306: Naming with Brad Flowers

The How of Business - How to start, run, grow and exit a small business.

Henry Lopez, Levante Business Group

Entrepreneurship, Business

4.7 • 522 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A framework for creating a business or product name using a proven five-step process that removes guesswork and drives better branding decisions, with Brad Flowers.

Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/r306-5-steps-to-naming/

Naming your business (or product or service) doesn't have to be a frustrating or purely creative guessing game. It can be a structured, repeatable process that leads to better outcomes.

In this episode, Henry Lopez chats with Brad Flowers, co-founder of Bullhorn and author of The Naming Book, about how small business owners can move from a blank page to a strong, effective business or product name.

Brad shares the five-step framework he developed after realizing that most naming advice either tells stories or opinions but doesn't actually help you generate names. Henry and Brad explore how to establish clear criteria, generate a large volume of ideas, and evaluate those ideas without getting stuck.

A key takeaway is that creativity isn't about waiting for inspiration, it's about having a process.

As Brad explains, "the only way to continuously produce high results in a creative field is to have a rigorous process."

They also discuss common mistakes, including overthinking too early, relying too much on outside opinions, and limiting ideas before fully exploring them. If you're launching a business, product, or service - or even considering a rebrand - this episode will give you a practical path forward.

The 5 steps to creating brand and product names that sell:

1) Establishing Criteria
2) Brainstorming
3) Compiling Names
4) Expanding Your Knowledge
5) Deciding on the Final Name

This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the How of Business with Henry Lopez and David Begin, the podcast that helps you start,
0:10.6	run, and grow your small business. And now here are your hosts. Welcome to this episode of the
0:15.8	How of Business. My guest today is Brad Flowers. Brad, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk.
0:22.7	Yeah, so am I. This is a topic that we've never done a deep dive on specifically.
0:27.3	So I'm very excited about it. And as I was doing the research, really looking forward to having
0:32.5	this conversation with you. We're going to chat about Brad's entrepreneurial journey,
0:36.2	how he got to where he is today.
0:39.0	And then his extensive insights on naming, how do you name a business, a product, a service?
0:45.5	And he's written a whole book on this. So he's got a lot of expertise and has given this a lot of
0:50.1	thought. And he's going to share a lot of that today on this episode. To receive more information
0:56.0	about the Hawa business, including links to the show notes page for this episode, just text
1:01.1	the word biz, B-I-Z, to 31996, and I'll reply with the link. So Brad Flowers is the co-founder
1:08.9	of Bullhorn. And Bullhorn is an agency that builds, as they describe it, confident brands with language and design.
1:16.6	And I'm going to ask him what that means exactly with the language and design.
1:20.7	Brad leads specifically naming and language generation at Bullhorn.
1:25.5	He has a degree in English literature, which as he says,
1:28.8	he finds was more useful than he expected, which is a good thing. Brad's also an avid bicyclist.
1:35.3	I'm a bicyclist as well, but nowhere near your level, Brad. And he does so for commuting as well
1:41.1	as for competition. I don't compete. I'm not good enough. He's, uh, also, uh, co-founded and currently serves on the board of the non-profit community bike shop called the broke spoke. As I said, Brad is the author. He's the author of the book. This book just came out this month, I believe, right, Brad? Um, yeah, March 17th. March 17th, that's right. So when this air is definitely the book is available. It's available on Amazon and other places. It's called The Naming Book, the Naming Book. And we're going to talk about some of the content, some highlights from that book. Brad lives in Lexington, Kentucky with his wife and his two kids. So once again, Brad Flowers, welcome to the show.
2:20.2	Thank you.
2:21.8	So English literature at UNT, which is right up the road from where I live.
2:27.0	So how did you end up at UNT firstly?
	...

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