How To Name Your Product
Contributed by SBOC Member:
Pat Miller
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
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Start with the transformation, not the description
Most people default to describing what their thing technically does. Pat walked through a mastermind example. Someone wants to launch a group and calls it “Deep Dive Mastermind” because they go deep on people’s problems. Technically accurate. Nobody remembers it. Nobody woke up this morning and thought, “I need a deep dive mastermind.”
So Pat asks the follow-up questions. What happens when you go deep? What’s the result? “Well, people get more free time and they beat down their to-do list.” Okay, keep going. What happens when they have more time? “They’re not as stressed. They get their life back.”
And there it is. The Life Back Mastermind. You understand exactly what that mastermind is all about the very first time you hear it. No explanation required.
The difference between “Deep Dive Mastermind” and “Life Back Mastermind” is night and day when you’re trying to explain to someone why they would want to join.
Use cookie monster language
Pat’s been saying this for years. When product naming, people need to hear for the first time, think about Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Cookie Monster never says, “Me like a bespoke, gluten-free, organic dessert.” Cookie Monster wants a freaking cookie.
The same methodology has to apply when you name things. No jargon. No industry words. If people don’t understand what you’re talking about the very first time they hear it, you’ve already lost them.
Pat referenced a group in the SBOC last week that wanted to name a “human design event.” Human design is their technique, and it’s a good one, but nobody outside the practitioner world knows what human design is. That’s the equivalent of bespoke gluten-free organic dessert.
Lean on alliteration when you can
It’s dorky. It’s overplayed. Pat doesn’t care. Alliteration just sticks better. Taking the mastermind example further, if the audience were men, you could swap out “Mastermind” for “Brotherhood.” Life Back Brotherhood. Back Brotherhood. The alliteration makes it stickier, and that’s the whole point.
Twist a culturally familiar phrase
This is the secret sauce, the technique Pat says he should send you an invoice for sharing. Find a phrase people already know and play with it.
Last week he invented “entrepr-manure” on an airplane, playing on the word “entrepreneur” for when a business owner has a bad day. People know the word entrepreneur. That familiarity gives you something to twist.
The same thinking drove the name of the app Pat launched on today’s show. He wanted people to band together on a daily mission to sell. Sell, sell, sell… Seal. Seal Team. Seal Team Six. Everyone’s heard of it. Sale Team. The whole app concept maps to the mission-based, work-together spirit people already associate with the phrase. He didn’t pull “Sale Team” from thin air. He built it on something culturally familiar and twisted it.
So, how to name your product?
Clear vs Clever
One of the community members, Paula, pushed back in the chat with “clear, not clever,” and Pat agreed it’s a real tension. If your name is overly clear, it can be ignored. If it’s overly clever, people don’t know what you do. The answer is to put the clarity in whatever the name doesn’t carry. Clever name? Clear positioning statement. Clear name? Add some cleverness to the tagline.
Pat’s own community is a perfect example of good product naming. “Small Business Owners Community” is about as literal as you can get. Not sticky on its own. But the positioning statement, “Don’t grow it alone,” plays on “Don’t go it alone” and became the trademark phrase. The clear name carries the what. The clever positioning carries the why.
If you need something named, that’s what the Idea Slam is literally there for. Tune in to Businessing weekdays at 11 AM CT.
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Contributed by
Pat Miller
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
Pat spent two decades in broadcasting management and hosting. After leaving the radio industry, he spent time consulting small businesses and realized the support system for entrepreneurs was broken. Where could you find help for improving small businesses and building real connections with other like-minded people. In June of 2020, the Idea Collective Small Business Community was born.