Should I Change the Name of the Float Center I Bought? – DSP 253

Is it a good idea to change the name of a float center after buying it from someone else? As the industry gets older, more and more people are going to have to answer this question.

Branding is definitely part of the equity of a business and you purchase everything that comes with it. But can you put a price on being happy with your business and making it feel like your own?

Derek and Graham tackle these questions while Ashkahn is away for the Conference.

Information of the Float Conference (which has taken Ashkahn away from us) including tickets, events, and where to stay at FloatConference.com

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: Okay.

Derek: All right.

Graham: Welcome everybody to Medieval Daily Solutions Podcast.

Derek: It’s pretty Medieval.

Graham: This is Medieval Graham over here.

Derek: This is Medieval Derek.

Graham: And Ashkahn is gone once more to plan for the conference. Thanks for joining us in the studio, Derek.

Derek: You’re welcome. Absolutely.

Graham: We’re gonna have some fun talking about marketing today. Derek is one of our marketing experts, if not the marketing expert behind Float On.

Derek: I don’t want that responsibility.

Graham: Should’ve thought about that before you came on board.

Derek: Oh, okay.

Graham: Today’s question is, “I’m buying a float center that’s been around for a couple years. I’m definitely going to make some changes and upgrades when I take it over, and I’m thinking about changing the name.”

Derek: Bum-bum-bum.

Graham: “Do you think it’s better to keep the old name or go with a new one for a new ownership?”

Derek: Seeing as we don’t know why they’re buying it or any history of the old float center-

Graham: Let’s assume that they’re not hated, they were running good floats-

Derek: They have good reviews.

Graham: Yeah, exactly.

Derek: A good brand name, a person just decided to sell because they wanted to go live in Tahiti.

Graham: Sure. And Float On has bright yellow walls and blue fabrics. If someone came in and wanted to kind of have a little more professional vibe, I could see them changing the name, for example, you know. Make it more like Float Medical or Float White Walls or something.

Derek: Float Off.

Graham: Float Off. Yeah. It’s like if someone wanted to come in, rebrand as Float Off.

Derek: Okay. The business was doing well, it’s got a good reputation, ’cause anything other than if like it had a bad reputation and people didn’t like it and bad reviews, yeah. Definitely change the name. Give it all-

Graham: Three stars on Yelp or something, yeah. Ditch that and move on to something better.

Derek: The first question, since it’s now your business, are you happy with the name? To me, I feel like it’s important to have a business that I’m happy calling that name. If I wasn’t too attached to the name personally, I probably would change it. If I’m indifferent about the name and the name seems to kind of have a good vibe around the time, you can probably keep a name and change the décor. They can still be Float On and not be blue and yellow anymore.

Graham: Sure, yeah. Absolutely.

Derek: So, there is some brand equity to the name, especially if that center’s been around and the word of mouth. If let’s say somebody decides, if Float On goes out of business and somebody’s still talking about Float On and they go to Google Float On and they can’t find it now and they have to decide all over again what center to choose, kind of you’re starting all over again. But you do have some, I guess, brand equity in that name that maybe you should keep it, but then make other parts of the business yours.

Graham: Yeah, I guess, at the risk of sounding redundant with many other episodes, it really kind of depends on the context.

Derek: Yes and no.

Graham: So, let’s just try to argue both sides.

Derek: Okay.

Graham: For keeping the name, the arguments for not changing the name.

Derek: You start.

Graham: All right. Well one, you’re buying a business, which means in part, you’re paying for their branding. Presumably they have signs, they have brochures, they have a website that’s already branded with all of their stuff, they have a logo. So, you’re giving, you’re already pitching money in towards getting everything associated with their brand. So, rebranding not only costs you more money to do, it also costs you all the things that you’re losing along the way that you would’ve just gotten tossed in.

Derek: Right. If you change the name, you have to repay for all the signage and all the pamphlets and brochures, and everything. Internal signage, external signage. External signs are really expensive, so that’s something that-

Graham: T-shirts. Any branding that’s out there in the world that you can’t just change like a website where it updates. You can’t do like a t-shirt update and all of a sudden your logo changes on all the t-shirts that people are wearing around.

Derek: Right.

Graham: You kind of lose all of that. That’s one of the main things, monetarily, definitely. Another one is just name recognition. If people have been talking about this certain float center around, like Float On, and all of a sudden it just turns into like Weightless Cloud Float Center or something like that.

Derek: Float Off.

Graham: Float Off is still a more just thinking of a total change. It’s Weightless Cloud now. Or Atlantis, Atlantis Float Center, and now people are like, “Oh, have you heard of Atlantis Float Center?” And everyone who has heard of Float On over the last eight years is like, “No. Who are they?” So, it’s only two years, so maybe that’s not a good, it would be like Float On at two years old or something.

Derek: Right.

Graham: What else? All of your SEO for the website, you’re losing, ’cause presumably you’re getting a new web domain, ’cause you don’t want-

Derek: You can probably do some redirects and say this old domain, since you’re owning the domain, you can say it’s a new domain. That’s a way you can kind of help some of your Google juice. But it’s hard-

Graham: You’re gonna lose some. You’re gonna lose some.

Derek: All the third party reviews and everything on platforms you can’t control, I mean try to get blogs written about you two years ago to change the name on there. Might not even be active anymore.

Graham: Yeah, so just the extra time, extra money. You lose everything that’s out there in the world already. It’s essentially like starting a new center from scratch, but you do have a giant email mailing list. You have people who have, they know your location. You can email a lot of people and let them know you’re just changing your name, so at least your most valuable customers, all your members will totally understand what’s going on and help spread word of mouth. But you’re kind of putting yourself a little bit at a disadvantage. So, those are the downsides that I see. I don’t know if you had something to add.

Derek: I’m pretty much in line with you there. I’m trying to think of examples where businesses have changed their name but kept everything else the same and it tanked the business, and I think that might go back to maybe just the operations of the new owners. “Under New Management” isn’t always a good thing.

Graham: Yeah. Okay. So, arguments for changing the name, which there are definitely some on that side, too.

Derek: Go for it.

Graham: Okay. Number one, just being happy with it. Honestly, separate from anything else, money, time, all of this stuff, it’s your business and a certain part of being a small business owner is doing things that make you happy and making your business your own. If you’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even a little less purchasing this business, making sure it’s what you want it to be and you have the sense of ownership and it is your baby, I think is important. So, in that sense, it totally makes sense. There’s a certain point at which you can’t even put a dollar amount on that, just being happy and feeling ownership over your small business.

Derek: Right. That goes back to my original point, you should be happy about everything in your business and if the name’s not one of them, change it.

Graham: Yeah, exactly. That’s one. Another one is just if you have a very different feel. If you’re taking over a place called like The Floating Buddha Float Center or something like that-

Derek: We’re trying to make fake names up. We’re gonna come up with a real name here really soon.

Graham: I know. I’m really trying hard. I’m’ just trying to add on.

Derek: Cloud Ten Float Center.

Graham: The Floating Buddha Float Center has some very serious connotations along with it. That’s not a neutral name, necessarily, so you might just want to be pulling in different clientele or want a totally different vibe, and if a name is strongly enough in one direction, it might just be that you can’t even get close to really what you want your float center to represent without changing Floating Buddha to something else.

Derek: Right. If it’s Floating Buddha and it’s white walls and very clinical, there’s a disconnect.

Graham: Yeah. Other arguments for changing the name? I guess it’s not … All said, it’s not too hard to rebrand. A couple years in the scheme of things, I mean, hopefully your business is around for a couple decades at least, and hopefully it carries on even after that. And it’s amazing, even being in year eight now, the things that we did at year two feels so long ago. Six years ago feels so long ago in the lifespan of Float On. I can imagine a world where we started as a completely different company and then rebranded and I would barely even remember what things it started with.

Derek: At year two, we were still a four tank center.

Graham: Yeah. We were still, we were just about to upgrade to six tanks.

Derek: So, we were even a different center back then. It’s kind of like we’re under new ownership.

Graham: Yeah, totally. Well, kind of. We just have a couple new tanks and everything else stayed as weird as it always was.

Derek: That’s true.

Graham: So yeah, I honestly think there’s a lot of reasons why it’s not quite as scary to upgrade. I know places that have changed their name, and for a while there’s still just remnants of old stuff that had the old name laying around, just a slow process of upgrading as you get money and time, and you still just catch some. It’ll be like a year later and you’re like, “What? That one site still calls us by this name? Okay.” And you find more stuff to change. But in the end, it’s doable. You’re not talking about $100,000 here to change all the branding. You’re talking about if you have to redo signs and everything else, tens of thousands or something like that, and a little bit of time. And over the course of, again, a decade, that can absolutely pay off if what you decide is you really want this new one.

I guess I have less reasons why it’s necessary to rebrand and more like if this is something you really want to do, encouragements, or reasons why you shouldn’t totally rule it out.

Derek: Right. And I think goes back to, just to kind of summarize, do what’s consistent with your brand. Do what you’re happy with. And I would argue do what your customers are also gonna be happy with, too. I think if they’re super attached to the name, then really reconsider it, but I highly doubt people are attached to your name. They’re attached to your service, the tanks. It’s not really the name, it’s what you provide. So, kind of keep that in mind, too.

Graham: Yeah. So yeah, if you want to, don’t let the headache ahead of you stop you. But do keep in mind it is gonna be a little bit of a hassle, a little bit of a headache. You’ll be starting a little bit behind. I guess just knowing that going into it, hopefully that helps you make a little more informed decision.

Derek: Sounds good to me.

Graham: And if you want anymore of our advice, just go to FloatTankSolutions.com/podcast and you can send us any crazy questions you want there.

Derek: Or not so crazy.

Graham: Or sane. We accept sane questions, although it might not be immediately obvious. Sorry. No offense to people who ask questions, I love all of the questions and the questions askers equally.

Derek: Didn’t I say always make fun of the questions?

Graham: Okay, goodbye everyone. Goodbye everyone.

Derek: Take care. We’re gonna handle this offline.

Graham: We love you.

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