Practical Sales Training™ > Selling Communication Basics > Read, Write, Speak, Spell
Read, Write, Speak, Spell
What Is It
When you name your business, product, or service, the name needs to be easy to read, write, speak, and spell.
So a clever name that fails any one of these tests quietly costs you customers. Nobody chases down a name they can’t say out loud.
Why Does It Work
It works because every part of your communication needs to respect the attention span of the average person. It also needs to respect their average reading age.
You may have an avatar, or an understanding of who you’re selling to and what they should know. But it’s important to simplify your communication so anyone could understand it.
This means no jargon, no assumption, and no excuses.
How Can You Use It
To ensure your name is as clear as possible, you simply need to check it against four criteria.
1. Easy To Read
In the UK, the average reading age is approximately 9 years old. This means we need to stick with simple language, shorter words, and fewer syllables.
The longer and more complex the name, the less chance it has of being remembered or understood.
2. Easy To Write
As well as an average reading age of 9, your audience has an attention span of about 8 seconds. If you want them to remember it, it needs to be easy to write into a browser or Google.
The name should use the most basic, simple, obvious language possible. Fewer syllables and simpler concepts mean more chance of being remembered and understood.
3. Easy To Speak
This is becoming more and more important. It seems obvious, but how you pronounce a name genuinely matters, and if you don’t believe me, check out these brand names you’re almost certainly mispronouncing.
With voice search on the rise, and the chance of viral sharing, easy speech matters more than ever. Think “Hey Google, what’s a Clear Sales Message?” Otherwise your name can suffer the Chinese Whisper Effect and become a Purple Monkey Dishwasher.
4. Easy To Spell
Avoid words that are difficult to spell, or ones that get misheard easily. Can you spell it by guessing, or do you need to check?
If you need to check the spelling, or get it wrong, it becomes a barrier. A barrier to remembering you, googling you, or doing business with you at all.
When It Works Best
This works best when naming anything new, a business, a product, or a campaign. The name only gets harder to change the longer it’s in use.
It also works best when you test the name with real people before committing. What sounds clever to you might confuse everyone hearing it for the first time.
When It Becomes Dangerous
It backfires if you fall in love with a clever name that fails these basic tests. Cleverness rarely survives contact with a confused buyer.
It also becomes risky if the name gets mispronounced or misspelled often. Every wrong guess is a lost customer who couldn’t find you.
Overcomplicating the name to sound modern or unique causes its own problem. Novelty means nothing if nobody can say it out loud.
Common Mistakes
Choosing clever over usable
Choosing a name for how clever it sounds, rather than how easy it is to use, sets you up for this exact problem.
Skipping real world testing
Skipping real world testing before launch means you find out about the confusion only after it’s already cost you customers.
Assuming people will just learn it over time
Assuming your audience will simply learn the name over time ignores how much business is lost in that learning curve.
Read, Write, Speak, Spell – An Example
A Productivity App’s Rebrand
Hypothetical Example: A tech startup wants to name its new productivity app. The founder loves the name “Xynqrofy” because it sounds unique and modern.
However, when tested with potential users, people struggle to:
- Read it: “How do you even say that?”
- Write it: Nobody can remember the spelling.
- Speak it: It gets mispronounced in conversations.
- Spell it: Google autocorrects it to something else entirely.
Instead, they rebrand the app to “FocusFlow,” a name that’s easy to read, write, speak, and spell. It’s memorable, works with voice search, and clearly communicates the purpose of the product.
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