Naming Your Business
Clarksville, TN · Member since 2013 · 23 posts · 2 votes
I was kind of intereted in knowing what each of you has named your business.
I think it is an interesting question because I think that a lot of investors just name the actual business something bland because it's not a business that you use the branding like a retail business would. Most flippers just name their website URL something super easy to remember rather than the business name.
Do any of you have thoughts about naming your real estate investment company? Also, I'd love to hear your names.
LOL at the sponge business card but not sure I want someone washing themselves with my contact info.
If I thought it would get my info in front of them when the time is right, I'd try it. Probably would be a great marketing piece for a maid company. As you are using the sponge, their message could be reminding you that you could be doing something more productive than a $10/hour job like washing your car, or wiping down a table. Probably not a good piece for a real estate investor.
I am sure business cards have their place in the world, but new investors get so caught up on the doodads of investing it drives me nuts. I spoke to a woman today who has an LLC she started several years ago so she could buy houses. Hasn't bought anything with it yet, but is paying the $800/year filing fee, tax prep fees, bookkeeping fees, etc. all for nothing. Just flushing money down the drain, and I'm sure she spent a lot of time coming up with some fancy name for it too!
Focus on writing offers. Nothing makes you more money or is a better use of your valuable time than getting offers in front of property owners. Forget the business name, the website, the email account, all that nonsense and just start figuring out how to find properties you can write offers on. Heck, drive around and look for fixer uppers and mail them blind offers!
***
I was driving around the other day and happen to pass by your house on 5th St. Looks like it could use some work. If you are interested in selling, I will pay you $80,000 cash. If that works for you, please let me know and we can open up escrow right away. If not, please let me know what will.
Thanks,
Aaron
(123) 456-7890
****
Send 100 letters a month just like that and I guarantee you you'll buy a house. No business cards, no email, no fancy-pants company name needed. If you are worried about how to actually buy, just wholesale it and use the money you make to have someone set you up with a company.
I knew a guy who ran a decent sized buying business. He had 3 young guys working for him as buyers. When they started, he sat them down at the kitchen table, handed them the white pages and said, "Call each person and ask if they have a house they might be interested in selling. Keep making calls until you find someone who says 'yes.'"
One of those guys made calls for 3 weeks till he bought his first house. I know they all bought houses, but I don't know how long it took each of them. It was only a few weeks though.
I see too many investors go for a name that sounds super fancy when it really should be something that easy for the seller to remember yet tells them exactly what it is you do. I like "Bryan Buys TN Homes LLC" as opposed to 'BW Capital Group LLC'. The latter makes you sound like some big important CEO but it fails to connect with the seller imo.
Bryan Weller:
When we spun-off a holding company for rental properties, we named it "Louer Louer" to both describe what we do and to have a little fun. It is pronounced as in the Yardbird's song "Louie Louie" and, en français, "louer" is the verb to rent.
I always get a smile and the often "that sounds like a song" when I tell someone the company name.
@Bryan Weller
I don't like LLC, INC names that mimic the owner's name, like:
Bryan Weller LLC
Weller Real Estate LLC
I think that the company name should be completely different from your own name, even Bryan and Bob LLC is something I don't like.
From the IRS prospective there is always the question of dealer or investor, which often equates to being Federally taxed at long term Capital Gains rates or ordinary income at double the taxes. so your name should not state or imply that you are a dealer like:
Day Trading Real Estate LLC
Bryan's Buying & Selling Real Estate LLC
Bryan's Flipping Homes LLC.
Another thing that happens is that the nature of your business might change and now the specific name you pick does not apply like
Rehabbing Chicago LLC
Then you stop rehabbing or stop working in Chicago, once you move to Milwaukee or even Skokie and only do rentals the name Rehabbing Chicago doesn't make sense any more and will confuse people.
I'm not as bothered by this one but have seen people that have names that don't quite fit or don't fit yet like:
Worldwide Real Estate LLC
Global Real Estate LLC
Transcontinental Real Estate LLC
Actually met a couple of people with names like those who didn't own any real estate. That doesn't fool anybody and nobody is going to think you're Donald Trump, just because you have a business name like that.
Speaking of the the Donald, i ran into somebody who had a name like Trump Real Estate Investments LLC, who had no connection to Donald Trump or anybody else with the Trump name. That will fool only a few people, looks like a scam, and maybe was a scam. There was a famous accused scammer that used the name Rockefeller.
Names that I like tend to be natural feature, geographical, historical, or location specific. For every subdivision that we start we start a new entity to own the subdivision, a name totally different and unrelated to any other subdivision name that we have used or anybody else has used. In Pa. law within a municipality the subdivision name (which is required) must be unique to that subdivision.) We might use River Bend LLC, or Pheasant Crossing LLC, or The Woods LLC, The Cliffs at the River LeBeau, Lincoln Park LLC, or Waverly Meadows LLC.
For rental perhaps you have several on Main Street in your town, possible names would be Main Street LLC, Chicago Main Street LLC,
or if your building is at the intersection of Main & Lincoln Street, something like Lincoln Main LLC. I like street names a lot and if you have a large commercial, office or apartment complex the name could be something like 3401 Main Street LLC.
Once we had a company that was named after Will Rodgers, who said "Buy land they're not making any more." And Horace Greeley who said, "Go west, young man."
And it depends on what you want to do with your entity. Do you want to be anonymous or will the name be used in marketing? If marketing a name it has be non offensive, non controversial, and a pleasant sounding name to all groups.
@Roy N.
Anyone ever thing it was Loser, Loser?
David Krulac
The words are phonetically disimilar, so you're the first to draw such a comparison.
Knowing your audience also plays a role ... many folks here speak/understand French to a degree, so the pronunciation and meaning are typically instantaneous. It probably would not be a good name to use in Mechanicsburg, but a company name incorporating the Dutch 'huur' or 'huren' might work in some parts of Pennsylvania.
Once an administrative assistant at my Realtor's office misread my his handwriting and thought the company name was "Lover Lover" ... she was then a little curious about what kind of houses we were renting ;)
When we spun-off a holding company for rental properties, we named it "Louer Louer" to both describe what we do and to have a little fun. It is pronounced as in the Yardbird's song "Louie Louie" and, en français, "louer" is the verb to rent.
I always get a smile and the often "that sounds like a song" when I tell someone the company name.
Well, it's a little long, but reminds of;
"Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let fifty cents"
Might search here "name LLC" as there are many posts on the topic and considerations to a name. :)
David Krulac,
Well put post. A baseline "Investment Group" would not hurt you though.
One of my companies is called Fatcat. Because I have a cat. And he is fat. And his name is Fatcat. I think people spend way too much time on nonsense like company names, website domain names, and business cards. In this business, business cards are absolutely a waste of money. The only people who want them are newbs looking to take you to a $10 lunch so they can eat your brain for 2 hours or call you in the middle of the day and barrage you with questions.
Sellers don't care what your company name is. You can take my lawyer's advice and name it something that won't scream "sue me, I've got money" like Real Estate Equity Millionaire Investments, LLC or any other similar nonsense. 99.999% of real estate investors will never build a brand so trying to pick a name that you think will be a great brand is also a fruitless waste of your time. There isn't one person on the planet who is going to go shopping for a rehab home done by Turn Key Kick *** Eat Off the Floor Rehab Homes, LLC and pass on everything else until they get one of those babies into escrow. I feel like I've spent way too much time on this post now.
Oh, and anyone who names his company after himself has an ego problem.
In response to Aaron Mazzrillo, how do you 'remind' people of your business when you are not present without business cards? Can you explain why you feel they are a waste of money? I am sincerely curious.
I completely agree about spending too much time and energy on company names. Similar to you, we named our company after our dog. Her nickname is "Lish," so the company was named Lish Properties. Took about 5 minutes to make that decision.
Just created a new entity with a business partner of mine in a new market. The first time we traveled to this new city together, we kept hearing the same song on the radio, over and over. We joked that it was "our song." When it came to naming the company, it took about 10 seconds to come up with the name, which was just a combination of the song and band name.
As long as you don't offend anyone or completely confuse anyone, the name really shouldn't matter much...
That said, I do like business cards. I'd rather hand my contractors/vendors a business card with my contact info than have to repeat my name, phone number and email to everyone.
In that instance, I can see how cards can be beneficial. I have worked with the same contractor for several years and I get referrals for other contracts via email from investing associates. I used to put those emails into a folder. Whenever I needed a plumber or tree trimmer, I would look through the subject lines of the emails and pick out which trade I required. Now, I have them all on a Google doc with a link in my bookmarks.
What do you want to remind them of? That you buy houses? If that is the case, they should be on your marketing list. You shouldn't expect them to hold onto your business card in hopes that they will actually find it at some point in the future and call you. You need to make consistent contact with any potential seller you think may benefit from doing business with you. I find that most sellers are opportunistic sellers. Meaning, you and every other person is marketing to them, but for some reason, the day they read your marketing piece, and it may not be the 1st, 3rd, or 5th time you have touched them, but on that particular day, for whatever reason, something resonated with them and they decided to sell to you. I've had plenty of people say they are going to hold onto my marketing piece and when they are ready to sell, they'll give me a call only to find out months later they sold to someone else. Sometimes, for less than what I would have been willing to pay. Just the nature of the business.
Business cards are an outdated way of storing contact information. Even my section 8 tenants have I-phones. If you meet someone you want to do business with, have them send you an email or text msg. Likewise, fire one off to them as you stand there talking with them or put their contact info into your phone's address book.
People hand me business cards every time I go out to a local REIA meeting or attend a seminar. I do my best to make sure those cards don't make it out of the hotel with me. I don't need any more business cards in my leaning tower of people that is currently stacked up on the right hand corner of my desk. At some point, I will again spill coffee all over them and they'll all end up on the trash. I wish someone would put their business card on a sponge. That would come in much more handy. LOL
Aaron Mazzrillo
Preprinted business cards seem a bit of a waste to me too. I like your idea of send me a text or call them when you get their number.
I was leaning towards taking the time to handwrite my info for them on a card. If it's not worth my time to handwrite it for them probably not worth interacting with them...
Although I've thought about buying 1000 business cards and throwing them out my car window as I go & seeing if I would ever get a response.
LOL at the sponge business card but not sure I want someone washing themselves with my contact info.
LOL at the sponge business card but not sure I want someone washing themselves with my contact info.
If I thought it would get my info in front of them when the time is right, I'd try it. Probably would be a great marketing piece for a maid company. As you are using the sponge, their message could be reminding you that you could be doing something more productive than a $10/hour job like washing your car, or wiping down a table. Probably not a good piece for a real estate investor.
I am sure business cards have their place in the world, but new investors get so caught up on the doodads of investing it drives me nuts. I spoke to a woman today who has an LLC she started several years ago so she could buy houses. Hasn't bought anything with it yet, but is paying the $800/year filing fee, tax prep fees, bookkeeping fees, etc. all for nothing. Just flushing money down the drain, and I'm sure she spent a lot of time coming up with some fancy name for it too!
Focus on writing offers. Nothing makes you more money or is a better use of your valuable time than getting offers in front of property owners. Forget the business name, the website, the email account, all that nonsense and just start figuring out how to find properties you can write offers on. Heck, drive around and look for fixer uppers and mail them blind offers!
***
I was driving around the other day and happen to pass by your house on 5th St. Looks like it could use some work. If you are interested in selling, I will pay you $80,000 cash. If that works for you, please let me know and we can open up escrow right away. If not, please let me know what will.
Thanks,
Aaron
(123) 456-7890
****
Send 100 letters a month just like that and I guarantee you you'll buy a house. No business cards, no email, no fancy-pants company name needed. If you are worried about how to actually buy, just wholesale it and use the money you make to have someone set you up with a company.
I knew a guy who ran a decent sized buying business. He had 3 young guys working for him as buyers. When they started, he sat them down at the kitchen table, handed them the white pages and said, "Call each person and ask if they have a house they might be interested in selling. Keep making calls until you find someone who says 'yes.'"
One of those guys made calls for 3 weeks till he bought his first house. I know they all bought houses, but I don't know how long it took each of them. It was only a few weeks though.
Aaron Mazzrillo Awesome & great Post with specific action.
I'm going to write some blind offers using your letter. Have you used the letter before? I'm not going to mail them - I will just put it in the front door.
Couple questions:
How do you calculate the $80,000 figure? I do know the prices in the area fairly well & the school districts/areas I am interested in.
I have a prequal for a VA loan. But can't use it for a fixer upper. I've rehabbed two properties & it's not my cup of tea. I don't know how to wholesale. At some point I would like to acquire ONE rental & be a landlord.
Not sure what to do if someone calls me up and says Yes. Just research how to wholesale?
Any input greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Kirk
A journey of 5000 miles starts with just one step?
I haven't used this exact letter before, but why not give it a try? I know a guy who sends blind offers to mobile home park owners. He's currently like the 40th largest owner of parks in the country. So, it works!
I just made up the offer amount. You'd have to comp the house out. You could use the 70% of ARV - a guestimate for repairs. Then, deduct out what you want to make for a wholesale fee.
You should listen to the current pod cast the have advertised; Marketing Like a Pro with Wholesaler, Jerry Puckett. It's really good. I think he stole... appropriated my Domino's metaphor & $5K rule though. LOL.
Regardless, he delivers a lot of content that should help you out significantly.
If someone calls up and says ''Yes" get on the phone and find a buyer. Ask them what they'll pay. Don't tell them what you're paying. It's none of their business. I try to get the best offer on my wholesale deals. If you heard me at the last Bigger Pockets conference, someone in the audience asked what fee do I try to get and I cut the guy I was speaking with off and replied "The right answer is the biggest fee possible."
If one buyer is willing to pay you $10K and another $15K, why would you ever take less? That being said, I do leave some meat on the bone for one guy that buys consistently from me. Sometimes I'll give him a little more because of the relationship we have, kind of like preferred status.
Kirk R. & Aaron Mazzrillo
One technique that I have used is to talk to neighbors after I buy a property in the neighborhood. "If you ever think about selling or know somebody that wants to sell is this neighborhood, let me know. Here's my card." Some people will forget so you have to remind them. but it works and sometimes it can be years later that they call you.
Tell people that you know that you are in the market to buy property. i got my first house on a tip from a co-worker who lived on that same cul-de-sac street. (Chapter 3)
I also got 2 houses, a personal residence and a rental property from a co-worker transferred across country. (Chapter 18 & 19)
Letter writing has been fruitful as well. Just this week somebody called me about buying their property from a letter that I wrote 5 years ago. The letter was simple and straight forward saying that I was asking if they were interested in selling. The envelopes were hand written and the postage stamps were colorful commemoratives, so that it looked more like a personal letter than a business solicitation. This techniques worked well and in one community I acquired over 100 properties, and the letter writing was the primary tool.
From the hundreds of properties that I bought I calculated that I bought about 13% from owners that did not have their properties listed for sale, no ads, no signs. So I bought 13% of my acquisitions from properties that were NOT for sale. What that means is that there was no competition because nobody else knew the properties were for sale.
What a ridiculous comparison of apples and oranges. Like spending some time thinking about your identity, and $10 at Vistaprint to get some cards, is what is preventing you from making offers. Makes absolutely no sense.
Identity is important, unless you will play the "I'm just a dude looking for a house" game in your marketing (which generates the WRONG kind of calls).
Are you creating a business here? Then RUN IT like a business. I can tell you from working with MANY successful investors throughout this country - the successful ones treat this like a business. With a name. And - GASP! - they have BUSINESS CARDS! What a WASTE....
Cooler By The Lake Realty LLC. Majority of where I will be investing is near Lake Michigan in Milwaukee. It is also a play on words, not only is the temperature a little cooler by the lake, but it's also cooler to live in the downtown/ East side area (by the lake). Currently there are four development projects occurring within 3 blocks of each other.
Are you creating a business here? Then RUN IT like a business. I can tell you from working with MANY successful investors throughout this country - the successful ones treat this like a business. With a name. And - GASP! - they have BUSINESS CARDS! What a WASTE....
I agree Dev. It's the point of getting your name out there. Building your business. I think running it as a business is the only way it should be done.
I used my kids first initials in the order they were born to come up with CKI Properties. I also have CK Consulting Services which is my robotics company and as you can see, my 3rd child had not been born yet.
But it was simple and easy to come up with.
In our case the apartments are a historic granite building so we named it Old Stone Acres . I would have named it after the historical name of the building when it was a home but didn't known it at the time. Image wise it limits us to using the LLC for this building but we had to do it quickly and you need to run through to see it isn't close to another already registered company. In any case I agree that people spend too much time on the name and I see a few home runs but not a lot. It is a good point not to sound like you should be sued when you name your company, never thought of that!
For the most part I think of your business name and things like cards as stuff to give other professionals. Have it professional enough you can give it to Realtors, Attorneys, Bankers etc. without being embarrassed.
If it isn't to "corporate" no reason to not use it with sellers as well. If you want to have a snazzier name for them get a DBA for that. Or just use something else and put the real business name on the actual contract. You can put anything you want on the marketing piece.
Maybe having "Cowboy Billy is gonna Buy YOUR House, LLC" then having a logo of a cowboy lassoing a house might be catchy for a seller but you might feel like a jackass sitting down with a banker and putting that down on an application for a $500K line of business credit.
As others have pointed out in the end this sh*t doesn't matter all that much. Just go buy a house!
In thinking about names/business cards, I agree with a few people on here.
First, I think the name is important, but you shouldn't spend a month coming up with it. My wife's name is Melissa, and one of the meanings of her name is 'honeybee.' So similar to @J Scott , it took me about five seconds to come up with Honeybee Homes, LLC. To me, that name had a nice vibe, and created a separate entity from me as a person - as there are always a few people involved in getting a deal done. I would say pick something sensible and go with it.
I also think business cards are important. When you interact with other professionals, a business card is a very standard (and quick) way to exchange information. Between meetings with contractors, sellers, buyers, and other investors, I have always appreciated receiving the other person's card, and so always have some on hand.
At the same time, don't overthink these things. The key to success is action, and that means marketing, making offers, working with your contractors and realtor, etc. Please don't waste two months coming up with a name, designing cards, and picking the paper weight for your letterhead when you could be using that time more productively!
@Alex Anderson - when I read this name...I thought of a cooler full of beer and was shocked to see that wasn't part of the play on words you referenced.
I went with something simple -- Core Properties -- easy to spell, remember, and didn't take too much thought.