PODCAST – The Ultimate Strategy for Naming Your Brand w/Alexandra Watkins

In EP 62 of The Wild Womn Hotline, we are joined by Alexandra Watkins, The Chief Executive Boss Lady at acclaimed brand-naming firm Eat My Words, who sat down to chat with us about how to give your brand a name that will delight and surprise your target audience. 

If you’re new to Alexandra, she is a leading and outspoken authority on brand names. Her breakthrough book, “Hello, My Name is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick”, is considered “the brand name bible,” and was named a Top 10 Marketing Book by Inc. Magazine

Alexandra’s brand-naming philosophy is that “a name should make you smile, instead of scratch your head.” Through her 12-point SMILE & SCRATCH name evaluation test, Alexandra and her firm have created love-at-first-sight brand names for clients from Amazon to Xerox since 2005.

Her personal name hall of fame includes the Neato robotic vacuum, Smitten Ice Cream, the Spanish language school Gringo Lingo, the frozen yogurt franchise Spoon Me, and the Church of Cupcakes.

Here’s a preview of the convo Alexandra and I had in this episode of The Wild Womn Hotline!

In this episode, we discuss…

• Alexandra’s background as a copywriter in the world of advertising
• Why your brand name should evoke an emotional response from your target audience 
• At what part of the brand-building process should you introduce potential names for your brand?
• How Alexandra’s signature “SMILE and SCRATCH” test will help you find the perfect name for your brand
• A breakdown of the Eat My Words SMILE & SCRATCH Test
  • SMILE: The 5 Qualities of a Super-Sticky Name
    • Suggestive—evokes something about your brand
    • Memorable—makes a familiar association
    • Imagery—aids memory through evocative visuals
    • Legs—lends itself to a theme for extended mileage
    • Emotional—moves people
  • SCRATCH: The 7 Deal Breakers
    • Spelling challenged—looks like a typo
    • Copycat—resembles competitors’ names
    • Restrictive—limits future growth
    • Annoying—seems forced, frustrates customers
    • Tame—feels flat, descriptive, uninspired
    • Curse of knowledge—speaks only to insiders
• Why trademarking should be top of mind when picking a name for your brand
• Does Wild Womn Haus pass the “SMILE and SCRATCH” test? Listen to find out!

Meet the Host and Guest Expert

Links and Resources 

Connect with Alexandra and the Eat My Words team:

• Take the SMILE & SCRATCH Name Evaluation Test
• How To Create Super Sticky Brand Names Online Course & Coaching
• Free Mini Masterclass on How To Improve Your Brand Name Creativity and Confidence
• The Website – http://www.eatmywords.com/ 
• Twitter – @eatmywords
• Facebook – @eatmywords
• LinkedIn – @eatmywords 
• LinkedIn – @alexandrawatkins 
• Buy the book on Amazon! 

Looking for more inspiration on brand naming? Check out these suggested articles from the Haus Editorial!

• ARTICLE – How to Develop Your Brand Voice Like a Pro
• PODCAST – How to Find Your Authentic Voice w/Kelsey Formost
• PODCAST – The Trademark Process 101 w/Chandler J. Esq.

Audio Transcript

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: [00:00:00] Okay. Alexandra, I am literally so excited to talk to you. We’ve been gabbing before we started recording because I just cannot shut up about how pumped I am to have this conversation. 

Can you tell the wild woman fam a little bit about what got you into naming brands? So I’ve, I’ve heard your story, what got you So interested in brand names in particular?

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Well, I used to work in advertising as a copywriter. and every once in a while I would get thrown a bone and get to name something. And I love naming. It was, it was like my favorite thing. I hardly ever got to do it. And one day I discovered that naming was actually a profession. I never knew that because naming’s part of branding and advertising and branding never really intersect because the ad.

The branding firm, they don’t wanna share budgets, they don’t talk to each other. So yeah, this was like, all this was like, oh my God, I, this is what I would, it’s, it was just this like, [00:01:00] oh. And so I, I told everyone, okay, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna become a namer. People are like, you can’t just name things.

And I’m like, yes, I can. And so, I switched gears and I became a namer and I built my business using LinkedIn. Back in the day before, like LinkedIn was all people trying to sell you stuff. And, uh, yeah. So I started freelancing for a bunch of different, uh, branding firms and naming firms, and I got some really great assignments.

And one of them was to name a new bacon cheeseburger for Wendy’s, and I named it the Baconator. So if you have eaten a baconator, you have literally eaten my words. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: You are my dad’s dream woman. I cannot tell you. He used to. So we had this hamster named bacon, and when the baconator came out, he started calling our hamster the baconator.

And I’m like, my God, stop. . 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: No, that way [00:02:00] looks such a good name for a dog. That’s camera. I’m sure people have named their dog. And yeah, a ham. That’s good. Yeah. Yeah. I never heard of that. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah, he literally, anything that he could love it. Call love any, any opportunity. He got to use that word. He would use it cuz it’s just, oh my God.

So fun to say. So that was a home run on your part. I’m really curious, like what is it about naming that just makes your brain so happy? Is it like the connection piece? Is it the cleverness? What 

is it? It’s the clever. I love clever like look, we can name, I can do B2B stuff. That’s fine, you know? But the clever is what I live for.

I like making people smile and that’s why like I got an assignment to name a Spanish language school in Cali Columbia, and I named it Gringo Lingo. Like you can’t hear that name and not break out in a grin. Right. Or you know, a GPS for dogs that I name retriever or [00:03:00] the Church of Cupcakes, like they’re just, they’re fun to say people like, you know, like anything that.

It’s gonna make people smile. And that’s what a name can do, a name. You know, when I was in advertising, I would write these headlines and try to make an emotional connection with the headline. And you can do the same thing with the name in a very short amount of words. And there’s so many missed opportunities by people that’s just name their company something really flat or, you know, dull.

Tame or, um, you know, some crazy meaningless, you know. I, I think the opportunity to be clever is it’s so missed and it’s so needed. Agree. 

And I am really curious at what part of the brand building process do you think naming should come into play? Because the way I do it sounds like is a little different from you and I just wanna hear your process.

Cause I love learning from other [00:04:00] experts. So if we’re talking about, so. A, a brand new business and they’re going through the branding process and they’re building out this incredible experience that people are gonna have When should name 

come 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: into play? That’s a really good question. No one’s ever, I’ve been on a million podcasts.

No one’s ever asked me that question. I’ve lived for that experience. No, right there. I do too. I’m a good question asker, and no one’s ever asked me that at a speaking engagement, so I, I, I believe. The first thing that should happen is brand strategy work. So hire brand strategy strategist, or use a strategy firm and get your strategy nailed down.

Then you wanna come to the naming firm and do that because you have your strategy all written. You can use that to inform the, create a brief, and we have one for clients to fill out. Then get your name. Then get your domain name and the domain name can wait, and we can talk about that later. And then [00:05:00] get your identity design.

Yeah, 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: I love it. And. The way I suggest going about it’s the same exact way, which I love that there’s that alignment there. And I’m really curious from your perspective, what happens when people try to name the business first? Because that’s something I’ve seen that at with almost every new business owner that I’ve worked with.

They’re like, well, what are we gonna name it? And I always say, don’t worry about that yet. Like the name. Come when the other pieces fall into place. Yeah. So what happens if you try to name the business first? Without the brand strategy, we, we can’t, 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: we have to, we have to have clients fill out a creative brief and they love it because they’re like, you know, you asked a lot of questions that we hadn’t thought about before and it helped us define our brand more.

So even if they haven’t worked with the strategy firm, they have a good roadmap to follow and you have to have a brief. When you, you wanna be able to check your name against it. Uh, you know, like with Eat My Words, [00:06:00] my firm, uh, our, you know, our like brand attributes are, we’re, we’re creative, we’re playful, and we’re unexpected.

And knowing that, Informs the name. So if we were gonna call ourselves strategic name development, for instance, that doesn’t work with those attributes, but eat my words. That does. So you have to have something you, we always have an. people write an acid test sentence where the name would be used because you need to check yourself.

Like, does this work in that sentence? Does this match the tone of personality that we want for our name? Otherwise? And people do that cuz the name is the exciting part, right? Like, oh, let’s sit around, you know, uh, you know, in a conference room, having pizza, just throwing names out there and like there.

That’s not just not the right way to do. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I understand the struggle of wanting to pick the name first because it’s kind of like, it’s kind of like [00:07:00] birthing a baby. Like the first thing you wanna do is be like, oh, let’s assign a name so that we can have this emotional connection with it.

And the thing with building a new brand and like giving that life is you have to understand the energy of it. You have to understand the personality of it. You have to understand its purpose and it where it wants to go and what it wants to do. And then you assign the name because all of those things inform kind of that like experience you should have when you hear the name.

And I just want everybody listen. Just make sure you have your brand strategy in place first, because naming will be so much easier when you do that and Alexandra has a process for it. And I definitely wanna talk about the process, but just for my own curiosity, when you, so you kind of got started with this big like claim to fame with naming with the Baconator.

Did your signature system come before that or did it come after naming and you kind of put the pieces. . So your smile and scratch process? Yeah. Well, 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: so the bacon eater, I was freelancing [00:08:00] for another friend mm-hmm. for strategic name development. And so I was following, they had their own process. But for me, um, when I started Eat My Words, the smiling scratch test that came.

That came about, I would say like two years in because I kept saying a name should make you smile instead of scratch your head. And then I was watching, uh, chip Heath of the Heath Brothers, uh, who’ve written all these books. My favorite book, business book is Made to Stick. And I was watching him speak one morning at some ungodly hour at a National Speakers Association conference, and he was going through the acronym in.

Success. And I was like, I need an acronym. So that’s where the Smile and Scratch test came from. But my process have developed over time, so I’ve been in business 17 years and I have really refined it. Like I just have it nailed. You know, [00:09:00] I have my own creative process down, and that’s always evolving because I keep finding new tools and then our process with clients.

when we do, like, we have a project, uh, a process, uh, package called the whole enchilada. That process has really evolved. I mean, we just, we have it down and we tell people, trust the process. We’ve done this before it works. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . I’m really curious. So one kind of. Journey I wanted you to take us on is I, I wanted you to take us through the Smile and Scratch test with Wild Wind House so that people can see it play out in real life in terms of how it would apply.

But first I wanna know what the most challenging brands that you’ve ever named have been? Or products? Just, just names in general. Yeah. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: And why was it so difficult? Oh, okay. So anything challenging is always going to be something that has a really high trademark saturation. So we were working on [00:10:00] naming a commercial printer and they offered advertising services.

So any ad agency, any name of an ad agency, social media firm, branding firm, PR firm, anything marketing, anything related to advertising was going to be a conflict of interest. And advertising agencies and marketing firms, they have creative names, right? So it was really, really hard. That’s the one. I would’ve given the full $40,000 back just not to have worked on it.

Cuz it was, it was just so extremely difficult. Um, so I would say that’s the hardest, but anything in technology, healthcare. But, you know, we, we perform miracles and we do get things trademarked, but it requires a lot of digging. Mm-hmm. . Um, but now more and more people need coin names, you know, invented names because those are easier to trade.

and, uh, that’s just a whole, that’s a whole other beast to try [00:11:00] to do those kind of names. Mm, 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: okay. So can you tell us a little bit about why tech and healthcare is so difficult? Is it, yeah. It’s 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: the Tre Mar class that they’re in. There’s so many, there’s so many technology companies. Yeah, there’s so many healthcare co like if you think about healthcare or think about skincare or fitness, anything.

There’s, you know, fitness, there’s gyms, there’s diet, the diet industry, there’s, you know, just anything related to, you know, health clinics, skincare, there’s cosmetology and, um, dermatology. There’s just, it’s, it’s really hard. What I love is like getting something that. Like, I’m trying to, well, we, we can conquer anything but something where it’s just not a super saturated trademark class or it’s, it’s an industry.

One of the favorite, favorite things that I love to name are law firms because there’s not a lot of trademark saturation [00:12:00] because they don’t have clever names. Or creative names. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: So can we go through the smile and scratch process with Wildman House? And you can drag, you can drag the name if you need to via as brutal as 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: one need. I need to see it in front of me.

Yep. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yep. Let me put it in the chat so that we can uh, okay. Play this game because I want everybody to hear. How the process 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: works. Yep. And you’re, you’re okay with me being brutally honest? 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yes, ma’am. I already know. I, I already know I missed, 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: missed a couple . I’m not gonna tell you anything that you don’t already know.

Okay, so, so SMILE is an acronym for the five Qualities that Make a Name Awesome. Mm-hmm. And Scratch is an acronym for when to Scratch it Off the List because it makes you scratch your head. Got it. Oh, okay. I’m here for it. . Okay. So Wild Women House. All right.

Suggestive. Does it suggest a positive brand experience? Absolutely a plus. Really good job there. Okay. Woo. I [00:13:00] love it. Okay. M is it memorable? Yes. I believe it’s memorable just cuz it’s so different. And like you, I love. Amazing eye imagery. Absolutely. Can you picture it in your head? Yes. When you can picture something in your head, it makes it memorable.

Also, or sorry, what makes it memorable is if. It’s based in the familiar mm-hmm. . So we are familiar with wild women house like ba, bowhouse, spelled that way. Mm-hmm. . So yes, it’s familiar imagery. Can we picture it in our head? That also makes it easier to remember. Yes. We can picture, I’m sure everyone has a completely different image in their head, but all like really fun, good images.

Mm-hmm. . Okay. The Ellen Smile stands for legs, and that means that your name lends itself to a theme. So, for instance, eat My Words. I mentioned we have a service called the Whole Enchilada, so [00:14:00] that’s, you know, the food, the food theme. We have lot, lots, lots and lots of mileage there with the food and beverage theme.

Mm-hmm. . So legs. Yeah. What have you done anything with wild women? House? As far as house, like on the house? 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: We have to get a lot more creative with it. And this is something because I’ve never seen this system before, that I am already thinking of a thousand different names. The connotation with Wildman house is somebody that’s fierce and bold and untamable and unapologetic.

So that’s more the direction that we tend to go in with in terms of naming practice or uh, packages or naming services or anything like. But my mind is already going a thousand directions with how we could build more legs with this name. Yeah. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: What I would do with it is take house and then play that out.

Like, you know, if you had a cocktail party, drinks on the house, you know, like fun stuff with house and there’s like, I, it. . I have an online course and I tell people, I teach them how to find [00:15:00] phrases. Mm-hmm. and you can, and words that you can have a lot of fun with. Mm-hmm. . So I definitely think that’s where your legs are.

It’s with the word house. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Super cool. Okay. And then 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: emotional , emotional connection. The Ian Smile. Yeah, I think well, just the word wild, wild, wild is pack with emotion, women’s pack with emotion. So yeah, you’ve, you’ve got smile down. Amazing. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Okay, now everybody listening, , we can’t all be perfect. So now she’s gonna go through this.

Scratch process. And these are the seven deal breakers of why you said you should scratch a name, correct? 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Yeah. Okay. So the big violator here is the first S in scratch, which is spelling challenge. So my rule of thumb is if your name looks like a typo, scratch it off the list. So women? Yes. Okay. I’d like to buy a vowel, please.

Yes,

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: [00:16:00] And my immediate reaction is to tell you the story. And you’re like, don’t do that. Because now you’re No. Tell a story. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Tell, tell you the story. No. The reason I want you to tell a story, Tristan Yes. Is so people can feel your pain because No, seriously. But look. Look at, okay. You have like, your last name gets butchered all the time.

Oh, don’t even. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Right. So I mean, telemarketers are like Fido. I’m like, where did that come from? . 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: So for everybody listening right now, think about your own first and last name and how troublesome it is. How often does it get butchered? Maybe it’s hard to spell. Think about that. And then put yourself in the position of having to create a.

why would you wanna give your name the same challenges? 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yep. So just everybody listening the story. And for you too, . The story of why woman is spelled without the A or without the E is because it is meant to [00:17:00] be the most. Eccentrically women empowerment name possible. So we remove the A, we remove the E, where it would normally say man or men, to make it a fully feminine version of the word woman.

So sometimes you see woman spelled with the A or the E has an X over it, meaning it’s like removing the masculine from the word woman. So that was kind of the, the whole feel behind it. And then how spelled. Is just so fun and elevated and editorial and we just love the feel of it. So that is the story behind it.

But , I love this so much, 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: and. Okay. That’s, that’s interesting. How often does it get misspelled? 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: I’m not really sure to be completely honest. I mean, I’ve been on a couple podcast episodes, interviews where people interviewed me and they’ve been like, is that spelled correctly? So it is a question mark for sure.

It’s a book. Problematic. This 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: is, yeah. This is another thing to consider [00:18:00] proofreaders hate names that are misspelled. Yep. Because they look, they look like a mistake. Right? Yeah. And that like a, uh, if you’re a journalist or you know, you’re, something’s being published, you don’t wanna look like you made a typo.

Mm-hmm. , I submitted a proposal today for a name that the, they’re changing their current name and it. Camel casing in it. Camel casing is where two words are mushed together. Oh. And then there’s a capital letter in the middle mm-hmm. . And it just, it looks like a typo. It, it, it just looks like a mistake.

Mm-hmm. , and like, I know if I sent it to her proofreader mm-hmm. , they would, they would change it. They would, you know, this is wrong. Mm-hmm. , um, because it’s actually a word. That they made a capital letter in the middle of that, they didn’t really need to mm-hmm. . Um, but, but we’re changing. Hopefully they’ll hire, eat my words and we’ll change the names so they’ll be good

But yeah, that’s prob camel case’s really problematic. Yep. Okay. So you didn’t, because my first, in clean. When I see a [00:19:00] name spelled like that’s missing, a vow is, oh, the domain name wasn’t available, so they misspelled it. . 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: No, no, no. It’s meant to, it’s meant to convey as much empowerment towards women as as possible.

There’s kind of this vernacular going around, like I said, of. Putting an X over the A or the E I can tell by your face. You’re like, this is just bad reasoning. , the name is trademarked. However, we have a lot of potential for like, for spelling the whole word if we wanted to in the future. So this is just good.

Like I’m go, I’m more than happy to put myself in front of the fire for people to learn from the things that we’ve done right and things we haven’t done. So if this is spelling, we lost a point for spelling. What about the next part? In Scratch, which is 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Copycat. Copycat, okay. Not a copycat. Yeah. And just for everyone listening, um, what I say about copycat is why be somebody else when you can be yourself?

So, no, this name is [00:20:00] clearly a, it’s, it’s a very distinctive, unique name. Mm-hmm. . So the A in scratch stands for annoying. There’s, okay. I would say Miss Abel is annoying and some people could be annoyed that, so I pronounce that house and you say how Haas, 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: how do you say? So like Haas, we pronounce it Haas.

Okay. But like the spelling, the German word is, So that’s kind of the way you would traditionally pronounce it. Nobody in America pronounce it right? Cause we say 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: bowhouse. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah. It’s house, right? We pronounce 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: it house. Yeah. Yes. So yes, you, I would say that’s annoying. That that is 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: annoying. I think we missed one though.

I think we missed the R. Oh, 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: you’re right. You’re right. Yeah, sorry. Yes. Uh, R is restrictive. Mm-hmm. and restrictive is when you outgrow your name and if you decided suddenly that you wanted to allow men, or that the word woman, even without a vow, is, [00:21:00] uh, not inclusive enough for mm-hmm. , uh, the just different gender identity is now mm-hmm.

that might not, that’s something we’re going through with, with an organization mm-hmm. that we may be renaming. So I would say that could be restrictive. Mm-hmm. , I’m, I’m not too worried about it. I think you’re fine. Mm-hmm. , um, it has the right spirit to. . But yeah, people, companies outgrow their names and that’s when they come to us and say, we’re no longer this.

We ha, you know, we’ve outgrown it. We need a new name. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Okay. And then, so yeah, S C R A T, the T is tame. There’s absolutely nothing about a name tame about a name with wild in it. But you don’t want your name to be tame. You don’t wanna be a wallflower, ladies, you wanna stand out in a sea of same.

Mm-hmm. . Amen. . . And then the second ca stands for Curse of Knowledge, and that is where the name speaks to [00:22:00] insiders, but your target audience and prospects don’t get it. Mm-hmm. . So those are usually names that. our foreign. So how house it gets a pass. Cuz I think people know, people know it’s house. Okay. I, I hope people know that.

And, uh, but it’s usually if something’s in Swahili or people are trying to be clever, right? Yeah. So th this is, this is what I wanna or create a, this is really important. Just because it’s creative doesn’t mean it’s a good name. Mm-hmm. . So if you have the Swahili word for beehive, You know, and it’s MAGA mz, or for Hi Mazin mz, I N G A, loosely translated.

People don’t know that. So you might think you’re being clever, but that doesn’t mean that’s a good name. Mm-hmm. . So that’s like a really important lesson to learn. I don’t say that often enough. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: It also makes me wanna say Bazinga from, um, oh my gosh, I can’t remember any of my show names today. I don’t 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: [00:23:00] know 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Bazinga.

Yeah. Anybody listening? Bazinga. Please message me on Instagram, the name of the show that that’s from, because I know somebody will know. . All right. And then we have 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: H. H. So H is hard to pronounce. So I would say spelling challenge and hard to pronounce are two of the really big ones. Hard to pronounce. You only want your name to be pronounced one way.

I give house a pass because people, I think people know. But I’ll give you an example. There’s a gr, like a green protein company named, spelled V E G A. So how would you pronounce that? 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Vega. And that’s cuz I buy their brand all the time. Otherwise. How do 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: you know, how do you know it’s pronounced Vega? I guess I don’t, I just pronounce it that way.

That’s so crazy because I thought it would be pronounced either veja like vegetarian or viga. Like vegan. Mm. [00:24:00] And I didn’t think Vega because there was that. Iconic car from the seventies called the Vega. And so I didn’t think it would be Vega in a million years. Yeah. And I called the company after hours to hear the voicemail and it is, it is Vega.

Yay . I 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: know, right? That’s only cuz I used to be vegan and that’s the plant-based protein that I would use. That’s the only reason I know that . 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Okay. Plant-based protein, that’s what I need to call it. Yeah. So, yeah. That is, uh, but here’s why. So if you are telling your friend at yoga about Vega and or about Veg Vega and someone else is talking, I’m talking, I’m, uh, talking about Viga and someone else is talking about veg, they might not understand that you’re talking about the same company.

So when your name can be pronounced multiple ways, it dilutes your brand. Mm. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Okay. Alexandra . [00:25:00] I’m like, here we go. Trademark process again. Looks like we’re coming up with a new logo. refining the logo again, I don’t, I I completely, I see everything that you’re saying. And just for the smile part we’re talking about suggestive.

Memorable imagery, legs, and emotional. So Wildman House hits all of those ones, but then we come to the scratch and there’s a lot of issues here. So, spelling, copycat, restrictive, annoying, tame, cursive knowledge and hard to pronounce. So for anybody listening, this is a really great opportunity to use this example of , literally putting myself in the middle of the road to have these things corrected and called out, which I’m so glad that you did because I.

Is really awesome to have examples of how to apply this. But is there anything else that you think could be done or needs to be done with any sort of naming around this or any sort of like, Revisions that need to be made. I mean we kind of [00:26:00] failed the scratch to us. How 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: do people pronounce it? Do they pronounce it Wild Women House or Wild Woman House?

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: People that are in my community pronounce it Wild Woman House. Cause they hear me say it all the time. But I was on a podcast last week and they said Wild Women House and so that’s 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: an issue. No, it’s weird cuz I would think it was Wild Women House. See 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: that’s an issue. Okay. amazing. Amazing. And for anybody that’s like, oh my gosh, I don’t have $40,000 to invest in a name.

you’ve got a course 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: and you’re teaching. I do. I have an online course. Yeah. And 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: you’re teaching people how to do this. So tell us all about your course. Cause I think listening now, everybody should, every business owner needs to go buy this, especially anybody that wants to start a business. Don’t name your business until you’ve taken this course.

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Thank you, and I have a book, my book is called, hello. My name is Awesome. How to Create Brown Names at Stick and you can get the book, uh, but the course is like my book on steroids in [00:27:00] technol. So in the course you will learn not only, you’ll go really deep into the smile and scratch task along the way, you’re going to learn, you’re gonna be developing your name along the way, learning a lot, seeing tons of examples, and like really colorful and fun.

And then you’re going to learn. Domain names, you’re gonna fill out a create a brief, so you’re gonna have a roadmap to create your names. There’s 10 lessons on brainstorming, and then if you’re going through a name change, there’s a whole module on name changes again with a lot of really great before and after makeovers.

So even if you’re not changing your name, you will be super inspired by those name changes. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Amazing. And it’s not just brand. Product names, service names, package names, podcast names. Blog names, like literal email list names, like [00:28:00] this could go on forever. Of all the things that you need to name within your brand.

Yeah. And this is one of the more difficult parts too. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: It it is. And one of my favorites. So talking about legs. When you have a name with legs, that’s where it really helps when you’re naming different parts of your business. For instance, there was a woman that I work with named Lynette Hoy. And by her name, you would have no idea that she was this fiery publicist.

And so we rebranded her fire talker PR with the tagline, hot on the press. Right? So that’s the name with legs. We’re playing off a fire. Then she calls herself the fire chief. She works in the firehouse. She has a theme song and when you have a name with legs, you, you can have a theme song. My theme song and Eat My Words is Sugar sugar by the Arches. So Lynette, a Fire Talker, her theme song is Fire by the Ohio Players and she can get people [00:29:00] to stand up, up on their feet. And you know, when you go to. Um, speaking engagement or you’re at a conference.

Super cheesy speakers are like, okay, everyone stand up and turn to the person on your right. And you’re just like, oh, cringe. Mm-hmm. , right? Mm-hmm. . But Lynette comes out, she’s got fire blasting by the Ohio players. People are just boom, boom, boom. You know, people are just getting into it, you know? I love that.

So that’s why you need a theme song, but if you don’t have a cool name, you, you’re not gonna have a cool theme song. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah, I, yeah. And also something that’s really powerful is giving your community a name. So Entrepreneur On Fire, he calls his community Fire Nation. And so isn’t that fun? Like you get to name your community something, and all of this is more than just something that, that.

It. It’s more than something that just sounds fun and is engaging. It’s something that literally magnetizes people to your brand and [00:30:00] it keeps you like there’s that top of mind phrase that all marketers love to use, but it literally keeps your brand top of mind because you’ve created this memorable experience.

You’ve sparked a ton of emotions. You’ve brought joy in some way, shape, or form, and it just cements your brand in people’s minds. So hard to do nowadays. That’s really powerful. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Yeah, it’s true. People love a brand that has this really, a brand that has the, there’s nothing better than being a brand and having someone say like, oh, did you do that?

Or like, the Church of Cupcakes that we named, like she calls herself the church lady, right? . And this is Cupcake Flavors, like her vanilla cupcake, we named the missionary. Oh my gosh. Like, it just takes you a second to get that, right. You’re like, yep. Vanilla. The, oh, and that’s what I love. I love the names that when people get it right.

Yeah. Like with retriever for the g p s for [00:31:00] dogs, when you get it, you feel smart. Mm-hmm. , and that’s the, that’s the part of the clever, right? Mm-hmm. . And people like to feel clued in not clueless. Hmm. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Wow. Such powerful stuff. Alexandra. I’m obs, I am literally bowing down at the altar of, of how your brain works.

I think it’s so cool and it’s this, it’s this experience that people really get to grab onto and that cleverness aspect, it’s like, oh my gosh, I get it. And then it feels like an inside, not an inside joke, like an inside joke. That’s. An inside joke. Right? Like it’s 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: accessible to anybody. You’re in the know.

You feel like you’re in the, you’re in the know. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I cannot wait to take this course. I am beyond excited and for anybody that’s like wants to tiptoe in, you have your book. The name of the book is, hello, my name is Awesome. Mm-hmm. . Yes. Okay. You also have a free masterclass 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: as I have free mini ma.

There’s a free mini [00:32:00] masterclass. One hour of your, of your life that you will learn so much, you’ll be completely entertained the whole time. Even if you don’t need to name anything, watch it just to be entertained because I, I made it really fun. I am not somebody that I didn’t enjoy school. I got really, I got bored super easily, so I knew when I created my course, I had to.

Like eye can, total eye candy, lots of humor. Really fun, you know, short and snappy lessons because I wanted people to be super engaged the entire time. So the mini masterclass is like, it’s, it’s not the best of, cuz I had to say, I had to say some really good stuff for the main masterclass. But the mini masterclass will give you a taste to use.

And eat my words. Uh, word taste. , . 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: All right fam, that is all gonna be in the show notes. I am doing all the things. [00:33:00] I’m getting the book. I’m watching masterclass. I’m taking the course A, this is super relevant to what I do as a career, but also like so much fun. You have made something that can feel really stressful and overwhelming.

So much fun. So just thank you for who you are as a person and for the contribution you’ve made to the marketing and branding world. It’s truly spectacular, and I just appreciate you coming on and sharing your, your energy and your wisdom with us today. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Thank you. You know what? I’ll give you a promo code for the course.

Yes, yes. I will give you a promo code. Let’s knock, let’s make the. It’s usually 8 99. Let’s make it 4 99. What? That’s a good price for women, right? Wow. Cause I wanna, I love, I’m a huge supporter of women in business, women entrepreneurs. And so what do you want your promo code to be? Let’s come up. See, this is another thing.

When you’re branding yourself, you can have really fun promo codes. Like, Ooh, so what could yours be? Like? Why Something with wild. [00:34:00] Um, 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Ooh. I feel like I just need to let you do your thing here. I don’t know why . 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: No, I think it should be wild. Wild deal. Love. Let’s make it. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Love it. Wild deal. Wild deal. There you go, guys.

This literally happened in real time, so by the time this episode comes out, you’ll be able to use that code that is an. Incredibly generous offer for everybody listening, that is a wildly generous offer. She’s literally writing it down now. . I’m writing it down. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Ok, amazing. Yeah, and that’s for the main course.

And if you guys wanna upgrade to, uh, to the course, there’s, you can do it with coaching with me. Mm-hmm. , um, I’ll, I’ll knock some, some money off that one too. I’ll just give you the same discount. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Oh my gosh, Alexandra, thank you so much guys. The books in the show. The masterclass is in the show notes, the link to the courses in the show notes.

This will also be going out to you via email. Thank you so much for your time. This was so much fun. I have been smiling the entire 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: time. Oh my gosh. It’s over. No, [00:35:00] no, it can’t be over yet. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: We’ll have, we’ll have to come back on. We’ll have to come back on and do another round cuz. This was just too much 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: fun.

Seriously, I have so many funny stories. My favorite being when I. Paid. Just smoke weed for science, for accountants. Justically naming. No, I have weed. I have so many stories. So yeah. I hope you have me back. I definitely 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Thank you so much, Alexandra. 

GUEST EXPERT: Alexandra Watkins: Thank you Tristan. Awesome to meet you. Bye everyone.