Refusing to Name the Offer

Every piece of branding advice says the same thing: name your offer, make it memorable, build a category around it. I did the opposite on purpose, and I think it was the right call.

I have a consulting offer, a short, structured audit that helps organizations see where their AI initiatives actually stand versus where they think they stand. Early on I gave it a name, something clean and marketable. Then I sat with it and realized the name was ahead of the proof. I hadn't run enough of these yet to know if the format, the pricing, the deliverable, all of it, was actually right. Naming it and building a brand around it would have locked in decisions I wasn't ready to defend yet.

So I stripped the name and just called it what it was: an unnamed offer, still being validated. Uncomfortable, especially watching other people confidently brand things that are two conversations old. But it kept me honest about what I actually knew versus what I was hoping was true, and it meant every adjustment after an early engagement was a real adjustment, not a deviation from a brand I'd already committed to publicly.

The case for naming fast is real: it's easier to sell something with a name, it feels more legitimate, it's more shareable. All true. But naming fast also locks in your assumptions before you've tested them, and unwinding a name and a brand identity is much more expensive than unwinding a working title.

My rule now: an offer earns a name once it's been through enough real engagements that I'm not guessing anymore, that the price, the scope, and the outcome all hold up under actual use, not just under pitch. Until then, it stays unnamed, and I say so out loud. It's a small thing, but it's kept me from committing publicly to conclusions I hadn't actually earned yet.