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Naming a business – a few tips from experts

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In an earlier post, we reported that most UK small businesses are no longer seeing the need to name their companies based on their family names. In the survey conducted by British Gas Business , 74 per cent of business owners now prefer more memorable names that are not related to any kind of family ties in forming their business .

According to British Gas Business’ commercial director, Adrian Harvey said “Small businesses have to punch above their weight to compete against larger competitors with more established brands. A company’s name plays an important role in doing this as it can quickly inform a potential customer of the product or service on offer. If a name is not carefully thought through and does not properly reflect what you do, potential customers will go elsewhere.”

Harvey said that with the internet playing a bigger role as the search method of choice for consumers, more businessmen who and operate a business feel that a company that is named after a family name will not be noticed. They now want names that will be easily noticed and will be memorable.

Here are some things to consider when naming your business:

* Are you considering a name that would reflect what your business does – framing, moving, cleaning, building? Alternatively, would you like to use a more abstract name?
* Do you want to use a traditional-sounding name that evokes durability and old- fashioned values, or a modern name, that paints a picture of freshness and innovation?
* Think about the future – avoid words or phrases that are likely to become easily dated.
* If your business will have some aspects of overseas trading check that the name doesn’t mean anything inappropriate in the relevant languages. Also, determine if the name will be easily read and pronounced.
* Think about your callers and customers – avoid very long names, unusual words and spelling.
* Check that no one else is using the name you choose.

Tips on raising credit management awareness

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Business solutions experts reveal that over 10,000 businesses fail every year because of late payments. It is for this reason that the Better Payment Practice Group has embarked on a campaign, the goal of which is to advise businesses to be more alert in noticing signs of a credit management policy that’s about to fail so as not to meet failure with the company they have failed and ultimately throw away the efforts that were exerted in forming the company.

Here are some signs/warning signals that would mean the credit management policy of a business is in dire need of improvement:

• If a business oftentimes reaches or exceeds a bank’s limit for credit facilities, the best option is to review the company’s asset management policies and credit management
• If debtors always pay invoices outside the credit period agreed upon then the collection methods must be reviewed and improved.
• Good payers that slack off in payments may mean that the business’ collection system is also being ineffective look into this and improve as necessity dictates.
• Excuses that affect work may be a sign that the customer may have discovered the laxity of the credit system. Fix the system as needed.
• If the supplier suddenly discontinues its bills payment a point will be reached where the business will exceed the credit limit and supplies are stopped.
• The company’s credit insurance or the formulation of an effective internal system to assess credit risk can be a helpful way of protecting a company. This is particularly effective especially there is a heavy reliance on another business or has a collection of customers who have vulnerabilities with regards to cash flow.

Why incorporate?

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You’ve been successfully running a small business for quite some time, and you’re doing it as a sole proprietorship or a partnership. Well, good for you—you’re one of the entrepreneurs who make our economy grow strong (a great majority of economic growth comes from the small and medium business sector). But do give a thought about incorporating.

Why incorporate? Well, why not?

For one thing, incorporating will create a new legal entity, and can protect you from whatever liability you may have as an individual. You also get some tax perks, which will generally improve the business’ cashflow.

It’s not usually difficult to incorporate. It only takes but a few hours to at least a day. In the end, the small amount of time and effort (and money, of course) you will have to spend on incorporating will be well worth it. It makes good business sense, after all, to think of the long term and the bigger picture.

New software helps deal with absenteeism

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Based on a survey conducted by the Employment Law Advisory Services (ELAS), about one in four small and medium sized business has had more staff taking sick leaves than it has taken action against.

But almost 90 per cent of businesses have revealed that they would actually discipline their workers if they were legally confident in doing so.

Armed with this information ELAS has released a computer program that will help employers stay within the bounds of the law. The software, a personnel package, will not only keep a record of a worker’s sick days but also alert managers when the levels of absenteeism has already become a problem. The program will then guide them through the correct disciplinary measures to take.

Company formation and business solutions experts agree that these innovative way of handling the absenteeism problem will be a boon to employers who do not know how to go about disciplining lazy staff.

Business cards subject of new research

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According to research done by Prof. Cary Cooper of Lancaster University Management School and commissioned by the Entwistle Group, most business owners choose bad designs that pay no attention to who they are trying to impress.

Cooper said that business cards should be “the central part of a company’s marketing material.

The Entwistle Group suggests that business owners should design their business cards with a specific set of potential clients in mind.

Company formation and business solutions experts say that this is quite a new insight into the subject of business cards. They advice that this kind of research won’t hurt businesses and business owners could opt to try these new innovative ideas to enhance their business.