Picking Cleaning Company Names: 5 Tips On Doing It Right

Choosing Cleaning Company Names Doesn’t Have to Get Your Dander Up

One of the hardest, but also the most fun, things about starting a business is picking that perfect name. Something that says what you do and gives customers a taste of your personality. There are lots of cleaning companies out there and one of the best ways to make your company stand out is a great name. There are tons of opinions on how to pick a great name and we’ve distilled their tips down into some steps get you started picking great cleaning company names.

Tips for Picking Great Cleaning Company Names

First, let’s be crystal clear—there is no magic formula for a picking great name. Both these posts—How to Name a Business #SYOB and How to Choose the Best Name For Your Business | Inc.com—are good places to start and say a lot of the same things, but… They highlight the challenge.

Clever or common? Descriptive or abstract? There is no right or wrong answer. Take “Company’s Coming Cleaners.” Seems like a good name, but will people think it’s only for special occasions? Or “You’ve Got Maids;” very clever, but Millennials might miss the joke, and they are a growing demographic for cleaning services.

To help you out, here are tips gleaned from our own experience and the latest resources on picking cleaning company names.

Brainstorm It

It will feel like the right name comes like a bolt from the blue, but that’s only after a lot of thinking and brainstorming. Get up. Get silly. Doodle. Write out lots of names, even the really bad ones (like “Not Your Mother Cleaners”, maybe that isn’t so bad), and keep at it. Think about what you want the best cleaning company names to convey. Is there something unique about you to highlight (e.g. “Two Grandmas Cleaning”) or a way you clean (“All Natural Cleaners” or “Earth Faerie Cleaners”) that sets you apart?

Use those ideas to focus your creative energies. Working within brainstorming bounds does help you be more creative. Try it.

Easy To Spell And Understand

As you’re going through your list of names, cross out any that read or look funny. If people always say “what?” when you say your cleaning company name or spell it wrong or say it wrong… you’ve got the wrong name. How can people tell friends what a great cleaning company you are if they can’t get your name right?

Even if it’s the name you’ve fallen in love with, if the name is hard to work with, then it’s going to be that much harder for people to work with you. The best cleaning company names shouldn’t take mental gymnastics to write out.

Unique

Remember using the Yellow Pages to look for a company? At the beginning of the list, no matter what kind of company you had “AA Cleaning”, “AAA Cleaning”, “A1 Cleaning” because people wanted to be first on the list. But are any of those names unique? Nope. Unique is memorable. Unique is personal. Don’t be the umpteenth cleaning company with a name like other folks.

Finding unique cleaning company names is hard, but fun. Don’t rush. There’s time to get it right.

Clever, But Not Too Clever

You might not like puns for cleaning company names, but that doesn’t mean you have to scrub them off the list. Clever names are fun and give clients a sense of who you are. Just don’t make the name too clever by half. You want people to get the joke, not look and say, “Huh?”. Like Ancillary Ancillae. Clever, huh? Get it? Probably not. Ancillae is the plural of ancilla which is maid in Latin. And it is where we get the word ancillary from.

Can You Buy The Domain?

I put this last because if you have a really, really awesome name, but can’t get the exact name for your website or email, don’t feel like you have to toss the name in the garbage. Let’s say Cleaning Faeries is taken. You can do Cleaning Fairies or even keep the spelling you like and look for cfcleaning.com as a domain. There are always ways to get around your first choice not available. Just make sure your domain is easy to spell too.

One last note on domains, make sure it doesn’t spell out something strange or offensive. There are some embarrassing ones here—30 Unintentionally Inappropriate Domain Names | Bored Panda—don’t make the same mistake.

One Last Thing

Entrepreneur Magazine has these mistakes to avoid—8 Mistakes To Avoid When Naming Your Business—that you have to go through. For example, don’t decide by committee. And if you pick wrong, don’t be afraid to change. Just as these tips are important, the flip side is important too.

It Might Take A While, But It’s Worth The Effort

Being stuck with a name people can’t remember, can’t spell, or is confusing isn’t a great way to start your business. Will it sink your business? Probably not. But a terrible name will certainly hamper it. The cleaning business is competitive and very subjective, you need every edge you can get. Find the right name that fits and then start wiping up the competition.

Make sure that all the options for your cleaning company names are solid, then your next challenge is picking your favorite!

Want to learn more about how cleaning business software can help you grow your cleaning business? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.