Question

Topic: Taglines/Names

Former Marketer Stumped For My Own Business Name!

Posted by Laffer on 12/2/2009 at 6:28 PM ET 500 Points
Well its happened. Over the years I've counselled dozens of small business owners on their marketing efforts, and here I am with a new venture of my own and guess what? Writers block on a name! Can you help me?

Here's the set up: I'm in the energy business, specifically, I'm starting as an independent agent representing an energy broker specializing in providing competitively priced energy products (mostly electricity in my region), and services.

Our customers are mainly medium sized businesses that pay more than $2,000/mo for their power. Demographics are accross the board, but high-percentage male, vp or above, and non-urban. Not overly rural, just not urban. Most are not aware of this service, or have only limited knowledge. Most have some distrust initially.

Service is delivered in person (and I'm one of very few people doing it in person in my region).

Main benefits are: personal service, reductions in energy rates and smarter, thoughtful purchase plans. That is, we buy power on the customers behalf, presumably at better rates or more favorable terms than they currently have with their utility. Most don't take the time to discover this on their own.

Interested in hearing all veiwpoints and will gladly post additional info. Don't have a usable last name (to long and difficult), and favor short two or three sylable words. Using the full word "Energy" in the name is not going to work due to redundancy with parent company name in most applications... but could be used as a descriptor ie: "Somename, energy consulting. Smart energy choices for your business..."


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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 12/2/2009 at 7:13 PM Accepted
    I think you probably don't want the name to say anything about a price/cost advantage, but rather focus on, or at least suggest, the benefit.

    Perhaps something like, "Power Management" or "Custom Power" or "Yourstate Power-Plus."

    Thanks for a good briefing. Sounds like you haven't forgotten your marketing background.
  • Posted by AA/Swap on 12/3/2009 at 7:17 AM Member
    Hi,

    Energy Product & Services-- Are you into solar energy?Or you are promoting CFL lights which are energy savers?or just purely electricity related products. Can you explain a bit more on it, so I can be of some help to you.

    Swap.
    Dubai, UAE
  • Posted on 12/3/2009 at 9:21 AM Member
    Energy Empowerment
    Energy Cost Management
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 12/3/2009 at 11:18 AM Member
    (Business) Power Advisors
    (Business) Power Consolidators
    Power Savings Advisors
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 12/3/2009 at 11:40 AM Accepted
    Power Brokers of (location)
    Energy Power Brokers

    Looks like "Power Broker" by itself is already taken, so you would need to add something to it.

    Do you have a slogan/tag line yet? You may want to not focus on a name which describes what you do, but instead focus on a tag line that explains what you do. This way the name could be something completely different.

    Tag line could be something like:
    "Independent agent specializing in providing competitively priced energy products and services."
  • Posted by NovaHammer on 12/3/2009 at 12:52 PM Member
    Kinetic Consulting?

    We all know the term -Kinetic Energy- so in this case 'it' (Energy) is understood or as you've said redundant because of the MotherShip's use of the E word.

    But it sounds like that is what you do. Study Potential Energy deals and turn them into Real deals.
    You are Kinetic on their behalf.

    Some variation would fit i.e. with two K's
    KineticKonsulting or ....a region ID etc. if online names appear taken or too similar.
  • Posted on 12/3/2009 at 3:22 PM Member
    Sherpa Energy Consulting
  • Posted by Laffer on 12/3/2009 at 4:38 PM Author
    Good stuff guys. Thanks so far... Swap: not into solar other than if a client wishes to specify all or some of their power to come from "green" sournces, we can deliver. Can do energy audits for lights, etc, but will not focus on that right now. For now, its about securing the best rates from a competitive supplier and customizing a plan to the customer need...
  • Posted by AA/Swap on 12/4/2009 at 4:32 PM Member
    Hi,

    I would suggest follwoing names:

    1. Energy Wizards:
    Logic: The name says it all. The names suggest that When it comes to energy you guys are the best. You may make out with a tag on the follwoing lines - "One stop solutions to all your energy requirement, be it conventional energy or Solar."

    2. Power Harvestor:
    Logic: we provide solutions to you which will produce most economical power consumption.

    I hope this may be of some help to you.

    Swap

  • Posted by Laffer on 12/4/2009 at 11:23 PM Author
    Thanks everyone. Spent a fair amount of time on this. Have opted for using the parent company name and tagline start, simply adding Independent Agent under my name. Couple of reasons: 1) Parent company has much more marketing budget and an established name. 2) Customer Service and back-end support happens at the Parent Company level, so once the initial contact is over, most contact will happen with the Parent Company. I'm thinking at the moment to leverage the parent brand for more bang for the buck. HOWEVER I am concerned about building an identity within this space, in case I ever expand to other energy-related products or have to move off the parent company name. That is the biggest factor I think. Once we gain a bit more clientelle, and particularly if we begin marketing any ancillary energy-related products we'll make the move.

    That said, I think we'll be looking for more of an evocative name within the space - lots of "Power" and "Energy" names in the space already - fully functional, which normally I'm a fan of, but the limited number of words for this industry are very much competing with each other and all the other "powery" sounding names... SO:

    at the moment we're favoring BrightLight and BrightWay Energy Consulting. We'll be putting more thought into it in the coming months. I am grateful for all the responses and feel free to comment on this post before I close the question!
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