Today I thought you’d be interested to hear about: The One Word That Makes Or Breaks Any Business.

When I was thinking about what to name my latest company I went through a long process. In fact, I’ve worked on naming projects for large global corporations in the past.

I went through the motions and considered all key areas like functional names, invented names and experiential names. Each has its benefits and depending on the company’s business strategy you could make a case for each.

It’s not all fluff…there are some general rules you can follow. Like, if you’re a professional and want to have the focus on you, one person, then using your name as the company name makes sense.

If the focus doesn’t need to be specifically on you, and you’re interested in building a company brand, then a name that doesn’t rely on one person makes more sense.

So back to the naming challenge. When the dust finally settled I had registered Relagy Marketing.

Michael, what is that all about, you ask?

Relagy stands for Relationship Strategy.

My years in the business world and even before I entered it, told me that without a strong relationship nothing sticks.

You can’t have friends or spouses without having a relationship with them. Your relationship can have ups and downs…but if you don’t have a relationship with that person…you really don’t have anything with them at all.

The other day, when I told my uncle, who is a well-known international movie producer, that I was writing a book about customer service, marketing and relationships, he said “…you know Michael, it’s true. Even if you have a signed contract…it really doesn’t mean anything. It’s the relationship that counts.”

And you know what? You can’t have a long-term profitable business without having strong relationships with your customers.

It just doesn’t happen. Companies that focus on short term profits and are obsessed with ‘making the sale’ don’t last. Nope, they tend to go out of business in a matter of years.

Real relationships are what make you rich.

Try it and you’ll see. Be warm and welcoming to your customers, build a relationship with them and they’ll reward you with loyalty and boat loads of money.

Back to Relagy and what the Strategy part is about. Successful companies must have a strategy in place. They can’t run around with short-term tactics…and inconsistency.

A well crafted strategy has each action building on the previous one…everyone and everything working together to achieve the same goal.

While some people see the name “Relagy” for the first time pronounce it with a hard ‘g’ sound (the ‘gy’ is soft like the end of Strategy), I’ve had several compliments from business people once I’ve explained the name and meaning to them.

Okay. So now you know the background of the Relagy name and what it means to me. You can read more about this on our website at www.relagy.com/about

What I’d like you to take away from this though, is the importance of relationships. Treasure them. Whether personal or business - the more you put into them, the more they’ll give back to you.

They really are the most important part of any business.

Until next time.

To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing