All posts by Jay

Find A Name For A New Children’s Soft Playcentre

Names + Taglines

I’m setting up my new Children’s soft playbarn/playcentre in Wigan, England and i need a name. I was thinking about cafe au play, or fun and mayhem or something that promotes fun, exciting, and will tire them out!
Can you help?

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Jay’s Answer:There’s a Café au Play in Portland, Oregon, USA. With a name like this, I’d expect to also be able to purchase coffee/tea/snacks.

Fun and Mayhem sounds like a place where the kids can go wild. Will you have supervised/directed play or is it basically a large padded room?

How about “Shake Out Your Sillys” or “Lil’ Fun Gym” (if you’re offering gymnastic-type activities)?

Landscape Design & Construction Name

Names + Taglines

I am in the process of setting up a new company. My market will consist of med-high level residential clients as well as small business, to enhancements for large corporations. My goal is to enter the market as more of an upscale/much higher quality garden design firm than the typical truck with a mower fly by night companies. I want to be known as being high quality/high customer service. We may cost more, but it is worth it.

My family name is well known in the community and I had fully intended on using it in the company title. [family name] & Co. I do not want to use landscape in the title in case we eventually branch out to doing other business. There is also another large company in the area, with shady practices, who will be watching my every move once they figure out who i am (they are after another family member’s business thus they will come after mine as well). However, I also think most landscape company names are cheesy (earthscapes, mainscapes, prairie view, etc.). Any advice?

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Jay’s Answer: A generic/umbrella name isn’t a name that most of your clients will truly care about. It’s the name of the subsidiary they’ll see. And in some cases, subsidiaries don’t want to use the parent’s name/brand because there may be little or no overlap.

Rather than use “& Co.” in your name, why not leave this off entirely ([FamilyName] Companies LLC)? Then you can have a “Garden Design Division”. But if you create too big a bucket to allow you to do all things in the future, you’re likely to look silly starting out. You’ll only have one division for an umbrella company.

If you family name is well known, focus the new name on the target market (“[family name] Garden Design”). If you want to start a new business, create a new name for that when/if the time comes.

Also, let your tagline help to describe who you serve & why. Keep your business name professional/clean. Also, if you need to serve a different clientele, you won’t have a headache.

Starting a Woman Owned Construction Company

Starting Out

As a woman that owns a construction co. In a field dominated by men, what would be the best way to get an advantage by being a female in this field. Are there grants or any advantages to my favor, that I can use to get a leg up on the competition. How do I promote the fact that I am a woman in the field but also surrounded with great construction minded people? Starting up is very trying, do you have any suggestions to assist me in getting my co. rolling?

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Jay’s Answer: There are a number of directories you may choose to list your business in, for example: http://www.sba8a.com/, http://www.womanowned.com/, http://www.wbenc.org/, http://www.crainscleveland.com/section/wob, http://www.feminist.com/market/wombus/, etc.

But first consider what you want your primary benefit to be: a woman-owned business or a great construction company? Are the clients you’re trying to attract looking for a woman-owned business (because they’re women) or does your gender not really enter into their equation?

Finally, are all your employees women as well (so you can use a line like “Woman Know How To Build Homes Better”)?

Naming World Food Program Pakistan’s School Feeding Newsletter

Names + Taglines

I am putting together a newsletter on United Nations World Food Programme’s School Feeding interventions in Pakistan outlining the key happenings related to the ongoing activity. I need a catchy Name that highlights the programmes key activity which is the provision of High Energy Biscuits and Fortified Vegetable Oil to Primary School students in Rural districts of the country in order to provide the out of school children an incentive to attend school regularly.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • Feeding Their Hunger / Feeding Their Minds
  • ABCs: Allotting Biscuits For Children in Schools

 

So, What Do You Think?

Creative Business Ideas

Active Listening For Marketing Success

(Photo by woodleywonderworks)

I recently heard the story about a person who teaches conflict resolution classes to high school teens. In one of his classes, he asked the boys if they would like to learn a line that will always “work” to “get” a girl. They were extremely interested, and leaned in for the magic words.

He said, “So, what do you think?” They were dumbfounded, expecting to hear something about commenting someone on their looks. But what creates a connection with someone (especially with someone used to being talked at) is the opportunity to be listened to.

In your own marketing, if you’re talking at someone, you’re likely to not get the results you’re looking for. We’re all busy. We’re all behind on our to-do lists. We’re often too short-term focused to achieve long-term goals. We’re head down looking at our internet screens. But underneath it all, we’re all human. And as humans, we want to be “seen”. We want people to really take the time to understand what we’re thinking and needing. And ultimately, we want help to achieve our goals.

The next time you talk with a prospective client, include their perspective in your sales pitch. Ask them what they think about an issue/problem and really listen to their answer. The truth may not be what they said, but what values/needs are underneath their question. Being a good listener involves more than simply nodding your head sagely. It requires actively paying attention to all the signals, asking leading questions, and patiently waiting for the deeper connection. You’re not a therapist, but you are providing a therapeutic service. Give your (prospective) clients the true gift of  dialoguing with you.

Remember: You can’t sell a solution if you don’t really understand what the problem is.

What Matters Now

Book Reviews

What Matters Now Ideas Book Cover

This book isn’t for people who like their management structure, like safety of working in a hierarchical model, or like entrusting their future to others that are wiser than they are. This book is for people who believe that traditional business models are broken and are longing for something better.

Instead of promoting the usual management “feel-good” strategies, Gary Hamel touches on core problems and offers some innovative hope:

  • Why is it that as managers we are perfectly willing to accept the idea of a company dedicated to timeless human values, but are, in general, unwilling to become practical advocates for those values within our own organizations?
  • …if you’re a consultant who helps other folks to innovate, you may be one “spending freeze” away from posting yourself at a busy intersection with a hand-lettered sign that reads, “Will brainstorm for food.”
  • If you want a measure of just how difficult it is to stay innovative, consider this: two-thirds of the businesses on Fast Company‘s 2009 list of the 50 most innovative companies didn’t make it into the 2010 edition.
  • What limits innovation in established companies isn’t a lack of resources or a shortage of human creativity, but a dearth of pro-innovation processes (employees don’t regularly practice innovation).
  • The perceptual habits of successful innovators: unchallenged orthodoxies (“what are our business assumptions?”), under-appreciated trends (“what’s changing now?”), under-leveraged competencies and assets (“what are we really good at?”), and unarticulated needs (“what emotional clues are we missing?”).
  • How can your company duplicate Apple’s success? Be passionate. Lead, don’t follow. Aim to surprise. Be unreasonable. Innovate incessantly and pervasively. Think like an engineer, feel like an artist.
  • Why does excellence die? Gravity wins (big companies are harder to change than smaller), strategies die (planned actions are out-of-sync with real-world results), and success corrupts (defensive mindset).
  • 21% of employees surveyed (from 2007-2008 Global Workforce Summary) were truly engaged in their work, 38% were mostly or entirely disengaged, with the rest in the middle. What’s wrong with business-as-usual?
  • A hierarchy of human capabilities at work: Passion > Creativity > Initiative > Expertise > Diligence > Obedience. The last 3 capabilities are commodity skills.
  • It’s not because work sucks; it’s because management blows.
  • Create human-centered organizations (such as: Gore, Whole Foods Market, Morning Star Company, and HCL Technologies):
    • Decentralize wherever possible
    • Emphasize community over hiearchy
    • Ensure transparency in decision making
    • Make leaders more accountable to the led
    • Align rewards with contribution, rather than with power & position
    • Substitute peer review for top-down review
    • Steadily enlarge the scope of self-determination
  • A Manager’s goal is to maintain status quo. A leader’s goal is to break it.
  • “Moonshots” (audacious goals) for management innovation: mending the soul, unleashing capabilities, fostering renewal, distributing power, seeking harmony, and reshaping minds.

Bonus: Listen to Gary talk about his book at this recent Commonwealth Club event.

Chunky Marketing

Creative Business Ideas

Great Marketing Is In Chunks

(Photo by Cillian Storm)

“Chunks” are blocks of things that go together. A chunk could be a list of parts, or a chunk could be a list of problems (or their solutions). So how does this relate to your marketing?

When communicating with your audience, you need to use the proper chunk size.

If your audience are experts, then use bigger chunks of information (more details, larger scope, etc.) to respect their knowledge and make your points stand out. With experts communication, feel free to incorporate jargon, acronyms, and reference common bodies of research. Without saying “I’m an expert too” you immediately establish yourself, since you treat your expert audience as peers.

If your audience are beginners, use small chunks to make it easier for people to follow your points, and learn what you’re offering. Beginners may not (yet) know that what you’re marketing would be a big value to them. So, mentor your audience. Respect that they are intelligent, but not necessarily in what you’re marketing. Tell them a story about another beginner you recently worked with to convey “I love working with startups”.

If your audience is a wide range of expertise, sprinkle a little expertise and a little down-home common sense into your marketing. The beginners won’t necessarily understand the expert references, but figure you must be an expert to throw these terms around. The experts won’t mind hearing a little about beginner-mindset issues, since they too were beginners. Remembering the effort it took to become an expert and honoring the achievement is more than flattery – it’s basic professional respect.

Be very attuned to your audience’s hunger for information and feed them just what they need to nourish them.

Help Me Name My Cancer Charity Event

Names + Taglines, Publicity

I am putting on a charity event for people affected with late stage cancers (stage III and stage IV). I want to raise money so individuals feel empowered to make choices about the right care for them. Be it, alternative, complimentary, or completely western medicine. There are so many research based organizations that help some, but there is no financial support for individuals that deal with this on a day in and day out basis. My mom is affected by this, and because insurance will only cover so much, most lose out on excellent treatment protocol. I’m looking for a great name, classy, elegant, concise that will draw individuals in, and get the buzz going for the event.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • Help From The Stage
  • Never Too Late
  • The Late Late Gala

 

Name For A ERP Software Company

Names + Taglines

Please suggest a name for a software company, We are focusing on the ERP market and the school management segments. Our target customers are the the middle east and the European union (including the non english speaking nations). Please suggest name which is vibrant, fresh and which represents power unique brilliant experience.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • boilERPlate
  • catERPillar
  • flowERPot
  • intERPlay
  • ovERPowered
  • entERPrise

Tagline for a NGO?

Names + Taglines

I need a punch line for my NGO. We are working in the following fields. Women Empowerment, Helping Poor orphans & disadvantageous financially, organize awareness programs, provide free medical assistance etc. Because your NGO is serving a wide population on a number of different fronts, it’s probably best to pick something simple/generic:

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Jay’s Answer:

  • Improving the Quality Of Kashmiri Life
  • We Care For Others
  • Bringing Better Futures To Kashmir