How to Change Your Business Name (or Rebrand) including Checklist

I recently spoke to Allan Dib (the bestselling author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan), and he mentioned that changing your company name is like “performing heart surgery on a company”. After just going through a company name change, I tend to agree.

There are many moving parts and action items to think about when changing a company name. From choosing the name to filing the business name change with the IRS (or whatever your national tax authority is), articles of Amendment with the state (each state you operate in and with every agency you’re licensed with) or filing a DBA name change (if you are organized as a partnership or sole proprietor).

We recently went through all of this with our recent name change so now I’d like to guide everyone with a business name change checklist to review and consider. Below we’ll review if you really need to change your name (or if you’re just thinking about changing your name), how to do the basic rebranding process, and finally the checklist of action items.

Step 1: Do You Really Need to Change the Business Name?

I want to emphasize that while you, as the business owner, probably think the name of your company is very important, your client likely doesn’t give it much consideration at all (as long as it’s not inappropriate, offensive, or wildly inaccurate). Think about it, do you really care what the name of your favorite vendor is? Likely not. However, for branding and positioning purposes, a well-done name change and rebrand can really inject life into a company’s brand and marketing so it’s important to put some thought into it.

Survey Your Clients

First, you need to know why you are changing the name in the first place. Is it because it’s outdated or confusing or you’re expanding into new markets? How do you know this objectively? You could avoid a lot of work by surveying some of your clients (or potential clients) and even your employees and ask them a) do you think the current name is right for the company and b) you could brainstorm a list of company names that you think would be better and get the opinion of real people (see below).

You can use a free service like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create and distribute the survey. Ultimately you may find out that the current name is fine with most clients or that a business name change is not necessary, saving you a lot of work. Also, if you’ve decided to change the name, surveys can be effective to find the best name.

Consider Adding a Brand to Your Existing Company

You may consider keeping your existing company name and simply adding a new brand to your company. You can do this by either creating a new product/website and filing a trademark and/or filing a “Doing Business As” name (DBA or “Fictitious Business Name”) for your existing corporation or LLC (if you are an incorporated company) or filing an additional DBA (if you are organized as a partnership or sole proprietor). For example, you can be a company called “ABC Services, LLC” but create a brand called “ABC Home Care Services” or a product called “ABC Home Care Companion”.

Because you are not officially changing the name or structure of your company, you don’t have to go through the process of changing your tax ID’s, bank account names, business licenses, and much more. In fact, adding a DBA is a great way to experiment with a name before going full-throttle and changing your company name. You can test and see how your clients react to a temporary change first.

Step 2: The Rebranding Process

If you’ve decided to take the plunge and change your company name, follow these steps to guide you through the process. If you already know the new name, skip below to the business name change checklist. Note that rebranding is more than just the name, you’ll want to consider the perception, colors, values, and more that your company wants to represent to your ideal client.

Brainstorming Company Names

If you’ve decided you definitely want to change your company name, then obviously you’ll need to come up with the actual name. While ultimately you and your clients (and potential clients) would know best the types of names that are ideal, here are some general guidelines:

1. Think holistically about how you want your company wants to be perceived: do you want to be known as safe, helpful, professional, friendly? For example “Ben and Jerry’s” has a much different perception than “PriceWaterhouseCoopers”. This will affect not only the type of name you will choose but the image (logo, colors, etc.) that your company is trying to project.
2. Use business brainstorming tools to come up with many different ideas based on your initial concept. 
3. Refine to your top 3-5 ideas and send to friends, family, potential clients, and existing clients to get your top 1 or 2.
4. Run a thorough search for existing conflicts and trademarks. It would be a shame to do all this work and have to do it all again (or go through a lawsuit) because your new name violates the trademark of an existing company. You can start off by doing a thorough Google search of the name and noting any competitors or similar names in the industry. Then you can search the USPTO trademark database. Finally, if you’re still not 100% on the availability of that name, you can hire a trademark search specialist (typically an attorney).
5. Domain Name: you’ll want to make sure the domain name (or a variation of it) is available. Consider buying all the major versions of the domain name (.com, .net, .biz, etc.) to protect your new name.

Consider Colors, Logos and Taglines or Slogans

Now that you have a few names in mind, you may want to consider upgrading the company colors, the logo, and a tagline (it’s easier to do all at once in our opinion). Here are some resources:

1. Take the Company Color Quiz to see what colors appeal to your customers the most.
2. Work with a great logo designer (we recommend working with one of the “crowdsourced” logo platforms to get ideas from multiple designers) or one of the free logo generators to get some ideas about a new logo.
3. Use a tool like the Slogan Maker to generate ideas for a company tagline.

Pick the Winner

As mentioned above, you can survey clients, potential clients, friends and family about your new name choice, logo, slogan, etc. Go through the process and ultimately choose the winner. Make sure that you feel “comfortable” with the name (say it out loud “thanks for calling MyCompanyName”) and then it’s time to get to work on the name change process.

Step 3: The Business Name Change Checklist

So, you’ve decided on the new name for your company and are ready to make all the necessary changes to get this done in an organized fashion. 

NOTE: There is a big “chicken or the egg” problem in the United States with regards to changing your name with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and also the government agency with which the company was registered (usually the state or county) so you’ll want to review this checklist carefully to avoid some of the landmines we encountered. The main issue is that while the IRS requires proof of your company name change for them to update their records, it takes them approximately 60 days to process this change, so your company name has been changed at the state or county level but not at the federal level. This could cause some issues with taxes and some vendors but mostly this can be avoided with careful planning.

1. Prepare your Lists and Tasks:
   1. Create a spreadsheet (ideally a Google Spreadsheet that can be shared among many people) to track your Name Change project. This will be critical to staying organized and keeping your sanity. Here’s a sample spreadsheet setup we used. You can also use project management software like Asana or Trello but overall a spreadsheet is easiest in our opinion.
   2. Consider recruiting a dedicated person in your company (or hire a virtual assistant from a service like UpWork) to handle the management of data research, entry, and tasks on this list.
   3. Pick a date to file the name change (deadline) with your local jurisdiction: to avoid issues with the IRS mentioned above, you’ll want to consider picking a date that gives you up to 90 days before any federal taxes are due. Sometimes time is of the essence and you have no choice, but ideally, you would file your name change and notify the IRS immediately after you’ve filed your recent annual or quarterly taxes. This will give the IRS time to process the name change.
   4. Make a list of all your existing jurisdictions where you currently operate: city, county, state, and country and note the licenses and permits you currently hold in each, then the contact information for each department (phone, email, address, website). For example, if you operate in Los Angeles, California you would list: City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, State of California, USA then note your current permits and licenses from each government entity (example: business license from the City of Los Angeles, food handling license from the county, etc.).
   5. Make a list of all your current vendors. The easiest way is to go through your accounting software, bank, and credit card statements for the past few months and list them all in a spreadsheet, then sort them by name to deduplicate, add email and address if necessary.
   6. Create a list of company documents, materials, websites, legal agreements, etc. that will need to be updated. Include logo changes if necessary
   7. Note if design work will be involved (example: business cards, website design, brochures, etc.) on your checklist and begin finding the necessary vendor to complete that work by the deadline. Tip: Have your designer create a “Transitional Logo” for your website, forms, invoices, etc. that indicates your new name but also shows “Formerly OldName” – your old company name. This helps those who may miss an announcement (below) understand what’s going on.
   8. Make a list (or begin compiling one) of your existing clients so you can prepare to notify them. 
2. File the official business name change paperwork with your local government office:
   1. If you are a sole proprietor or partnership (and you have a DBA or “Fictitious Business Name”) then contact the government office that issued it to inquire about updating it. Most have a simple form that updates it but some may require you to file a new DBA (or your old one may have expired).
   2. If you are a corporation, an LLC, or other type of incorporated business entity with the state, then contact the state about filing an “Amendment” to your Incorporation or LLC Formation paperwork. Note that we can file an amendment for you in any state.
   3. It’s important to note the processing time for the Amendment or DBA change, some states or counties may take several weeks to process the change. Many have options to expedite the process so that is highly recommended. Remember that nothing is official until that paperwork has been filed so do not do any other tasks (unless they are preparation related tasks listed above) until the name change is official. When thinking about our deadline listed above in step 1.3 above, you’ll want to take into account the time your local government office will take to file it.
3. File the official business name change with the IRS:
   1. As noted above, the clock is now ticking and it will take the IRS about 60 days to confirm any name changes via mail. If this isn’t a big deal to you, then you can simply wait until you file your next annual tax return to update the IRS on your new name.
   2. However, many state agencies, vendors, merchant account companies, etc. will want proof of the IRS change and that cannot wait until your tax returns are filed so you’ll want to write a letter to the IRS and request a confirmation of the name change that you can then provide to your vendors to confirm the change (see steps below).
   3. Also note that as long as you are not changing your business entity type (example: becoming an LLC or adding a partner to a sole proprietor thus becoming a partnership) then you should not have to get a new Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN).
   4. Follow the IRS Guidelines for changing your company name which currently specifies that if you have changed the business entity type, then follow the rules as shown in IRS Publication 1635 – Understanding Your EIN. Typically you will need to obtain a new FEIN if you have changed entity types – which is actually a lot faster than updating your existing one.
   5. If you have not changed the business entity type then follow these guidelines:
      1. Sole Proprietorships (or 1-person LLCs): write a letter indicating the name change and signed by an owner. It’s wise to include a copy of the filed name change paperwork as proof. 
      2. Partnerships (or 2+ person LLCs): write a letter indicating the name change and signed by a partner. It’s wise to include a copy of the filed name change paperwork as proof. 
      3. Corporations: write a letter indicating the name change and signed by a corporate officer. It’s wise to include a copy of the filed name change paperwork as proof. 
4. Notify the Government Agencies and Your Vendors:
   1. Notify your list of government agencies. Typically they have a form to do this but many simply request that you send them a letter (include a copy of your amended name paperwork) and note that many will not confirm the change in writing so you need to set a follow-up task.
   2. Notify your vendors. The easy way to do this is a blast email to them all and to print out a form letter (use bright colored paper like yellow or orange) that announces the new change and including it in all invoices or mail it to them. Request that they acknowledge the change to you via email and mark them complete on your task list as they come in. Banks, merchant accounts and other financial-related vendors will have more formal requirements so prioritize those vendors first to get phone calls and set tasks.
5. Notify Your Clients:
   1. Finally and most importantly, you’ll want to do a “Business Name Change Announcement” to your client list. There are many options here, but you may consider writing a blog post, or composing a newsletter detailing the name change but also assuring your clients about things that won’t change – you don’t want to scare them or for them to think something is wrong or you’re trying to hide something.
   2. One time is usually enough but you may consider putting a notice on all documents, websites, etc. for 6-12 months (or using a Transitional Logo as discussed above) so all your clients can be exposed to your new name and the reasons for the change.

So, that’s the process. I know it seems complex but if you keep a simple spreadsheet you can take a very complex project and break it down into very manageable pieces. Don’t make the mistake of not doing the preparation work – it’s critical in this instance, especially with the IRS. Let us know if we missed any steps you think are critical in the comments below and good luck with your company name change or rebrand!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2018 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Small Biz Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.