Renaming the Business, Keeping the Brand

You might have noticed, I'm in the process of changing the name of my business. This change was a long, long time coming and well over due.

When I started SOHO It Goes! in early 2003, it was amidst tremendous economic and industry changes (in a post 9/11, dot com imploded world). I (unwillingly) thought that web and graphic design might be "behind me" and I had a notion of being something more like a virtal assistant with great design skills. Looking back, I sometimes wonder WHAT I was thinking during those strange times!

Anyway, at the time, SOHO (or "small office/home office") businesses were my main target audience and I wanted to show those business how to go places... hence the name, SOHO It Goes. It was also, obviously, a play on the phrase "and so it goes" which probably unconsciously reflected the state of mind I was in, come to think of it! Talk about lessons in how NOT to brand a business.

As the business grew and evolved, I found myself doing exactly what I had done with Turtle's Web Art & Design from 1995 til 2000 - custom web and graphic design. And more and more, the business and marketing plan behind the business name, changed. I grew to better understand my target audience, and idea clients. I also learned a TON about the pyschographic of SOHO businesses, and who really connected with my solutions. And I began to realize that I wasn't really marketing to SOHO businesses... that in actuality, only a small fragment of SOHO businesses were my target audience.

The name, SOHO It Goes, was cute and catchy and a lot of people liked it. One lesson I learned was that although "SOHO" was a well enough recognized acronym in the virtual world, more people than not didn't know what it meant. Some folks thought it meant a neighborhood in NYC - so I was trendy that way - but that wasn't accurate either. What really concerned me, most of all, is that it said absolutely nothing about what my business was. I rationalized that neither did "Amazon" or "Google" but in my gut I knew that as a micro business in a phenomenally competitive industry, I'd better be both recognizable AND understood in all of my marketing efforts.

The Turtle was another story. Turtle was my alter-ego and mascot since my early web design days, going back to 1995, and I hated to give him up. He, too, evolved, but I really worried that if I ditched my Turtle, no one would know who I was! Over time, I realized that despite assurances from clients who jokingly called me the "fastest turtle on the web," the turtle, whether by it's cartoonishness or slow connotation, was hurting more than helping. This was never more true when I was going head to head with three other local firms to try to land a big corporate account and I suddenly felt like going inside my own shell when I realized what my branding must look like to them.

Deep down, I knew my brand, so carefully and even successfully built, had to change to meet my big future plans for the survival of this business.

For nearly a year, I applied what I taught other business owners about branding, behind the scenes, and explored various new names. In the end, after having to eliminate literally hundreds of great names which were already taken, I settled on something simple and absolutely unmistakable in nature: Business Design Studio. To my astonishment, the domain name was available! Even better, it's high in the alphabet for indexing and listing purposes, and has good search engine reach (for example, the phrase "web design studio" had 1,952 searches, "graphic design studio" had 1,440 searches and "business web design" had 3,337 searches last month. "Business design" itself had 444 searches).

Once I snagged the domain, I sat on it. For months and months. Why? Well, quite frankly, FEAR! I had put so much energy and time into branding SOHO It Goes that I was utterly terrified I'd be losing those three years of effort and I'd be back to square one. I asked other branding experts for an opinion and got so many different answers that I chased my tail for months more. But gradually, as I shyly mentioned the name to clients and colleagues and got fantastic feedback on it, I realized that I could do this. Branding is a combination of so many elements - the name, certainly and the logo, perhaps. But more important was the reputation I'd built over those three years, and the expectations my customers have of me. I knew that wouldn't change. And going forward, that energy I spend on branding will better find it's target because I finally have a name that makes some sense. See, I'm living proof that even designers and people who write about, study and implement branding strategies can still always learn a thing or two! Humble pie doesn't taste that bad.

I'm still working out the kinks on a new logo... that is going to take longer than the grueling effort of actually changing a business name as deeply rooted and linked to as mine. But the changes are well underway. The old domains and email address will remain although I'd appreciate any effort to point and refer people to the new domain, BusinessDesignStudio.com. Thanks for listening, all the support and patience and for being my wonderful invisible audience.