Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

Dear Melissa

Those excellent reviews of your business name and logo? They all seem to be coming from people you are connected with but not from people you'll be serving as clients.

As for anyone remembering your logo, dear heart, that's not the point. Your logo does not fill out forms. You business name does not advise clients. You look does not secure the deal.

You do.

Do you remember you? Melissa Sheridan of Squamish, BC., expert in the Canadian income tax system? Melissa, who moved west in 1996 to enjoy the mountain lifestyle?

Remember her?

Do you remember your mountain bike trip to Whistler in 2002 with your partner Roland?

Do you remember how you knew ... just KNEW you had to live, breathe, eat, sleep and be in the Sea to Sky Corridor for the rest of your life?

Do you remember buying your first house in Squamish in 2007 and how you turned that house into your home?

Do you remember how you set out to make sure that your clients would really understand every step of the house buying process?

Thank back on all that for a moment.

All of it.

Can you feel those memories flooding back? Are you seeing those sights in your mind's eye?

Good. Now, fix those feelings in memory for a moment.

In this forum, whether questioners like it or not, they (or in this case, you) are going to receive a wide range of opinions, all of which are based on real world experience giving marketing advice:
advice that's backed by all kinds of memories, experiences, and feelings.

I doubt anyone here sells that many mortgages.

Me? I wouldn't have a clue. That's why I'll leave that to the professionals, and why I'll pay for their advice.

Similarly dear heart, I doubt you, as talented as you might be
I'm sure, and as well rounded in the world of tax and mortgage preparation as you might be, I doubt know that much about marketing.

I could be wrong, but somehow, I don't think I am.

So please Melissa, just for a moment, pull down those walls of petulant attitude, demolish those barriers of not wanting critical advice and proclamations that you've come "to the wrong place".

Enough. Please. Just listen to yourself for a moment.

I'm sure you're a nice person. In fact. I know you are. But dearie, this is how the land lies from my vantage point of having been in this business for the best part of 25 years: your responses to valid opinion make you sound childish, unprofessional, uncooperative, unyielding in the face of free advice, and blinkered in your approach to constructive opinion.

I'm not saying that's what you ARE. I'm saying that's how it sounds.

If that's the way it sounds to me, how might it sound if you were treating your clients that way when they want something from you (your advice and expertise)?

Do you really think you'd be in business for long?

Opinions expressed here by people who know what they are talking about—opinions that are dismissed simply because the person asking the question does not like the answer—reveal the questioner in a rather odd light.

Were I in your shoes, that's not a light I'd want shining on me.

Ever. Am I making any sense here?

I know that opinions on logos and design are always going to be subjective, but given that I've been a graphic designer for the best part of 25 years (on both sides of the Atlantic), I like to think that my opinion carries a bit more weight than the opinion of someone who has been earning their living doing what they do.

Does this sound reasonable?

Given the area you are doing business in, the logo you are proposing as your mark does you few favours visually or professionally.

As a logo it's too casual; there are few cyclists STILL LIVING who cycle in a skirt or long flowing dress while not wearing a helmet and yacking on a cell phone, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings.

Dear heart, as a logo, regardless of how much you like it, it just isn't you! The logo does not say:

Melissa Sheridan, Expert Mortgage Broker.

It says: "La-la-la, tra-la-la, summer wind in my hair and oh dear, there goes another laptop smashing onto the asphalt! La-la-la!"

You want a tag line?

Sheridan Mortgages: With You Every Step of the Way

The last thing my wife and I would want were we shopping for a mortgage in Squamish would be anything unconventional.

The "flowers in her hair" approach to me just doesn't say organized professional mortgage broker.

We'd want professional, no nonsense, straight talking advice for one fixed price. No hidden anything. Just great, solid worthwhile value.

We'd want the passion of someone who had been along the trail we were in the process of cutting for ourselves guiding us, every step of the way.

I've no axe to grind here. But I will tell you this: to me, I'd enjoy doing business far more with the Melissa in the Nova Team at Verico profile than I would with the one I've read about here.

I make no apology here for my thoughts or opinions. Take them or leave them. I don't paint myself as any kind of expert; I've just been earning my living in graphics and marketing for the better part of a quarter of a century, so what would I know?

Randall, Phil, and Jay have been involved in this forum for much longer than I have. And even with my background, I look to the three of them (and a few others) as mentors. Were I you, I'd heed their advice, and their warnings.

The advice you've read here might well be free. But it's invaluable. So please, don't discount it simply because you don't like the responses you're reading.

I hope this helps and I really do wish you the best of luck.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Little Miss Mortgage sounds like someone playing rather than serious about business, but... how about something like

Home Lending: We Take the Direct Route
Home Loan Center: Taking You Safely Through the Process

Dear Melissa,

I've just found out that the little asterisk next to your name means "User not found!", so you may never read this, which is a pity.

But anyway, I have two words of advice for your consideration:

Chill out!

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA