Register a Business When There is Demand

There can be no better time to complete a business registration than when a demand exists for a particular product or service. Choose to sell something that everybody wants and your success will be assured. Try selling snow to Eskimos during the height of winter, and you could be heading for financial ruin. You can only sell what the people want.
Always research your market carefully before completing your business registration. Who is going to buy your products or services? Where are these people located? How are you going to reach them? How often will they buy? How much are they likely to spend? All of these things have to be carefully considered to see if a genuine demand is present.

Register a Business When the Economy Dictates

Despite the fact that many experts advise against registering a new business during times of economic crisis, there will always be gaps in the market as long as you have the right products or services to sell. When things are good and money is available in abundance, it’s probably a better time to register a business that sells top-of-the-range cars or other luxury items. People tend to be more liberal with their money when things are good, and the shrewd businessman can cash in during these periods.

Even so, there are still many chances to register a business and make great money during times of recession. With Australians fighting to hold on to every penny, is it any wonder that we are seeing a significant rise in the number of debt consolidation companies and financial advisors at the moment? These people have found a niche market even during the hardest of times, and registering a business at the crucial moment has been integral to their success.

Registering a Business Correctly

Identifying the best time to start making a fortune is one thing, but registering a business correctly is something altogether different. There are many important implications that are tied in with a business registration and these should be considered carefully before the process begins. Are you going to operate as a sole trader or a partnership, or do you have enough investors to consider forming as a company?

How are you going to register your new business? Who’s going to take care of the forms, the database checks and daily monitoring to see if everything is processing correctly? Often, it can be much easier to pass on the responsibility to a business registration service. From just $199, you can register a business quickly and easily with some applications being processed within a single day.

To create a truly marketable influence, your business name and your branding efforts will need to tap into the hearts and minds of your customers completely. If your business has genuine potential that you wish exploit, your marketing approach has to match the desirability of the products and services that you provide.

Find a great business name and build your brand around it, and your future successes will be unlimited. Make the wrong choice and you might still be successful, but your overall potential will be limited. Remember that there are no definite rules that have to be applied when you choose and register a business name. However, you can certainly improve your chances of reaching out to your customer base with our exclusive range of hot tips:

Touch Base with Marketing Professionals

If marketing isn’t your forte, it’s a good idea to talk to somebody who will be able to offer considered opinions on your business name and the way you choose to market your brand. There are many marketing companies that will provide expert help for a one-off fee and their experience in helping with company and product launches could see you making a return on your investments within weeks.

Build on Your Strengths

Take time out to discuss the key elements of what your business represents and learn to recognise the strengths in the services or products you provide. Your strengths are highly marketable commodities that can become a focus for your business name and branding efforts. When we think of adhesives, Loctite is one of the first names that always spring to mind. The business name epitomises the nature of the product itself and reinforces an image of permanent repair. This is fantastic business name marketing that has made Loctite a global brand leader over many years.

Consider Relevance

Unless you’re lucky enough to have a multi-million dollar budget to spend on marketing gurus, why not think about your own favourite brands and determine what it is about them that makes them so appealing? In particular, look at their names. You might find something in the business name that triggers your ‘buying mood’ and if you can replicate that feeling in your own products and services, success will be yours.

Don’t Get Smart!

Forget about finding some deeply meaningful business name that marks you out as being smarter than you actually are! Building your brand isn’t about being clever. It’s about tapping in to the feelings and emotions of others. You are not in business to satisfy yourself and although there’s nothing wrong with using a business name that is catchy, always remember that nobody likes a Smart Alec.

Keep Things Simple

Remember that recommendations are excellent for the growth of your business, but word-of-mouth will be of no use to you if your business name is unpronounceable. Keep it simple and straightforward and your name will be on the lips of satisfied customers for years to come. Don’t be afraid to use ‘new words’ for a business name. Most people have no idea what a ‘Google’ is, but the brand seems to be remarkably popular anyway!

Registering as a company is somewhat different to sole trader and partnership registrations. A company is best described as a separate legal entity with the capability of holding assets in its own name and operating under its own right. While shareholders actually own the company through investment, it will actually be run by directors. With most new company registrations, the shareholders and the directors often happen to be the same people.

To register as a company, a business entity needs to make an application through the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). To acquire an Australian Business Number and to meet company TFN, PAYG and GST obligations, a company must also be registered with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) as well.

The complexities of registering a company in Australia can often make the process incredibly time consuming but it is entirely possible to form a company through a Business Registration Service that specialises in sole trader, partnership and company formations.

As well as taking the unwelcome hassle out of a registration, there are a number of direct benefits to be enjoyed:

- Applications are reviewed before processing to ensure no mistakes are present. This helps to avoid any unnecessary delays in your company registration
- An official certificate of registration is dispatched once the company has been formed
- A unique Australian Company Number (ACN) and Australian Business Number (ABN) are organised on your behalf
- Company officer consent forms are completed
- Share applications are made and registered, and share certificates are organised and distributed for the benefit of your shareholders
- Company Tax File Number (TFN), Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Pay As You Go (PAYG) withholding tax obligations are registered with the Australian Tax Office for your convenience

Using Business Registration, company registrations begin at just $799 and include all ASIC and GST costs. Forms take just three minutes to complete and are provided in an easy to understand format for your total convenience. Delivery is super-fast and you can often register a company within a single day. If any issues arise with the ASIC or ATO, these will be taken care of on your behalf.

SMS text alerts are provided instantly to keep you informed of crucial updates to services and genuine value for money can be assured with a fixed price that is complemented by a friendly and efficient service.

A Business Registration Website that handles everything for you offers a one-stop shop that leaves you free to take care of the things that really matter. All documentation and related information will be forwarded by email as soon as your company registration is complete.

Sole traders who prefer to use their own identity for business purposes can usually forego the formalities of having to register an Australian business name but any other title has to be recorded. Differentiating between a business name that identifies the supplier of products and services within a smaller marketplace, and one that reaches out to a wider audience, can have varying influences on the registration process.

The Legalities of Business Registration

Under the Business Name Act, compiled in 2002, it is a compulsory requirement to register any other business name that doesn’t relate directly to the proprietor. Usually, sole traders will use personal identification in business (D.W. Jones, for example, can run his office furniture business under his own name) to make themselves more identifiable with the local community. The act states that a business name registration is not required under these circumstances.

When a business name moves away from personal identification and becomes a commercial or branded entity, registration is mandatory. If D.W. Jones chooses to operate under the identity of ‘New South Wales Deluxe Office Furniture’, a full business name registration must take place. Once completed, information is kept on the Register of Business Names and will include details about the proprietor, the date of registration and when that period of registration will end.

The Implications of Ownership

Registering an Australian business name does not give the proprietor exclusive ownership of a generic title and this is a grey area where many businesses encounter difficulties. If Mr Jones goes on to open his local branch of ‘New South Wales Deluxe Office Furniture’ and a competitor comes in with a similar title, it is entirely possible that ‘New South Wales Office Furniture and Fixings’ could be trading to the same marketplace.

The complexities of this type of situation raise many questions and there is always a risk that others can infringe on your intellectual property. Although a business name registration will deter this potential scenario, there are no absolute guarantees that it will not happen.

Securing a Business Name Exclusively

The only way to ensure exclusive use of a business name is complete a business registration and to acquire the relevant trademark for it as well. By purchasing a trademark, the business proprietor is able to protect their intellectual property but unfortunately, the costs associated with trademarks are notoriously expensive.

Business owners, however, should not be deterred. It is still possible to ensure exclusivity if your business name is truly unique. If Mr Jones uses a catchy title such as ‘The D.W. Jones Office Furniture Supermarket’, it’s very unlikely that a competitor will get away with opening a store called ‘The D.W. Jones Office Furniture Superstore’. This would be a clear infringement on the original business name registration and if any subsequent legal action ensued, our fictional business owner would probably be on very strong ground.

Sometime in 2012 – expected around July – the business name registration world will turn upside down when business name registration moves from a State-based system to a Federal system.

Most small business will be lucky enough to have a budget that extends beyond a few strategically placed advertisements in a local newspaper but many forget that there is one free advertising feature that many companies fail to consider and that’s the business name itself.

A unique and catchy business name will instantly spring to mind whenever a prospect is considering the products and services that you provide. In most cases, you won’t need to be ridiculously clever and there’s no need to hire the services of marketing gurus who will charge an arm and a leg to come up with a name that taps into the psyche of your market.

By following a few handy tips, you can come up with a business name that will never be forgotten:

Business Name Relevance

Remember that there is no strict formula for coming up with a catchy business name and for certain products and services, you will need to adopt a more cautious approach so that your potential customers don’t lose track of what you are actually selling. ‘Bright Spark’ may well be an inspirational name for somebody providing electrical services, but it could also be applied to many other fields of work (lighting, pyrotechnics and spark plugs, for example). Keep it relevant and don’t expect your customers to think on the same wavelength as you might.

Brainstorming

Don’t assume that you are the only person who knows how your business, and therefore your clients, works. Organise a brainstorming session with other employees or potential customers to see what words and phrases spring to mind whenever somebody thinks of the products and services that you provide. Somebody might just have a hidden gem that will propel your sales overnight.

Be Unique

Your business name can be dynamically simple yet still hold the attention of your prospects. In many cases, an unrelated name will actually work if it is audibly appealing to your prospects. An ‘Apple’ has nothing to do with computers. The ‘Amazon’ has nothing to do with books. Who knows what an ‘Adobe’ is anyway? These are all unrelated terms, but are equally successful in their own right as highly recognisable business names.

Gentle Nudges

You can still pull off a unique sounding business name by adding a relevant word to an unrelated one. Take the example of Pizza Hut. The name tells us exactly what they specialise in, but the ‘hut’ part is unrelated. It’s unlikely that there are many kings who eat burgers, but Burger King is still a highly recognisable brand and business name.

Acronyms

Acronyms are incredibly easy to remember, especially if the acronym creates a word as well. Fiat, the Italian car manufacturer, is actually an acronym of Fabbrica Italiano Automobili Torino. Anybody with anything less than a languages degree will struggle with the full name, but the Fiat acronym itself has stood the test of time over many years.

Apple

The late, great Steve Jobs coined the ‘Apple’ name after growing frustrated at the lack of alternative ideas from his colleagues. Jobs subsequently threatened to name the company after one of his favourite fruits if a solution wasn’t found quickly. Nobody stepped forward, and Apple was registered as a business name soon afterwards.

Google

Does anybody actually know what a ‘Google’ is? In mathematics, a ‘Googol’ is a number that represents the number one followed by 100 zeros. A Googol related to the amount of information (in bytes) that the world’s future favourite search engine could process around the time and the company founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, presented their ideas (and their proposed business name) to a series of investors. When one of the cheques came back, the word ‘Googol’ was misspelled and issued under the name of ‘Google’.

Yahoo

The bookworms amongst you may well have already absorbed the creativity of Jonathan Swift and his timeless Lilliputian classic, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. In the literary masterpiece, Swift refers to a race of individuals knows as the ‘Yahoos’ and describes them as ugly, sub-human individuals lacking in social grace. In deference to their self-imposed computer geek status, David Filo and Jerry Yang adopted the ‘Yahoo’ term as a business name.

Hewlett-Packard

Somewhat sadly, there are no creative impulses behind the name of the popular computer peripherals company and the business name relates to the names of the founder members, Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Although the pair wanted to name the company after themselves, there was much deliberation over which name should be listed first. ‘Packard-Hewlett’ was avoided by the simple toss of a coin.

Lotus

Remember Lotus? Prior to the IBM buyout in 1995, Lotus was one of the biggest names in computing and the company was founded by Mitchell David Kapor. Kapor was an exponent and teacher in the Buddhist art of transcendental meditation. The Lotus Development Corporation was named after one of the most popular techniques in the discipline of yoga.

CISCO

Are you one of the many millions of electronics consumers who believe that CISCO is an acronym for some fancy, hi-tech phrase? In reality, the CISCO business name is little more than an abbreviation of the company birthplace (San Francisco) and this is one of the key reasons behind their original employees using lower-case letters on company documentation.

Corel

Noted for their popular creative software releases such as Corel Draw and Paint Shop Pro, Corel are another company that derived their business name from a founding member. The gentleman in question is Michael Cowpland and Corel actually represents the name of the ‘COwpland REsearch Laboratory’.

I’m in the process of starting a business and don’t know if registering a business name would be a good choice. Why should I do it?

A business name registration can be an imperative part of your business start-up aspirations and there are several different things to consider. If you work alone under your own name on a small scale, there is very little reason to register a business name as you are trading in your own name. However, you should still liaise with the Australian Tax Office to arrange your unique Australian Business Number (ABN).

Why would I need an ABN?

Your ABN is going to be instrumental to running a business effectively. For starters, you will find it much easier to open a designated business bank account and this will help you to maintain financial control over your operations more easily. You’ll also be able to avoid expensive PAYG withholding taxes that are currently set at 46.5%.

Your ABN will also give you credibility amongst other businesses. Having your own ABN is a little like having a hallmark next to your business name. It shows you are serious about your own business and in turn, other companies and organisations will treat your business seriously as well.

I’m thinking of using a name other than my own to trade. Will I need to complete a business name registration?

Yes. If you have put time into establishing a business name that is marketable, it makes sense that you will want to protect it. In effect, your preferred business name is your own intellectual property and you won’t want to run the risk of somebody else using it. When you register a business name, consider completing individual registrations for each state and territory that you intend to trade in. This will deter others from infringing on your business name.

Can anybody else use my business name once it is registered?

Registering a business name does not give you exclusive rights to usage but in most cases, your competitors are highly unlikely to infringe on your title once a registration has been completed. A trademark registration is the only guaranteed way of protecting your intellectual property but a business registration will nearly always afford the protection you require.

I’m working with a partner. How do I register a business name in this instance?

You can register as a partnership for roughly the same price as a sole trader registration. In some cases, you may need to form a company as part of your business registration so that a separate legal entity can be created that holds its own assets. This will only be required if there are three or more partners running a business as directors for the benefit of investors, who subsequently become the shareholders.

This sounds so complicated. How can I make things easier?

Use a Business Registration Website. For only $199, you can register a business as a sole trader or as a partnership. Companies can be formed from only $799 and the application process only takes a few minutes to complete. unfortunately, until mid-2012 if you just want to register a business name you will need to find the relevant State or Territory government authority.

Making a Business Name Memorable

Although it might seem like an obvious choice to go with a generic business name that provides an accurate portrayal of the products and services you provide, there is every chance that your more creative competitors will seize the imaginations of your prospects if you aren’t the first name on their lips. You don’t have to be outlandishly witty to create a memorable business name. There’s nothing particularly imaginative about Apple, for example, but the brand is one of the biggest is the world. Once you have found the perfect choice, don’t forget to register your business name as well.

Let Your Business Name Grow

Starting out as The Victoria Kitchen Fitting Company will make you marketable in Melbourne but what happens when your business identifies a potential market north of the border and wants to move into New South Wales? Will the locals in Sydney really want to pass over work to tradesmen from another area? Your business name has to be able to grow in line with your business itself and if you have long-term plans to expand, it’s probably a good idea to avoid restricting that growth with a business name that ties you down to a single geographical location.

Harnessing the Internet

When you register a business in Australia, you will be assigned a unique 11-digit Australian Business Number. As well as carrying a range of key benefits, your ABN will allow you to purchase .au domain names. If you are considering using the Internet as a form of trading or attracting customers, you’ll need to consider a business name where the relevant domain is still available. Always check for the availability of your preferred name in advance to avoid the risk of having to make inconvenient business name changes later on.

Building a Brand

There are certain words and phrases that evoke emotions in your prospects and if you can tap into these emotions, the chances are that you are already onto a winner. However, there are other words that can devalue your products and services just as easily. Try to avoid the use of words such as ‘cheap’ or ‘bargain’. Nobody values products that are cheap including your potential customers.

Always look to words that give your business name something extra. Words like ‘premier’, ‘premium’, or ‘quality’ are much more appealing. If you had a choice of purchasing a vehicle from either ‘Ted’s Quality Cars’ or Bill’s Cheap Autos’, where would you be inclined to take your money?