Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

May I ask why you chose the name in the first place?

You also say - damningly: "My initial intention with the name was that it was something everyone can relate to, now I understand relate to everyone and you relate to no one" - why try to accommodate everyone when you only speak to a certain section of the community?

You are in business. Which clients really like what you do? Which clients did not? Info from both these types will help with a tagline.

Now: an important question - why should anyone trust you to manage their property just because you say so.

M

The guys are right -- the problem is not the gap, it's the name. If you want us to tell you to reinforce the problem, then we'd be giving you bad advice ... like telling someone to spend $100 to earn a $10 tax write-off.

More prudent advice: Solve the actual problem. It's not as painful as you might think.

I hear "fear of expense" in your comment about signage requirements. Start small, with the essential printed matter, at a quality discount printer such as VistaPrint.com. They also offer some temporary signage options, so you can string a banner over the existing sign until a new one is installed. Add "formerly World Realty" to any temporary signage you use. You can solve this problem for under $200, plus the cost of the permanent over-the-door sign, which you can probably order on credit.

A smart accounting pro like yourself can handle that, so there's no reason not to set up a business name that works.

I would strongly urge calling your business [Name of Marketing Area] Property Management -- words that telegraph your purpose to the right customers. For example:
-- Oak Ridge Property Management
-- Lake County Property Management
-- Southern Ohio Property Management

When you feel proud of a business, you bring a higher energy to it, and that translates into profits. So give it a proud local name.

Good luck to you, and thanks so much for visiting this forum with a great question.

Steve Byrne has the right answer, of course. But if you are truly committed to keeping the current name, my suggestion would be to essentially make the tagline your new name, and minimize the old/real "name."

I'd probably go with "[LocationName] Property Management." [LocationName] can be your city, region, area nickname, or even a local landmark. It should be something your target audience will interpret as "local" and "familiar-with-my-needs."

That will get you away from the sting (and confusing meaning) of World Realty. Then you can design a new logo that plays down the old name and plays up the "tagline" name.

I didn't see Peg's response before I posted mine. GMTA!

Take the hit, make the investment of time, effort, and
money, change the name to something connected with property management in your region, area, state, or town and use the new naming opportunity as a springboard to newer positioning.

Six months from now few people will remember (let alone care) what your old business name was. Focus on service, tie the service to the value you offer in the place you offer it, and you'll connect the value to the new name.

As painful as it was to read I would like to thank everyone for the great responses and questions. I am going to have to do a lot of thinking. With the exception of two everyone agreed on completing a name change.

Ideally I wanted to save the name because of the time and resources that it would require to change and most of all I wanted a cool proud name.

Monarty you have some great questions that I need to answer. I will review my customer list and write down what makes up our relationship. Steve I love your point where you ask if I am an accountant or real estate agent or both and how that can better drive the services.

Peg I know you said I would be throwing good money after bad and I agree, but for now I am going to have to run with Hamilton’s approach and take ownership of the name and to continue focusing on the customer service of the owner and tenant. I know I received professional advice and I am not taking it, but the reason is that I think that when I answer the questions that Steve and Monty asked I will have the core of what I can focus on and from there I may even have that great tag line that summarizes how I do business. I am hoping anyway. If it does not work well the vast majority can say told you so.

Marketing property management has been challenging because you are generally seeking clients who are unhappy with their current manager and generally are between vacancies and who reside out of state. That limits referrals but doesn’t limit good recommendations. Local owners do hire managers but you are generally limited to the small window of time frame between vacancies.

I never knew so much went into marketing, it is very difficult.

I am open to any comments, suggestions, tag lines, or anything. Most of all I want to thank each and everyone one of you for you time that you put into this and giving me your best. I will close out the questions late Friday. Thanks again.

You say

"Marketing property management has been challenging because you are generally seeking clients who are unhappy with their current manager"

Marketing property management is no harder than any other stiffly fought market. Listen to what your clients are telling you. They are the arbiter here, after all.

Ask several of them to tell you truthfully (a) what they like about you and (b) what they don't.

That information you can use because it tells you what you are good at doing. Use the second because in telling the truth people will see that you are truthful - and not just claiming it as any charlatan will.

M

Do you work with buying and/or selling properties? If not, then I agree that dropping the realty part may make sense. And are you world wide (or want to be world wide)? If not, the world part also may not make sense.

Of course, a simple solution is to append property management to your name - world realty property management. But this is a half-a$$ed solution. May benefit from letting you use the current signage for a while, but in reality it may be better to just bite the bullet and make the change in full to a whole new name.