Name Your Coaching Business The Smart Way and Set Yourself Up For Success

If you’ve been thinking about finding a great name for your coaching business, you’re at the right place. In this post, we’re going to talk about how top coaches have named their businesses and set themselves up for success.

We’re not interested in reinventing the wheel here, especially when other famous coaches have already paved the way for success. What we’re going to do instead is emulate them, so that we too can build a thriving coaching business.

But before we do, here’s a hint: it’s not as complicated as it may sound.

So if you’re ready to uncover nuggets of wisdom that will help you get off to a solid start, then let’s dive in!

1. Difference Between a Business Name and Brand Name

For a coaching business, the first thing you want to think about is your personal brand. Which may differ from the name of your coaching business.

For instance, let’s consider two of the top coaches in the world—Tony Robbins and Robin Sharma.

The interesting thing about them is that they have set their personal brands apart from their business names.

Tony’s business name is Robbins Research International, Inc. Whereas his personal brand is Tony Robbins.

So is the case with Robin Sharma. His business name is Virtuoso Learning Ltd., but his personal brand is Robin Sharma.

As a coach, it is important to know that your name is an asset for your business, that you must use gainfully.

If you’re a coach, your name is your brand. Being aware of this helps you focus on using it in your business for maximum benefit.

How? You will learn more in the next point, where we speak about why using your name as your brand is important.

2. The Benefit of Using Your Name as a Brand

Most successful coaches have a secret hidden in plain sight.

And no, it has nothing to do with smartness or charisma.

The secret is, in fact, quite simple and duplicable.

So here it is: most of the world famous coaches are authors!

Guess what? Tony Robbins is an author. And so is Robin Sharma.

But in case you’re wondering, what does being an author have to do with building a powerful name for your coaching business?

I’d say, a lot. It can be a huge influencing factor in being seen as an authority in your niche.

No wonder, not just Tony Robbins, but almost all the world famous coaches have a book to their name.

Which tells us one thing clearly, authorship, helps you gain authority.

This doesn’t mean you need to think about publishing a book right away. But this is just to emphasise the importance of using your own name as a personal brand.

Remember, earlier in this post, we spoke about using your name as your brand for maximum benefit? That’s what we’re talking about here. With your name as your personal brand, you can do so much to strengthen it. You can be an author, a speaker, and, of course, a powerful coach.

When it comes to thinking about a brand name for your coaching business, it is “your name” that you should think about.

3. Registering a “Your Name” Domain for Your Coaching Website

E-commerce is at the forefront of business today. Which is why it is only natural that we too focus on the digital side of things. From the perspective of branding, the first thing we need to think about is a domain name.

Here are some tips when it comes to choosing a domain for your coaching business

1. Avoid Business Name Domains: When your focus is on building your personal brand, your domain also needs to reflect that.

Ideally, you want your coaching website name to be the same as your personal brand name, and not your business name.

Again, Tony does this right. His personal brand is Tony Robbins, and he has a domain name that reflects that brand, which is TonyRobbins.com.

So is the case with Robin Sharma.

What this does is it makes your personal brand more memorable, and accessible more easily.

If Tony Robbins had not used his personal brand domain, and instead only used a business name domain, there’s a great chance people would have found it difficult to recognise his website, and associate him to it. Creating unnecessary branding gap, and confusion.

Given that attention spans are short, you don’t want to leave any room for confusion in helping people recognise your brand online.

2. Avoid Keyword Domains: Another route that coaches tend to take is register a keyword domain, which is relevant to their niche.

For example: WeightLossCoach.com, or ExecutiveCoach.com. The challenge with this is, if tomorrow, you decide to change your niche, it would be a complicated process, to change the links, and the website. Plus, when it comes to SEO, there’s something called as domain age, which is a ranking factor. If you started afresh, your new domain will require time to gain authority in the eyes of search engines like Google and you’d have to work harder to rank higher up in the search results.

But that won’t be the case with a “your name” domain. For the domain could stay the same, and you could change your niche anytime! Without incurring additional website building costs, or adversely affecting your site’s SEO.

3. Be Careful with Trademarks: Now, the good part about brand naming yourself is it is unlikely you will run into a trademarked name. But if you share a name with someone like Tony Robbins, you may have to run a trademark check or consult a lawyer. But, otherwise, in most cases, you will be able to register a domain name easily, without having to worry about infringing on someone’s trademark. (I am not a lawyer, so this does not constitute legal advice.)

How to Register a Personal Brand Domain

Now that you know the importance of branding yourself in your coaching business, it’s important to register a “your name” domain as quickly as possible.

Keep it simple. Just focus on a .com, and forget the other extensions.

Best place to register it is internetbs.net

What to do if a .com with your name is already taken?

The second best extension to a .com is .net, see if that’s available.

If not, you can check the .xyz extension as a last resort.

It is quite likely that by trying all the above options, at least one of them will work out for you.

In the rare case that it does not, you may go with a personal brand name with a middle name initial, or add a relevant word like Coach[YourName.com].

4. Registering Your Business As a Coach

This is the part where legal aspects are involved, so our suggestion is that you consult a professional when thinking about registering your business as a coach.

As far as a name is concerned, the fact that we’re going to be focusing on the personal brand name to market your business it will not make much of a difference what name you choose when officially registering your coaching business.

But here’s a suggestion: pick a name that resonates with your business and is legally available for registration.

The rest, you want to leave it to a professional, who can get it all done for you.

Summary

When choosing a name for your coaching business, keep your personal brand in mind. For it is your personal brand that will serve you now and in the future to help establish authority and gain more credibility. There’s just so much you can do with your personal brand; become an author, a speaker, and, of course, an influential coach. Plus, this is all in line with the top coaches in the world, so it makes sense to follow their footsteps, and set yourself up for success, right from the word go!