What's in a name?? Worth Changing?
 

Has anyone been or know anyone who has been in business for awhile and the direction their company has taken is SO far from where the shop name started from?

Considering changing our company name to something that suites are current direction and what we are catering to.....

Thoughts??

While I haven't been in the exact situation you're describing, I have been through several rounds of logo changes/ mission statement updates from places I work, etc.

If I were in your shoes, I might ask myself the following:

- Does the current name have a reputation/ credibility? Would changing the name lose that history?

- Will the new name involve any trademarking/ trademark searches, etc (can cost $$. is it worth the expense?)

- What would the new name offer? would a name change make a big enough difference to increase the customers/ sales, etc..

many times unrelated names work well for a brand.

I guess I would be more inclined to change a name if I were trying to get rid of a blemish or bad history. General Motors comes to mind when changing their name to work through a bankruptcy.

Why throw away a hard earned reputation only to start over and do it again?

Maybe update a logo on your business card and store front, but keep the name.

Just my thoughts, I hope they are helpful.

The biggest problem is people can't pronounce the name and can't remember how to spell it if they are trying to look us up online or somewhere.

We wouldn't lose HzEmall it would just be minimized drastically in the new logo etc and have the new name more prodominat in it.

HzEmall - New Age Hot Rods.........something like that

How about "New Age Hot Rods, a division of HzEMALL"......

Look at the old "Air Ride Technologies" name, they recently changed it to "RideTech" to better represent their business (and where its headed).


--Eric

I gotta be honest, what does HzEmall mean? Does it have any definition to your community or area that people relate to? The name you have may have solid collateral backing it, history, personal or regional relevance, etc, but it sounds meaningless and a little 'out there' to an outsider. JMHO and I'm only trying to provide an outside perspective since I think you want honestly, not sugar coating which won't help you. If you've moved that far from what it originally meant, which is obviously very obscure in the first place, I think you would benefit from amending it. Keep it a footnote though as you mentioned for past customers, recognition etc.

I'm a guessin' that "Hz" = "Hertz"...as in HertzEmAll...as in HurtsEmAll.

My brothers used to give me Donuts...Hurts Donuts.

Correct, it's a name we used back in the 90's for a group of us that competed in car audio competitions all around the country.

When I opened my shop we were mostly car audio, electrical and upholstery.

Now we only do car audio as part of the whole package, has been that way for a while now.

There is a company called DIT-MCO that makes continuity and isolation testers, used by the aircraft manufacturing industry and others for verifying the electrical integrity of very large wiring harnesses (think many hundreds or thousands of discrete connections).

I remember talking with one of the founders and the subject of how the company got it's name came up.

He explained that he and his family were originally in the business of making all of the equipment needed for drive-in movie theaters (speakers, wiring, etc)

DIT-MCO stands for Drive In Theater Manufacturing Company:

http://www.ditmco.com/

The company I work for changed their name after 20 years of business as we changed the direction (we try not to do any plastering any more) of the primary work we do....hasn't hurt us a bit!

Was - Roseway Plastering

Now - Roseway Partitions Inc.

I think the current (ha ha get it?) name is only understood by a fairly small demographic. If you want to change it, keep it the same.

huh ? what i did i just say ?

Change it to Hertzem All Customs or something similar that is not cryptic and sounds exactly the same. You want something that is unique, easy remember and most importantly, easy to search and find. Weird or difficult spellings and illegible fonts are not good for business.