Naming Your Business

Naming Your Business

Begin brainstorming business names, looking in dictionaries, books and magazines to generate ideas. Get friends and relatives to help if you like; the more minds, the merrier. Think of as many workable names as you can during this creative phase. Professional naming firms start out with a raw base of 800 to 1,000 names and work from there. You probably don't have time to think of that many, but try to come up with at least 10 names that you feel good about. By the time you examine them from all angles, you'll eliminate at least half.


After you've narrowed the field to, say, four or five business names that are memorable, expressive and can be read by the average kindergartner, you are ready to do a trademark search.

Must every name be trademarked? No. Many small businesses don't register their business names. As long as your state government gives you the go-ahead, you may operate under an unregistered business name for as long as you like--assuming, of course, that you aren't infringing on anyone else's trade name.

Ensuring that your name is going to be federally registerable is important. Also make sure that the individual states that you want to do business in will let you do business under that name. Enlisting the help of a trademark attorney or at least a trademark search firm before you decide on a name is highly advisable. The extra money you spend now could save you countless hassles and expenses further down the road. Try to contain your excitement about any one name until it has cleared the trademark search. It can be very demoralizing

If you're going to search on your own, the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries (PTDL) nationwide have directories of federally registered trademarks and an online database of registered marks and pending registration applications. You can also use product guides and other materials available in these libraries to search for conflicting marks that haven't yet been registered. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (PTO) website lists PTDLs in your state

Retrieved from How to Name Your Business at http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/startupbasics/namingyourbusiness/article21774.html
on November 3 2008
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How true it is!

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. by Robert Frost

Nurse Entrepreneur

Nurse Entrepreneur: Expanding Career AlternativesCarolyn Zagury, RN, MS, CPC


An exciting, yet somewhat frightening career alternative for nurses, is business ownership. Owning your own business is a risk, but there is no better prepared professional than the nurse to take on the business world. Nurses are often risk takers, which translates into the confidence to transfer our expertise into new potentials for personal, financial, and professional success.
Translating nursing education, expertise, and experience into a business can be simplified by applying the nursing process.
Assess your nursing experience to determine what type of business you might pursue. For example, here are some options for critical care nurses:
Teach critical care nursing to others (one program might prepare nurses to obtain their CCRN).
Start a high-tech home care agency.
Provide consulting services for enhancing quality and/or risk management policies and procedures to various healthcare settings.
Plan how you will establish the business. You must develop a good working plan for the start-up.
Consider —
WHO will be your customers,
WHO will be your competitors,
WHAT will the customers require from the business,
WHAT will it cost you to begin my business,
WHEN will services/products be required, and
WHY would the potential customers buy from me as compared to my competitors?

Answers to these questions will form the basis of your business plan and allow you to assess the viability of your business idea. The plan should be written and include your primary goal for beginning the business and your future goal(s) for its growth.
Monitor the business idea for viability. How many others have been successful or failed? What factors contributed to their success or failure? How long have they been in business? These questions can be answered through networking. Meeting, speaking and interacting with other nurses who have become entrepreneurs will be one of the most important avenues for predicting your potential for success.

My experience has shown that the large majority of nurse entrepreneurs are more than willing to help other nurses consider and explore business ownership opportunities. Perhaps the most valuable insight gained can be the avoidance of mistakes made by others. Each time you learn of one mistake, it is a valuable lesson for your own business venture.

Networking is a critical success factor! It is an ongoing process that allows us to expand not only our knowledge base, but also our contact base within our diverse profession.
Evaluate. There are two strategic considerations when evaluating:
First, evaluate all of the information you have gathered for developing your plan. Will my business be viable? Should I alter any of my original goal(s) to meet the assumptions of the information that I have gained? These are important questions to answer to minimize the potential for mistakes in start-up and maximize the potential for success.
Second, create an ongoing evaluation plan for your business. As in nursing, follow-up is important. Each of the steps above must be constantly repeated to evaluate your product/service within the changing health care environment. The impact of change within the environment in which you currently practice nursing may also affect the business you have started. The challenge is to evaluate and make changes as required in order to maintain the long-term viability of your business.

As you consider the possibility of owning your own business, remember that we, as nurses, use all of our knowledge, experience, and expertise to assist the patient through the complex healthcare system toward the goal of wellness. This same knowledge, experience and expertise is our most valuable assets in helping to establish a rewarding and profitable business.

Carolyn Zagury, RN, MS, CPC, is a nurse entrepreneur. She is president of Vista Publishing, Inc., Long Branch, NJ.
Retrieved from
http://nsweb.nursingspectrum.com/cfforms/GuestLecture/nurseentrepreneurs.cfm on October 31 2008

Information on becoming a nurse entrepreneur http://www.independentrncontractor.com