Naming the Business

[Paula Shaheen]

We are just starting out as investors, and want to focus mostly on rehabbing and wholesaling.  

It's time to set up our LLC, and we need a company name. I've read quite a bit about it, and it seems to me that it is better to use a more generic name (I was thinking simply PPS LLC), and use a DBA if we want to be more descriptive. What should the domain for our website be in that case?

I appreciate any advice those of you who are more seasoned can provide on this subject.

[Andrew Cordle]

@Brian Gibbons

I do love SEO as it is one of the most important things inside of business especially in todays market. 

But above I am more talking about building a brand. A brand transcribes feelings or emotions about a certain company or brand. The brand does not say what we do and what we are trying to accomplish. Again, I fully understand seo and the importance of it, but as I am sure you know there are literally 100's upon 100's of things that you can do for seo beside name your company exactly as to what you do. 

Example:

If I say "Rolex" we have a feeling about that Brand. But the Brand does not say what it does.

If I say "Apple" we have a feeling for those computers good or bad we have a feeling. 

If I say "McDonalds" we have a feeling but again the name does not say what McDonalds does.

What if McDonalds were to name itself "I sale Hamburgers in Orlando FL.com" just because they wanted a little SEO...

Brand = Associative Memory

@Paula Shaheen

What do you want YOUR CUSTOMERS to feel when they see or hear your company name? Meaning, I would pick a one word that I want my customers to feel then build a brand around that word. In my area we flip houses and I mean we flip a lot of houses. The ONE word I wanted my buyers to FEEL was the word "Custom" if I could make my retail buyers feel like they were getting a "Custom" home they would pay more for it. So I named my company and built my RE brand around that feeling. Remember, people will follow or "buy into" a feeling-- not a company name, but to have a feeling you have to have a brand, and to have a brand you have to have a feeling. THEN like @Brian Gibbons is talking about I added a ton of SEO to my site to drive traffic to my site, I just didn't want to give up my brand for a little SEO when I can build a brand an add 99 more SEO tricks to my site. 

Hope that helps a little. I could literally talk for hours upon hours about Branding. (and actually have talked about branding for several days in a row in classes)

AC