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Choosing a business name

It's all in the name.

Way back in 1989, we started in the blind installation and window-washing business. Our first business name was “Hang & Shine.” Why that name? The reason is that we hung blinds (Hang) and washed windows (Shine), thus Hang & Shine. We thought, great, we found a good name. We thought it was cute and that people would like it. So, we thought that issue was resolved.

However, two years later, in 1991, we decided to add ultrasonic blind cleaning to our existing business. As a company that had been established for two years at that time, we thought, why not keep our same name (Hang & Shine)? It seemed to fit with what we were doing as a company, right?

Well, after several years of clients calling us everything but our business name, like Hung & Dried, Hang a Blind, Hanging Blinds, and more, we decided to talk to our customers and ask them a straightforward question. This question turned out to be the most important in our company's history.

All employees of our company were instructed to ask EVERY customer the same question. As our employees arrived at the customer's house to give them an estimate and approached the first blind that needed cleaning, we asked, “What do we have here?” We asked this open-ended question for a reason. We were interested in how our customers viewed the problem of cleaning their blinds and, more importantly, how we could get them to remember us so they could refer us to family and friends.

After two years of asking this question (in other words, a real time-tested survey), we asked it of over 700 customers, and over 90% of them responded “dirty blinds; that's why we called you,” or “my blinds are dirty,” and other versions of having dirty blinds.

After collecting all this data, we realized it is not what we think of our name, but how our clients remember our company and name. So when they look at their own blinds and decide they need cleaning, it won't be hard to remember us. When they say “Man, these blinds are dirty” or “Wow, I have dirty blinds,” and ask themselves “Who cleaned my dirty blinds last time?”… oh yeah, DirtyBlinds.com… Da!

However, before we decided on the obvious (changing our name to Dirty Blinds), we purchased the domain name dirtyblinds.com and a used WHITE van. Once we built the new website for dirtyblinds.com, we lettered the all-white van with just our new name, without any other information about blind cleaning or telephone numbers. Nothing but the name.

The idea behind this strategy was to see if people would say to themselves while driving, “What do they do? I have dirty blinds at home, so it's not hard to remember that company name.” So once they got home and looked at their dirty blinds, the name rolled off their tongue, and they would go online to check out what dirtyblinds.com is all about. Marketing, not advertising.

As you know, it is hard to remember all the advertising on a van or truck while driving. That is why we wanted to pique a potential customer's curiosity by sending them to our website to learn WAY MORE than they can from just seeing a van or truck. The old “curiosity killed the cat” concept.

As the owner of our ultrasonic blind cleaning business, I have a background in marketing. Anybody can pay someone to advertise your business (the operative word here is “PAY”). Just remember one thing: marketing takes your time, whereas advertising takes more of your money. I choose to keep our hard-earned money in our pockets while communicating with our customers and learning about their needs and concerns.

Choosing a smart and memorable name for your business is the most important decision you will make. Forget names like “Bob's Blind Cleaning” or “Shiny Blinds.” People are not going to remember these types of names. They will forget the person's name: “Was the name Harry's Blind Cleaning? Or John's Blind Cleaning?” I guarantee you they won't look at their dirty blinds and think of names like the ones I mentioned above.

A 3D wrap design with a memorable name will be remembered!