“What should I name my studio? Should it be my personal name or should I pick another name?”
People ask me questions like this at least twice per month
I’ve answered it dozens of times on group coaching calls inside The Profitable Producer Course, and this episode is my attempt at never having to answer this question again.
I have four requirements for naming any business. As long as you follow these rules, you’ll be good to go.
In this episode you’ll discover:
- How to choose a name for your business that actually works
- Why many people have a studio name that’s terrible for being found
- Why a studio name might be better than your own name
- How to make sure your studio name stands out
- Why you shouldn’t get hung up on picking a name
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Quotes
“Whatever you do, do not let this hold you up.” – Brian Hood
Episode Links
Websites
Filepass: File Sharing Built For The Audio Industry – https://filepass.com
456 Recordings – www.456recordings.com
Chris Graham – www.chrisgrahammastering.com
Bounce Butler – http://bouncebutler.com
Graham Cochrane – https://www.grahamcochrane.com/
Courses
The Profitable Producer Course – theprofitableproducer.com
The Home Studio Startup Course – www.thesixfigurehomestudio.com/10k
Facebook Community
6FHS Facebook Community – http://thesixfigurehomestudio.com/community
@chris_graham – https://www.instagram.com/chris_graham/
@brianh00d – https://www.instagram.com/brianh00d/
YouTube Channels
The Six Figure Home Studio – https://www.youtube.com/thesixfigurehomestudio
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Brian: This is the six figure home studio podcast episode 139.
[00:00:03] Announcer: You're listening to the six figure home studio podcast. The number one resource for running a profitable home recording studio. Now your hosts, Brian and Chris brands.
[00:00:19] Brian: Welcome back to another episode of the six figure home studio podcast. I am your host Brian Hood. I'm here with a special. Solo episode today, it's special for a couple of reasons.
[00:00:30] One is it's video. I'm actually recording a video for this, and I'm going to put this on YouTube and I'm taking inspiration from Graham Cochrane because Graham likes to do podcast episodes, both that are live and on YouTube. So I'm not actually live live. But I'm recording this completely unedited one take, hopefully.
[00:00:47] And that's the second special part is this is gonna be an unedited episode. If I can help it, who knows I'm not a special snowflake, like Graham Cochrane able to go through an entire episode with just like four bullet points for 45 minutes straight. So this is going to be a relatively short episode. I'm going to try to keep it short into the point that being said, I'm going to go off on a quick tangent real quick.
[00:01:06] And just mentioned that if you've been following the podcast, Last week I tested positive for COVID 19, which is always fun. You always enjoy that when your body betrays you like that. So the good news is I, I never really had any major symptoms. I never had a fever. Any of the symptoms I did experience were kind of based out over like a week long period.
[00:01:26] I was. Tired. So like, by two o'clock in the afternoon I was done with work and I'm like, I'm just going to nap. I had a sore throat on one Saturday. I had a couple headaches. I had a kind of a tight chest. Yeah. Well, I was really fortunate to not have like a horse case of lung issues, hard time breathing, any of that sort of stuff.
[00:01:44] Never really had a fever. So I'm back to a hundred percent. Now I'd say the worst part of that was the fact that I. Could not taste anything. And for anyone that follows me on social media, specifically Instagram, you know, that I love two things more than anything. As far as tasting stuff, I love to roast my own coffee and I really enjoy coffee cheers to that.
[00:02:02] And I really enjoy baking homemade sourdough bread. And I could not do join either of those two things during the covert experience. So yeah, for that, I am sad, but I'm back to normal now, now, and I can taste things again and I'm really excited. So let's go that all the way. Just know that I am good to go now.
[00:02:17] Fully recovered. And just a couple of days, the health department here in Nashville will have cleared me to go see people again. I'm still going to hold off probably for another week. Just stay at home, just to be safe. I don't want to go straight out into the public and be around people. I still be social distancing and stuff like, Oh yeah.
[00:02:32] Anyways. So let's get into the topic of today's episode, because if you couldn't tell by the title we were talking about naming your studio or. Really any business for that matter. This is not just for studios. And this is a common topic that I come across all of the time in our community for the profitable producer course students, we have group coaching calls, usually weekly, sometimes every other week or a couple of times a month.
[00:02:54] And this is a common question that comes up at least once a month, if not every other coaching call or sometimes every coaching call. And they asked the question about their studio name, should they go by their personal name? So let's just say Brian Hood productions or Brian Hood mixing.com. Or should they go with a studio name?
[00:03:11] Kinda like how I do for four or five, six recordings.com. So this episode, I'm going to try to address the four requirements that I have for any studio name or really any business name. And these are going to be relatively universal. And again, it's your business at the end of the day before we begin this, I've seen businesses that work, despite not following one of these four are really all of these four things and they still are fine.
[00:03:31] So at the end of the day, this is like one of the smallest. Most insignificant things, but it's a common question that I just want to go ahead and get it out of the way and talk about it on this podcast slash YouTube video, and just try to address this thing. So with that being said, let's get into this right now.
[00:03:46] There are four requirements and the first and foremost, this is the one that I see people mess up is they need to have a business name that is easily understood. So, if I say my business name to you, four or five, six recordings, or the six figure home studio, it's easily understood. Now with six figure I'm studio, there's actually some issues with that.
[00:04:03] If I say it to you, I then have to spell it out. The number six, or do you spell out the six? Or what if I forget the, the, in the six figure home studio and just go to six, figure home studio.com. We actually have six figure on studio is the name of our podcast. We don't have the word V in it. That's for ranking reasons.
[00:04:19] And the fact that the number six shows up higher in podcast listings. So we're kind of choosing the system a little bit, but. It needs to be a name that's easily understood without having to spell it out. And this really differs. It depends on what the native language of your ideal customers. The example I see is I see people in the Netherlands or in certain parts of Europe.
[00:04:38] I have names that if you say them, I couldn't tell you how to spell that. As a native English speaking person here in the U S so if you are in a country that your native language isn't English, or you have a name that you've chosen, that is not easily understood from an English perspective and your customers are English speaking people, then you need to make sure your studio name.
[00:04:57] Is something different from maybe your personal name or whatever name you've came up with, if it is not easily understood, this is a very important thing, because if you fail to do this, I'll give you example. My podcast cohost, Chris Graham. Yeah. mastering.com. He goes by his personal name, Chris Graham.
[00:05:11] And he puts the word mastering at the end of it. The problem with that is. When he tells people the name of his studio, he has to spell out every single time. Chris Graham, mastering.com. There's two M's there. And that trips people up. I don't know if he has the alternative URL with just one M if he's smart about it, he has that URL forwarding to the other URLs.
[00:05:29] That's all I had the six figure home studio, whether you type out the word V or you type out the number six, or you type out the spelling of the word six. It doesn't matter. It's all going to go to the six figure home studio.com the correct URL, but that's the first requirement easily understood. And it depends on who your ideal customer is, what their native languages.
[00:05:45] And do you have a tricky name? Like your personal name is a tricky name. That's hard to understand or hard to. You have to spell it every time. It might be good to pick an actual business name that you have chosen. And that gets us to our second question, acquirement of your studio name, and that is.
[00:06:00] Memorable your business name has to be memorable. And this is great for people who have a very memorable God given name, their parents named them something that's actually memorable. It's not so fortunate for those of you who have very generic names or very hard to remember names. And again, you don't get to choose your name.
[00:06:18] And if you don't get to choose your name, like your personal name, it may not be the best idea to go with your personal name for your studio. So again, I seen people who make really good businesses and they match all the requirements using their actual personal names. Like if I did Brian Hood mixing, that's easily understood and it's relatively memorable.
[00:06:36] Well, it's not the best name in the world, but it's not too bad. The negative is there's the letter. Y in some Brian spellings, I spell it with an eye. So that's another, actually it doesn't match the first requirement anyway. So. If you go with a business name, you get to pick your business name. You don't have to go with your given name.
[00:06:50] You get to pick a name that is so in this, in the case where you don't have, have a good, like actual name, it is better to pick an actual name for your business and try to make it memorable, easily. Understood. So usually, and I'll just say this. Blanket advice. Most of the time, it's better to go with a name that you have picked for your business than it is to go by your own personal name.
[00:07:11] So kind of keep that in mind as I go through the rest of this video slash podcast, episode, number three, the name needs to be Googleable. So what I mean by Googleable. So if I type. Your studio name into Google or your business name into Google. You need to be the first result or one of the first results on that first page.
[00:07:27] If not, that is a terrible name for your business. And the reason is when you tell someone the name of your studio or your name and credits, or your studio name somewhere in a YouTube description, because you mix that song for someone. They're going to Google that name because most of the time, there's no link directly to your website.
[00:07:41] So they're going to Google, whatever studio name, or whatever name you have there for yourself. And if you're not on the first page of Google, if you're not one of the first results you've lost the customer, they have no way of finding you. So you need to have a name that is Google. And honestly, another thing too, I didn't really add this outline is.
[00:07:55] It needs to be found on social media because people are going to search on social media as well. So Google bull or searchable just searchable is the term in general. So the third one is searchable and I had a student in the profitable producer course. This is an overlay identifying him as a business owner, but history name was like RG three productions.
[00:08:11] The problem with that is if you type in . Into Google. The first thing that comes up is the quarterback RG three, who I don't know who he's playing for at this point. It doesn't really matter, but he was a huge deal years ago when he was the quarterback for the Washington Redskins. There we go. That's how he was quarterback for us.
[00:08:28] So anyways, if you were competing with a big name, someone in sports or some other profession, that's going to die. Nate, the search engine results. You do not want to be. That's what that says, choose a name that is Googleable or just searchable on the internet. And that leads us to our fourth and final requirement for a business name or a good business.
[00:08:43] Is that the.com URL is available. Now, this isn't universal, I've seen studios and businesses that are successful without the.com, but I will say it is better to have the.com than to not have a.com. So, yeah, and then there's a couple of reasons for this. If someone was looking up four or five, six recordings, and then when I go to my URL, They may type in.com by default.
[00:09:05] And if someone else owns four or five, six recordings.com, which is my studio's URL, if someone else owns that, they're getting the search traffic, they may get the customer because they went to the wrong website. So I want to make sure you can get the.com. And at the very least, if you can't get the.com and you have to get an alternative.
[00:09:20] TLD top level domain, which I'll explain that in a second. If you have to get another one, make sure that you're not sending people to a direct competitor that is no bueno pick a new business name, if that's the case and move on. But some alternative TLDs are top level domains are things like you've seen this, the dinosaur that is the.net TLD do not use that.
[00:09:38] please.org. That's not for studio businesses. Don't go down that whole year, but there are a few that are decent and it depends on what niche you're in as well. There's a.studio. TLD, you can use that. It's a little confusing. If you're like, I'll just go to a four or five, six.studio. Most people don't really know that that's the TLD.
[00:09:55] They are used to putting.com. So it can be a little weird putting a.studio cause they'll put four or five, six.studio.com or something instead of that. So just understand that some people don't understand how the internet works and they don't understand that there are other TLDs besides.com.net dot word on the internet.
[00:10:11] Some other ones that actually work really well are.io. That's input output. That can go well with studios, it's easy to say. Okay. So four or five, six recordings.io. That's the URL. Pretty easy. Easy to say. You can use if you have a niche, let's just say for gaming. For example, we have somebody in our profitable producer course community who does sound designed for video games.
[00:10:30] That's his studio niche. Really cool niche, awesome niche. He could have gone with a GG URL. So. My studio name.gg. That's our URL because in the gaming world, it's very common to have dot Gigi URLs because in gaming, Gigi just means good game. So if you have a little thing in a niche like that, where a niche has chosen a specific TLD is kind of like their thing.
[00:10:54] So the gaming world, it's not Gigi in the startup world. It's dot IO. I think the studio world could probably get away with a.io because the input output thing kinda has a studio connotation to it, but make sure that the TLD you choose. If it's not.com, it at least has some sort of connection right. With your industry.
[00:11:11] And it's great if you industry has grasped onto one fully like the Gigi URL, just for an example. So those are my top four requirements that I see for any business. If you want to have a good name for your studio, if you are going with your actual name, make sure it matches these four requirements or as many of these as possible.
[00:11:25] And if you're going to choose a name, absolutely make sure it matches these four requirements. Part of the reason I'm doing this episode right now is because I'm sick of answering this on our group coaching calls. So from now on, I can literally just send people to this video or this podcast episode to answer this question, because it's such a common thing, but at the end of the day, do not get hung up on this.
[00:11:42] That's the thing drive home to you do not get hung up on this because I seen people who have a terrible studio name, have a terrible business name. It's like.co.uk or.net, or they have a dash in it or something dumb like that. If that's the case, if they still have a successful business, it's just, this doesn't really matter.
[00:12:00] So I don't want you to get hung up on this being the thing that's holding you back from taking steps forward in your business. So whatever you do do not let this hold you up. Pick a name, try to run it through these requirements, if you can make adjustments great. And if not at the end of the day, this really doesn't matter.
[00:12:17] I hate to say it. You just sat through about a 15 minute video, 14 minute video. For something that ultimately doesn't matter, but you have some guidelines here. You know, it's not something that really ultimately matters. And I now want you to go move on with this knowledge, knowing that this is no longer an important part of the conversation.
[00:12:34] And I can never have to answer this question again. I'm excited.
[00:12:40] So that is it for this episode. Hopefully you got something that is valuable here for you. If you have any questions whatsoever, be sure to join our Facebook group. They have a free Facebook community. You can just get to it by going to the six figure home studio.com/community. The URL is in the description on YouTube.
[00:12:58] If you're, since we don't have YouTube, if you're on our podcast app, it'll be in the show notes. So you can see the link in there. And I want to see people. In there engaging having conversations. We have over 6,000 members, we have dozens of posts, everyday comments. There's a lot of engagement going on. So if you want to surround yourself with people who are like you, who are trying to build a business who are maybe trying to get input the studio name that they've chosen.
[00:13:19] If you've come up with a studio name posted there or posted the YouTube comments and. People will give you input on it. I would say probably the YouTube comments are worst because people are going to be toxic. Cause YouTube comments are garbage. So I'm talking to all you YouTube Watchers right now.
[00:13:31] Y'all are gonna leave garbage comments after this. That's fine. Leave a garbage comment down there. I'll probably delete it if I can. Or if not, I'll just respond to it and tell you you're garbage. No, don't do that. But if you're on our Facebook community, it's actually really welcoming. People are really nice.
[00:13:43] And if they're not, we ban them from our community. So you can actually post things for feedback, without people jumping all over you like our trash, YouTube comments that we probably haven't going on down underneath this video right now, assuming anyone watches this, but yeah. Join a Facebook community.
[00:13:56] That is all I have for you today. Thanks for listening and happy hustling.