Will a Name Stop You?
How Small Is Your Sticking Point?
It was a simple question on a business forum run by a large U.S. bank:
“I am planning an ecommerce website to retail paintball products. I’m looking for a [domain] name, but the one I came up with is already registered. So I’m stuck, which puts me back at the start. I want a memorable but short name, that also gets across the business I’m in. It should be an experiential name as well as a functional/descriptive one.”
Now, many weeks later, after dozens of helpful posts by other readers, that new business is still apparently on hold, waiting for THE name.
This kind of waiting and waltzing around a simple little decision point is very common. Heck, most of us have done it often enough. We just can’t clearly see the outcome of our decisions, so we hold back. And hold back. And hold back.
But the truth is, picking a name (or whatever the sticking point) is, that’s not what’s holding us in place. It’s indecision, pure and simple. If you’ve been waiting and waiting to take a step forward with your business, then it’s time to get moving. Now.
If the only thing holding you back is a good name (as in the example above), just grab a reasonably good name and get started. In fact, get several names. Names and their variations are everywhere. People in that discussion forum suggested more than a dozen possible names. At least half of them were excellent (and available), which amply demonstrates that there are still lots of good domain names. Choosing one requires only a bit of thought.
By the way, that particular conversation was started several months ago. If the original poster hasn’t been able to pick a name in that amount of time, then he’s probably just kidding himself about wanting to build a company. We see this kind of thing all the time. Somebody says they want to start a business, but they hang back on every tiny decision point, delaying, delaying … afraid something’ll be wrong with each choice they make.
What they’re really waiting for is a guarantee that it’ll be perfect before taking any action at all.
As I’ve mentioned before, several studies have identified a common characteristic of successful people; they make decisions quickly then change them slowly (if ever).
Those same studies, however, noted that UNsuccessful people are the opposite. They make decisions with agonizing slowness and change them at the slightest provocation. It appears that the successes make a decision based on the best available information, then through sheer force of determination, they MAKE that decision work, through flexibility, energy and grit.
Oh, and another point: the web marketers and SEO people who insist that you must pick a “keyword relevant” domain name for an online business usually don’t have a good explanation for the huge successes of Google, Yahoo, Amazon or eBay. Those names are essentially meaningless, worthless as keywords — at least at the start — and yet they’ve grown into industry leaders, recognized all around the world.
So if you’ve been worrying about getting a great name before you can start, I suggest you change your focus. Just grab a logical, well suited name (it doesn’t HAVE to be perfect), and then put your main attention on action, progress toward a goal. And if your particular sticking point is not a name, but something else, the same advice holds equally true.
Get into motion. Then stay in motion. Get advice, of course, but make certain it’s from people who have already done what you want to accomplish. Once you’ve got the advice, think it through to make sure you know what it means, then go act on it.
Put it into play. Begin right now. And don’t stop.
