After 6 different businesses, and 11 years on my own, I still have a hard time advising people if they should use their personal name as their brand, or if they should create a company name. There are pros and cons to both, but I’m not going to hash through that problem. What I enjoy doing is creating a set of rules that anyone can apply and come up with a reasonably good decision for their situation.

On one side of the spectrum, I’ve heard to brand your name, because this is the only thing you can take with you. on the other side – creating a company name shows your committed to a product or service.

One of my companies, Logistics Modeling Center Inc., was named to relate to a very specific purpose – modeling logistics processes. I wish I can say that’s all we have done. What we’ve experienced is the same scenario that most small businesses that are bootstrapping their operations experience – we made money any way we could. Sure we started with the focus on Logistics, but then it strayed to Supply Chain, Computer Programming, Presentations, and even Marketing. Our name became a liability whenever we were going after non Logistics contracts. Today, we’ve decided to re-brand ourselves LMCI Consulting to circumvent this issue.

So why didn’t we name our company Carrillo and Uribes Engineering? (or Uribes and Carrillo Engineering if my partner is reading this)…. I had a good long discussion with a colleague about this, and we both came to the conclusion that it came down to insecurity. Here’s an example of what I might say to myself, “Nobody will take us seriously if they knew I was the Company Founder.” Seriously, that’s what I think (or thought at the time). Now that I look back, why would a person take LMCI any more seriously then Carrillo? Well, if I was insecure about myself, I might not value Carrillo as much as four obscure initials. So my first realization in figuring out how to name a company was that you have to get past the insecurities.

With that out of the way, I broke the problem down into workable pieces, and came up with these simple questions.

Does the product your selling depend on you? For Public Speakers for example, the content might be what the customer is buying, but they are only buying it because it’s being delivered by a specific person. If the product depends on the person delivering it – brand the company using your name. You can have multiple products, but name the company after the person. For example, “Jim Carrillo’s Practical Technology”, Jim Carrillo’s Social Networking 101″, etc. The company would simply be Jim Carrillo Presents.

If the product doesn’t depend on you, and can be sold without any ties to a person (like a consulting service, or physical product), then create a company name. A friend of mine has a company called Eat My Words. Her company names other companies. Alexandra may own the company, but she has a staff, and I can easily see her opening up multiple offices across the country. Alexandra named the company in a way that is independent of her as a person, and promotes a very specific service. So if the product doesn’t depend on you, choose a catchy name. I am an owner of LMCI consulting, and I only contribute to 10% of our overall income (it operates independent of me).

If you decide to choose a product/service focused name, and not your personal name, how do you figure out the best one to use? That’s a question for a naming company! Visit my friend’s company at http://www.eatmywords.com/