Business Name Strategy and Protection

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always by my noisy and trusty cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are doing today?

I am fantastic today, Jim. Oh, what a start to this podcast. Talk about I didn't know if we were gonna get this one done because she kept laughing.

Oh, I I didn't realize you could make so many different sounds before we started the podcast. That was very, very impressive.

My wife says it all the time. I didn't I didn't really notice it. She said, but you just make you'll be doing something and you just make this you do these different sounds when you're when you're doing certain things. And I didn't realize getting warmed up for this episode, I was making numerous sounds.

Smacking my lips

together, tapping my head. It was all good.

Putting a smile on my face, so it's all good there. So what are we gonna jump into today?

Today, we are gonna talk about business names, but more the, like, strategy, and then at the end, I just wanna talk about the protection part of it. I've got a number of notes written down here, so because it's very important. And and the thing is, what I got here is the reason your business name is important, one, it's part of your business identity. So as soon as your business name goes up there, it can actually set you apart from your competitors, but it actually tells your patients what it is that you actually want. And there's a lot of power in a business name.

And some people I think everyone would have known. You see some business names and you go, I've seen some podiatry business names. And I just look at them and I go, what were you thinking? Had you finished snorting that coke? What went through your mind when you came up with that particular business name?

Because some of them are are not very good. And I'm hoping that after people listen to this, if they're looking at their business name, they're going, you know what? Yeah. You're right. It's not very good.

Here's the good news is if you don't like your current business name, if you're no longer happy with it, you can just change it. There's there's no law that says that you must come up with a business name, put it out there, and and that's basically you can change it anytime. And when you do, that's a different whole story about doing rebranding and and how you come up with your business name. But, yeah, if you're really not happy with it, consider changing it.

And I mean, that's something that I think is really, really important. I think, you know, they you kinda get into a name, maybe you take over practice from somebody. This is not the right match for the type care you wanna provide. So if you can have, you know, a name that attracts the exact type of patient you wanna treat and maybe just shows other folks that that you're not the right person for them, it's it can be a very powerful thing because, you know, the name of your clinic is gonna be it's gonna be on your building. It's gonna be on your door.

It's gonna be on all your advertising. It's gonna be everywhere. On your social channels, you know, anytime it refers to you and your clinic, it's gonna be there. It's a hugely powerful thing. It shouldn't be underestimated.

No. And that's why I think a lot of time needs to go into to really think about the the business name. And and especially if the business name has changed, if your business has evolved over the years, then it's okay to change it. And I'll give you an example how I changed mine and why I changed, but I'll talk about that in a sec. So if your business is known for a particular service, but then all of a sudden you've started to introduce other services, and therefore, what you're doing now and the focus of your business is is completely different, then consider changing the name.

You might add a word like sports into the clinic. Might be such and such in sports podiatry, or you might be doing a lot more orthotics now. You might become, like, a bit of an expert when it comes to prescribing orthotics and, yeah, manufacturing them, fitting them, so maybe orthotics needs to be in your business name. And I've seen that with a lot of podiatry clinics lately where they've kept the business their normal business name, but then they've added end orthotics because they're now doing that a lot more than what they they were beforehand. So just think of where your business starts doesn't mean that's where it needs to finish.

If it's evolved, look at your business name. Can the business name evolve and change with you?

I think it's a great point. You know, if you're out providing sports medicine or orthotics and it's there in the name, it's gonna be like I said, it's gonna be everywhere. Mhmm. So so why not add it in there to really show your local community what you wanna do and who you wanna treat? I think it's hugely powerful.

Yeah. And also make sure, like, to me, a simple business name is the best business name. Yeah. Just make it so that that it's easy to remember. Don't make it too long.

If it's I've seen some business lines where they're extremely long, and you go, okay. Yeah. I hope I can actually remember that. And or you only remember parts of it. And try and make it a little bit more unique compared to everybody else's name.

If you can come up with a unique word, like yeah. I've seen some great ones over the years. One that I really like is one called Fetology, which but I just love the name. I think it's a fantastic name because it's it says what it is. It says fetology, and then they could add podiatry and orthotics.

But it's just it's a unique name, and that really helps you stand out from what everybody else is doing. And even my own when I was ProArch podiatry. I I made the word word ProArch was made up. The ProArch podiatry made us stand out a little bit more than everybody else. But what you wanna avoid doing is avoid using what I call nothing words.

And a nothing word is clinic and center. I've seen that so many times where you might have a business and they call it ABC Podiatry Center or ABC Podiatry Clinic. And I remember reading this somewhere that when you hear such and such podiatry clinic, such and such podiatry center, people only remember the center and clinic part. They remember podiatry clinic podiatry center. So if you've got three places in your in your area, in your community, and you're finishing with podiatry clinic or podiatry center, patients can't tell the difference between them.

When they hear the advertisement, they only hear, center. You can do a quick test that if you looked at your business name, removed the nothing word, if it still sounds exactly the same, then just do it. So ABC Podiatry Center, remove the center, ABC Podiatry. Remove the clinic, ABC Podiatry. So if somebody heard your name and you're talking to somebody and you said, oh, I'm ABC Podiatry, people can remember ABC Podiatry, like ProArch Podiatry.

But if you were ABC Podiatry Center and there was another one, Cairns Podiatry Center, people hear the podiatry center, and that's the part that gets confusing. You want to keep your name simple. If you can make it a little bit unique, do that and bugger off any words that don't need to be there that are not really adding anything to the name.

Yeah. Some I've seen some clinics with, you know, four to me is like a little bit if you can just do three, two two or three is kinda like the best. Yeah. Four, it gets a little long and then anything over four I think is just like time to go back to the drawing board because it just becomes number one, it becomes a very difficult website URL to have. You know, if it's

Yeah.

You're making some if you're making someone write basically like aparagraph.com to get to your website, that's not gonna be great. But it is one of those things where, yeah, you do have to find a way to really brand yourself because, you know, if something that's memorable like ProArch, you know, ProArch podiatry just sticks out. Right?

It's easy.

It just yeah. It's two words, you know, those kind of things. I'd I worked when I was in my podiatry, worked with a clinic called, you know, Slocum Orthopedics. It was like a name and then orthopedics. It just is, you know, with then they would just call it Slocum.

Right? They didn't call it orthopedics.

We were

the same. I always see the people at Slocum. So it's just one of those things that just catches on if you're if you're if you do the the naming and the brand and the kind of the correct way that will kinda lead it to be easier to communicate to others in the future.

Yeah. Well, we'd have people come up to us and go, oh, you own proarch. No one even used the word podiatry. Everyone just knew the word proarch because it just is so all roads lead to proarch, which they did. It was like Rome.

Now the other thing you wanna do is check if your name is already registered. I'm gonna run through business name registration, but then also something else that's even more powerful. So before you go any further with coming up with your business name, please do not go and get stationery printed, put a sign up, or do anything until you've checked that somebody else doesn't already have the name. And I have seen that happen where there's been businesses that have got a name up. They started promoting it, and all of sudden, I've seen them change their name.

This is not podiatry. And I knew the person said, you were called this a couple weeks ago? Oh, yeah. Somebody else already owned it. We forgot to check.

So make sure you do not do that. In Australia, you would go to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, ASIC, to go and check it. Every country would have a search area where you could check for business names. What what is it in The States?

I I started a couple of business in The US, but I can't remember exactly what it is. But if you Google it, you know, business names, you know, US registry. It's like The US biz maybe it's like The US business name registry. Yeah. Something if you Google that, you'll be able to find it, but definitely exists and you definitely want to, yeah, check that out before you

Yeah.

Make any kind of Before

you do anything else.

Investments. Yeah.

Just check. Is the business name available? Because I I remember some of the first business names I came up with, and I went and looked up. Gone. Gone.

And I went, oh, okay. It's a bit of a pain. Then ProArch came about, and it was awesome. Well, it wasn't their first name. Now the next thing is to check if the domain name is available.

And I think this is something you check first before you even check the business name because it's also domain names are like they're they're just valuable real estate. Once that's taken, it's it's basically gone. Side note for everybody, if you don't already have the domain for your own name, go and get it now. Go and get it. Talk to Jim.

Talk to anyone. Just get get your domain name done. That's why I have tysonfranklin.com tyson franklin Com A u because they're the two most common. Because there's a lot of Tyson Franklins out And so I wanted to make sure I have it. So you're like, Jim McDaniel.

Have you got do you have the domain for that?

I think I own McDaniel.org, but there's not that many Jim McDaniel's in the world. I think I'm one of maybe two or three if I if I if I would check it out.

You need to be bigjimmac.com.

That Podiatry growth, you know, that I was surprised I couldn't get that and even that podiatry.marketing that our podcast is hosting. Yeah. So that those are hugely beneficial things.

But that it's it's important real estate. So get there before somebody else gets it. And the other thing is when I see a business name, I expect their domain name to be identical to it or a shortened version. So I was ProArch Podiatry, and our website at the time is proarch.com.au. That's nice to use to remember, and I think that's why the name just

It's great domain.

Yeah. Why ProArch just became easy to remember because everyone just went proarch.com.au, and then Marcus said, oh, go to proarch.com.au. So it's sort just stuck in everybody's head. If the domain name is available, I recommend you get it for your country, plus also get the .com if it's available. Because the .com is becoming very it's universally recognized, And I'm noticing more and more businesses are getting the .com if they can, especially if they are dealing with people overseas as well.

But like in Australia, you would get .com.au. If you're in The UK, you would get .co.uk as well as the Com. So just think about it. Whatever your one you've got now for your country, if the .com 1 is available, just go and take it. It doesn't cost a lot of money.

And it just gives you that little bit of extra security.

Yeah. And people if maybe the nontechnical podiatrist here on on the on the podcast, just know that you can always kind of reroute where that .com goes to. So if your website's built on .com.au or .co.uk or any other one, like I said, we own podiatry.marketing. Right? We don't own podiatrymarketing.com.

But you you could basically take that domain and just kind of reroute it. So whatever it lands on if they you know, if you have proarchproarch.com, you can reroute it to proarch.com.au. These are not these are something that your marketing company or anybody dealing with your website should be easily taken care of. It's always better to have more of them than not enough, know. So it's something that make sure you have those kind of high level and kind of important, you know, as close your business name as possible because then when you have those domains, then you can also use things like your your clinic's email as well with them.

There's ways of setting that up. So

Yeah. And like mine, I have tysonfranklin.com. I have tysonfranklin.com.au. So no matter which one you do, all goes to the same.tysonfranklin.com. Talk to the people that help you with the website or talk to Jim and they'll tell you they'll do it for you.

Don't talk to me. I just I talk to these other people and get them to do it for me. Now, the other important question to ask yourself is, can your business name grow with you? This is really important. Because if you're planning on world domination, you gotta think about, does your business name still work?

So when I my original business name in Cairns was what was it? Jeez. North Queensland Podiatry was what I called myself. North Queensland podiatry? North Queensland, it's a

big

area. But I eventually wanted world domination. And that's how the name ProArch came about. I said, well, I wanna set up another clinic like in Townsville, Mackay, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, the world. I wanted the world.

So I sat down and went, North Queensland podiatry isn't really gonna cut it. So I sat down with a six pack of Kronos, a lime, a big sheet of paper, and a and a sharp pen. And I just kept writing down all these, like, what we did and all that. And eventually, word professional art supports pro artist, how it sort of came together. I think it was on about the fourth or fifth corona that it sort of, like, just fell into place.

But as soon as I saw it, I went, that's it.

That's

it. I just knew that that was the name. It just felt right. And then I showed it to a few other people and said, oh, here's a group of names. And every single person just said, the ProArch one sounds fantastic.

I went, that's the way it's gonna be. But I'll tell people, initially, it was ProArch Podiatry Center. Yeah. How's that? How sucky was that?

I had ProArch Podiatry Center for the first couple of years until I read read about nothing words, and I went, oh, I'll take that. How's it sound? ProArch Podiatry. Well, that sounds even better, doesn't it? There you go.

I know some people might have their podiatry clinic and they might have a Brown Street Podiatry because they're on Brown Street, which is fine. If you're never planning on moving from Brown Street, it's great. And if you own the building on Brown Street, it's even better. You don't own the building on Brown Street and you're called Brown Street Podiatry and your landlord's a mongrel, and and I saw this happen with a doctor's surgery here in Cairns. They were called Abbott Street Medical or something, I think.

I don't know if their landlord was among them or not, but they because they were on Abbott Street. And when they eventually moved, they went they were Abbott Street Medical at a shopping center completely nowhere near Abbott Street. And I think eventually, they just became Abbott Medical. So they got rid of the the street. So there there was a way of actually getting around it.

So just be aware that is your business name very location specific and go back to the original thing that I said before. You can change your name if you're planning a world domination or being in multiple areas.

Absolutely. There's some benefits of there's some benefits and some negative consequences, like you said, of naming it to local. You know, obviously, Google and search engines love to kinda have local names thrown in there. Can be

Oh, yeah. For

for rankings and such, but at the same time, like, you know, you just you're kind of it's a bit generic though. And it's one of those things where, you know, if you're gonna be in it for the long term, maybe it makes sense to try to build a brand that sticks out, that's not necessarily tied to a location. And like like you said, if you want world domination, you definitely have to get more creative with some with some coronas and a a sharp pen.

Yeah. And limes. You gotta put limes in there too. Limes. Yeah.

Make

it better.

Now the other part I think you should do too when you're looking at your name is avoid odd and funny spelling. So you're not trying to be too clever with it. And it's one of these things. If you've got something that's spelt a little bit odd, and you constantly have to keep explaining it to the person. Go, oh, send them your business.

Oh, it's this. But I've gotta spell it for you. And you gotta spell it. You go, oh, yeah. This is our website, and then you tell them, and that you know that the initial thing they're thinking is not how it's spelled.

Long term, it can work if the people get the hang of it. I've got a great example. There were physios here in Cairns and they were called fix me physio, p h y x. Fix. Very clever because of physio, p h y, for physio.

But f I x may have been just as easy. Fix me physio. And I've seen other people where they'll go, such and such, yeah, for you, and it's a four and a u. Yeah. Would it have been better to have f o r y a u?

So I know sometimes fix and, like, for you that they may look clever. And long term, when everyone gets the hang of it, they go, oh, yes. I know it's fix, p h y x. So it's it's easy for them. But initially, there's a lot you needed a lot more hard work.

So just think about, do you really need to make it clever spelling or odd? Or can you just spell it the way it's supposed to be spelled and still get away with it?

You have to buy a lot more domain names if you're gonna get clever with it. If you you wanna have make sure people are landing on your website because, yeah, there's a lot of different ways, you know, fix for you know, fix me physio for you, like, or something like that. There's just so many different iterations that you'd have to buy. So if you don't wanna keep on telling people, oh, this is like the number or the letter or those things, that's just it's a bit of a buzzkill when you're trying to introduce people to your business initially.

Yeah. But and then I think of that the business name fetology. Best thing about that, it's spelled exactly how you'd say it. Mhmm. You can't spell it any other way.

But if they had if they were if they were Phytology, p h y t, feet, I'd be going I gotta be saying something else. So we go, that's awful. Get rid of it. But being spelled feet, f double e t, ology, makes sense. I know they listen to this podcast too.

So shout out to Mark and Ari. They probably listen. I'm not gonna tell them, but you maybe spoke to them spoke about them on this podcast. I'll let them find out. So if they never mention it to me, I'll know they'll miss this episode.

But business names hold value. And so once you've created your business name, I can't stress this enough, you need to protect it. It's something you really need to protect it because it it holds value. This is the part that most people a lot of people don't realize. People that know me realize this because I harp about it a lot.

Just because you own the business name doesn't mean it's protected doesn't mean it's protected nationally. So I've seen a lot of businesses where they have a podiatry name in Queensland, and that same podiatry name is in New South Wales, Victoria. So when people are actually googling their name, I've gone to Google, know, someone I know that's in Victoria, their business name, and next thing, it's gone to someone in Perth because they get exactly the same business name. And I just assumed that's probably what their domain name would have be would have been. But now their domain name is something, yeah, a little bit different.

Your real protection, if you have a business name and you think it's awesome and you really wanna protect it so nobody else can steal it from you and you are, like, totally protected, is you need to get a trademark for it. And you can easily go same thing. Look up where do I register trademarks in your country. I've done about 11 of them myself so far for for different things. It is really easy to do yourself.

The paperwork is very simple. If you're not quite sure what to do, then go and see a lawyer. It'll cost you more, but at least they'll tick all the all the boxes. And if you especially if you're thinking of having this what if you come up with a domain name, I come up with a a trademark. It might be not just for your podiatry clinic, but you might come up with a a product or something within your podiatry clinic.

Go and get the trademark and protect it. And like I said, if you don't wanna do it yourself, get get a lawyer involved, but it will will just cost a little bit more. But it's the same thing. We won't cost you an arm and a leg.

No. I think it's a great point. You know, I think it there's definitely, you know, the Internet and Chad GPT and those things can walk you through sometimes

Yeah.

What the steps of what a trademark are. But if you just wanna make sure it's rock solid, you know, how you have just like or just have it maybe you you fill everything out and you just wanna have a lawyer just take a look at it to kinda rubber stamp it. That might be a little bit easier than than just like having them fully do it for you, but I think I think you're right. If you have a great idea or you just don't have a trademark, it's better to pay a little bit more to make sure that you do it the right way.

Yeah. So if I was setting up a business tomorrow, my order would be trademark first. Come up with the idea of the business name, and then firstly, can you get the trademark for the business name? Because if you come up with the business name and you come up with the domain and you go, I'm so cool. And then someone down the track, they actually actually already owned the trademark.

They can take it off you because it's theirs. It's not yours. And ASIC, well, in Australia, the people that register your business names don't talk to the people that have the trademark. And I've seen that happen as well, which is why I always say to people, if you have the trademark for your business name, for your podiatry clinic, every couple of months, do a search for your business name and make sure that it is protected that nobody else is using it and they haven't taken it. And I used to do this every couple of months.

Go online and I just put in ProArch Podiatry, make sure no one was using it. And we had another trademark, which was Walkright Footwear. So one particular time, I looked up Walkerright footwear, and all of a sudden, there was Walkerright footwear, and there was a shoe company in Australia that was about to introduce this new shoe into the country called Walkerright footwear. And I went, no. You're not.

So I contacted him and said, oh, just to let you know, I own the trademark for Walker Right Footwear. So you can't bring that shoe in to Australia unless I give you permission. And they were, well, can we have permission? I went, no. I said, well, I'm I'm a reasonable man.

Make me an offer I can't refuse.

Make me an offer so you can buy the trademark off of us, I said, or you can just pay us a percentage of the shoe sales that go through the country. I said, I'm reasonable. And they were, oh, we refused to do that, so I refused to let you use the name. They couldn't they didn't bring the shoes in. Just didn't happen.

Wow. And I still check it every couple months. I don't even own the shoe shop anymore, but I still own the trademark. That's the power of a trademark. So remember, you got an idea of a business name.

Check the trademark first. Yes. You can get it. Get the trademark. Get the business name.

Get the domain name. Just get it all in order. And I tell you, just check this. Is something you need to do now if you haven't done it already. You just really need to be on this to cover your butt.

And anytime you think you're setting up a new clinic, go back and listen to this episode again just to make sure you're you're ticking all the boxes.

Now that makes sense. I think there's a lot of people out there that maybe are stuck with a name that they know isn't right for their clinic and they don't really what to do. So definitely by listening to what you said here today or if you have additional questions, you can obviously email Tyson to get his his, you know, 2¢ on the name of your your clinic, I'm happy to do as well. But, no, this is great information, Tyson.

Yeah. And then just one final thing just to finish up. If you know somebody has breached it, they used your trademark, your business name, whatever it is, you need to take action straight away. You can't let them set the business up and run and do it for years because if you knew that they were doing it for years and go, oh, okay. Oh, now they've become really big and and they're bigger than me, and then you gotta complain about it.

Sometimes, if they've used it for too long, there's not much you can do about it. So as soon as you notice it, this is why you need to be checking on a regular basis. You have the trademark, you see somebody in another state is using your name because they didn't check, you need to bring it to their attention. So that's all I gotta say in this subject, Jim. And, yeah, reach out to Jim and I if you need any help coming up with business names.

I love coming up with business names. They're fun.

Yeah. Making naming a business or I remember when I was, you know, naming podiatry growth and then obviously trying to like figure out obviously our the name of our podcast maybe isn't the most original, but at the same time very on point, but

Nobody else had it.

It's always exactly. So not we definitely love spending time coming up with those names. So, yeah, definitely reach out.

Okay, Jim. I will talk to you next week. Sounds great, Tyson. Okay. See you.

Look after yourself.

You too. Bye now. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.