•Is name easy to remember and pronounce? •Is it easy to spell? •Will it appeal to your target audience? •Does it tell you something about what your business does? •What are first thoughts that you want your readers to have as soon as they hear your business name? •Is it somewhat unique? •Is it already in use? •Is there something in it, which would want to make listener know more about concept behind name? •Is it a geographical name? (This can affect expansion in future) •Is it broad enough, so that if you decide to expand your product line in future, name still represents them?

By now you should have eliminated many names, and shortened your list to 10 or less names, if you haven’t go down list again and weed out some more names.

Field Testing your Business Name

Now that you have top ten names, which in your opinion best represent your business. It’s time to find out what others think of them.

•Take list to all your family members, relatives and friends and ask them to choose their top three •Try to reach your target market in order to see which ones they like. If you are planning to open a gymnasium ask people who regularly visit gym. •A great way to reach your target audience in masses and without any expenses can be online message boards and forums. These days there are online forums on virtually every subject.

Picking up winner

Now you have factored in everyone’s opinion and its decision time. The course of action from here on depends on sort of results you had out of your list of ten. If you see a clear winner or people liking two particular words, you can safely pick one. If you see three or four words getting somewhat similar preference, make a list of top three, and field test them again, using above steps. This should hopefully give you a winner, is you still find somewhat similar preference, you can do two things, start from scratch (I wouldn’t) or go with your heart and pick one you think is best.

Remember: Name is first step of Game, and while choosing one you don’t want to be lame.

The new leaders, on other hand, ask a lot of questions. They consult with people rather than command them. They have a passion not only for achieving results but for promoting well-being of people who must achieve results. They listen well. They have courage to allow others to fail. They challenge people to be better than they think they can be. They are continually enhancing leadership skills of others. And they understand that rewards and punishments are lowest forms of leadership.

(2) By all means, don't hire autocrats. Select CEOs who are skilled in new leadership. This means taking great pains in interview process to have candidates talk about their leadership philosophy, ways they have manifested that philosophy, and ways they intend to manifest it as a CEO.

(3) Continually monitor and evaluate CEOs on how they're carrying out new leadership activities. Boards and CEOs must put into place comprehensive and systematic leadership processes. They must hold themselves accountable for those processes. Board meetings must be consistently devoted to leadership issues. When CEOs report to boards on state of company, they must also report on "state of leadership" -- showing how leadership is getting results and how leadership capabilities and responsibilities of their senior leaders, middle managers and small-unit leaders are being constantly upgraded.

Autocratic CEOs are maestros at getting wrong results or right results in wrong ways. Boards who bring them on buy a ticket to ride on spiral of doom.

The time is now for boards and CEOs to get off ride and bring in CEOs who recognize that best leadership is not about what leaders do to people but what they do with people.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.