Podcast 81: How to Name Your Holistic Business

branding business ethical business podcast Sep 09, 2021

Working in health and wellbeing, deciding what you should call your business can be challenging. This isn't something that only affects new practitioners, established ones are often forced to re-visit their business name as their business evolves.

There are often fears around the decision such as using my name will make me look small, or no one will want to pay for my services if they know it’s just me.

There’s also the belief that a business name will give you the appearance of being more professional, or established or bigger than you really are.

Start with your vision

When considering a name, start with your vision for your business

Do you imagine continuing to work as a practitioner?
Are you intending to build a business you can eventually sell?
How do you want your business to look in 5-years from now?

Here's a link to podcast 47 - creating a vision for your holistic business which will help you with this.

Personal connection

As humans, we relate to other humans and connect our experiences to faces and names. This is especially important when working in health and wellbeing. Your relationship with your clients is based on you, and the results they achieve from working with you.

Even if you create a brand name, you need to be visible, and your name needs to be linked to it. You are the person your clients connect with and the person they trust.

Working under your name

Using your name is the simplest way to work. You’re creating a business and a brand based on you and the services you offer your clients. Creating a personal brand with your name will help you to be visible and stand out from the competition – there’s only one you! It will make it easier to decide what your brand stands for and develop your voice as you can concentrate on just being you.

Working under your name will help you to be flexible and make changes as your business progresses. Many practitioners change niches, disciplines or add new approaches as they develop their businesses. Changing the focus of your business is easier with a personal brand as it will evolve with you and you won’t have to start again with your marketing.

When I started out, both as a practitioner and helping other practitioners, I used different brand names. In hindsight, I was being hidden behind the brands I’d created. I thought I was separating my work to make it clearer for clients when all I did was make life complicated for myself. Realising this, I changed to a personal brand and it made everything so much simpler. I accepted the different areas of my work are just different facets of who I am, and what I do, and that’s ok.

Creating a business name

Giving your business a name is a good way of making you appear larger than you really are. It’s useful if you are partnering with other practitioners, or your vision is to build a business that is bigger than just you, especially if your plan is to eventually sell it.

To make the business attractive to buyers, it needs to be able to run without you. Therefore, distancing yourself from the business name is a good strategy.

Unless you’re absolutely sure of your niche, avoid naming your business after it. If you create a brand based on a niche and then change your mind, there will be a lot of work and expense to make the required changes. For example, if you create a business around weight loss and call it ‘The Diet Coach’ but then decided you want to work with menopausal women, you’ll have to start again with your branding.

This is the same if you name your business after your discipline – add to it or take it in a slightly different direction and it may no longer work for you or make sense to your clients.

There is no right or wrong way to name your business, it is up to you. Personally, if I were to start over again, I’d work on building my personal brand from the beginning. It allows me the flexibility to grow and develop as it’s an extension of me.

If this is something you struggle with, book a discovery call with me and find out how I can help you.