Names play an important role in business. Names are often the identity and/or description of services and products offered. But what happens when your business expands beyond its name? Does the current name of your business keep up with the changing times?
These are questions Stuart Lamm can answer from experience. His company started in 1991 as CELLULAR IMAGES (1991-2009), became GPS Mobile Solutions (2009-2018), and as of November 1, 2018, is officially BlueArrow Telematics. “With our strategic sights set on expansion, we believe it’s vital to officially change the name of our firm to BlueArrow Telematics.”
Having gone through a company name change once before, Lamm understands the opportunities and challenges well. “In both cases, a term used in my company name became a commodity, not a distinction,” Lamm explains. “This time we needed to land on a name that will outlive the rapid changes that have and will continue to impact the telecommunications industry.”
Lamm’s business isn’t the same cellular company of 25 years ago—things are different now, and Lamm wanted the name to reflect that. Lamm wanted the name change to amplify the impact of the internal work they were doing while serving as a strong signal to the marketplace, clients, and employees.
“Because I’ve been through this process before, I have learned a few things that I hope can help other business owners who are facing the same issues.” Below are Lamm’s five tips to changing the name of a business:
1.Make it a big deal.The company’s first name change was launched with little fanfare. Lamm now realizes that may have been a missed opportunity. With the second name change, Lamm looked at it as a new start, a time to better capture the company’s value proposition and philosophy, to rebuild on the marketing and branding fronts, and to reenergize the company’s expansion efforts.
2. Pick a name that has room to grow.Focusing on one aspect of business in a continually growing marketplace is confining. With Lamm’s business, “cellular” came to mean “phone” and “GPS” meant “getting directions” to most people. Lamm says that the name BlueArrow can mean anything his business wants it to mean. This allows the business to expand further than GPS solutions.
3. Be SEO-minded. Earning top SEO placement with a broad term like GPS was next to impossible for Lamm’s business. A search term like “BlueArrow” has far more opportunities to make the fast track to Page One.
4. Be broad but refined.Lamm wanted his company name to be descriptive of the company’s services, but in a subtle way; therefore, a “subtitle” was added: TELEMATICS (the branch of information technology that deals with the long-distance transmission of computerized information). The general public may not know what it is, but BlueArrow’s clients do.
5.Connect the Dots.If there is a disconnect between what your company is doing and what its name suggests, a name change may be in order. In Lamm’s case, his company moved from helping companies with tracking vehicles to broader solutions that included safety, maintenance, and driver performance programs—things that weren’t reflected in the previous name.
Changing the name of your business is not a decision to be taken lightly. It is a delicate process that must be handled properly, say experts. But making this kind of change can be important—even critical—to a business.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
BlueArrow Telematics’ mission is to provide customers with mobile workforce technologies. BlueArrow provides several fleet management solutions. Find out more about BlueArrow, visit www.bluearrowtelematics.com.
MODERN WORKTRUCK SOLUTIONS: JANUARY 2019 ISSUE
Did you enjoy this article?
Subscribe to the FREE Digital Edition of Modern WorkTruck Solutions magazine.
