May 19, 2024 • 43 mins
Get on the waitlist for the Tiny Marketing Club!
In today's episode of Tiny Marketing, I, Sarah Noel Block, dive deep into the art of naming brands with the incredibly talented Alexandra Watkins, the mastermind behind names you know and love, like the Wendy's Baconator!
Biggest Takeaways
- Smile and Scratch Framework: Alexandra Watkins provides a clear and effective methodology for naming brands through her "Smile and Scratch" framework. SMILE stands for Suggestive, Memorable, Imagery, Legs, and Emotional—qualities that make a name attractive and sticky. SCRATCH represents the pitfalls to avoid, ensuring the name doesn’t confuse or alienate potential customers.
- Importance of Memorable Names: A great brand name should leverage existing knowledge or concepts to be memorable. For instance, using metaphors like "Kryptonite" for a bike lock plays on familiar themes (Superman’s weakness) to enhance recall and association.
- Strategic Repulsion: Effective naming isn’t just about attracting the right audience but also about repelling the wrong one. This ensures that the business aligns more closely with its ideal customer base, enhancing satisfaction and efficiency.
- Emotional Connection: Names should make a strong emotional connection with the audience. This connection can transform a mundane interaction into a memorable experience, fostering loyalty and positive associations with the brand.
- Future-proofing Your Brand Name: It’s crucial to choose a name that doesn’t limit your business's growth. A name should be broad enough to encompass potential future expansions and not lock you into a narrow niche, preventing costly rebrands down the line.
Meet Alexandra
Alexandra Watkins is a leading and outspoken authority on brand names with buzz. If you have ever eaten a Wendy’s Baconator, you have literally eaten the words. For nearly 20 years, she and her naming firm, Eat My Words, have created love-at-first sight brand names for countless companies including Amazon, Coca-Cola, Disney, Twitter, and Google.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you struggle to come up with brand names, offer
names, podcast names, all thenames.
So do I.
That's why everything is calledTiny Marketing.
Today I am talking to AlexandraWatkins, the owner of Eat my
Words, where she comes up withbrilliant names for companies,
(00:23):
offers theme songs, absolutelyeverything.
She is actually the womanbehind the name Baconator.
She has done some of the mostamazing naming of brands that
you have heard regularly, sostay tuned as she teaches us her
smile and scratch framework foridentifying perfect names for
(00:47):
your brand.
I'm Sarah Noel Block, and thisis Tiny Marketing.
All right, we're on airofficially.
It's so good to have you.
Could you introduce yourself tothe audience for anybody who
doesn't know who you are and howamazing you are?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Sure, my name is Alexandra Watkins and I am the I
guess you could call me the bigcheese.
I'm the chief executive boss,lady, but most recently the big
cheese of a naming firm calledEat my Words, and we specialize
in naming uh, naming thingsright names and taglines.
(01:26):
Um, we started out namingthings that make people fat and
drunk, which is why we're namedeat my words, and we still do a
lot of, I wondered.
Yeah, that's the story.
So, yeah, my claim to fame isthat I named the wendy's
baconator yes, that is actuallyhow you were introduced to me.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I need you, I need.
It was Joey, and he said I needto introduce you to the lady
who named the Baconator.
You will not forget it.
I'm like I must meet this human.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, joey is so good atintroductions.
Yeah, that usually is a hookfor people.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, I was like I'm intrigued.
I'm intrigued for sure.
So we talked, maybe two monthsago at this point, and I just
the stickiness, the stickinessof a name.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
The stickiness of a name.
I had no idea the sciencebehind it, and you have such a
great framework for it, based onmy philosophy, that a name
should make you smile instead ofscratch your head.
Smile is an acronym for thefive qualities that make a name
awesome.
Or I guess you could say stickyyeah, sticky, sticky would be.
(02:58):
Sticky could be a good acronym,although Y is a really tough
letter.
And then scratch is an acronymfor when to scratch it off the
list because it makes peoplescratch their head.
So do you want me to go throughthis?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yes, please.
I was telling you before I hitrecord that I was talking to my
friend who is always whiningbecause he doesn't like the
names that the company picks forhis products.
So I introduced him to you andhe was like, oh my gosh, this
smile framework helped merethink what it should be.
(03:34):
So what does that stand for?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, no, the smile and scratchtest is great because it gives
you an objective kind of filterto run your name through so you
can tell if something is good orbad.
So SMILE stands for the Sstands for suggestive, and you
want your name to suggestsomething positive about your
brand, or you know somethingabout what your brand is or does
(03:58):
.
So an example of that would bewell, the name of my firm, eat
my Words, suggests that we havesomething to do with words and
something to do with food ortiny marketing.
Right, that's suggested as well.
So that is the S, and then theM in SMILES stands for memorable
(04:23):
, and this is really important,and I think memorable probably
is the.
When it comes to stickiness,memorable is probably the most
important letter.
So what makes somethingmemorable?
Well, it is if there's beenstudies done on this, and what
it comes down to is if somethingalready exists in our knowledge
(04:45):
base.
It makes it easier for us toremember versus random words or
letters that are unfamiliar.
So an example of this is thebike lot company, kryptonite.
Well, kryptonite is familiar toall of us from Superman, and we
know that Kryptonite repelsSuperman.
(05:07):
Therefore, kryptonite this is ametaphorical name repels bike
thieves, so that's a supermemorable, super sticky name and
metaphors really are, so that'swhy you can see something like
that.
And then there's a similarshape U-lock, bike lock, and
it's called a bus A-B-U-S orAbus, and like there's nothing
(05:31):
in our brain to help us latchonto that, although I did come
up with a mnemonic for it, whichis, if your bike gets stolen,
you might need to take a bus.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
If your bike gets stolen, you might need to take a
bus.
There you go.
Yeah, your book has so manygreat examples of what's working
and what's not, and you namenames you name names.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I'm not afraid to name names.
That is so true.
I like to say I'm the KathyGriffin of brand names, because
I'm not afraid to call them out.
But the thing is, this is thething I have never once in the
19 years I've had my businessand I've always been outspoken.
I have never once saidsomething bad about a name and
(06:20):
had somebody come back to me,and the reason why is they
already know that their namesucks.
And we're going to go throughsome of those.
But I'll finish with the goodstuff first.
So that was memorable.
So the I in SMILE stands forimagery, and when people hear
your name or see your name, theycan picture something in their
(06:40):
head.
It's going to make it easierfor them to remember it later on
down the road.
So because a lot of timespeople don't need what you're
selling in the moment, right,they might need it later on.
So I'll give you an example.
This is what I call a moniker,and a moniker is when a lot of
(07:06):
people use their own first orlast name as their business name
and you don't really getanything out of your name.
When you do that, you'remissing a huge opportunity to
make your brand super memorable,because most people's names
aren't memorable.
That's why we wear name tags.
That's why people always forgetnames.
(07:27):
So no, we all do.
We all all do, and I don't knowwhy.
That what is?
Um, but with a moniker.
That's where you are alreadyusing your own name.
Maybe you work for, for a firm,maybe you work for a real
estate firm and you're an agentand you can't name the firm
(07:49):
because your firm already has aname, remax, for instance.
I'm not sure that's not a goodname, by the way, that's a weird
name.
See, she names names.
So I know I do.
I do.
So a name, for instance, amoniker.
I'll give you two.
(08:09):
This is a real estate agentthat does work for Remax and
she's a bubbly blonde, she is aformer flight attendant and
she's very self-deprecating andher whole life was her career
career traveling the world forPan Am, and it's still meaning,
very meaningful to her.
So I said let's lean into thatfor your moniker.
(08:31):
So, because she's a bubblyblonde and self-deprecating, I
branded her the flighty realtor.
Her name is Diana Walsh and herlogo is a a little like a house
with wings that's tilted andit's super memorable, right, it
has great imagery.
When you hear the flightyrealtor, like, all kinds of
(08:53):
things come to mind.
Another one is for an attorney,and attorneys primarily use
their first and last name and alot of times they're just trying
to be professional.
We have named a number of lawfirms at Eat my Words, but in
this instance, this woman and wedidn't come up with her name,
but I discovered it one day I'mlike this is a great name.
(09:15):
I talk about her all the time.
That's a sign of a great namewhen someone like me is talking
about it.
Yeah, that's true.
So her name is Lauren Vasquez.
You know, not super memorable,she's a cannabis attorney.
That is memorable.
But it doesn't help us rememberher name, excuse me.
By the way, there are a lot ofcannabis attorneys.
(09:37):
I know four, four cannabistrademark attorneys, trademark
attorneys.
So she made her moniker, have alot of imagery and it's the
fired up attorney.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Did you write about her in the book?
That sounds familiar.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
No, I did not.
Maybe we just talked about her.
No, I know what you're thinkingof, though, and we're going to
talk about that next for legs.
That's what we're thinking of,though, and we're going to talk
about that next, for legs.
Okay, so, yeah, so that'simagery Super important.
So the next one that you'rethinking of the example of is
for legs, and legs means thatyour name lends itself to a
theme, so you can extend itthrough wordplay.
(10:18):
This is probably the hardestthing to do, except for me.
I'm really good at it so youwant your name to lend itself to
Wordplay, so you can extend thebrand, and I'm going to give
you the example that I believeyou're thinking of, because this
is everyone's favorite one inthe book, and this was a
publicist, and her name isLynette, hoy You're right, that
(10:40):
is her.
Yeah, so her name, lynette Hoy,said nothing about her being a
fiery publicist, so we brandedher Fire Talker PR.
We gave her the tagline hot onthe press.
She calls herself the firechief.
She works in the firehouse.
She has packages for herservices like Firestarter and
(11:06):
Controlled Burn.
She calls her webinar Igniteyour Visibility and she has a
theme song, which is Fire by the.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Ohio Players.
Yes, oh my gosh, can we justtouch on that for a second?
When you mentioned theme songs,I didn't even know that that
existed as part of branding atall.
Can you just explain what atheme song is?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, well, I made it up right, because I don't even
know how it started.
But I was like, yeah, everyoneneeds a theme song and if you
have a name with legs, you canhave one.
So when you have a theme songfor instance, my theme song is
Sugar, sugar by the Archies andyou can then you can.
I'm smiling because I just cameup with a bunch of theme songs
(11:54):
for people, but you can thenplay your.
If you're doing a webinar, forinstance, you can play your
theme song at the beginning ofit and it kind of gets the
audience pumped up.
We could have played it at thebeginning of this podcast.
So it's just a fun way, becauseyou know how many times have
you been to an event and thespeaker is trying to get people,
you know, motivated and youknow stand on your feet, turn to
(12:19):
your neighbor and it's likesuper cringe, right.
But if you come in and you'rejust like pumping up your theme
song, then people are naturallygoing to be jazzed right.
Yeah, so I recently went to thisgiant food and beverage trade
show called Expo West and I gavean award to the top 10 names of
the show and for each of thosenames I came up with a theme
(12:43):
song for the Instagram reel Imade.
So like one of them is a gosh.
There's so many fun ones.
One was a wellness company thatmakes drink mixes that are
vitamin-based drink mixes andthey're based in science and
their name is Routine andthey're based in science and
(13:06):
their name is Routine andthey're rooted in science and
it's part of the daily routine.
So normally I'm not a fan ofspelling your name wrong, but
this is just so clever and itmakes sense.
So it's Routine, spelledR-O-O-T-I-N-E, so for their
theme song I gave them.
She Blinded Me With Science byThomas Dolby.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Because it's rooted in science.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's rooted in science.
Yeah, so that, yeah, I had somuch fun doing those reels
because there was a theme songfor everyone.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That is so much fun.
I am jealous of your job.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That sounds like you get to do so much creative work
like workshopping yeah, or likeanother one is a new whipped
cream named whipnotic, likehypnotic, and so that one I did
whip it by Devo.
I'm kind of dating myself here,but there's some of these songs
are pretty classic.
Yeah, yeah, so, uh, that wasthat and then so that's L, and
(14:06):
then the E in smile stands foremotional, and you want your
name to make a strong emotionalconnection with people,
otherwise it's going to go rightover their head.
And a great emotionalconnection you can make is
making someone smile, becausewhen you make someone smile, it
releases all of these positiveneurotransmitters like serotonin
(14:29):
, into your brain.
Right, and that makes us feelgood.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Serotonin is my gamer tag with my kids.
Oh really, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Serotonin.
I love it.
I can see it on your sash.
It's a sticky name.
Yeah, that's really goodSerotonin.
I really like it.
We had a client once named Anna.
I was trying to play aroundwith her name and I came up with
Anaconda.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Anaconda Don't want none of them.
She got buns hon.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm getting over a cold, okay,
excuse me, I'm sorry, I'mgetting over a cold, okay.
So name with a lot of emotionalname, that makes a strong
emotional connection.
This is another one from thetrade show I just went to and
it's a refrigerated cookie dough, gourmet refrigerated cookie
dough, and it's named dopamineand it's spelled like dough
(15:29):
right, dopamine.
That's cute and it's super dope.
Speaking of dopamine thepositive neurotransmitters and I
got to tell you there was 3,000boosts at that show.
I hit them all up and dopaminewas by far the best name and
everybody loves that name.
So when you have a name likethat, when you can make somebody
(15:49):
smile and love your name beforethey've even like I love that
name before I even knew what itwas.
I just turned the corner I sawthat name on a neon sign and I'm
like I love this name and Ifigured out something to do with
cookie dough.
But if you can have somebodylove your name, that means they
(16:10):
love your brand before they evenknow or have tried your product
.
You are golden.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, you know.
A little side note on tinymarketing.
I found out from one of myclients that behind the scenes
they just they don't call me bymy name.
They just say let's give thisone to tiny.
My clients are always talkingabout my name.
How much they love that name.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's a great name.
I love the name Tiny Marketingit's really, really good.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I wish I had someone like you and I was trying to
figure it out.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No, you did no, you did great figure it out.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
No, you did, no, you did great.
When I read your book, I did, Ilike, I compared like my name
to all of you, to your smile andscratch test and I was like,
yes.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Now tiny marketing passes withflying colors, for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So what the scratch?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
test.
So, what is the scratch test?
The scratch is the flip side ofsmile and that is like I said.
It makes someone scratch theirhead, scratch it off the list,
and you have to be really honestwith yourself when you're
asking yourself these questions.
By the way, the smile andscratch test is on our website
(17:30):
at eatmywordscom.
Just click on test a name andyou can run any name through the
test.
It's interactive yeah, and itasks the questions and along the
way, it will give you feedbackso you'll learn you'll learn.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I'm going to put that in the show notes too.
I have it linked right there.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Thank, you perfect.
So the S in Scratch stands forspelling challenge and, like I
said, normally, like routine, Igive a pass to because it's so
clever.
But normally if something'sspelling challenge, the reason
they do it people do it isthey're trying to get an
available domain name.
(18:11):
Like there's a cookie storehere named Crumble and it's
missing the E on the end.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
It's big in.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Illinois too, right, yeah, like I'd like to buy a
vowel please.
So, yeah, don't do that.
I mean the best thing to do,like.
I'm sure, like trademark wise,they could have gotten the name
crumble spelled the right way,and I think they just spelled it
the wrong way so they could geta misspelled domain name.
(18:41):
But who cares?
I mean, when it comes to likeGoogle and search engine
optimization, it would actuallybe better if their name had the
word like bakery or cookie.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I'm not sure if it's a bakery or cookie.
Yeah, like SEO-wise.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, it would be better if their name just was
like crumblecookiescom,crumbledbakerycom.
That would actually be betterspelled the right way instead of
it being spelled the wrong way.
Yeah, just not a fan of thosemisspelling, because anytime
your name is spelled wrong,you're always going to have to
spell it for people.
And whenever you have to helppeople with your day, whether
(19:21):
you're helping them spell it orpronounce it or understand what
it means, you're essentiallyapologizing for it, and that
devalues your brand.
Yeah, I'm in a coaching groupand in the circle chat we're
(19:51):
always talking about that, like,do you have to spell it out
when you're explaining your name?
Then don't name it that,because it's a lot of branding
and marketing agencies are inthis coaching group, so that's
what we're chatting about.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
That's good that that peopleare aware of that.
So the first thing, in scratchsense for copycat nobody likes
the copycat.
Why be somebody else when youcan be yourself, right?
So, and when people see acopycat name, they kind of roll
their eyes and like yeah.
(20:11):
Oh, they copied, you know theylike.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
oh, they copied so-and-so Like the iPhone adding
I in front of anything, oh myGod, we have a restaurant called
iChef here, like, what do youeven make?
What is your food?
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, Totally, totally.
I have an online course and inthe course I have a whole lesson
on.
I have a lesson on all of these, all of the letters and smiling
, scratch, and yeah, this incopycat.
I have a whole slide of allthese I names and all these
names with Vonna VA, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Carvana.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Girlvana, kevonna, like stop with the Vonna.
But people kind of work in avacuum or they just figure like,
oh, I'll be like them, but likeit's just, it's lazy, it's
totally lazy.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Are they playing off Nirvana?
It must be right.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I know, yeah, they're playing off Nirvana.
That didn't even occur to meuntil we were talking about it
right now.
That's so interesting.
Okay, so that's copycat.
And then the R stands forrestrictive and that's where
your name locks yourself in andit prevents future growth.
So one is right now is the, youknow, the dollar 99 cent store,
(21:25):
right?
So there's things that are, youknow, $1.99, $2.99, $3.99,
$4.99, and I read the other daythat Dollar Tree.
So Dollar Tree went up to $1.25but it was just like a 20%, 25%
increase across the store,right, which is insane when you
(21:46):
think about it.
But people kept paying it andand now they're going to have
things that are like $1.50,$1.75.
So they kind of outgrew theirname as well.
1-800-flowers sells way morethan flowers.
Diaperscom sells way more thandiapers.
So you have to look in yourcrystal ball when you're naming
(22:06):
your brand and think about whatcan I possibly have in the
future?
And you want to make sure thatyour name is a wide enough
umbrella so you don't outgrowyour brand.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Think if Amazon had, becauseAmazon was originally just book
distribution.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I think about that all the time.
What if it was called Book Barn?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
They wouldn't have been able to grow to the level
they are today.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Exactly.
I think that is the very bestexample.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Now I'm dating myself , because that's how I got my
books back in college was whenAmazon was just a bookstore.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I know God, it was so long ago, right?
Okay, so the A in Scratchstands for annoying, and
annoying is when you get cutewith your name.
For instance, you spell itbackwards or you have a letter
in the middle of it, and I sawone of these the other day.
It's when you have a, not aletter, when you have a number
(23:04):
in the middle of your name.
So let's say your name is Coastto Coast with a numeral 2.
You're always going to have tospell it out for people and that
it's going to frustrate peoplewhen they email you.
You know they try to email youat Coast to Coast with T-O, or
they try to find your websiteand they're not finding it.
(23:26):
That makes them frustrated.
You want your name to befrustration free, friction free.
That makes them frustrated.
You want your name to befrustration-free, friction-free.
You just want it to be easy andI got to tell you, after having
eat my words for almost 20years, that is the most
frustration-free name.
It's so easy.
It's easy to spell, pronounce.
It's like no one ever trips upon it and there's something
(23:49):
really nice about having a namelike that on it and there's
something really nice abouthaving a name like that.
And if you think about your ownfirst and last name, most
people have a name that'schallenging in some way for
people to spell, pronounce,remember, like we talked about.
So why would you want to giveyour brand any of those same
disadvantages?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
And when you're starting out with a blank slate,
don't give yourself anydisadvantages that is valid and
I never thought my name waschallenging to say, but I've
been on about a bajillionpodcasts where they pronounce my
middle name, noel, soapparently it is.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, I could see that.
Yeah, how frustrating and it'sso weird because you're clearly
a woman.
Yeah, I'm like, hmm, no, didn'trealize.
How does no, how is no like nocoward spelled?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Let me Google it.
I see noels N-O-L-E.
Not the way my name is spelled,but I did learn, not that
recently, that the spelling ofmy middle name is the masculine
(25:06):
version of the spelling.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Okay, oh, really.
Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, I think my parents just didn't realize that
Parents.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Okay.
So the T in Scratch stands fortame, and tame means that your
name just fades into thebackground and you cannot afford
to have your name be awallflower, your name.
Look at some of these namesI've given you Dopamine,
hypnotic.
Those names scream notice me,I'm fun, I'm bold, I have
(25:43):
personality and they make yousmile.
Yeah, you want your name to be.
Look, I know a lot of peopleare afraid, oh, but I'm business
to business, that's okay.
You can still have a name Likelook at tiny marketing, tiny
marketing.
It says so much.
Right, the word tiny, it'sfunny.
Tiny is a tiny word but itcommunicates so much.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and it's B2B.
B2b does not have to be boring.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Exactly, exactly, exactly, yeah, so don't be
boring.
Okay, and the second C inscratch stands for the curse of
knowledge, and that means youknow what your name means.
Maybe the engineers at yourcompany know what it means, but
nobody else does, and you kindof forget that because you're so
(26:32):
used to it.
You forget nobody else outsideof your people know what the
name means.
So an example of this issomething, a foreign phrase,
right, when I look at thekitchen store Sur La Table and
it looks like it's Sur La Table,and why wouldn't people
pronounce it Table?
(26:53):
It looks like the one in thetable.
Right, it's in store too, andthere's another.
Well, we're going to talk aboutthe next one.
Next, I want to get to H, whichis hard to pronounce, and this
one is.
It's a crafting company andit's spelled C, so H is hard to
pronounce, right?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Cricut and it's called.
It's spelled c, so h is hard topronounce.
Right cry, cut and it'sc-r-i-c-g.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
So for the longest I never pronounced that correctly.
Yeah, well, I pronounced it crycut for years and then I was
working with the queen of crycut and she told me it was
pronounced cricket.
I'm like what it's not.
And then I looked it up andthey have this new logo.
That's this cute little likecricket with antennas and
there's antennas on the screen,but you know what?
You can't rely on your logo orcolors or capitalization to help
(27:45):
people pronounce your name.
Your name needs to be able toappear in black and white as a
proper noun in the Wall StreetJournal and more often or not,
people are going to be readingyour name in print.
So if somebody was seeingC-R-I-C-U-T it looks like Cricut
and if I wanted to get intocrafting and one of my
(28:07):
girlfriends was saying, oh, Ireally like Cricut and another
one was saying, oh, I reallylove cricket, I would have no
idea it was the exact same thing.
So you only want your name tobe pronounced one way, because
when it's pronounced two ways itdilutes your brand.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, it was again my coaching group, the Circle
Group.
They were thinking aboutrebranding and they came up with
this name, based off of Latinroots and combined things.
And I was like girl, I don'teven know what that's supposed
to say.
Don't do that.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, latin, yeah, the curse of Latin.
I mean Latin, it's, it's a.
It's a dead language and mymother would kill me for saying
this because so many word rootsare based in Latin.
But, yeah, people try to getall creative that way.
But look, just becausesomething's creative doesn't
mean it's good.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
And it's super heady.
Right, you can spell your name.
People shouldn't have to.
It's super heady too.
People just shouldn't have tothink that hard to figure out
what that means.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Exactly, exactly, sarah.
People want to feel clued in,not clueless, right?
Everyone wants to be in on it,like we named a GPS for dogs
Retriever.
That's cute and it takes asecond, but people love that.
They're like oh, like they getit.
Oh, like a golden retriever,people want to get it.
Yeah, people want to get itright.
(29:37):
Because you feel smart, likedopamine, you get it.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Everybody wants to feel smart.
That's such a good point thatit makes people feel clued in on
like an inside joke.
The way you name specifically.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Exactly, and that's why we love clever names right.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
God, I wish I could tell you something we're naming
right.
I can't, I can't.
I'm sworn to secrecy on allthis stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
No no.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I have to be careful, I know, but clever is.
It really pays to be clever?
Because people, it's one ofthose things that, like people
want to people love, like peoplelove feeling, like you said,
(30:27):
like they're an insider, rightPart of the gang, right, right,
and so that's Smile and Scratch.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Right, and so that's Smile and Scratch.
Yeah, okay, before we wrap up,I just want to touch on the
domain thing that you mentionedearlier, because a friend that I
recommended you to had saidlike that was the thing that
resonated with me the most,because I felt like I had to
find a name that had anavailable domain name.
(30:54):
So let's touch on that for asec.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Oh gosh, yeah, no good, I'm glad you brought that
up.
So yeah, finding an availabledomain name is not as hard as
people think it is.
So first of all, do not startyour name search on GoDaddy or
on a domain name registrar.
That's the worst place to go.
Start by coming up with a coolname and then find a domain name
(31:20):
and add a modifier word, like Isaid with Crumble they could be
bakery or cookies, otherexamples.
So modifiers, just adding thatextra word.
Like I said, it helps with SEO.
So if we weren't eatmywordscom,we could be eatmywords naming
eatmywords, brand names.
Hello, eatmywords.
(31:41):
You can also add the prefix infront Some other.
Yeah, I had a client the otherday getting really hung up on oh
, the domain is $10,000.
I'm like it's a design firm.
I said just add the wordcreative or studio after it.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
You're golden, you're done.
Did that save them $10,000?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Right, nobody expects anyone to have an exact match
domain name anymore.
There's some really creativeways around it, too.
To talk about being clever, wewere naming a popcorn store.
It too.
To talk about being clever, wewere naming a popcorn store a
gourmet popcorn store and wenamed it Pop Psychology, and the
domain name wasn't available,so we used the tagline, which
(32:22):
was crazy for popcorn.
That's cute.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Right and Pop Psychology.
That's so clever You're so goodat this.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Thank you, I love clever names.
Then, another one that I loveis it's a mail order turkey
company and the company doesn'thave a great name it's Greenberg
Smoked Turkeys, and you knowGreenberg could be spelled two
different ways, but their domainname is unforgettable.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And it's gobblegobblebble Perfect.
That's really cute.
After I read your book, Igrabbed hello tiny marketing,
because tiny marketing was thefilm.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, yeah, and you can have fun with your email
address too.
I mean don't, yeah, justthere's so many like with legs,
you know, that's where you canreally branch out and have fun
with your name.
Like our, our info at email ishungry at eat my work.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I got an email from that, my favorite podcast.
Their email is thecurator atboxofodditiescom.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's fun.
I got to tell you one more namewith legs.
This is a new one.
This guy's a podcaster.
His name is Jason Sircone, andhe read my book and he decided
he wanted to do a new podcastand he would read my book and
then name it.
First he named his company BombTrack Media after a song that
he really liked called BombTrack.
(33:57):
Then he named his podcast myfavorite podcast name ever,
which is let's Blow this Up Nice, Because that just sounds
exciting, right?
And he calls his studio theBomb Shelter and he calls his
audience the bomb squad.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Oh my gosh, so very on brand for you.
Exactly what you teach.
Now I need to touch on just onelast thing, and I know you're
sick, so just make it as fast ashumanly possible.
But in your book you talkedabout naming your packages and
having it align by using I don'tknow you describe it.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, so naming your packages so like BombTrack, he
has TNT Dynamite.
Firestarter Control Burn, notFirestarter.
Firetalker Control BurnFirestarter.
We at Eat my Words have packagenames like Supermarket Special,
the Whole Enchilada, and theWhole Enchilada is like that's
(35:01):
the big one, right?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
That's when we're working with Big Perfect, and
that aligns too, because that'show people talk.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, supermarket Special is when we're working
with consumer package goodsclients, right, and it's special
because they do their owntrademark screen so they get
discounted pricing versussomebody that's not doing that.
We have a package called FunSize and that's for smaller
(35:28):
clients, so we really play offthe name and then in fun size
set and fun size.
The thing about fun size it'sit's smaller clients, right,
it's a smaller price and you'regonna get fun names.
That's all about the clevernames and the reason that I'll
do those for last and you'reworking directly with me is
(35:48):
because I get to have fun and doclever names I love, love that,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
So it's a theme You're looking for, a theme for
your packages that aligns withyour name.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, look for the theme, and that's why, if your
name has legs and lends itselfto a theme, you can just blow
that out.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, Okay.
So I'm going to reiterate realquick you need your name to pass
the smile and scratch test.
Your domain does not have to bean exact name match.
You should have a theme songthat you can play with webinars,
workshops or walk on music whenyou're doing a speaking
(36:25):
engagement.
And the last one is you shouldhave a theme with your packages.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, theme's really important and for anybody stuck
on a theme or for a theme, myonline course has a lot of
examples of themes, my book hassome as well and, of course, if
you hire me, we're going to doall the theme stuff for you.
But, yeah, it's a lot of fun tohave a theme you can just.
I'll just really quickly sayanother favorite was a long time
(36:55):
ago.
We named an energy drink forwomen.
And it was named Bloom and itwas all natural.
It was all natural beveragethat helped perk up women in the
afternoon you know that dietcoke 4 pm time but this let them
caffeinate naturally, and soit's called Bloom.
(37:16):
And then the Just it was rightaround when Red Bull was really
popular was coming out and wenamed the Just Add Vodka version
a Sonic Bloom Nice.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Oh my gosh, okay, you're so good at this, and how
can people work with you?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Oh, reach out to me, alexandra, at eatmywordscom, or
just go to eatmywordscom, and ifyou, yeah, just click on
services or contact.
Just contact me directly, booka meeting through the site,
whatever works.
Follow me on Instagram ateatmywordsnames and if you go on
(37:59):
Instagram, you can see that oneof my pin posts is the top 10
winners of the food and beveragetrade show and, yeah, it's a
really fun.
It's a one minute video and youcan see them all.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Oh, and then we can catch the theme songs that you
picked, that's exciting.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Oh yeah, the theme songs are below.
Yeah, there's a theme song, thetheme song with that I couldn't
believe.
I'll let you all surpriseyourself with the theme.
Go on my reels if you want tosee the really good theme song.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Okay, I'm going to do that.
All of your links are going tobe in the show notes, including
the naming quiz, which I amgoing to take as soon as we're
done recording this.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, I encourage everyone to take the free name
test.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Awesome.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Thanks, Sarah.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Sarah Tonin.
Yeah, sarah Tonin, I hope youenjoyed my episode with
Alexandra Watkins.
She is absolutely freakingbrilliant when it comes to
naming, and make sure to takethe naming quiz and use the
smile and scratch test when youare identifying what your next
brand name should be.
(39:07):
If you enjoyed this episode,make sure to like, subscribe and
share it with a friend.
And before you go, I want totell you about a brand new offer
that I am currently puttingtogether a waitlist for.
So if you are a B2B servicefounder who is stuck in a
(39:28):
marketing role and doing clientwork and all the other things,
this is for you.
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So we streamline, wesystematize, we automate, we use
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This gives you abudget-friendly, effective and
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So I can't wait to see you overthere.
Make sure to go down to theshow notes page and sign up for
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Go down to the show notes pageand sign up now.
I'll see you.
Bye.
Do you struggle to come up with brand names, offer
names, podcast names, all thenames.
So do I.
That's why everything is calledTiny Marketing.
Today I am talking to AlexandraWatkins, the owner of Eat my
Words, where she comes up withbrilliant names for companies,
(00:23):
offers theme songs, absolutelyeverything.
She is actually the womanbehind the name Baconator.
She has done some of the mostamazing naming of brands that
you have heard regularly, sostay tuned as she teaches us her
smile and scratch framework foridentifying perfect names for
(00:47):
your brand.
I'm Sarah Noel Block, and thisis Tiny Marketing.
All right, we're on airofficially.
It's so good to have you.
Could you introduce yourself tothe audience for anybody who
doesn't know who you are and howamazing you are?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Sure, my name is Alexandra Watkins and I am the I
guess you could call me the bigcheese.
I'm the chief executive boss,lady, but most recently the big
cheese of a naming firm calledEat my Words, and we specialize
in naming uh, naming thingsright names and taglines.
(01:26):
Um, we started out namingthings that make people fat and
drunk, which is why we're namedeat my words, and we still do a
lot of, I wondered.
Yeah, that's the story.
So, yeah, my claim to fame isthat I named the wendy's
baconator yes, that is actuallyhow you were introduced to me.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I need you, I need.
It was Joey, and he said I needto introduce you to the lady
who named the Baconator.
You will not forget it.
I'm like I must meet this human.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, joey is so good atintroductions.
Yeah, that usually is a hookfor people.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, I was like I'm intrigued.
I'm intrigued for sure.
So we talked, maybe two monthsago at this point, and I just
the stickiness, the stickinessof a name.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
The stickiness of a name.
I had no idea the sciencebehind it, and you have such a
great framework for it, based onmy philosophy, that a name
should make you smile instead ofscratch your head.
Smile is an acronym for thefive qualities that make a name
awesome.
Or I guess you could say stickyyeah, sticky, sticky would be.
(02:58):
Sticky could be a good acronym,although Y is a really tough
letter.
And then scratch is an acronymfor when to scratch it off the
list because it makes peoplescratch their head.
So do you want me to go throughthis?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yes, please.
I was telling you before I hitrecord that I was talking to my
friend who is always whiningbecause he doesn't like the
names that the company picks forhis products.
So I introduced him to you andhe was like, oh my gosh, this
smile framework helped merethink what it should be.
(03:34):
So what does that stand for?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, no, the smile and scratchtest is great because it gives
you an objective kind of filterto run your name through so you
can tell if something is good orbad.
So SMILE stands for the Sstands for suggestive, and you
want your name to suggestsomething positive about your
brand, or you know somethingabout what your brand is or does
(03:58):
.
So an example of that would bewell, the name of my firm, eat
my Words, suggests that we havesomething to do with words and
something to do with food ortiny marketing.
Right, that's suggested as well.
So that is the S, and then theM in SMILES stands for memorable
(04:23):
, and this is really important,and I think memorable probably
is the.
When it comes to stickiness,memorable is probably the most
important letter.
So what makes somethingmemorable?
Well, it is if there's beenstudies done on this, and what
it comes down to is if somethingalready exists in our knowledge
(04:45):
base.
It makes it easier for us toremember versus random words or
letters that are unfamiliar.
So an example of this is thebike lot company, kryptonite.
Well, kryptonite is familiar toall of us from Superman, and we
know that Kryptonite repelsSuperman.
(05:07):
Therefore, kryptonite this is ametaphorical name repels bike
thieves, so that's a supermemorable, super sticky name and
metaphors really are, so that'swhy you can see something like
that.
And then there's a similarshape U-lock, bike lock, and
it's called a bus A-B-U-S orAbus, and like there's nothing
(05:31):
in our brain to help us latchonto that, although I did come
up with a mnemonic for it, whichis, if your bike gets stolen,
you might need to take a bus.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
If your bike gets stolen, you might need to take a
bus.
There you go.
Yeah, your book has so manygreat examples of what's working
and what's not, and you namenames you name names.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I'm not afraid to name names.
That is so true.
I like to say I'm the KathyGriffin of brand names, because
I'm not afraid to call them out.
But the thing is, this is thething I have never once in the
19 years I've had my businessand I've always been outspoken.
I have never once saidsomething bad about a name and
(06:20):
had somebody come back to me,and the reason why is they
already know that their namesucks.
And we're going to go throughsome of those.
But I'll finish with the goodstuff first.
So that was memorable.
So the I in SMILE stands forimagery, and when people hear
your name or see your name, theycan picture something in their
(06:40):
head.
It's going to make it easierfor them to remember it later on
down the road.
So because a lot of timespeople don't need what you're
selling in the moment, right,they might need it later on.
So I'll give you an example.
This is what I call a moniker,and a moniker is when a lot of
(07:06):
people use their own first orlast name as their business name
and you don't really getanything out of your name.
When you do that, you'remissing a huge opportunity to
make your brand super memorable,because most people's names
aren't memorable.
That's why we wear name tags.
That's why people always forgetnames.
(07:27):
So no, we all do.
We all all do, and I don't knowwhy.
That what is?
Um, but with a moniker.
That's where you are alreadyusing your own name.
Maybe you work for, for a firm,maybe you work for a real
estate firm and you're an agentand you can't name the firm
(07:49):
because your firm already has aname, remax, for instance.
I'm not sure that's not a goodname, by the way, that's a weird
name.
See, she names names.
So I know I do.
I do.
So a name, for instance, amoniker.
I'll give you two.
(08:09):
This is a real estate agentthat does work for Remax and
she's a bubbly blonde, she is aformer flight attendant and
she's very self-deprecating andher whole life was her career
career traveling the world forPan Am, and it's still meaning,
very meaningful to her.
So I said let's lean into thatfor your moniker.
(08:31):
So, because she's a bubblyblonde and self-deprecating, I
branded her the flighty realtor.
Her name is Diana Walsh and herlogo is a a little like a house
with wings that's tilted andit's super memorable, right, it
has great imagery.
When you hear the flightyrealtor, like, all kinds of
(08:53):
things come to mind.
Another one is for an attorney,and attorneys primarily use
their first and last name and alot of times they're just trying
to be professional.
We have named a number of lawfirms at Eat my Words, but in
this instance, this woman and wedidn't come up with her name,
but I discovered it one day I'mlike this is a great name.
(09:15):
I talk about her all the time.
That's a sign of a great namewhen someone like me is talking
about it.
Yeah, that's true.
So her name is Lauren Vasquez.
You know, not super memorable,she's a cannabis attorney.
That is memorable.
But it doesn't help us rememberher name, excuse me.
By the way, there are a lot ofcannabis attorneys.
(09:37):
I know four, four cannabistrademark attorneys, trademark
attorneys.
So she made her moniker, have alot of imagery and it's the
fired up attorney.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Did you write about her in the book?
That sounds familiar.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
No, I did not.
Maybe we just talked about her.
No, I know what you're thinkingof, though, and we're going to
talk about that next for legs.
That's what we're thinking of,though, and we're going to talk
about that next, for legs.
Okay, so, yeah, so that'simagery Super important.
So the next one that you'rethinking of the example of is
for legs, and legs means thatyour name lends itself to a
theme, so you can extend itthrough wordplay.
(10:18):
This is probably the hardestthing to do, except for me.
I'm really good at it so youwant your name to lend itself to
Wordplay, so you can extend thebrand, and I'm going to give
you the example that I believeyou're thinking of, because this
is everyone's favorite one inthe book, and this was a
publicist, and her name isLynette, hoy You're right, that
(10:40):
is her.
Yeah, so her name, lynette Hoy,said nothing about her being a
fiery publicist, so we brandedher Fire Talker PR.
We gave her the tagline hot onthe press.
She calls herself the firechief.
She works in the firehouse.
She has packages for herservices like Firestarter and
(11:06):
Controlled Burn.
She calls her webinar Igniteyour Visibility and she has a
theme song, which is Fire by the.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Ohio Players.
Yes, oh my gosh, can we justtouch on that for a second?
When you mentioned theme songs,I didn't even know that that
existed as part of branding atall.
Can you just explain what atheme song is?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, well, I made it up right, because I don't even
know how it started.
But I was like, yeah, everyoneneeds a theme song and if you
have a name with legs, you canhave one.
So when you have a theme songfor instance, my theme song is
Sugar, sugar by the Archies andyou can then you can.
I'm smiling because I just cameup with a bunch of theme songs
(11:54):
for people, but you can thenplay your.
If you're doing a webinar, forinstance, you can play your
theme song at the beginning ofit and it kind of gets the
audience pumped up.
We could have played it at thebeginning of this podcast.
So it's just a fun way, becauseyou know how many times have
you been to an event and thespeaker is trying to get people,
you know, motivated and youknow stand on your feet, turn to
(12:19):
your neighbor and it's likesuper cringe, right.
But if you come in and you'rejust like pumping up your theme
song, then people are naturallygoing to be jazzed right.
Yeah, so I recently went to thisgiant food and beverage trade
show called Expo West and I gavean award to the top 10 names of
the show and for each of thosenames I came up with a theme
(12:43):
song for the Instagram reel Imade.
So like one of them is a gosh.
There's so many fun ones.
One was a wellness company thatmakes drink mixes that are
vitamin-based drink mixes andthey're based in science and
their name is Routine andthey're based in science and
(13:06):
their name is Routine andthey're rooted in science and
it's part of the daily routine.
So normally I'm not a fan ofspelling your name wrong, but
this is just so clever and itmakes sense.
So it's Routine, spelledR-O-O-T-I-N-E, so for their
theme song I gave them.
She Blinded Me With Science byThomas Dolby.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Because it's rooted in science.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's rooted in science.
Yeah, so that, yeah, I had somuch fun doing those reels
because there was a theme songfor everyone.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That is so much fun.
I am jealous of your job.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That sounds like you get to do so much creative work
like workshopping yeah, or likeanother one is a new whipped
cream named whipnotic, likehypnotic, and so that one I did
whip it by Devo.
I'm kind of dating myself here,but there's some of these songs
are pretty classic.
Yeah, yeah, so, uh, that wasthat and then so that's L, and
(14:06):
then the E in smile stands foremotional, and you want your
name to make a strong emotionalconnection with people,
otherwise it's going to go rightover their head.
And a great emotionalconnection you can make is
making someone smile, becausewhen you make someone smile, it
releases all of these positiveneurotransmitters like serotonin
(14:29):
, into your brain.
Right, and that makes us feelgood.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Serotonin is my gamer tag with my kids.
Oh really, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Serotonin.
I love it.
I can see it on your sash.
It's a sticky name.
Yeah, that's really goodSerotonin.
I really like it.
We had a client once named Anna.
I was trying to play aroundwith her name and I came up with
Anaconda.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Anaconda Don't want none of them.
She got buns hon.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm getting over a cold, okay,
excuse me, I'm sorry, I'mgetting over a cold, okay.
So name with a lot of emotionalname, that makes a strong
emotional connection.
This is another one from thetrade show I just went to and
it's a refrigerated cookie dough, gourmet refrigerated cookie
dough, and it's named dopamineand it's spelled like dough
(15:29):
right, dopamine.
That's cute and it's super dope.
Speaking of dopamine thepositive neurotransmitters and I
got to tell you there was 3,000boosts at that show.
I hit them all up and dopaminewas by far the best name and
everybody loves that name.
So when you have a name likethat, when you can make somebody
(15:49):
smile and love your name beforethey've even like I love that
name before I even knew what itwas.
I just turned the corner I sawthat name on a neon sign and I'm
like I love this name and Ifigured out something to do with
cookie dough.
But if you can have somebodylove your name, that means they
(16:10):
love your brand before they evenknow or have tried your product
.
You are golden.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, you know.
A little side note on tinymarketing.
I found out from one of myclients that behind the scenes
they just they don't call me bymy name.
They just say let's give thisone to tiny.
My clients are always talkingabout my name.
How much they love that name.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's a great name.
I love the name Tiny Marketingit's really, really good.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I wish I had someone like you and I was trying to
figure it out.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No, you did no, you did great figure it out.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
No, you did, no, you did great.
When I read your book, I did, Ilike, I compared like my name
to all of you, to your smile andscratch test and I was like,
yes.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Now tiny marketing passes withflying colors, for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So what the scratch?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
test.
So, what is the scratch test?
The scratch is the flip side ofsmile and that is like I said.
It makes someone scratch theirhead, scratch it off the list,
and you have to be really honestwith yourself when you're
asking yourself these questions.
By the way, the smile andscratch test is on our website
(17:30):
at eatmywordscom.
Just click on test a name andyou can run any name through the
test.
It's interactive yeah, and itasks the questions and along the
way, it will give you feedbackso you'll learn you'll learn.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I'm going to put that in the show notes too.
I have it linked right there.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Thank, you perfect.
So the S in Scratch stands forspelling challenge and, like I
said, normally, like routine, Igive a pass to because it's so
clever.
But normally if something'sspelling challenge, the reason
they do it people do it isthey're trying to get an
available domain name.
(18:11):
Like there's a cookie storehere named Crumble and it's
missing the E on the end.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
It's big in.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Illinois too, right, yeah, like I'd like to buy a
vowel please.
So, yeah, don't do that.
I mean the best thing to do,like.
I'm sure, like trademark wise,they could have gotten the name
crumble spelled the right way,and I think they just spelled it
the wrong way so they could geta misspelled domain name.
(18:41):
But who cares?
I mean, when it comes to likeGoogle and search engine
optimization, it would actuallybe better if their name had the
word like bakery or cookie.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I'm not sure if it's a bakery or cookie.
Yeah, like SEO-wise.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, it would be better if their name just was
like crumblecookiescom,crumbledbakerycom.
That would actually be betterspelled the right way instead of
it being spelled the wrong way.
Yeah, just not a fan of thosemisspelling, because anytime
your name is spelled wrong,you're always going to have to
spell it for people.
And whenever you have to helppeople with your day, whether
(19:21):
you're helping them spell it orpronounce it or understand what
it means, you're essentiallyapologizing for it, and that
devalues your brand.
Yeah, I'm in a coaching groupand in the circle chat we're
(19:51):
always talking about that, like,do you have to spell it out
when you're explaining your name?
Then don't name it that,because it's a lot of branding
and marketing agencies are inthis coaching group, so that's
what we're chatting about.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
That's good that that peopleare aware of that.
So the first thing, in scratchsense for copycat nobody likes
the copycat.
Why be somebody else when youcan be yourself, right?
So, and when people see acopycat name, they kind of roll
their eyes and like yeah.
(20:11):
Oh, they copied, you know theylike.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
oh, they copied so-and-so Like the iPhone adding
I in front of anything, oh myGod, we have a restaurant called
iChef here, like, what do youeven make?
What is your food?
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, Totally, totally.
I have an online course and inthe course I have a whole lesson
on.
I have a lesson on all of these, all of the letters and smiling
, scratch, and yeah, this incopycat.
I have a whole slide of allthese I names and all these
names with Vonna VA, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Carvana.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Girlvana, kevonna, like stop with the Vonna.
But people kind of work in avacuum or they just figure like,
oh, I'll be like them, but likeit's just, it's lazy, it's
totally lazy.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Are they playing off Nirvana?
It must be right.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I know, yeah, they're playing off Nirvana.
That didn't even occur to meuntil we were talking about it
right now.
That's so interesting.
Okay, so that's copycat.
And then the R stands forrestrictive and that's where
your name locks yourself in andit prevents future growth.
So one is right now is the, youknow, the dollar 99 cent store,
(21:25):
right?
So there's things that are, youknow, $1.99, $2.99, $3.99,
$4.99, and I read the other daythat Dollar Tree.
So Dollar Tree went up to $1.25but it was just like a 20%, 25%
increase across the store,right, which is insane when you
(21:46):
think about it.
But people kept paying it andand now they're going to have
things that are like $1.50,$1.75.
So they kind of outgrew theirname as well.
1-800-flowers sells way morethan flowers.
Diaperscom sells way more thandiapers.
So you have to look in yourcrystal ball when you're naming
(22:06):
your brand and think about whatcan I possibly have in the
future?
And you want to make sure thatyour name is a wide enough
umbrella so you don't outgrowyour brand.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Think if Amazon had, becauseAmazon was originally just book
distribution.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I think about that all the time.
What if it was called Book Barn?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
They wouldn't have been able to grow to the level
they are today.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Exactly.
I think that is the very bestexample.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Now I'm dating myself , because that's how I got my
books back in college was whenAmazon was just a bookstore.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I know God, it was so long ago, right?
Okay, so the A in Scratchstands for annoying, and
annoying is when you get cutewith your name.
For instance, you spell itbackwards or you have a letter
in the middle of it, and I sawone of these the other day.
It's when you have a, not aletter, when you have a number
(23:04):
in the middle of your name.
So let's say your name is Coastto Coast with a numeral 2.
You're always going to have tospell it out for people and that
it's going to frustrate peoplewhen they email you.
You know they try to email youat Coast to Coast with T-O, or
they try to find your websiteand they're not finding it.
(23:26):
That makes them frustrated.
You want your name to befrustration free, friction free.
That makes them frustrated.
You want your name to befrustration-free, friction-free.
You just want it to be easy andI got to tell you, after having
eat my words for almost 20years, that is the most
frustration-free name.
It's so easy.
It's easy to spell, pronounce.
It's like no one ever trips upon it and there's something
(23:49):
really nice about having a namelike that on it and there's
something really nice abouthaving a name like that.
And if you think about your ownfirst and last name, most
people have a name that'schallenging in some way for
people to spell, pronounce,remember, like we talked about.
So why would you want to giveyour brand any of those same
disadvantages?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
And when you're starting out with a blank slate,
don't give yourself anydisadvantages that is valid and
I never thought my name waschallenging to say, but I've
been on about a bajillionpodcasts where they pronounce my
middle name, noel, soapparently it is.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, I could see that.
Yeah, how frustrating and it'sso weird because you're clearly
a woman.
Yeah, I'm like, hmm, no, didn'trealize.
How does no, how is no like nocoward spelled?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Let me Google it.
I see noels N-O-L-E.
Not the way my name is spelled,but I did learn, not that
recently, that the spelling ofmy middle name is the masculine
(25:06):
version of the spelling.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Okay, oh, really.
Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, I think my parents just didn't realize that
Parents.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Okay.
So the T in Scratch stands fortame, and tame means that your
name just fades into thebackground and you cannot afford
to have your name be awallflower, your name.
Look at some of these namesI've given you Dopamine,
hypnotic.
Those names scream notice me,I'm fun, I'm bold, I have
(25:43):
personality and they make yousmile.
Yeah, you want your name to be.
Look, I know a lot of peopleare afraid, oh, but I'm business
to business, that's okay.
You can still have a name Likelook at tiny marketing, tiny
marketing.
It says so much.
Right, the word tiny, it'sfunny.
Tiny is a tiny word but itcommunicates so much.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and it's B2B.
B2b does not have to be boring.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Exactly, exactly, exactly, yeah, so don't be
boring.
Okay, and the second C inscratch stands for the curse of
knowledge, and that means youknow what your name means.
Maybe the engineers at yourcompany know what it means, but
nobody else does, and you kindof forget that because you're so
(26:32):
used to it.
You forget nobody else outsideof your people know what the
name means.
So an example of this issomething, a foreign phrase,
right, when I look at thekitchen store Sur La Table and
it looks like it's Sur La Table,and why wouldn't people
pronounce it Table?
(26:53):
It looks like the one in thetable.
Right, it's in store too, andthere's another.
Well, we're going to talk aboutthe next one.
Next, I want to get to H, whichis hard to pronounce, and this
one is.
It's a crafting company andit's spelled C, so H is hard to
pronounce, right?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Cricut and it's called.
It's spelled c, so h is hard topronounce.
Right cry, cut and it'sc-r-i-c-g.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
So for the longest I never pronounced that correctly.
Yeah, well, I pronounced it crycut for years and then I was
working with the queen of crycut and she told me it was
pronounced cricket.
I'm like what it's not.
And then I looked it up andthey have this new logo.
That's this cute little likecricket with antennas and
there's antennas on the screen,but you know what?
You can't rely on your logo orcolors or capitalization to help
(27:45):
people pronounce your name.
Your name needs to be able toappear in black and white as a
proper noun in the Wall StreetJournal and more often or not,
people are going to be readingyour name in print.
So if somebody was seeingC-R-I-C-U-T it looks like Cricut
and if I wanted to get intocrafting and one of my
(28:07):
girlfriends was saying, oh, Ireally like Cricut and another
one was saying, oh, I reallylove cricket, I would have no
idea it was the exact same thing.
So you only want your name tobe pronounced one way, because
when it's pronounced two ways itdilutes your brand.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, it was again my coaching group, the Circle
Group.
They were thinking aboutrebranding and they came up with
this name, based off of Latinroots and combined things.
And I was like girl, I don'teven know what that's supposed
to say.
Don't do that.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, latin, yeah, the curse of Latin.
I mean Latin, it's, it's a.
It's a dead language and mymother would kill me for saying
this because so many word rootsare based in Latin.
But, yeah, people try to getall creative that way.
But look, just becausesomething's creative doesn't
mean it's good.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
And it's super heady.
Right, you can spell your name.
People shouldn't have to.
It's super heady too.
People just shouldn't have tothink that hard to figure out
what that means.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Exactly, exactly, sarah.
People want to feel clued in,not clueless, right?
Everyone wants to be in on it,like we named a GPS for dogs
Retriever.
That's cute and it takes asecond, but people love that.
They're like oh, like they getit.
Oh, like a golden retriever,people want to get it.
Yeah, people want to get itright.
(29:37):
Because you feel smart, likedopamine, you get it.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Everybody wants to feel smart.
That's such a good point thatit makes people feel clued in on
like an inside joke.
The way you name specifically.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Exactly, and that's why we love clever names right.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
God, I wish I could tell you something we're naming
right.
I can't, I can't.
I'm sworn to secrecy on allthis stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
No no.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I have to be careful, I know, but clever is.
It really pays to be clever?
Because people, it's one ofthose things that, like people
want to people love, like peoplelove feeling, like you said,
(30:27):
like they're an insider, rightPart of the gang, right, right,
and so that's Smile and Scratch.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Right, and so that's Smile and Scratch.
Yeah, okay, before we wrap up,I just want to touch on the
domain thing that you mentionedearlier, because a friend that I
recommended you to had saidlike that was the thing that
resonated with me the most,because I felt like I had to
find a name that had anavailable domain name.
(30:54):
So let's touch on that for asec.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Oh gosh, yeah, no good, I'm glad you brought that
up.
So yeah, finding an availabledomain name is not as hard as
people think it is.
So first of all, do not startyour name search on GoDaddy or
on a domain name registrar.
That's the worst place to go.
Start by coming up with a coolname and then find a domain name
(31:20):
and add a modifier word, like Isaid with Crumble they could be
bakery or cookies, otherexamples.
So modifiers, just adding thatextra word.
Like I said, it helps with SEO.
So if we weren't eatmywordscom,we could be eatmywords naming
eatmywords, brand names.
Hello, eatmywords.
(31:41):
You can also add the prefix infront Some other.
Yeah, I had a client the otherday getting really hung up on oh
, the domain is $10,000.
I'm like it's a design firm.
I said just add the wordcreative or studio after it.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
You're golden, you're done.
Did that save them $10,000?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Right, nobody expects anyone to have an exact match
domain name anymore.
There's some really creativeways around it, too.
To talk about being clever, wewere naming a popcorn store.
It too.
To talk about being clever, wewere naming a popcorn store a
gourmet popcorn store and wenamed it Pop Psychology, and the
domain name wasn't available,so we used the tagline, which
(32:22):
was crazy for popcorn.
That's cute.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Right and Pop Psychology.
That's so clever You're so goodat this.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Thank you, I love clever names.
Then, another one that I loveis it's a mail order turkey
company and the company doesn'thave a great name it's Greenberg
Smoked Turkeys, and you knowGreenberg could be spelled two
different ways, but their domainname is unforgettable.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And it's gobblegobblebble Perfect.
That's really cute.
After I read your book, Igrabbed hello tiny marketing,
because tiny marketing was thefilm.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, yeah, and you can have fun with your email
address too.
I mean don't, yeah, justthere's so many like with legs,
you know, that's where you canreally branch out and have fun
with your name.
Like our, our info at email ishungry at eat my work.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I got an email from that, my favorite podcast.
Their email is thecurator atboxofodditiescom.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's fun.
I got to tell you one more namewith legs.
This is a new one.
This guy's a podcaster.
His name is Jason Sircone, andhe read my book and he decided
he wanted to do a new podcastand he would read my book and
then name it.
First he named his company BombTrack Media after a song that
he really liked called BombTrack.
(33:57):
Then he named his podcast myfavorite podcast name ever,
which is let's Blow this Up Nice, Because that just sounds
exciting, right?
And he calls his studio theBomb Shelter and he calls his
audience the bomb squad.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Oh my gosh, so very on brand for you.
Exactly what you teach.
Now I need to touch on just onelast thing, and I know you're
sick, so just make it as fast ashumanly possible.
But in your book you talkedabout naming your packages and
having it align by using I don'tknow you describe it.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, so naming your packages so like BombTrack, he
has TNT Dynamite.
Firestarter Control Burn, notFirestarter.
Firetalker Control BurnFirestarter.
We at Eat my Words have packagenames like Supermarket Special,
the Whole Enchilada, and theWhole Enchilada is like that's
(35:01):
the big one, right?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
That's when we're working with Big Perfect, and
that aligns too, because that'show people talk.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, supermarket Special is when we're working
with consumer package goodsclients, right, and it's special
because they do their owntrademark screen so they get
discounted pricing versussomebody that's not doing that.
We have a package called FunSize and that's for smaller
(35:28):
clients, so we really play offthe name and then in fun size
set and fun size.
The thing about fun size it'sit's smaller clients, right,
it's a smaller price and you'regonna get fun names.
That's all about the clevernames and the reason that I'll
do those for last and you'reworking directly with me is
(35:48):
because I get to have fun and doclever names I love, love that,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
So it's a theme You're looking for, a theme for
your packages that aligns withyour name.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, look for the theme, and that's why, if your
name has legs and lends itselfto a theme, you can just blow
that out.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, Okay.
So I'm going to reiterate realquick you need your name to pass
the smile and scratch test.
Your domain does not have to bean exact name match.
You should have a theme songthat you can play with webinars,
workshops or walk on music whenyou're doing a speaking
(36:25):
engagement.
And the last one is you shouldhave a theme with your packages.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, theme's really important and for anybody stuck
on a theme or for a theme, myonline course has a lot of
examples of themes, my book hassome as well and, of course, if
you hire me, we're going to doall the theme stuff for you.
But, yeah, it's a lot of fun tohave a theme you can just.
I'll just really quickly sayanother favorite was a long time
(36:55):
ago.
We named an energy drink forwomen.
And it was named Bloom and itwas all natural.
It was all natural beveragethat helped perk up women in the
afternoon you know that dietcoke 4 pm time but this let them
caffeinate naturally, and soit's called Bloom.
(37:16):
And then the Just it was rightaround when Red Bull was really
popular was coming out and wenamed the Just Add Vodka version
a Sonic Bloom Nice.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Oh my gosh, okay, you're so good at this, and how
can people work with you?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Oh, reach out to me, alexandra, at eatmywordscom, or
just go to eatmywordscom, and ifyou, yeah, just click on
services or contact.
Just contact me directly, booka meeting through the site,
whatever works.
Follow me on Instagram ateatmywordsnames and if you go on
(37:59):
Instagram, you can see that oneof my pin posts is the top 10
winners of the food and beveragetrade show and, yeah, it's a
really fun.
It's a one minute video and youcan see them all.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Oh, and then we can catch the theme songs that you
picked, that's exciting.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Oh yeah, the theme songs are below.
Yeah, there's a theme song, thetheme song with that I couldn't
believe.
I'll let you all surpriseyourself with the theme.
Go on my reels if you want tosee the really good theme song.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Okay, I'm going to do that.
All of your links are going tobe in the show notes, including
the naming quiz, which I amgoing to take as soon as we're
done recording this.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, I encourage everyone to take the free name
test.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Awesome.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Thanks, Sarah.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Sarah Tonin.
Yeah, sarah Tonin, I hope youenjoyed my episode with
Alexandra Watkins.
She is absolutely freakingbrilliant when it comes to
naming, and make sure to takethe naming quiz and use the
smile and scratch test when youare identifying what your next
brand name should be.
(39:07):
If you enjoyed this episode,make sure to like, subscribe and
share it with a friend.
And before you go, I want totell you about a brand new offer
that I am currently puttingtogether a waitlist for.
So if you are a B2B servicefounder who is stuck in a
(39:28):
marketing role and doing clientwork and all the other things,
this is for you.
So I am talking to you rightnow.
The Tiny Marketing Club willhelp you build your lean
marketing engine, where you willidentify your dream client,
your signature offer, your mainsocial media channel, your core
(39:49):
content, two lead generators apassive and an active one and
one gateway offer that will helpyou find perfect, fit clients
and build systems around it.
So we streamline, wesystematize, we automate, we use
AI and we outsource where weneed to.
This gives you abudget-friendly, effective and
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efficient marketing strategythat you get to use with an
entire community, a community ofB2B founders, and you can rely
directly on me, where you'llhave one-to-one access with me
through the VIP option, withVoxer and the community and our
strategy sessions that happen onaverage once a month.
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So I can't wait to see you overthere.
Make sure to go down to theshow notes page and sign up for
the wait list.
I'm taking 10 people in mypilot, where you will get
bonuses, discounts for being apilot member, a founding member
of the Tiny Marketing Club, andyou get it all.
(40:55):
You're going to really lovethis.
I hope to see you over there.
Go down to the show notes pageand sign up now.
I'll see you.
Bye.
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