How to Name (or Rename) Your Advisory Firm

You have to have a name that strikes the balance: simple, easy to spell, easy to pronounce but also distinctive and stands out from the crowd.

What's a downside to naming the company after yourself?

It can make it harder or, at least, complicate things if and when you're trying to exit. You could have trouble selling the company because it's named after you.

In some cases, people have lost control of the use of their own name because it became associated with the firm that they sold.

What if you use your own name as your firm's name but another advisor, or advisors, with the same name are already using it. Is there a reliable way to check beforehand?

Aside from Googling it, which can be pretty effective, you can access the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

They have a free, searchable database that [lists] all trademarks in the U.S.

An important caveat: You want to look for people using the name for similar goods and services. If someone with an ice cream shop has the same name, that's probably not going to be an issue for you legally, so you can use the name.

But if they're using it for a company even only somewhat related to financial services, then you can be in trouble. So you'd want to avoid using that one.

Why would anyone want to rename their established firm?

Because someone inside the company got tired of the name or didn't like it or thought it was boring.

Those aren't good reasons. All the evidence is that the longer you can keep the name and everything about the brand, the more likely it becomes recognizable and memorable by customers.

My advice always is not to change unless you have a very strong reason to do so.

What are some strong reasons?

They include the legal challenges I just spoke about or finding out that your name is offensive to some of your market, which could happen accidentally.

Or if you've merged with another organization, you might want to combine the names or come up with a new one.

Riskalyze, a fintech company that markets to financial advisors and created The Risk Number, long used in the industry, changed its name this past May to Nitrogen.

They said the change is meant to "reflect its evolution into an advisory firm growth platform." And they pointed out that nitrogen is "an essential element for growth." Your thoughts?

Given the company's desire to shift away from being known primarily for The Risk Number, a new name probably makes sense. It signals change and helps avoid being pigeonholed, like Pizza Hut, who wants to convince people they sell more than just pizza.

Whether or not Nitrogen is the right name will ultimately depend on how customers react to it, among other factors.

What do you think of it?

It's a relatively open-ended name — and with smart marketing and branding, they'll be able to give it meaning.

What's your opinion of the former name, Riskalyze?

I see some spelling and pronunciation challenges, and it also seems a little bit dated because it's very clearly an invented or coined word that sounds like it's trying too hard to sound techy or cool.

While Nitrogen also sounds a little bit out of left field and doesn't have anything inherently to do with financial services, at least it's an [actual] English word that doesn't suffer from pronunciation or spelling challenges.

Should advisors factor social media into their naming effort?

Yes. Ideally, find a name that allows you to own a reasonable handle that's the same across multiple social media platforms.

It doesn't have to be your exact name, but it could be your name followed by "Financial" or the like.

Shorter names are better than those that take up too many characters in a tweet or are annoyingly long to tweet.

Your own company is called Heirloom. Why did you choose that name?

Heirlooms have value that goes beyond the object itself. They can be priceless to you. I think of a family heirloom as a metaphor for a strong brand name.

Branding is about creating value beyond the hard assets of the company. It's the promise the company makes; it's the good will it has built over the years.

Any other reason for your choice?

I felt that Heirloom was more personal, and I wanted my business to be about the connections I'm making with people within clients' businesses [as opposed to] the nameless, faceless organizations and giant agencies that I compete against.

What do you see coming down the pike in branding?

A lot of branding professionals lament the disappearance of [advertising] jingles. There's serious research in the ad world showing how well they work, and a lot of professionals are trying to return to using them.

So I see a resurgence of jingles on the horizon. And we may see a return to the use of characters as well.

The Pillsbury Doughboy was very memorable.

Pictured: Rob Meyerson