Announcer:

Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what's next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world's great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game-changers they are today. Now here's Tony DUrso.

Tony:

Welcome. I'm your host Tony DUrso. I interview some of the most successful people in the world, and I thank you for joining us. This show is dedicated to helping you turn your vision into reality, and we are the number one show on the Voice America network. Today, we're going to talk with Alexandra Watkins, the buzz on brand names. As you know, my interviews with the world's elite entrepreneurs are all about helping you launch your new business or take your business to the next level. Sometimes the penny drops with the right information for you to start something profitable yourself or help you do your job a whole lot better. I love to help you, and I love to hear how these world-class interviews are helping you. If you want to help me help more people and help get my show to those that need to hear this in the world, please consider giving me a review. The easy way is to go to Apple podcasts or go to ratethispodcast.com/tony. A kind five-star review helps grow and support the show. Today's show is about the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. Let's see what we can learn today. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary recap of what we went over, so stay tuned for that. Alexandra Watkins is a leading and outspoken authority on brand names with buzz. Her breakthrough book, “Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How To Create Brand Names That Stick,” was named a Top 10 Marketing Book by Inc. Magazine and a Top 10 Branding Book by Branding Journal. Here we go. Hi, Alexandra. Welcome to the Tony DUrso Show. So great to have you on. I can't wait to go over some of these topics.

Alexandra:

Awesome. Tony, I'm so excited to talk to you.

Tony:

Thank you. You know, we're going to talk about brand names. We're going to talk about what are they, why are they important or not, what the buzz is all about them. And what I'd like to do is follow your journey to success, Alexandra. So, let's take it from the top. How did it all start from you? What's your backstory?

Alexandra:

Well, I have a really interesting back story unlike anyone's you've ever heard. When I was in eighth grade, I realized that I wanted to be in advertising, and I think some of it had to do with watching Bewitched all the time. Remember Darren Stevens worked for McMahon and Tate? So, because I figured that out at a really young age, I didn't want to go to college because why did I need to go to college when I already knew what I wanted to do? So of course, my parents were not cool with that at all, but I was able to convince them that it was a good idea to just let me do what I really wanted to do. So, I was able to talk my way into working in an ad agency and eventually worked my way up to get a job as a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather and you may know Ogilvy, right?

Tony:

That's a very big brand name. Kudos to you!

Alexandra:

It is. They're now just Ogilvy. They shortened their name, but yeah Ogilvy & Mather, they're a huge deal. David Ogilvy wrote Ogilvy On Advertising. I got into Ogilvy. I became a copywriter. I loved copywriting, but every once in a while, I would get thrown a bone and get to name something. And I loved naming and I was really good at naming, but I didn't know that naming was a profession. How would I know it was a profession? Who had ever heard of naming, right?

Tony:

Who would think?

Alexandra:

Who would think, and naming wasn't part of advertising because naming falls under branding, and the world of advertising and branding rarely intersects because clients have all kinds of agencies. They have their PR firm and their ad agency and the branding firm. Well, they're all fighting over budget, so the branding and the ad agencies, they never even knew that. They kind of were aware of each other, but I didn't know anything about branding. I worked on the ad side. Branding is in the beginning; advertising is at the end. So, when I discovered naming was a thing like a profession and people got paid for it, I switched gears and said, that's what I'm going to do. So I discovered that the branding firm where I needed to go to - pardon the pun - make a name for myself, was Landor Associates, and it just happened to be right in my own backyard, which at the time was San Francisco. I tried everything I could to get a job at Landor. Now this is so long ago, Tony. Now I know you can go in the way back machine and remember this time when the internet was in its nascency and we didn't have LinkedIn. So it was back in the day of 'don't call us, we'll call you'. You didn't know the name of anyone. I mean, I was lucky to get the name of one person at Landor and I would send this guy - his name was Alton Wright - and I would send him photos of my dog and all the names I came up with for my dog. I tried everything I could to get into Landor and I couldn't catch a break. Why? Because everyone that gets a job at Landor as a namer has a degree in linguistics. Now you know me. I skipped college so I didn't have a degree in anything. My background was advertising, not academia, so nothing worked. I couldn't get into Landor. I never gave up, but I just kind of had to set it aside a little bit. And in the meantime, I was still doing advertising. I was doing freelance copywriting, and I think at that point I'd left Ogilvy and I finally got my big break and you'll never guess how. Do you want to guess?

Tony:

Oh, I get a guess? All right, let me think. Okay. Well, since they were in your backyard and you didn't have to travel and take a flight and get a hotel, I would have probably gone there at lunchtime with some donuts and coffee. I'm Italian, so that's what came to my mind. I'm sure that that's not what it is.

Alexandra:

No, but that's a good guess. That is a good guess. Back in the day on Valentine's Day, we would hand deliver Krispy Kreme donuts to our clients in San Francisco with notes that said, we love working with you, so I'm all about donuts, but that's not how I got my big break. It was pretty sweet. It was Saturday night and it was my third date with Samir, and we were going to a cocktail party where I was going to be meeting his friend. Now you would never know this, Tony, talking to me right now, but I'm actually pretty shy if I don't know people. And I get really shy at parties. I just clam up. It's hard for me to break into a conversation. So, I asked Samir who's going to be there, just wanting to get some Intel before we went, trying to find something in common with these complete strangers. So he told me his friends that were going to be there - Susan from his office and Jim from his bike team and his friend Anthony from Landor, and I was like, what? You know someone who works at Landor? What do they do? And very nonchalantly, he's like, I don't know. Head of naming or something. And I was like, wait, what? What? Anthony? cause of course I never heard of this person because I only have the name of one guy, Alton Wright. I'm completely beside myself with excitement. So, I go to grab my business cards, which I always kept by the door. And Samir looked at me and kind of half joking and half not joking and said what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm getting my cards. I want to meet your friend, Anthony. And he said, no, you're not about getting my cards. And I'm like, Samir, wait. What do you mean? He's like Alexandra, this is Saturday night. It's a cocktail party, not a networking party. Leave your cards at home. I'm like, Samir, what is your deal? He's like, look, every time my friends meet my friend Anthony, and they find out that he's a namer, they say that they're really good at naming things. And I'm like, but I am really good at naming things, and I get it now because this is what I do. And everyone says, Oh, I'm really good at that. So I understand. But I said, look, I am good at naming things. I had named some things in advertising and doing some freelance stuff. So I grabbed my cards and I shoved them in my little purse, and Samir kind of rolled his eyes at me and off we went to the party. Now the whole time we're driving over there, he's not really talking to me. It's a sore subject. I knew Samir wasn't going to be my future husband, so I didn't really care. All I cared about at that time was developing a love relationship with Anthony. We get to the party in a really crowded bar. Samir will not tell me who Anthony is. Now I am shy, so I can't just go up and ask people who's Anthony, so I spend the first hour of the party eavesdropping on every conversation, kind of like leaning about with my arms folded, kind of leaning back to see what I could hear with my bionic hearing. And I finally hear this guy, he is wearing a top hat say his name is Anthony. So, I mosey in and remember I'm petrified, right? I'm not good at breaking in, making small talk. So somehow, I mosey and I introduce myself and Anthony looks at me and says, Alexandra, what do you do? I totally lied. I said, I'm a product namer. And he said, no! I'm a product namer! And I acted so dumb. You are? He's like, yeah. And I'm like, where do you work? He's like, I work at Landor. I'm like, Oh! He's like, well, why haven't I ever heard of you because this is a very small world, us namer people. So I said, you know, I don't know. I'm from advertising. And he said, well, what have you named? Now thank goodness, the entire way over in the car. I was like, what have I named? What have I named? Cause we never want to be put on the spot and I was prepared. So, when he asked me what I named, I reeled them all off, and then Anthony looked at me and he said, do you have a card on you? Now, of course. I had a little tiny purse full of cards, but I played dumb again and I pretended that I didn't know if I had a card. I said, I don't know. Let me look. I kind of bent down to look in my tiny little purse, pretend I'm fishing around in there, and then I kind of looked back and this entire time Samir had been watching me from the bar. I look over my shoulder at Samir with the biggest F-U on my face, and Samir of course, I'm sure he's completely horrified watching me, and then I pull out my card. I'm like, Oh, here's my last one, and I give Anthony my card and a couple of weeks later, I get a call from his assistant and they put me on a project naming chips for Frito-Lay. So that's how I got started. I became a freelancer for Landor. Anthony started giving me a lot of work, and I started working for the New York office and Frankfurt and all these branding firms, naming firms. So that's how I got started. And my names are so refreshing because I was not from academia. My whole background was in advertising, creating concepts and headlines that made emotional connections. So, just fast forward to kind of finish this big circle. All these years later, Anthony and I are good friends. We're professional colleagues. He has been a good mentor to me. When he went out on his own, I had lots of experience at that point doing that, so we help each other out. Samir, who I'm no longer in a relationship with, he takes full credit for launching my naming career.

Tony:

Alexandra, I cannot stop laughing. I am just holding back. This is a riot. I think every single person in my audience has one question and only one question.

Alexandra:

Okay. What is the question?

Tony:

I've been laughing so much, I don't remember.

Alexandra:

You forgot the question?

Tony:

Can we pause for a second because I'm not joking. I'm laughing so much; I can't get the question out.

Tony:

This is the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead, the chat continues about the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment.

Tony:

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Announcer:

You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Today's show is the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this and share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. For more than 15 years, Alexandra and her naming firm, Eat My Words, have created love-at-first sight brand names for clients including Amazon, Coca-Cola, Disney, Google, Twitter, and countless startups. All right, and now back to the chat with Alexandra. Okay. Here's the question. We all literally - mean, the switchboard is flooding here. People are saying ... the question is, Alexandra - does Anthony knows this back story?

Alexandra:

Yes. I finally had to confess to him years later and it's actually been written up in a newspaper and yeah, I had to kind of fess up to Anthony and of course he really admired my kind of chutzpah doing that. Hey, I'm not used to doing things like that, but I knew that if I didn't do it then, I might never have that chance again.

Tony:

I am so impressed. I have one last question about that and I want to go into more on branding and naming. Why do you like naming? What is it about naming? What's your purpose? What's it all about for you?

Alexandra:

Oh my gosh. It's so much fun. It's so much fun. I love it. You know, we named a GPS for dogs Retriever. I named a frozen yogurt franchise Spoon Me, the Church of Cupcakes. It's just fun. I loved advertising and creating headlines, but names are like little mini headlines and they can be clever and fun and make people smile. So that's what I love about names. Plus, you know, if you're a namer, you're in the major leagues of writing. People write newspapers; writers write. They're very talented, but they don't make any money. But naming, you make more money per word, cause it's just one or two words, maybe three, if your company name is Eat My Words like mine. But yeah, you get paid a lot of money for very few words, so I'm in the big leagues of writing.

Tony:

We're talking about the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins and you can find her at eatmywords.com. I love that website URL. Alexandra, let's get into your vision path here. Now I understand how it all came about. This is not just naming. This is brand names. This is names of things, of foods, of businesses, of perhaps even people. Are they really that important because we have bazillions of businesses out here? I'd love to know - what's your philosophy? Does every single business ever need a brand? Every food item? Give us your thoughts.

Alexandra:

Yes. Think about this, Tony. How many times in your lifetime ...? we're just going to think about your name. How many times in your lifetime - and you can whip out a calculator if you need like I would - how many times in your lifetime has somebody said your name, read your name or heard your name?

Tony:

Well, you know, I have this uncanny ESP photographic memory and I can come up with numbers automatically. It's 4 million, 367,482 or 83 times.

Alexandra:

There you go.

Tony:

It's a very common word. You think Italian, you think Tony. It's like I'm already branded.

Alexandra:

Yeah. So, think about that. Think about your brand like that. So your name, first of all, your name, your brand name is the first thing people come in contact with. Whether they see it on a store shelf, they see it in social media, they see it on your name badge at an event. Your name is the first point of contact. It makes a valuable first impression, even more than your shoes. So that's why your name is so important, and no other investment you make in your business will last longer than your name. Think of Morton Salt. That company has been in business well over a hundred years. Think of every piece of office equipment they've gone through in that time. Think of all of the offices, all of the employees, all of the paper, all of the stuff they've had that's been disposable. What's the one thing they still have? Their name. That's why your name is so important.

Tony:

I'm going to ponder that here for a second. Now I have a name, but in this society, because there's so many Tonys, I have a last name. I have a surname. And actually, what I try to do is because it's a unique spelling. There's an apostrophe there, but the search engines get all confused with that apostrophe, so I took it out. I like it, because if people say, Hey, there's a typo in your name, but no, it's not really. I just took the apostrophe out and I try to brand that. So instead of saying my name, you'll hear it on my shows. Instead of saying Tonydurso.com for example, I'll say TonyDurso.com, and I'm trying to get that in people's minds so that they kind of remember my name a little bit.

Alexandra:

Anything you can do to help people remember your name is good. Any type of pneumonic you can do. If you can do that, it helps sink in especially if it's not familiar. Like your name to people in the United States, it's not a familiar last name, so anything you can do to help them with that is good.

Tony:

You know, I learned that as a kid watching TV because there's two things, I remember from way back then that I will probably never forget, and one is LSMFT and people go what's LSMFT? But I remember as a kid that was Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco. And it struck in my head so much because it was spelled out. Just like how do you spell relief? ROLAIDS. And so I thought, when you spell something out, it really sticks, so I always say TonyDurso.Com. Just hopefully it'll stick somewhere.

Alexandra:

Yeah. Well, you know, like Tony with your name, I don't know how you feel about Tony the Tiger. But if you say when you introduce yourself, Tony like Tony the Tiger, people have a much stronger chance of remembering it because they can picture something in their head.

Tony:

I'll remember that. What are the qualities of a winning brand name? Why does some stick with us and some don't?

Alexandra:

Well, that's a great question. My philosophy by the way, is a name should make you smile instead of scratch your head, so think about that. A name should make you smile instead of scratch your head. It doesn't mean it needs to make you laugh, but it just means it needs to make you smile like you get it, like oh, a GPS for dogs named Retriever. I get it. I have developed this 12-point acronym, a name evaluation test called the SMILE and Scratch test, and smile is what you just asked about, the five qualities that make a winning name. The "S" stands for suggestive, and I don't mean suggestive in a sexually suggestive way. I simply mean that your name needs to suggest something about what your brand is or does. So for instance, Amazon suggests large to me, so that's suggestive. Now, the "M" in SMILE stands for memorable. What makes something memorable? It's really hard for people to articulate that, but I have a really easy way to articulate it. It's based in the familiar. So, for instance, the bike lock Kryptonite. We all know kryptonite from the Superman comics. We know kryptonite so we have a familiarity with it. So, when we hear kryptonite bike lock, we get it. Oh, like Kryptonite repels Superman, Kryptonite lock will repel bike thieves. So that's based on the familiar versus if it's just some random name that you make up and people don't have anything to grasp onto, because it's not anything in their existing knowledge base, it's much harder to remember. Make sense?

Tony:

I'm thinking with it and I have questions, but right now, I want to be the sponge and learn more.

Alexandra:

Think about Tony the Tiger. Based on the familiar, we know Tony the Tiger. So that's what I mean by based on the familiar.

Tony:

This is the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead, the chat continues about the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment.

Tony:

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Announcer:

You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Today's show is the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this and share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Her product name Hall of Fame includes the Wendy's Baconator, the Neato robotic vacuum, and a GPS for dogs named Retriever, and I'll tell you more later on. And now back to the chat with Alexandra.

Alexandra:

Okay. Then the “I” in SMILE stands for imagery. Same with Tony the Tiger. If we can picture something in our head, like I said, it's easier for people to remember because people remember images much more easily than they remember words or letters. Because again, it gives your brain, if you can close your eyes and conjure something up in your head, it's easier. You can just visualize it. So that's why imagery is so important in a name. The “L” in SMILE stands for legs, and that means that your name lends itself to wordplay. We worked with naming this woman who was a PR professional and her name is Lynette Hoy. Lynette Hoy says nothing about being in PR, so I named her company Firetalker PR. Her tagline is hot on the press. So, you see how the legs of that. She calls herself the fire chief; she works in the firehouse; she has a theme song FIRE by the Ohio Players. So you can see how that's legs. It lends itself to a theme for extended mileage. So that's the great thing about having a name with legs. You can really extend your brand for years and years. And finally, the “E” in SMILE stands for emotional. You want your name to make an emotional connection. Otherwise, it's going to go over peoples' head and it needs to resonate with people. You know, we're bombarded with so many images and words, and everything's coming at us - TV, social media. We need things that stick, and if you can make an emotional connection. I'll give you a quick example. I was being attacked by a mosquito at 2:00 AM and it was relentless. I couldn't get any sleep, so I went on Amazon and I looked up electric bug zappers. They look like squash rackets, which I think is funny because you can't squash a bug. I saw four. They all looked exactly the same. There was like Electo, bug quick zap, some other one and The Executioner. Now which one of those? The Executioner! It makes a strong emotional connection. I want to obliterate this little bug and The Executioner; it feels like a bad-ass. Now, The Executioner actually costs more than those other parity products, but I liked the name so much that I was willing to pay more for the product because it made such a strong connection with me. And that's what can happen if you have a name that makes a strong, emotional connection. How many times has someone in your audience bought a bottle of wine because they liked the name? They've never tried the wine, but the name resonates with them. So that's why making emotional connection is so important. So that is SMILE. Sorry. I get excited about these things.

Tony:

That's totally okay. So I'm thinking - I've had my show for five years now. Should I change it? You know, you're saying all these points. Does it have the S? The M? Does it land? Does it have the emotional appeal? I don't know. I don't think I have any of those. Maybe I do. I don't know.

Alexandra:

It's hard for people that use their own names because it's like Lynette Hoy. You wouldn't know that she was a PR professional, but Firetalker PR says a lot. So yeah, it's tricky because if you have a known show and you do, you often have so much equity in it already that that's going to be enough for you.

Tony:

It could be. I was actually on your site eatmywords.com. There is this free name evaluation test, and you can go in with your brand name and test it, and not trying to be embarrassing or anything, but I couldn't get past the second question because I didn't know if my name is memorable or not. The Tony DUrso Show. I don't know that it's memorable. I've got a lot of people, but is it something that sticks? It should be Tony the podcaster, the Italian podcaster or something. Maybe that would be more of a flair. I don't know.

Alexandra:

You might need a tagline that can help you, or just a positioning line. Like I call myself the Brand Name Badass. That's nothing official or that I've trademarked, but it's just like a little thing that I call myself on LinkedIn. So yeah, there could be a way to position yourself there. The way that I like to tell people to think about name changes is think about how long you're going to be in business in the future, and that's a good way to kind of determine it. We just renamed a bank that's more than a hundred years old because they plan on being in business more than a hundred more years. So if you have a lot of equity in your name, but you know, you're going to be in business much longer, then you might want to consider changing your name. But I also know with someone like you, because you have so many great reviews on these podcasts apps that that's something you need to consider too. If you change the name of your podcast, are your ratings, your great ratings going to carry over with you?

Tony:

You know, you made me remember something. I have a tagline. You talked about it. I even had to think about it for a second. Do I have a tagline? It's right there on one of my show images. It's journey to success, but I never really say the tagline. I talk about it as if people know, and it was like, I do have a tagline and I want to bring up something to the audience here. On your website, one of the things that caught my attention, one of the headlines says your brand name shouldn't look like someone got drunk and played Scrabble. And I was so floored at the before and after, and some of the things that you've put together and how you've changed. It's the same product. We don't even know the product just by the words and the association, the local with it. It's night and day. And on that note, there's a couple of things to talk about, but one is common mistakes. We're kind of talking about that a little bit, but common mistakes in naming a brand. Maybe you can give us some we don't think you should do this. We should don't think you should do that. You know, if you can give us a couple.

Alexandra:

Yeah, absolutely. SCRATCH, the flip side of SMILE is seven things not to do. I'll give you some of them. They're all important, but some of the really common mistakes people make is that your name shouldn't look like a typo. The “S” in Scratch stands for “spelling challenge”. If your name looks like a typo, scratch it off the list. You don't want people to get frustrated with your name and that's what it all comes down to. You want your name to be a welcome mat, not a Do Not Enter sign. To think about it, you want your name to be friendly and approachable, and I have this new online course and they give the spelling test in the course where I'll read a name and then people have to try to spell the name. So I'll say the name ship like ship a package, and you would think it was SHIP, but it's SHYP. Why would you want to frustrate people and have them spell something wrong? I think I developed all of this too, because I don't like to spell things wrong. I don't like to embarrass myself. Nobody wants to spell anything wrong or pronounce anything wrong, and those are two common things. It doesn't matter if you know how to pronounce your name. Other people need to know how to pronounce it. One of my favorites here is there's this company, a tech company, and their name is spelled NEKTAR, and they want to be called nectar, but everybody pronounces it neck tar. They thought they were being clever by spelling nectar in that way, obviously to get an available domain name, which is the reason why most people do spell their name incorrectly, but they thought everybody else would know it was pronounced nectar, but nobody will pronounce it that way. So it doesn't matter how you want it to be pronounced. And you only want your name to be pronounced one way, or you're going to dilute your brand and confuse people, because I could be telling you about a company called nectar, somebody else could be telling you about a company called neck tar. You would have no idea they were the same company.

Tony:

This is the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead, the chat continues about the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment.

Tony:

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Announcer:

You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@tonydurso.com. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Today's show is the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this and share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Since 2005, Alexandra and her firm have created love-at-first sight brand names for clients including from Amazon to Xerox. Her personal name Hall of Fame includes the Neato robotic vacuum, Smitten Ice Cream, Spanish language school Gringo Lingo, frozen yogurt franchise Spoon Me, and the Church of Cupcakes. And now back to the chat with Alexandra.

Alexandra:

My favorite ever very timely, depending on when the show comes out, probably sometime close to Thanksgiving, there is a smoked turkey company called Greenberg Smoked Turkeys - not a great name - but their domain name is infectious. It's gobblegobble.com. Another favorite of mine. I love peanut butter. I am crazy for peanut butter and there's a company called Peanut Butter & Co, and they have peanutbutterandco.com. But if you go there, it redirects to their main domain, which is ilovepeanutbutter.com. You know why? Because it's fun. It's easy to remember. And if you're crazy for peanut butter, you're going to love that domain name. It's a more fun email address. It's a conversation starter, and it's better than just a regular domain name because it helps brand your company and it shows your personality. I love peanut butter. That's fun. One time we named a gourmet popcorn store, Pop Psychology, and they know psychology is hard for people to spell. So the domain name was crazy4popcorn.com, which is this whole playing into this theme of psychology, and it's fun and that was the tagline. So you can have a lot of fun with your domain name and do clever work around, and back to making an emotional connection. There's a luxury condo building in San Francisco called Lumina, and they couldn't get lumina.com. And I was walking by one day and I saw this billboard with their domain name and it made such a strong connection. It said life@lumina.com. And it's like, wow, life at Lumina. I want to live there. It just was so evocative of an experience of living in these luxury condos. So that's what you can do with a domain name.

Tony:

We've talked about so many domains that you love. What's your most favorite brand name and why?

Alexandra:

Oh, my favorite brand name is a bike pump, a tire pump and it's Joe Blow. I mean, what's not to love? How unexpected is that? I was on a date and there was something rattling around in his trunk and I'm like, what's that sound in your trunk? It's not a dead body, is it? He opened his trunk, and there it was! Joe Blow! I'm like, oh my God, I love you. So good. Yeah. Joe Blow, by far. Such a good name.

Tony:

That's so funny. What are some of the coolest things you've gotten to name? You've mentioned so many. Did we hit the coolest ones?

Alexandra:

Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I would say the coolest experience I had, and I think this is when cannabis was already legal in the US, I can't remember. I mean, in California, I had a client that made the first breathalyzer for cannabis for law enforcement. I was in their office and I saw this big poster and it said, smoke weed for science. I'm like, what's that? What's that? And they're like, Oh, we're doing the study at San Francisco General where we're paying people to get stoned and try our products so they can measure the efficacy of it, and you got paid 250 bucks, and you got a $50 gift card for Uber so you didn't have to drive. I'm like, I want to do that. They're like, you can just try it in our office. I'm like, I'm not going to get stoned in front of you. So I signed up for the study and they accepted me. So that was hilarious. And I did the whole thing. I was writing my experience on Facebook, and of course my mother was horrified. I did the study. I tried the breathalyzer and they really want to get super stoned cause they want to really test it out, and so it was crazy. At the end, they gave me the gift card and I don't like Uber personally. I'm not a big fan of the company. So I took a Lyft home and then I had the munchies so I used the gift card for Uber Eats. If you can have an imagination and activate your imagination on a daily basis, and that's something I do and not going to be like have a slinky on your desk. We talk about having a childlike imagination. I mean, toys around is really fun. Have a magic 8-ball, a slinky, a kaleidoscope. Think of the wonder that you had as a child. If you can bring that back into your life, do it because you get so.... People, especially now just staring at a computer all day, we forget that there's a whole world out there, but for me, I can always visualize, and here, you can't see what I'm looking at, but I'm looking out at my Barbie dream house and I can always picture having a swimming pool and I have one and there's a giant pink Flamingo in it. We painted the back of the house pink. Not the front of the house, because I don't want people to be like, Oh, you live in the pink house. I didn't want that, so only the back of the house is pink. We put in a Brady Bunch slide, super retro slide and a ping pong table and a trampoline and people come over, they're like, how many kids do you have? I'm like, I don't have any kids. Where are the kids? We have fun. We built a surf board fence and put in a Tiki bar. I have lots of color. The carpet in my office is maroon and orange squares. I have a sofa made out of stuffed animals. I have a skateboard, I have a surf board in here. My bookshelf is a pink retro refrigerator where I keep my books. So be playful and imaginative every day. It helps keep your mind young and fresh and just who would have thought to put books in a refrigerator. So, if you can just try to do things that are a little different and it's kind of cool to see people with their zoom backgrounds. Even if every day you put a different zoom background on, or go on stock photo sites and look at pictures and find some that you can download. Just have fun. We don't have to be so serious all the time.

Tony:

It reminds me for so long, I used to have a bunch of little cars on my desk, just a whole bunch. And then one day they went away. I'm not even sure why anymore. That's a different story, but I want to bring my cars back.

Alexandra:

Bring your cars back. Having little collections and playing with them. We love that. Just even take five minutes a day just to play with your toys.

Tony:

One last one here, Alexandra. We have a hungry audience of entrepreneurs, small business owners. We always want to learn. We're absorbing. You know, I hope everybody goes through this again and again a couple of times. There's so much information that we've provided to our audience, but always like to know if there's any great resources. You've mentioned a few, but any other great resources that you'd love to recommend to our audience.

Alexandra:

Yeah. One that I discovered recently that is great for so many reasons. And you have to really think of how you can use this, but I guarantee you'll find a way. It's called rev.com. I don't know what it stands for, but it's a way that you can take an audio recording of yourself and have it transcribed, and it's so cheap. So for instance, when I did my online course, I had all the audio recordings and I had the entire thing transcribed. So now if I ever want to write a blog post, I have all of that written up already. When I was writing my book and a lot of people asked me, how do they get started writing a book. Record yourself, go to rev, upload it, have it all transcribed, and they're amazingly accurate. Have it transcribed and then boom, there's your book or at least a good start of it. If you have stories to tell and you don't want to type them all up, go to rev. It's such a good deal, and it's a better deal than Fiver and it's really fast. Fiverr is my other resource, and I know some people have probably heard of it, maybe use it. I use it for everything. It's great. My email signature I had done on Fiverr, which I get compliments on all the time. I have any little photo retouching I need done. Everything. Oh, if you need a fun gift for someone for five bucks, you can have crazy videos made. Look at their unusual gift section for holiday gifts, especially now we're all trying to watch our money. Fiverr has crazy fun stuff on it and it's a deal and people will do anything for $5. It's really amazing.

Tony:

Thank you on rev and yes on Fiverr. It's my back office. I use it for literally everything imaginable. I know it's very popular. It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest out there and it's just so great, and we help bring work to people all over the world and it's just a great thing. Great resource.

Tony:

Once again, we talked about the buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins and you can find her at eatmywords.com. Check it out. There's a lot of good stuff on that website. I've mentioned a few of them. Thank you so much, Alexandra. I had a blast.

Tony:

Hey, fellow entrepreneurs. Thanks for hanging out with me while I featured an elite entrepreneur who took her vision to reality. I'm sure this was as inspiring for you as it was for me to do this interview. We learned some great buzz on brand names with Alexandra Watkins. I think this is the first time I've met someone whose future was decided by a TV show. Do you remember Bewitched? If so, do you remember all the antics with Darren's advertising agency? Lots of laughs on that. And that brings up a great question. If you know what you want to do in your life for a career, should you go to school or just apprentice in the industry you're interested in? It sure sounds like it would speed things up to me, and it sure did in Alexandra's case, who began working for a massive advertising agency. Not that I'm not advocating going to school or to university. I did. I put in my time and I'm glad I did it, but that was what was right for me. So I'm just opening you up. Maybe this gives you some ideas. Now the way she landed her big job in the company of her choice, while completely by chance and serendipity you may say, I say that's because how bad she wanted it and she had that vision she clung on to, and the opportunity materialized for her, as it often does when we hang voraciously onto our vision. She didn't get the hundreds or thousands of Nos that so many of us seem to get at times. She did have some of them from her boyfriend at the time, but this goes to show you that her vision was greater and that any amount of NOs would not have deterred her. What gumption! I hope you learned from this. Tenacity rules the day in the realm of success. Did you know that about your own name? That it makes the biggest impression on people? Alexandra says it's more important than your shoes, and I wish I would have thought at the time of asking her what she meant by that. Are our shoes really that important? Okay, kidding a little - I think. Well, are they? Anyway, our names are our best investment. Nothing in our business lasts longer per Alexandra. Now that is something to think over carefully when it comes to our business name. This interview is worth listening to again as there is so much more here. There's a great takeaway here. A name should make you smile instead of scratch your head. I'll let you listen again and write down what SMILE stands for. Those are great points. Make sure you go to her site at eatmywords.com and get that free name evaluation test. There's so much more I got out of this interview. What did you get? I would love to know how you use this information to help you in your business or career. Did this interview give you any ideas for your business? Did it stimulate you to take some action? Please share, and grab hold of your vision. Decide you're either going to start something great or take it to the next level. You have to decide first. It always starts with a decision and you can get my Vision Map to help you along the process. The free eBook is at TonyDurso.com/books. I created my empire in just a few years. That's all it took. I had the Vision Map as my guide. I wrote it up so that you can do it too. Let's help you move on your journey to success. Once again, please consider supporting the show with a nice review. Will you? Just go to ratethispodcast.com/tony. Thanks, and remember: just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Sow good seeds, do good deeds and join me on the next episode of the Tony DUrso Show.

Announcer:

We hope you've enjoyed this week's edition of the Tony DUrso Show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 5:00 PM Eastern time, 2:00 PM. Pacific time on the Voice America influencers channel.