Category: Guest Posts

Get it Right the First Time! How to Choose an Attention-Grabbing Name for Your Footwear Venture

Finding the perfect name for your footwear business can be a daunting task. The key to getting the best name for your shoe brand lies in finding a memorable word that expresses your brand’s personality and stirs positive emotions from potential customers. 

And so, to make your brand naming journey easier, here are five steps you should take to find the right name for your footwear business.

Five Easy Steps to Finding the Perfect Footwear Business Name

1. Align Your Name With Your Brand Positioning

Aligning your name with your brand positioning means establishing a specific identity by actively creating a connection between your company and its shoes to the values, ideas, and messages.

This includes using consistent messaging across all marketing channels, building relationships with customers and influencers who fit into the defined target market for the brand position, as well as creating an authentic story about why your shoe brand exists.

Think about how you want customers to see your business and what emotions you want to evoke when someone hears or sees your brand’s name, logos, or slogans. Doing this would make it easier to know if your brand’s tone should communicate luxury, fun, quirkiness, or practicality.

2. Consider Metaphors, Visual Imagery, and Emotions

Brainstorm names that evoke metaphors and visual imagery. Nike does an excellent job of communicating its brand identity with a captivating metaphor that denotes victory and strength. So ensure you brainstorm words with unique, clever, and catchy phrases that resonate with your shoe brand’s identity.

3. Brainstorm as Many Ideas as Possible

Brainstorming as many ideas as possible when naming your company means generating an extensive list of potential names. You should think outside the box and come up with creative, unique options that capture the mission and values of your business. 

The more ideas you can brainstorm, the better your chances of finding a name that resonates with customers and works for your brand.

Consider the context surrounding your shoes; think about their purpose, style, and price. Also, consider using foreign languages like Zappos or witty puns that could help your shoe brand stand out from other businesses in the same niche. 

Finally, don’t forget to consider alternate spellings as well as different combinations of letters when narrowing down your list of options until you find one that perfectly captures what you’re looking for. 

As founders, if brainstorming proves too time-consuming, then don’t hesitate to visit a naming agency and buy brand names that embody the kind of shoe brand you want to build.

4. Perform Audience Testing Before Making Your Final Decision

Before selecting the final name for your business, check out whether or not it resonates with your target audience. However, be careful what questions you ask—your questions should focus on which names draw attention and inspire action and which best align with your brand ideas. 

Ask people if certain names create curiosity or make them think of specific visuals and emotions related to your product. 

Now, for the final step in finding the perfect footwear business name…

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo from Pexels

5. Validate Your Names With Trademark Research

After finding the best exciting shoe brand name ideas that fit the kind of business you want to build, the next step you must take is to visit the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and verify the names you’ve found to ascertain that they haven’t been trademarked by another business.

Several companies have received cease and desist letters due to infringing on existing trademarks, so make sure your chosen name satisfies this step. 

Conclusion

Finding the perfect name for your shoe business doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you take a few key steps beforehand. By aligning your brand positioning with the proper names, using metaphors, emotions, and visual imagery, as well as conducting research on trademarks and audience testing, you should be able to come up with an amazing name that accurately reflects your footwear business.

This article is an exclusive guest post shared by Grant Polacheck.

Grant Polachek is the head of branding at Squadhelp, a 3X Inc. 5000 naming agency that specializes in creating catchy and evocative brand names for Fortune 500 companies and emerging startups. As the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, we’ve combed through over a million words and compiled a list of the greatest, most distinctive names that are currently available online.

Fireworks: Illuminating Greatness for others below you

Before you grasp the full meaning of the title; here’s a short colorful prose by Bugi Ebuzoeme. It is the highlight of this article. Read on.

Fireworks: By Bugi Ebuzoeme

As I look out my windows into the dark, endless and empty sky; my most relaxed moments are stirred up.

Moments when I was liberated from the shackles of having to stay one place and practice the same routine for six months. Moments when I didn’t have to control my inexhaustible energy. These are moments that I don’t have to act or seem to be the serious person the society wants to see.

I am wearing a facade instead of becoming my own true self. A self-imposed jail I created in order to be called, ‘mature.’

As these fleeting thoughts sped across my mind; I looked up to see a straight spark of light spiral into the sky. This light explodes into beautiful colors lighting up the once dark and gloomy sky. It spreads its colored wings in all directions, bring about so many beautiful colors. I marveled at this beautiful sight and a voice whispered in my head:

“That firework is just like your cousin Ebuka. Eliciting and lighting up everywhere he goes and stays. He lives and let life be. He spreads his colorful wings and soars.”

“Be like Ebuka.”

There’s a deeper meaning for you

Fireworks: How to Illuminate a path of greatness for those under you.
Photo by Brigitte Tohm from Pexels

This writer wrote the piece to her elder cousin to tell him how special he is. Yet, a deeper wider look at this piece shows how we can affect and spread joy to those around us.

Personally, Ebuka is a close friend (I call him Gabriel). But the truth is.. You and I are Ebuka. We both have people who look up to us for advice and support. There is a certain responsibility on your shoulders.

If you are striving for greatness, then there are destinies tied to you. Generational impact might feel like a burden to you right now. But it is the plain truth.

Make sure you light the path of greatness for the people coming after you. Show them success and excellence is possible. Make sure your juniors proud of your strides and achievements.

Let your life be fireworks, shining before others. Be Ebuka.

To get a clearer picture of your purpose here on Earth; this article is a perfect read. (Salt and Light: When your Purpose meets Brilliance )

TIME MANAGEMENT: 6 PROVEN STRATEGIES TO GET WHAT YOU WANT.

Note: This is a Guest Post. The thoughts and words contained in this article is the beautiful work of Diana Ufuah. Enjoy reading. Please comment and share when you’re done.

Have you ever felt like time was overwhelming or out of control? Have you struggled towards getting what you want and it seemed like there was no way out?

There might have been some dark days when you felt time wasn’t and would never be enough no matter how hard you tried. Well, let’s not conclude on that yet cause here lies all the strategies you need to make the desires of your heart reality.

Time is an element of Life that doesn’t stop, fast forward or rewind; it just is. Once wasted or carelessly used, it cannot be retrieved but one can always make adjustments to repair the past with the present in order to make strategies for the future.

Time management is the conscious act of planning and organizing specific activities over a specific timeline. Nobody actually has the ability to control time but everyone has the power to control what they do with time so time management is a skill that every interested person can master.

Time is an element of Life that doesn’t stop, fast forward or rewind; it just is. Once wasted or carelessly used, it cannot be retrieved but one can always make adjustments to repair the past with the present in order to make strategies for the future.

Every successful individual or organization has embedded in their structure, the value for time. The popular saying “Time is money” signifies that the proper use of time is what creates the value for money if wisely channeled.

WHY YOU NEED TO MANAGE YOUR TIME TODAY.

Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels


Time management is a stress reliever. It is an antidote for procrastination. It has an outstanding way of eliminating anxiety. It takes away the feeling that you’ve lost control and rewards you with even more time to spend playing video games or doing whatever you do for fun.

Time management helps you reach your dreams and goals faster with so much ease. Time is like the journey to a destination; a destination which is your dream and goal.

Every activity you engage in are the steps that you take in that journey. The problem is that most people never take any step towards their destination.

Time management is the fuel that drives and guides all the steps (activities) towards that destination. If you take the right step in the right direction, you’d reach your destination (goal or dream) sooner than you expect.

No matter how small the steps are, if consistency is applied you are guaranteed to reach your goal.

LIFE CHANGING TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Below are six unique strategies that have been used by people of all ages to manage time and get everything they desired.

CLARIFY YOUR GOALS

Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels


The first and most important aspect of reaching that destination is to know exactly where you are going. You must clarify what it is that you want to spend the asset called time on. Definition of purpose is reaching the purpose half way.

Stating your goals, dreams or desires allows you to Identify your specific destination which is different from somebody else’s. One way to do this is to write the goals you want to achieve whether long or short term.

BREAK YOUR GOAL INTO SPECIFIC PIECES.


The surest way to eat an elephant is to first cut it piece by piece. Now that you have your specific goals outlined, take time to break these goals into tasks or activities. These are the steps to your destination and they are very important as they make up the journey.

For example, let’s take a goal to be “Get a job in a month”, your activities would look similar to these;


– Apply for 5 jobs a day
– Watch 1 YouTube video daily on how to ace a job interview.
– Read 1 article on a job hunt site.
– Rewrite Resumé.
– Start an online course to increase skills.


Make sure to keep the tasks basic, easy and add fun to it. Make it Interesting so you don’t burn out.

CREATE A TO-DO LIST AND STICK TO IT.

Photo by BreakingPic from Pexels


A to-do list is a wonderful guide to reaching all your goals. It is a map to your destination; a graphical pattern of how time should be wisely spent.

A to-do list actually changed my life. I write my to-do list a night before the next day, sleep over the thought, wake up the next morning, go through it and kick off with the right energy (because it was written a night before, my subconscious mind prepares for it by the next day).

This simple technique drew me faster to my goals and I achieved them sooner than I expected. Start a to-do list, write 10 basic activities to engage in for the day, stick to it and watch the magic happen.

PRIORITIZE YOUR TASKS.

Prioritizing the tasks in your to-do list helps to utilize maximum energy for the most important tasks. From my personal experience, I divide my tasks into A, B and C.

The ‘A’ tasks are the most important tasks. I do these tasks in the morning because that is my most creative and most focused state of mind.

The ‘B’ tasks are necessary tasks with milder consequences. This I do at noon times.

The “C” tasks are tasks that can be delegated. Something with little or no consequences but still needs to be done. I do these tasks in the evenings and I usually add my leisure activities here.

You can adopt this strategy or find something that works for you, but make sure you do your most important tasks at your highest time of creativity.

FOCUS ON ONE TASK AT A TIME.

While multitasking helps you do a lot of activities at a time, it reduces the quality of the work done. So, I recommend monotasking. Quality over work done is a truck-load of value and satisfaction. It actually saves you more time because the chances of errors are limited, you wouldn’t need to come back and redo them.

Performing one task at a time prompts high level of concentration.
The more you practice monotasking, the more you’d master speed and accuracy which is invaluable.

ASK YOURSELF “WHAT IS THE BEST THING TO DO NOW”

Photo by Alex Powell from Pexels

“Now” is the name of time. “Now” is what you can always control. “Now” is when you can make all the choices, not “before” and not “after”. If you always use this very moment wisely, then you’ve mastered life and time altogether.

At those moments when you might drift away from your to-do list, ask yourself “what is the best use of my time now” and you would always come up with the best answer.

“Now” is the name of time. “Now” is what you can always control. “Now” is when you can make all the choices, not “before” and not “after”. If you always use this very moment wisely, then you’ve mastered life and time altogether.

Make the decision to follow each strategy outlined in this article “now” if you are really keen about starting the journey to getting the things you want and you will surely be amazed at the wonderful outcome.

These strategies here have been used in different formats by highly successful people of the past and present. If you want to be called successful, then take the same actions of successful men and women.

Master Time Management, Get All You Want.

Diana Ufuah.