because they can end their tax year in any month they choose. Pursuant to the 1986 Tax Reform Act, a corporation whose income is primarily derived from the personal services of its shareholders must be a calendar year end for tax purposes. In addition, most Sub-chapter S corporations are required to use calendar year ends.

The salary you receive from the corporation is, of course, reported as your own personal income on Form 1040. As the CEO of a corporation, you’ll be able to plan your salary with an eye toward tax rates. You may be able to set up a staggered fiscal year, differing from the calendar year by which individuals are typically taxed.

How can you achieve this? Pay salaries that will absorb whatever profits there are in the company. There is a limit to how much of this you can do, and in most states you have to document the process with appropriate resolutions and directors’ meetings. But for most small companies not making a tremendous amount of money, it makes sense to pay income out of the corporation in the form of salary.

There is a danger to this strategy, especially when it comes to awarding big bonuses to yourself. If you’re the owner of a small, privately owned C-corporation, the IRS will look closely at returns to determine if there is “excessive compensation” to lower the tax liability of the company. If the IRS determined the bonus, in addition to your regular salary, is too large, they’ll disallow the deduction of the bonus as an expense to the corporation. In addition to the loss of the deduction, increasing the amount of tax to be paid, the IRS will also charge you interest and, more than likely, penalty fees.

No matter which legal form you choose, it’s vital that you discuss this decision with your tax accountant or attorney to make sure you’re operating legally and getting the best deal on your taxes.

Designing Your Logo – Do It Right!

Your logo is a visual representation of everything you stand for. Think of golden arches or the swoosh — these two impressive logos embody these companies well. Unfortunately, many companies skimp on developing this key identity piece and suffer the consequences.

Your company logo enhances first impressions of your business. A good logo builds loyalty with your customers, establish an identity, and provides the look of an established enterprise.

Consider the “good hands” logo. It immediately generates a warm feeling for the company, symbolizing care and trust. With a little thought and creativity, your logo can quickly and graphically express many positive attributes of your business, too.

Logo Types

There are basically three kinds of logos. Font-based logos consist primarily of a type treatment. The logos of IBM, Microsoft and Sony, for instance, use type treatments with a twist that makes them distinctive. Then there are logos that literally illustrate what a company does, such as when a house-painting company uses an illustration of a brush in its logo. And finally, there are abstract graphic symbols-such as Nike’s swoosh-that become linked to a company’s brand.

“Such a symbol is meaningless until your company can communicate to consumers what its underlying associations are,” says Americus Reed II, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who’s conducted research on the triggers that lead consumers to identify with and become loyal to a brand.

But building that mental bridge takes time and money. The Nike swoosh has no inherent meaning outside of what’s been created over the years through savvy marketing efforts that have transformed the logo into an “identity cue” for an athletic lifestyle.

Growing businesses can rarely afford the millions of dollars and years of effort required to create these associations, so a logo that clearly illustrates what your company stands for or does may be a better choice. Even a type treatment of your company’s name may be too generic, says Placitas, New Mexico, logo designer Gary Priester, principal of gwpriester.com, the Web arm of design firm The Black Point Group. Priester believes customers should be able to tell what you do just by looking at your logo.

Getting Started

Before you begin sketching, first articulate the message you want your logo to convey. Try writing a one-sentence image and mission statement to help focus your efforts. Stay true to this statement while creating your logo.

But that may not be enough to get you started. Here are some additional tactics and considerations that will help you create an appropriate company logo:

Look at the logos of other businesses in your industry. Do your competitors use solid, conservative images, or flashy graphics and type? Think about how you want to differentiate your logo from those of your competition.
Focus on your message. Decide what you want to communicate about your company. Does it have a distinct personality-serious or lighthearted? What makes it unique in relation to your competition? What’s the nature of your current target audience? These elements should play an important role in the overall design or redesign.
Make it clean and functional. Your logo should work as well on a business card as on the side of a truck. A good logo should be scalable, easy to reproduce, memorable and distinctive. Icons are better than photographs, which may be indecipherable if enlarged or reduced significantly. And be sure to create a logo that can be reproduced in black and white so that it can be faxed, photocopied or used in a black-and-white ad as effectively as in color.
Your business name will affect your logo design. If your business name is “D.C. Jewelers,” you may wish to use a classy, serif font to accent the letters (especially if your name features initials). For a company called “Lightning Bolt Printing,” the logo might feature some creative implementation of-you guessed it-a lightning bolt.
Use your logo to illustrate your business’s key benefit. The best logos make an immediate statement with a picture or illustration, not words. The “Lightning Bolt Printing” logo, for example, may need to convey the business benefit of “ultra-fast, guaranteed printing services.” The lightning bolt image could be manipulated to suggest speed and assurance.
Don’t use clip art. However tempting it may be, clip art can be copied too easily. Not only will original art make a more impressive statement about your company, but it’ll set your business apart from others.
Avoid trendy looks. If you’re redesigning your old logo, you run the risk of confusing customers-or worse, alienating them. One option is to make gradual logo changes. According to Priester, Quaker Oats modified the Quaker man on its package over a 10-year period to avoid undermining customer confidence. But don’t plan to make multiple logo changes. Instead, choose a logo that will stay current for 10 to 20 years, perhaps longer. That’s the mark of a good design. In fact, when Priester designs a logo, he expects never to see that client again.

Watch Your Colors

One thing you need to be careful of as you explore color options is cost. Your five-color logo may be gorgeous, but once it comes time to produce it on stationery, the price won’t be so attractive. Nor will it work in mediums that only allow one or two colors. Try not to exceed three colors unless you decide it’s absolutely necessary.

Your logo can appear on a variety of media: signage, advertising, stationery, delivery vehicles and packaging, to name just a few. Remember that some of those applications have production limitations. Make sure you do a color study. Look at your logo in one-, two- and three-color versions.
Hire a Designer

While brainstorming logo ideas by yourself is a crucial step in creating your business image, trying to create a logo completely on your own is a mistake. It may seem like the best way to avoid the high costs of going to a professional design firm, which will charge anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000 for a logo design. Be aware, however, that there are thousands of independent designers around who charge much less. According to Stan Evenson, founder of Evenson Design Group, entrepreneurs on a tight budget should shop around for a designer. “There are a lot of [freelance] designers who charge rates ranging from $15 to $150 per hour, based on their experience,” he says.

But don’t hire someone just because of their bargain price. Find a designer who’s familiar with your field . . . and with your competition. If the cost still seems exorbitant, Evenson says, “remember that a good logo should last at least 10 years. If you look at the amortization of that cost over a 10-year period, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

Even if you have a good eye for color and a sense of what you want your logo to look like, you should still consult a professional designer. Why? They know whether or not a logo design will transfer easily into print or onto a sign, while you might come up with a beautiful design that can’t be transferred or would cost too much money to be printed. Your logo is the foundation of all your promotional materials, so this is one area where spending a little more now can really pay off later.
Using and Protecting Your Logo

Once you’ve produced a logo that embodies your company’s mission at a glance, make sure you trademark it to protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site.

Then, once it’s protected, use it everywhere you can-on business cards, stationery, letterhead, brochures, ads, your Web site and any other place where you mention your company name. This will help build your image, raise your company’s visibility and, ideally, lead to more business.

Creating a logo sounds easy, doesn’t it? It can be. Just remember to keep your customers and the nature of your business in mind when you put it all together. In time, you’ll have succeeded in building equity in your trademark, and it will become a positive and recognizable symbol of your product or service.