A catchy business title can mean the difference between you making a go of it or it going horribly wrong, writes Anneli Knight.
The name of a franchise can help your business take off, reduce your marketing costs and reflect the essence of the brand - if you make the right choice.
One of Australia’s most successful franchisors, Jim Penman, learnt the power of a good brand name 14 years ago when he tried to test his skills beyond Jim’s Mowing with a cleaning business. He called the franchise Sunlite Cleaning but the business never gained momentum so he shut it down. “When we started again I said, ‘I know it sounds crazy but let’s try Jim’s Cleaning.’
Penman wondered whether the Jim logo could be extended to cleaning but it seems to work. He now has 2650 franchises in four countries, including businesses such as Jim’s Bookkeeping and Jim’s Dog Wash.
“A powerful name, a strong well-known name, helps you to find clients,” Penman says. “It also makes it much cheaper and easier to find clients and to find franchisees.”
Three years ago, Betty Fong and Wayne Homschek were so aware of the importance of a good name they had started to find the entire naming process quite stressful.The name Pie Face was suggested to Homschek as a joke after he had been discussing some of the unexpected challenges of establishing a business in the food industry.
He didn’t even mention the name to Fong until the end of a “very, very late dinner” when they’d been unsuccessfully brainstorming for names. After the name suggestion, the couple started drawing pies with smiley faces on the paper tablecloths in the restaurant. “And the whole brand was born,” Fong says.
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