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Start here to find your local Small Business Development Center office. www.asbdc-us.org

ACCOMPLISHMENT #2:

Create your company identity

My Checklist:

Choose a name

Check out trademarks

Secure a domain name

Consider logos, taglines, and colors

Get a graphic designer

Right from Week One, you’re going to be eager to begin working on one of the most challenging and creative aspects of starting your own business—developing your company identity: name, image, logo, tagline, and so on.

Coming up with a company identity can be fun, creative, and exciting. But if you’re not careful, it can also paralyze you. You may think that finding just the right name or logo is absolutely critical for success.

Please don’t let this process overwhelm you. While choosing the right name and image for your company is important, it doesn’t determine your company’s future. After all, not many people would consider names such as “Microsoft,” “Safeway,” or the “Walt Disney Company” as being particularly inspired or critical to the company’s eventual success.

Nevertheless, creating your company identity certainly is an important part of getting your business under way. Your corporate identity helps customers remember you, understand what you do, and even develop a certain feeling about you. Your company name and logo make your business feel “real,” both to you and to potential customers, suppliers, and others. Your identity is your brand image.

The key elements to a corporate identity are:

Name

Logo

Tagline

Colors

In addition, you might have other unique, distinguishing elements that make up your identity, such as clever or unusual packaging.

Once you’ve developed a certain identity, you’ll use those elements consistently and repeatedly—on your business cards, stationery, signs, advertising, vehicles, uniforms, and website.

Creating an identity can be done very inexpensively or cost thousands of dollars. You may want to use the services of a graphic designer to help you create your logo and other aspects of your company’s image.