The Name Game

Spirited conversation often leads to an explosion of ideas. Often, the conversation weaves its way down a road that is different than the original route installed in our mental navigation system.

Recently, I found myself doing research on selecting company names and product names. During my search, my goal was less about companies and products and more about the impact that quality naming has on products and services. I truly believe that some products and companies end up succeeding due to the emotions formed on the name alone. Oh sure, the companies and products have to be good enough for the names to gain lasting relevance, but I do wonder if an impactful name is the initial kick start that propels business inertia in the positive direction.

Strategically, identifying the feelings invoked by certain names has never been more important. 30 years ago - companies had a sea of names to choose from that were specific to their business. Today, there are groups that snap up names that they never plan to take to market for their own business. Instead, they make a profit center out of owning names that they can sell at a later date to companies that actually need specific names. Unique names, that conjure up intended emotions, are hard to come by. Selection is not necessarily limited, but discovering quality names requires superior creativity backed by solid science.

On my product and company naming journey, I ran across naming expert Nina Beckhardt the founder of The Naming GroupTM. I am always amazed what you find once your eyes are opened and you start looking. By looking I mean actually seeing and interpreting information with the conscious goal of reaching an informational destination that culminates in meaningful action. With wide open eyes, the mind receives and retains valuable data. Nina has identified scientific strategies to create great names. Her approach works – her customer base is the proof. Nina enjoys relationships with high profile automotive customers such as General Motors. Beckhardt and her staff have built a process driven approach to identify great names. They complete the challenge within a reasonable time frame – they sustain a proven program and adapt as needed. Adaptation trumps all when it comes to business. The Naming GroupTM and their process based approach produces results. Valuable results, just ask GM.

When you purchase a new car - your car of choice was on the road before, but your brain did not yet build a deep impression. Great names inspire memorable impressions. The car you hoped to buy someday passed by quietly before you owned one - often barely noticed. Once you purchase your dream car, you leave the showroom and from the comfortable seat in your newly purchased ride, your perspective is forever changed. Your brain guides your internal navigation system and stores a highly memorable experience. Much mental ground is created through the myriad emotions that are involved with a car purchase. A deep impression is ingrained and will be remembered. A new set of eyes sees what was invisible prior to installing a good memory. When it comes to names, our job is to set the landscape to form easy access for our customers to locate positive memories.

Sporting your designer sunglasses, you crawl in your new hot rod and experience the feel of the seats and the soft grip of the steering wheel for the first time. The new car smell takes you on a journey that goes beyond roads. Your mind suddenly sees what was a nearly invisible just seconds before. Prior to diving into your dream machine purchase, you knew about the car model, yet you didn’t feel it. The impression was yet to be burned in your mind. You reflected on mental pictures developed through the buying research process, but now that you own your new auto - that car is everywhere. You see all of them at every stoplight, parking lot and latte stand. The fit, feel and flavor of the chosen one burned feelings in your mind creating one of the deepest impressions possible. If only all marketing created such an emotional experience.

In reality, the exact same quantity of your car brand was on the road the day before you signed on the dotted line, but now that your favorite song is coming out of the dash of your personalized version, you identify and recognize – instantly. The visual is burned in your brain and instinctively, a deep memorable impression draws your eye to the vast population of identical cars that now litter the landscape – you see all of them. A blurry vision before is suddenly in perfect focus. You are amazed at how many of “your” car type is on road. With a mental impression burned in, it is nearly impossible for a similar car to pass by you without you noticing. The car that was invisible yesterday is now seen everywhere. Your model was there before you spent your money, but your brain did not yet build a quickly accessible memory. Your car is now everywhere because an experience created a very memorable impression and now you can “see and feel” all of the sibling cars where ever you go.

The identification and association created in the brain nearly forces your eyes to identify cars that mirror your recent purchase. The same holds true for baby names. Just name your newborn anything you want and suddenly what you thought was a unique name shows up on every magazine you see while reading National Enquirer headlines at the checkout line of your local grocery store.

With delight, you exit the hospital (in your new ride of course) and within minutes you hear the baby name you chose on your upgraded stereo system. You do more than hear the name – you feel it. The parental choice of a baby name is burned deep into brains even as small as mine.

When it comes to naming a company or product, your team would be quite lucky to mirror the impression burned into permanent memory associated with a car purchase or naming your first born. While naming a company is less emotional than a first car or a first baby name, the naming bar should be set high and you should strive to discover a name that forms a deep and emotional experience for your customers. Hopefully, the emotions are positive and compelling. Ideally, the chosen name evokes the “need” for your customers to act.

When choosing a company name, would you pick a name that is bluntly descriptive like Best Buy? The Best Buy name just throws it out there and little is left to the imagination - this name type would have less emotional feel and would be obviously a "buy products from us" type of program. Or, would you pick a more creative name that created a quality perception and prompted customers to “feel” why they should purchase from you? Creativity may ask the mind to fill in a few blanks, but the result would paint a picture and inspire more emotion. A name like “Apple” may not relate to phones, but does draw upon visions of Newton and of a good idea at a subliminal level. Heavy right?

Gaining information starts with knowing what questions to ask. Answers are out there. For the naming question, Nina Beckhardt has condensed 4 (or more) years of college class work into a concise two page “answer” to help you identify names and understand the terminology behind each name type. Of course, to take full advantage of benefits of her company you will need to reach in your piggy bank and pour some pennies her way. The benefit of reading her concise naming article (white paper) is that you can go into a fee based brainstorming project with great information in hand. By reading her free naming synopsis online, you will be well tooled to utilize her services if you felt the need. Or, you can go it alone as Nina and her team gives you valuable online resources that hand you their secrets in 2 pages. Secrets are grand, yet the creator of said secrets can go deeper and utilize experience to tap into the desired emotion that your company or product name needs. 

The Naming GroupTM happily gives away much naming advice on their website as they know that educating their customers is the conduit that connects relationships for mutual gain. The fear of giving away information is superseded by the confidence in their process. Nina leads a sea of naming doctors and her proven team can tell you in advance what emotions/impressions a name will create and why. Her experts can translate what is given away on their website and provide an accurate diagnosis helping you to achieve repeatable results. I am amazed how much she has on her website – absolutely recommended reading if you need to name a company or product.

Products and companies are benefited by a name that associates the company/product with the benefits that bring more customers. During a naming exercise in my head, I visualize shapes and allow them to form. I get out my mental hammer and blast away at the process until the fuzzy shapes become identifiable. Dialog provokes thought. Thought leads to action. Action leads to progression. Progression leads to great names. Great names create new and needed business. I pound away at the name and hope for a result – experts know the results, in advance, and replace mental hammers with the experience and past knowledge for a creative feather light touch.

A short time ago, I owned a golf company named Innovex Golf – a good name! Innovex Golf was my baby that I reluctantly sold. From a product line perspective, Innovex would compare to TaylorMade or Callaway. The product mix was very high quality and Innovex manufactured a complete line of high end clubs and golf balls. Sales were certainly a miniscule fraction of the large national brands, but the product quality was equal and often better due to the handmade personal approach. Great products and service were assured for all Innovex customers. On the other side of the coin, I must admit that the branding power of TaylorMade and Callaway were leaps and bounds above what an upstart such as Innovex could create – Innovex can get there, but those big names have a giant advantage – they have already climbed the marketing hill and the view is so nice from up there.

Starting from scratch and powering past proven brands is a mighty challenge.  Still, quality and great names created victories within the golf company I formerly owned. Out pacing the top brands in the sport and winning the Golf Digest 2011 Ball Hot List Award was truly a proud day. A tiny company displacing huge brands and their large R&D budgets produced a huge win with very limited resources. The win was big and very rewarding. Sometimes personal achievement outweighs financial gains – at least that is what I tell myself!

Part of the Golf Digest Ball Hot List victory was based on the name of a top quality ball. Leading up to the award, I chose the name E-Motion for a great quality price point ball. I really liked that name as the goal of conjuring up emotion was about as obvious as you can get. Stretching out the name and placing an emphasis on motion fell in very nicely with golf, ball speed and distance.

When I designed the Golf Digest Award winning Innovex V-MOTION ball, my naming goal was to carry forward with a family of golf balls evolving the mid quality ball in an effort to place a higher end ball in the brightest light. Of course, the high end V-MOTION ball would be of the highest quality – I spared no expense to create a golf ball that could win on the PGA Tour. Together, The EMOTION and VMOTION golf balls would benefit and product family synergy was created.

The V-Motion name selection of the 2011 Golf Digest Award winning ball gained the ball attention and was a factor in the big win. The concept was to carry on the “motion” concept that is an easily associable identifier for golfers. Embedding the thought of “motion” in the heads of golfers helped to make the golf balls “feel” faster and longer. Happy “emotion” was planted into the marketplace. Of course, the V-MOTION is very high quality. A great name must be supported by product that makes customers want to buy them again. A name opens the door, product quality creates desire, and a memorable name association provides a positive experience creating repeat sales.

E-MOTION led to V-MOTION, which led to accolades and success. Superior product was supported by memorable names. The V-MOTION is truly a Pro Tour quality ball, but I wonder if the name and racing marketing helped to propel a quality ball into a position where it was granted consideration by the golf gods at Golf Digest? I wonder what the new owners of Innovex Golf will name the next evolution in the V-MOTION golf ball family?

I find Ms. Beckhardt’s “free” information to be invaluable. In fact, I almost want to keep it an in-house secret as my competition will benefit from this valuable resource. The Naming GroupTM has a complete library of naming “white papers” on their web site all available online. For today, this link provided by The Naming GroupTM supports the concepts discussed within this piece Suggestive-Names.  Look about their site and you will find plenty of thought provoking information to instantly help you create a great name - Thanks Nina!

In all decisions, taking in the best available information, proving the concepts and taking action is the way to go. Whim and gut often create snap decisions that do not take into consideration the variables accompanied by specific goals. Science fills in the blanks and experts such as Nina Beckhardt can help to create a company or product name that adds to the bottom line. I highly recommend taking the five minutes to visit The Naming GroupTM website – their automotive background fits nicely with the Performance Racing Industry crowd. Absorb their easily accessible and free online information, but like your favorite fishing hole – don’t tell anyone!

Go Forward – Move Ahead

Jeff Butcher

Magic Bullet Management

Company leaders sometimes believe that hiding on earth there is a magic bullet manager that will come in and fix every ill with a single shot. Magically, all of the things we want done are beamed into the company just by hiring a mythical outside expert. Imaginations dream of the hired gun with a quick trigger fix. It seems we can value the opinion of people we barely know more than people we work with everyday? Familiarity can diminish respect for those that we rely upon most?  If the mythical magic bullet employee does exist, my question for you is; what is their name, when do they start and how much do I have to pay them?

I think the concept of magic employees is a breakdown in the managerial process and should be relabeled as mental laziness. A belief in magic managers is wishful thinking. Daydreaming about magic can be an excuse manager’s use when they avoid communication with the great people that reality presents every day. Spells and wands can be left to Harry Potter. We managers are responsible for cultivating the best from our group.

Organizations succeed by building a bank of people that know how to meet the challenges of their respective market nuances.  As leaders, our business will thrive if we can extract the contributions of our team members as we grow. True success depends on utilizing our people to their fullest potential. We all have hidden gems in our grasp, but we do need a clear mind to identify potential.

Home grown employees, on our team roller coaster, have felt the winds of challenge through the ups and downs on the ride of business momentum that winning groups create. Momentum carries us to growth and impactful leaders provide the seat belt that binds potential leaders on a common path to sustainable prosperity. Engaging people, so they can enjoy the ride of change, comes from ensuring that the twists and turns result in creative energy that is rewarding. Stagnation and predictability are found on straight roads that present a never changing horizon. Roller coasters are fun as long as we fill the rails with adrenaline producing goals. Abrupt changes in course create uncomfortable thrashing in our buildings causing the creative process to empty into the porcelain porthole of waste.

The goal isn’t to say that information from outside of your organization is not valuable – of course it is – I always learn when I get out of the house and absorb information from the world around me. It is the application of gained knowledge that we need to utilize with care. The ideal is guided towards understanding that your own trusted staff can glean information from the big place we call earth based on their own initiative. People, at the point of attack, are 100% immersed in their tasks. Managers walk by and get a sniff of the important details.  If a staff member is capable of asking questions that are tailored to address a challenge within your business, you then have a scenario where existing payroll vaults you ahead. The danger lies in paying “outside” experts to analyze problems without utilizing the “inside” knowledge held within your bank of trusted and informed employees.

If you hire a so called expert to perform a duty that can be handled with existing resources, you risk alienating valuable employees. Continuous lack of faith in quality team members causes them to jump off your roller coaster at the first point of negative inertia. Are you better off bringing in magic through the front door if reality is performing an escaping act through the back alley?  By allowing existing personnel to research magic on their own, you provide a platform that builds obstacle demolition habits from within. Investment in such in house training creates problem solving skills that can be repeated as challenges arise. Management time spent explaining problems to an outsider can often be better utilized to cultivate investigation skills within your organization.  Management time will be more effective by trusting real people that you already know. Baseball teams spend a ton on farm systems. Why bet your cash farm on free agents when you can harvest talent with your secret mix of empowering fertilizer?

Outsiders need a tour of the plant, a company history lesson and they need to understand the challenges in proper context. Outsiders have zero idea that we small companies have learned to do much with little. Tight budgets and groups of employees that perform multiple roles are the norm in small business. Outsiders have a way of spending first and blowing smoke about uniformed potential benefits later. “Build it and they will come” can be restated as “trust your talent and they will shock you with a palace for your stadium”. Why buy outside when your existing talent will have fun growing. Learn from outsiders and learn well. Believe and trust “your” team.

Top employees enjoy new projects – if your employees see an outsider botching a project, that in house staff views as being within their skill level, moral is dinged and expenses for your magic expert have a detrimental impact on your bottom line. Expertise is formed through knowing the questions to ask and considering the big picture. In house employees need not know all – they do need to have the confidence to get on the path of discovery. Supportive management, that cultivates an environment of learning, encourages people to move forward without being paralyzed by the fear of mistakes. The best leaders simply are not afraid to be wrong. Hey, we all like perfection, but the true art of growth comes from empowering employees to get more done without worrying about setbacks. Talent fixes their errors quickly. Managers that sit on the fence tossing out criticism, simply fill the path to prosperity with potholes of resentment.

Managers that teach employees invest in productive decision makers that take personal ownership. Fear of mistakes is replaced with the confidence of self corrective action. Any small business owner has made more mistakes than their employees will ever make – yet, with no one yelling at us leader types, we always figure out how evolve past our failures. Potential flourishes when trust in an individual’s self imposed expectations is exceeded and precedes the awareness of management. Come on, just admit that you are busy and the combined resources around you simply know more about the day in and day out details than you do – let ‘em go and they will grow.

Minimal supervision will limit monetary losses in small business – it is not like we have traders at a bank that can lose 2 billion due to being greedy or having a fat thumb. Most likely, those traders have fat heads. Small company employees carry your baby more carefully than they would hold their own. Good management comes with the internal commitment to identify employees that want more. Good managers direct employees that are “willing” to be wrong onto the path towards prosperity. A person with a Sarah Palin clothing budget, standing at a podium might have something valuable to add to your organization, but they might simply be a high paid consultant that does not grasp the depth of issues that  known and trusted employees live through every minute.

I think, at times, we managers need to be reminded of the knowledge and dedication that is contained in our employee bank.  My thought is to suggest that too often we take our existing in house knowledge base for granted. In our effort to come up with the next best thing, we sometimes forget that we have great resources right in our organization. Our resources already have the fundamental foundation of understanding that is directly connected to our specific daily operations.

A case in point, Facebook was cultivated into a giant entity by a guy that doesn’t even need a razor. Sure, he had an idea and good timing, but are you thinking he is the smartest person on the planet? I will bet your small company has a number people right now that could make better high level decisions than Suckerberg. For all of the incredible brain power at Facebook, I wonder who gets credit for totally botching their IPO by being suckered in by a “Magic Bullet Manager”!  Let us be reminded of how our stock market guru’s and bank housing experts have done such a fine job of totally kicking the biggest company in the world, known as the USA, right in the arse. My guess is that Mr./Ms. Magic is a well dressed person that was standing behind a podium. ZZ Top has a better grasp on decision making than that well dressed “person”.  The magic IPO group totally mutilated what in house talent understood – meetings not required!

 I bet that there were several people within Facebook that would have presented reality and would have launched a very successful IPO by promoting their culture and their good name. Those internal All Stars had the knowledge to create an IPO that would have expanded the goodwill that the Facebook crew spent so many long hours creating. Yet, the massive scar came from an outside magic bullet manager with an agenda that did not match the culture of the almighty Facebook. Suckerberg bypassed his own internal talent and gave the ball to outsiders that had different motivations. They were greedy. They were Magic.

While I have a big time bashing Marky Z., I know that he got sucked into believing the greedy bankers that waved their Lord of the Rings magic paraphernalia from a position that no person at Facebook even understood. Had Facebook listened to their own internal brain trust, their guidance would have been formed by a true understanding of their successes. An abundance of caution would have been present due to the team living through countless failures that helped to make them one of the biggest things of all time. Had the collective insight of Facebook employees been considered, they would have proudly promoted their well earned success moderated by real world restraint. Trusted Facebook team members would have owned well understood cautionary fears and the biggest IPO in history would have been admired. Instead, Facebook leaders saw a well dressed greed based group and misplaced trust in a magic bullet approach. Those “magicians” have now disappeared into the rhetoric of the finger pointing media onslaught leaving investors (real people) holding a bag littered with the holes of empty promises. Hard earned cash of regular hard working people left a trail that would cross the previously battered Louisiana Gulf Coast.

For all the media analysis of the IPO debacle, the Facebook product is the same. Leadership placed trust in an outside Snake Oil salesman that I have “tagged” with the term “Magic Bullet Manager”. Even Facebook wishes there was a “Dislike” button that would illustrate the displeasure felt over the bad PR associated with the horribly managed IPO. Had they believed in themselves – I believe their wild IPO ride would have been a mind blowing success.

 The real world drama of the Facebook IPO fiasco portrays how success could have easily been attained by having trusted team members at the helm of the decision making relating to the IPO. Sure, social media employees know little about the stock market but, they do know their business and they would have presented the well lit areas in the company while placing a throttle stop on the dimly lit corners that were ignored by the unseeing eye of magic. The magic bullet was right in Zucky’s hand. Too bad he aimed poorly and shot himself in the foot, really he misfired about 3 feet higher, resulting in one less magic bullet and about half the anatomy he was born with.

Marky Z forgot how he became so powerful – he ascended to a high level due to the contribution of a stockpile of trusted individuals that he empowered to make important decisions. At crunch time, the allure of magic took his focus off of the greatness that his homegrown “group” created in favor of the magic bullet approach. How many zeros do you put in front of oops, to illustrate several billion in lost credibility?

I am sure Facebook will survive and it is my guess that the outside folks (bankers) that caused the misfire now have their heads rolling down the complicated roads of Wall Street. Marky Z will likely re-align the team that cares about his company. The Wall Street detour, played out by Facebook, gives us small companies the chance to learn from the litany of lawsuits that accompany such a colossal public mistake.

When I make a mistake as a manager, and I have made an unbelievable amount of mistakes, I simply figure out how to reduce exposure to the problem and make the best of a bad situation. Of course if an employee were to make the exact same mistake as their leaders make then why is it “off with their heads”. How come employees face more pressure than company owners/leaders when it comes to decision making?  Can you accept the mistakes of your team in exchange for the power created by truly leveraging the knowledge you already own? Hit the “Like” button above if you agree!

Perhaps we manager types should adjust and simply view everyone as equals performing different roles. Instead of sitting on the fence criticizing, we can take our efforts and train talent how to minimize losses quickly? We can train valued employees about a quality decision making process. Small companies quickly remove truly bad employees so that management is swift. I suggest that we get out of the way of our future leaders. Remove the threat of a hatchet and replace it with faith held in the self imposed expectations of your core group. Believe in your team and they will pull your seat belt on when you are too busy to do it for yourself.

If you buy into the simple assessment that you generally have good people, then it makes sense to listen to them and take action based on their suggestions. Where do the best ideas come from?  Do they come from the Ivory Tower or from the dedicated employees that face challenges on a continuous basis every day? At times, we as managers take our “great” and “star” employees for granted and we certainly should fix that mindset without delay.

An existing employee could present an idea that passes by without fanfare, yet we hear the same concept from an outsider and somehow we give this unknown magician instant credibility? Stick a stranger in front of a podium and our ears are wide open? We sometimes devalue the brilliant ideas of people we know. Somehow, we give an outsider instant credibility when their thoughts are generated without the benefit of understanding our specific market niche. What if we just look for great ideas and value them on merit verses on their source? Through familiarity we can miss good ideas and concepts. My proposal is to consider ideas from your team as if they were presented by someone famous and powerful. Danger lies in giving outsiders artificial credibility. Our goal is to give good ideas legs. Ideas deserve traction regardless of the source.

Certainly, there are times when we need to bring in outside horsepower and add new knowledge. My concept does not challenge the need to add specific or new talent. Believing in magic bullets by hiring a mythical know it all manager comes at a cost that could take years to return. Listen to familiar faces with the same open ears given to outsiders and magic manifested in our imagination will open the real door at the entrance of our business.  

If leadership truly believes in people, then the creative firepower of employees can be focused from equal ground. The magic comes from the barrage of ideas precisely aimed at the desired target. With practice, the entire organization elevates performance. Clear goals steady a confident aim and inspire a decisive trigger. Support from leaders unleashes the shared voices of execution.  All voices are heard and the entire operation fires eagerly at will.  

Go Forward – Move Ahead

Jeff Butcher

7/5/12