#162 - Choosing a killer name for your course (or business)

Hello.

Hello, everybody. It is Kate here from hellofunnels, and welcome to the latest episode of the Doing It Online podcast. Now today we are going back to basics a bit, but I think it can always be handy to revisit some of these more foundational topics. And today we're going to talk about killing. Killing. Choosing a killer name. Oh, my gosh. Not killing the name. Choosing a killer name for either your business or your program. And so whether this is your first runaround and, you know, this is an area I see people get stuck on quite frequently, or maybe you're looking to do a rebrand or you're looking to create a new offer. This is something that at time, again and again, we're going to come up against as we are in business. So I wanted to talk around some of the rules, the best practices, and also some of the stuff you can kind of just ignore completely, which hopefully will help you to nail an awesome name that you're really, really happy with that's going to serve you and your business really well. So are you ready? Let's dive right on in.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online, but better, easier, and with a ton more profit, too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Okay, guys, so I think I mentioned in the intro that choosing a name or naming something is an area I see a lot of people get stuck in. Like, hello, my perfectionists who are listening. You know, I know that there's people out there and they're like, I've got this great idea. I know what I want it to be. But either the name that they want is taken, which happens, or they just can't seem to put a couple of words together to fully express everything that is, you know, that is included and covered inside their business or inside their program. And because they can't find the perfect thing, they say stuck. They don't launch it. They don't put it out to the world. And so I just wanted to sort of blow up one little BS thing just first, like one little, you know, potential story you're telling yourself, which is just not true. But is that it doesn't need to be a perfect name. In fact, it doesn't even need to be the end result name for you to put it out into the world. Like, ideal scenario. The day that you come up with the idea for your business or your program, you'll also just go, oh, we should call it this. And then no one else will have already named anything that, and it just all clicks into place and, you know, you go on and you never have to think about it again. And the name doesn't date and you've chosen well and all of that good stuff. I probably say almost 50% of the time that's not the case. Usually we come up with the idea and then, you know, it might take weeks and weeks for the name to land and to. To. To fall in. And that's okay if you're still moving forward and you're still able to be taking actions and setting things up and getting things ready, just waiting for that final piece to click. And then when it does, you know, that's when you kind of put it out as well. But if you are not moving forward, if you find that you can't do anything because you just can't think of the name, I'm just here to tell you that it doesn't. Like, the name matters less than you think. Like, yes, we're going to talk about rules for making sure your name is as good as it possibly can, but the fact of the matter is, is your program, whatever it is, if it's not out in the world, it can't sell, it can't convert. So better just call it something, get it out there for now, and you can actually change it later. And in fact, that's my sort of story and journey with naming things. For me, this is business number, I like to say 3.2, because, you know, I started my first business back in 2007, made a pretty major pivot from that one to what I then called Secret Bloggers Business. Ran that for many years and then sort of got to the end of the really the lifecycle of that business. And I was like, you know, I want to work with people who aren't just bloggers. And I was finding that name really was like, kind of hemming me in because, you know, if you weren't a blogger, would you work with a business that was called Secret Bloggers Business? Probably not. So I was like, okay, well, I have to get rid of this because I'm evolving into different markets and I want to be able to serve different people as well. And I could not. The name didn't like, it didn't just come. It wasn't this epiphany. So for at least a year, I was actually rebranded everything back into my own Name because that kind of gave me a bit of play space and a bit more freedom to test out different offers and work with people in different ways and to sort of really get that clarity that I needed. So that is one, actually one option for people who just really can't come up with a name. Calling it, naming it after yourself. It's not about being narcissistic. It's just about going, what's something that I can do in the interim? And then. And fix it later. And I know Jenna Kutcher talks about this a lot. I think her very first program was called like the Jenna Kutcher program or something like that. Because obviously she just couldn't come up with a name. And she, since, you know, obviously has had many, many programs with really cool names ever since then. So then eventually I sort of, you know, once I'd really felt like I perfected, not perfected, but really honed in and like, really like, yeah, this is who I want to work with. This is how I want to help them. And I wanted to be all about funnels. And I want to have a name that talks about funnels and making funnels seem accessible and something like friendly. And then I loved hello Sunshine. I loved we get hello Fresh. And I was like, well, hello funnels. That kind of, you know, all falls. That's kind of the naming journey of my business. But you know, inside that business, I've had many different programs. Some names have again, I found to be end up being restrictive. Some I've changed over time, some I've had to retire because I've named them badly. So I've learned a lot of, a lot of lessons about naming things and I want to go through really those top level ones with you now. So let's, let's dive into that. So first of all, let's cover like, what, what needs to do or needs not to do. Like, that's really like the important stuff. So number one, it needs to be short and punchy. Like it needs to be something that people aren't stumbling over. It's not a sentence, okay? It's a couple of words. It's like two, three, maybe four tops, if this is the name of something. Because the more different words you put in there, the more likely people are going to get it wrong. They're going to remember it wrong. It's not going to stick. So that's the second thing is it obviously it needs to be easy to remember and easy to spell. So fun fact for you in my sort of as in my Naming and renaming journey. Like, My name's Kate McKibben, nobody can spell my surname. So that was a nightmare in itself. Luckily enough I'd been. Luckily, yeah, I'd been on the Internet long enough that there. And there aren't any many others. There's like a contestant on Idol who was called something similar and obviously there's a comedian called Kate McKinnon. But if you kind of sort of got my name right, you would usually find me. But that wasn't ideal. The name before that secret bloggers business. Like, yes, I'd say it's catchy, it says what it needs to say, people can remember it. But typing that out as a URL, so long and so many of the same letters and things and just so many instances for, you know, for typing typos and people to get things wrong. The name before that was Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily, which was like a completely different business. But you know, nobody can spell the word gorgeous. So if it wasn't for Fergie and that song, I don't think, I think most of the population would actually get that wrong. It's got way too many vowels in it. So, you know, using words which again are short and easy to spell. Thinking about if you're going to be international or if you're going to be local, that there are different spellings of certain words and some words mean different things in different countries. It's another example of that is the word fortnight. In Australia that means every two weeks or a two week period. Most other places it's just a video game. But if you said to someone, oh, we'll do a fortnightly meeting, they'd probably look at you really confused. And if you were talking about like creating a funnel in a fortnight, which may or may not have been an idea I've batted around before, half of the globe will not know what you're talking about. So just start with something short, punchy. And just remember, once you come up with something, dig into it a little deeper, have a look. Remember that different parts of the world add use or don't add use to certain words that are that sound the same otherwise. And we always get told off. People tell us that we're spelling enroll wrong because some countries spell it with two Ls and others spell it with one. So just remembering all that stuff is really important, particularly if you're going to have URLs that you're going to be pointing people to. Like I think almost more important than the snappiness and the Cleverness is the simpleness and the ability for people to remember it and to spell it later on because that's the stuff that's actually going to impact convergence. Next, obviously, very importantly is that it's not taken. I think people often do a really cursory search on this. And so it's not just Googling and seeing if it comes up on page one. I'd also recommend that you go look on Instagram. Have a look, see are there any hashtags or any accounts that use this name. Looking on Facebook for any groups, even looking on Pinterest as well. Like trying to go as as far and wide as you can. Now there are actually quite a few programs out the same that do out there that do have similar names. And you know, there's all kinds of legal things to do with that. And it's not impossible to use a name particularly if it's not the same market, it's not the same way, it hasn't been trademarked. But you know, best case scenario easiest is if it just is not the same. If and quite often it can be as simple as changing something. Like maybe you're going to have the something boot camp and you change it into the something workshop. Like just, you know, you can still keep the main, like the important part the same. The main phrases that you want to have the same but make the rest of it different. And the other thing is why I think trying to find something unique is really important is because you don't want again someone they've heard and they remember vaguely what it's called. They go Googling. They go find your competitors program. Yeah, you definitely don't want to have anything that sounds the same or sounds similar to someone who's working in a similar way with similar people. Because again, you might end up just sending traffic to your competitors and they won't send you thank you cards. They won't know that you're doing it. Another really important one is to avoid any trendy or trending words or phrases or anything like that. So there was quite a few programs that came out a few years ago that were hashtag something, the word boss being shoved in front and behind of everything because of obviously girl boss. And then that kind of became its own little movement and then it became its own sort of phrases and its own vernacular and then it, after a while it just dates it. So you now see anything that says boss, you go, that's a bit old. It used to be cool and edgy and you know, showing that it was current and finger on the pulse. And then all of a sudden it's like just, it's like when your mum and dad pop up on, on Instagram, on TikTok, you're like, you seem a little out of place. You know, other things like yolo, you know, there's all just basically, if it is a trending hashtag on any social media platform or has ever been, just don't, don't. Because it's just going to mean that unless you're planning let's, you know, what you're teaching is only relevant for the next three to six months. Probably best to avoid those if you can. Even if they're super clever, I would still avoid them. And then the last and not least is just not confusing like it needs you don't like. Best case scenario is if you can come up with a phrase that lets the ideal client know it's for them and it knows what it's about and it knows what the outcome is and you know, but that's, that's asking a lot of a couple of words. So instead, rather than trying to necessarily get all of that into the name of your program, make the most of your tagline and try and anything that's missed by the by the name gets covered off in the tagline instead. And that means that you can just really focus on that name being unique. Easy to remember, not confusing because. And the other way, I mean confusing is by people come in and they see the name, they go, oh, I thought this was about this. It's not for me. So better come bring it back to simple. Always bring it, bring it, bring it back to simple. So while we're speaking of that one last little note and this is around that when you're coming up the name like quite often, you know, there's like there's two camps and there's often two routes. You can go, you can go probably what's a bit of a broader name or a more specific one. And so to give you an example of two of my programs, Ecourse Empire, I would say that is a broader named program because about, it's about building an empire with your online course. But it doesn't, you know, specifically say it's for this person or it's for this type of funnel or it's for this type of program or anything like that. It's just, it's quite general but still short, easy to remember, easy to spell. A previous program that I've had before that I sort of retired and upgraded and turned into Ecosysempire was one I call the 5k funnel formula. Now, I loved this name and when I first came up with it, I was so impressed with myself and I was so like, well, so many of the people that I work with, you know, if they could make an extra $5,000 a month from their funnels, they'd be super happy. And it was great. And I attracted a lot of those people. However, that same process, that same funnel worked really well for people wanting to add 50k or a hundred k to their business. But those people were seeing that name and going, well, that's not for me because I don't want a 5k funnel that wouldn't even, you know, touch the sides. I need something much, you know, I need a much bigger funnel. I need. So therefore this is not for me. And by naming it, what I thought was being clever and specific and helping to really speak to that target market, what I actually did was put my program in a box that was then, doesn't matter how clever your tagline in it was very hard to get out of. So the end of the day retired the program, you know, refreshed it, redid it, you know, made and then it became that plus a whole bunch of other stuff became equals empire, which. And now we're on the other side of it going, well, how do we need to make sure obviously that people realize what it's about and who it's for. So it's. Neither is like, I wouldn't say either is better. It probably really depends on a few things like how long you are planning on having a program for. Some programs we create and they're amazing for like 12 to 18 months and then they're probably just going to naturally be retired. Others, if you want this to be your real flagship signature program and you know that you're the type of person who over time you evolve and you learn more and you want to be able to, you know, have a program that grows with you. Then you're probably going to want that type of program to have a bit of a broader name versus if you're like, oh, ChatGPT, let's do a program on chat. Let's give it a cool name about ChatGPT, knowing that that's going to be a completely different landscape in, you know, three, six months time. So that's last little kind of, I suppose, thing to ponder. And speaking of ChatGPT as, you know, an amazing. If you are still really stuck on what to call your program and you just need to get out there, ChatGPT is actually quite good at this. You go in there, you gotta put in the right prompts obviously. But asking it to come up with. And I like to be specific here, I like to say give me a two word name for a program that does this and this is the target market. And then you say, you might say give and you know, ask it to give you 10 or 15. Then you might say you want to get cheeky names you might want to have tongue in cheek names you might want to have. And then you might ask for three word names, four word names you might ask it to give you names that start with certain letters or that include a particular word. And just through all of that, it's just going to pump up like 90%. It's going to be garbage. Hopefully one or two things in there will be that little thing that sparks, if not the exact thing that you want, but the idea that becomes a thing that you want. And then just choose a name, get it out there, whack it into Canva and create yourself a logo. Get it out there, get it selling. And you know, if you do need to 12 months on the track, 18 months down the track, change it, update it, change a tagline, wherever that's. That's not the end of the world that I think people think it is. You are not locked into concrete by choosing a name right now. The only thing that is stuck and will keep you stuck is if you don't name it anything and don't move forward. So anyway guys, I hope this has been useful. If you have any crazy naming stories, I always love to hear them. Feel free to share them over at HelloFunnels or pop them in the comments below if you're watching the video. But that's it for me for this week. I hope you're having an amazing week, guys. I hope you're getting lots of cha chings on your phone and I look forward to chatting with you more next week, same time. See you then.

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