How do you choose a business name? Pick something simple, generic, and private. Then get back to work.
That answer frustrates people. They want me to tell them the name is everything. It isn’t. Not even close.
I watch beginners burn weeks hunting for the perfect name. At the same time, they skip the decisions that actually control their taxes, their liability, and their access to money. Your customers find you through search, referrals, and results. Nobody hires a plumber because the LLC has a clever name.
So here’s what matters instead: the financial structure under the name, the DBAs that let your company change form, and the discipline to never, ever shut it down.
Your Company Is a Financial Structure, Not a Name
By law, your company is a financial vehicle. In America, that’s an LLC, an S corp, a C corp, or a limited partnership. Other countries use different names, and some pair the company with a trust. The job stays the same everywhere.
That job is legal deductions, asset protection, liability protection, and tax planning.
Here’s the contrast. I can’t deduct my vehicle. My company can deduct the business use. I can’t claim a home office unless I have a legal business reason to make money from it. My company has that reason.
Companies get the best tax strategies. Individuals get the worst.
In The Millionaire Maker, I lay out five reasons wealthy people use entities: maximize tax strategies, create liability protection, protect assets, keep wealth accelerating through multiple revenue streams, and optimize opportunities. Look at that list. A great name isn’t on it.
So go generic. XYZ. ABC. I ran a company called BIC for years and years. It stood for Because I Can.
“The name doesn’t build the company. The structure does.”
How a DBA Lets One Company Change Form
Right next to the company sits the DBA, which stands for Doing Business As.
Go to your county clerk and file a fictitious name statement. It tells your bank that checks written to your brand can go into your company’s account. One company can carry two or three DBAs at once. Ask Loral is one of mine.
Here’s why the DBA matters more than the legal name. When your business changes direction, you change the DBA. You don’t touch the company.
I’ve used some of my companies for 20 and 30 years. One bought real estate. Then it held the contract to run the CASHFLOW games for the Rich Dad Poor Dad team. Then it became a management company to sell nutrition. Same company. Different names on the door.
I walk through the filing details in my article on whether you have to put LLC after your business name. [INTERNAL LINK: Do You Have to Put LLC After Your Business Name?]
“Change the DBA. Never change the company.”
Why You Should Never Shut Your Company Down
I treat my companies like airplanes. Once your plane is in the air, never land it. Never, ever land it.
I’m teaching my kids, now 18 and 25, the same rule. By the time they take over these companies, some will be in their 50th, 60th, even 70th year of business. Think about the track record, the banking relationships, and the money that will have moved in and out over those decades. Those companies carry real value.
In The Millionaire Maker, I point out that entities like the LLC, the S corp, and the trust provide business continuity after you die. That’s the whole point. You build a company that outlasts you.
I also teach the family limited partnership, where the parents give up their assets but maintain their control. That’s the mindset. Own nothing personally. Control it all through your structure.
“Once your plane is in the air, never land it.”
Why Sole Proprietors Pay More and Risk More
Broke folks run everything under their Social Security number. Wealthy business owners run it through a company.
As a sole proprietor, you get a limited set of deductions, and you stand personally exposed. If someone sues you, they can come after your house, your savings, and anything else you haven’t protected.
In Creating a Cash Machine for Life, I tell the story of Al Cypress. He ran a therapy practice as a sole proprietor. When he asked his accountant about an entity, the accountant told him he couldn’t do it. Al ended up taking home less than he had earned as a salaried employee. So he walked next door to the spa owner, asked how he’d set up his entity, and hired a new accountant from that referral.
The longer you wait, the more it costs. When you finally form a company, you have to close your bank accounts and credit cards and reopen them under the new EIN. Banks don’t treat you as a business until you actually have one.
In Put More Cash In Your Pocket, I put it plainly: you can do the paperwork, or you can be poor.
“You can do the paperwork, or you can be poor.”
How Financial Layering Grows Your Company
Once the company exists, I add what I call financial layering. Where do you bank? How many corporate cards do you carry versus personal cards? Do you keep every business expense on the business side?
Say you set up two companies. One does real estate. The other runs a baking business. Now you have your Social Security number plus two tax ID numbers. That’s three sources of credit. A sole proprietor has one.
Get the documents right, track expenses correctly, and keep corporate and personal credit separate. You’ll qualify for more funding when you’re ready to grow.
“One Social Security number is one source of credit. Two companies make it three.”
The Mistakes That Cost the Most
1. The wrong company, in the wrong state, set up the wrong way. Then people shut it down and start over. In The Millionaire Maker, Kerry Kingsley ran a successful search firm and real estate through three S corporations. Wrong entities. She got clobbered on taxes every year. We kept one S corp, parked one, and dropped one. We put her real estate in an LLC and set up a C corp for the search firm. Within five months, her business went from $15,000 a month to $45,000.
2. Your personal name, home address, or kids’ names on the company. Keep your privacy as you grow.
3. Thinking you’ll never get that big. I’m a farm girl from Nebraska. If anyone had told me I’d write six bestselling books, I’d have said they were out of their mind. You don’t know where God will lead you. Protect yourself now.
4. Overpaying in taxes. That’s a choice. The tax code runs 81,000 pages, and TurboTax, H&R Block, and checking boxes on your own won’t find most of what’s in it. We color completely between the lines. You need someone who knows the code.
“Overpaying your taxes is a choice.”
Start Today
- Pick a generic, private legal name this week and stop debating it.
- File a DBA for every brand you get paid under, and take each one to your bank.
- If you’re a sole proprietor, book a call with an entity strategist this month. Book here.
- Open the company’s bank account and first corporate card, and keep business and personal spending fully separate.
- Decide now that this company never closes. Write it into the plan you’ll hand your kids.
- Run your Gap Analysis to see where your entities fit in your sequence.
Want me to walk you through corporate life in detail? I teach it every month at the Millionaire Intensive on the first Thursday. Every structure has to fit your state and your situation. Legally, with the right strategist, that’s where the real savings live.
Go to AskLoral.com. Ask a question, make a request.
