A Good Name is Better Than Great Riches:  The Story of How We Acquired Voices.com

So many businesses around the world start with an idea jotted down on a napkin. The “Big Idea” we had for our business was birthed at the kitchen table. At the time, we were running an audio production studio composing music and recording voice-overs. The epiphany dawned on us that if we were doing voice-overs in London, and that we were modestly successful and already featured a dozen people on our website, surely there must be a global market for what we were doing in terms of connecting businesses with voice talent for work opportunities.Have you heard that proverb before?  I’ve found this to be true, that a good name is better than great riches.  This is certainly the case with our website’s domain name which is, coincidentally, the name of our company, Voices.com.

You see, when we first launched in 2004, we were called InteractiveVoices.com. It was a mouthful, but served its purpose. In re-telling this story, I’m practically out of breath just saying the name.

One of the unique elements about the service is that each voice talent got a profile on our website and their address would be, for example, nancy.interactivevoices.com. The name was long and customers often misspelled it. Someone even once complained that his fingers got tired from typing it. We were often mistakenly called “voices interactive” or “interactive voice.com.” Furthermore, the name implied that we only provided voices for interactive media, when, really, we offered voice talent who specialized in everything from radio to television to audiobooks and corporate videos.

With a list of reasons to do a name change seemingly getting longer by the week, I went on a quest to find the perfect name.  Now, this was at the height of the Web 2.0 movement, so we brainstormed snazzy web 2.0 names like Vox, Voxy and Voxio, but they were either taken or our offers were declined.  

Then it dawned on me. Rather than a name change, perhaps a name shortening would be best. After all, switching from InteractiveVoices to Voices was more like cutting our name in half; a simplification, if you will.

There was only one problem: Voices.com was already home to a medical journal called “Silencing the Critical Voices in my Head.” By this time, I had some critical voices in my own head, but I figured, “hey, why not put in an offer? What’s the worst that could happen?”

However, knowing that if the owner of the site saw that “InteractiveVoices.com” was putting in an offer for “Voices.com,” he’d likely increase his asking price and we’d end up paying more than we normally would have.

This is when relationships with lawyers come in handy. I approached Phil King, our corporate lawyer and general counsel, and asked if he’d approach the seller saying that he’s representing a potential buyer. Would he sell, and if so, at what price?

Well, to my surprise we got a reply with the price tag of $50,000. That was more cash than we had on hand, so I proceeded to set up meetings with every financial institution in the City of London. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to raise a single penny toward the dream name.  

Then, Phil, our lawyer, taught me an important lesson: Never take no for an answer.  He suggested that we go back and counter-offer $30,000, which would be sent in quarterly payments of $5000 for the next 6 quarters. Now, that was something we could handle. And you know you what? He accepted!

With a solid legal agreement in place, and for a small investment of $5000, we were able to re-launch our website and start marketing ourselves as “Voices.com” in 2006.

If you are familiar with Internet marketing, you know that one of 200 factors in Google’s search ranking algorithm is the age of the domain name. Voices.com was registered in 1998, even before Google itself. This detail was extremely powerful, and was likely worth the price tag alone as our web traffic practically doubled overnight.

Today, I can look back and point to the name change and rebranding as a key turning point in our company’s history. Suddenly, we were taken seriously as big companies were starting calling us, and we got stories on CNN and The New York Times.

Is a name change in your future?  If it is, make it a great domain name.  You’ll gain immediate credibility and developing brand recognition will become much easier.

Guest Blogger- David Ciccarelli

David, currently nominated for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, has been running a web business since 2002 and has helped over 100,000 voice actors showcase their talent. Over the past 10 years, David, with the help of his team, has grown Voices.com from the ground up to become the leader in the industry. As Chief Executive Officer, David is responsible for setting the vision, executing the growth strategy and managing the company on a day-to-day basis. Clients like ABC, NBC, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and thousands of others use Voices.com to search for, audition and hire professional voice actors. David is the author of Voice Acting For Dummies (Wiley Publishing, 2013) and has been selected by Google to be a Google Glass Explorer.

This is the first blog in a series of guest blogs by David Ciccarelli, keep an eye out for his next one!