There are moments or decisions in life that seem to carry more weight or permanence than others, as if they could determine the direction of your future. Decisions that deserve more thought and focus. Naming a company is one of these.
To be honest, it’s a lot like naming a baby. If you’re a parent, you know how terrifying…err, frustrating…I mean…exciting naming a baby can be. This baby’s future…no…destiny is in your hands. The name they will answer to for the rest of their lives. The name you will read in the headlines, “(Fill in the Blank) Saves World From Imminent Disaster & Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize”. The name that will become synonymous with greatness. Don’t lie to yourself. You know you play some version of the headline game too. What’s that? Oh…it’s just me, you say. Well…let’s move along then.
The process starts innocent enough. With conversations like, “I’ve always liked…” or “What do you think about…”. Asking yourself these questions until you have a list of 20+ potential names. Not a bad start, but now, it’s time to whittling it down. “I’m not sure about (blank). I knew a kid in high school…” or “Isn’t that the name of that celebrity that did that thing?” And just like that the list is cut in half. Now on to Round Two of cuts. This one’s my favorite. Time for rhyme-time, or, as I call it, the Name Game cuts. “Ryan…Ryan…bo brian…fe fi fo frian…Ryan”. Ouch, say goodbye to a couple more on the list (I’m looking at you Huck). Round Three: let’s put them to the initials test. You know…to avoid any inadvertent acronym slip-ups. Welp…another one bites the dust, adios Pearl Olivia Stith.
By now, you get the point. What starts out as a fun and exciting adventure, slowly begins to resemble a real-life version of the Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favor!
Naming a business isn’t much different. Equally exciting and frustrating. Except now, you have the added pressure of delivering a name that can also define the essence of what the business is…like naming my child “Loves Pool, Eats Weight in Yogurt, Hates Naps” Stith (note: we shortened her name, of course). Oh yeah, it also needs to easily roll off the tongue and carry the weight of its significance and uniqueness when it does. And, oh, by the way, the name has to be unique…no, not in some “I’m a hipster and no one else is doing it”-kind of way…no, it must be legally and materially different from other businesses. So, that name that you’ve fallen in love with over the last couple of months as you make cut after cut and revision after revision, gets the axe on the final stage. Panic mode sets in and you’re forced to hit the drawing board again and pull names out of the trash (literally…I pulled names…out of…the trash) who may not have made the early cuts for one reason or another. And you start reasoning with yourself to justify your new choices, like “nobody’s going to play the Name Game with Huck anyway, right?” Then, rinse and repeat the whole process until you find yourself headed in a direction that you like. Although your path to your final destination doesn’t look exactly like what you had initially mapped out, you found yourself there by following a plan and process that corrected course every time that you came to, what I like to call, an “Oh, $**t” moment, or, in a more PC manner, a Pivot Point (*see what I did there*).
And that, folks, is how Pivot Point found its name. Life rarely turns out like we planned. Sometimes we reach a Pivot Point where we have to take a detour and change course. Sometimes the destination itself changes. Either way, each time we pivot, we make decisions that determine what direction we’re headed and how quickly we will get there. Sometimes it’s nice to have a plan and GPS to guide us along our path in life…and in money.