The Naming Practice Program
A naming practice your agency can actually run profitably.
Round after round. Re-briefs. Stakeholders with strong opinions but no criteria. Your team delivers, but naming costs you more than it should: in time, in margins, and in confidence.
The Naming Practice Program is built from 20 years of brand-building and naming-management with Microsoft, Ford, McDonald's, Docusign, and many more of the world’s most iconic brands.
It’s designed to give agencies a scalable, repeatable naming practice that works hard for them.
A strong naming practice looks like
A process your whole team can follow
No more building it from scratch every engagement. Your core team and freelancers work from the same playbook.
Evaluation criteria your clients help set
Walk into every presentation with shared, pre-agreed-to criteria. Fewer surprises; more productive conversations.
Creative output you can stand behind
The tools and frameworks to generate strong, on-strategy candidates efficiently, and present them with an understanding of their risk profile.
Rates that reflect what the work is worth
When your process is clear and your outcomes are defined, you can charge accordingly and scope it profitably.
Developed by doing the work. Built for the way agencies work.
The Naming Practice Program was developed by Caitlin Barrett, a professional namer with 20 years of experience across hundreds of brand-building engagements. It's been refined across four years of program development, via workshops with design studios, branding agencies, and strategy teams ranging from two-person shops to large global practices.
Every element of this program comes from doing the work: running naming projects, managing stakeholders, navigating risk, and finding the name that makes it to market.
The program
A naming practice development program for agencies
We structured this engagement to help you build a profitable naming capability. There are two ways to participate:
Full program: The complete Naming Practice Program, delivered across five sessions. Covers process, strategy and brief development, name generation, risk screening, and scoping and pricing. Available remote or in-person.
Single-session workshops: A single-session introduction to one area of the naming practice. Ideal for teams who want to address a specific gap, or who want to experience the method before committing to the full program.
Process
Get acquainted with the steps necessary to start, run, and complete a naming project that stays on track.
Core module
Strategy
Learn to develop a winning naming strategy, a simple naming brief, and a set of shared criteria for success.
Core module
Creative
Equip yourself with the tools, tactics, and resources to develop hundreds (or thousands!) of on-strategy names, on time.
Core module
Risk
Walk away with what it takes to navigate trademark, linguistic, common-law, and other types of risk that can stand in the way of a name’s use.
Core module
Pricing and Scoping
Learn to position naming as a premium service, set the right expectations, and price your services to reflect what the work is actually worth.
Leadership session
Designed to keep you going
Every session includes a set of supplemental materials not available anywhere else. They’re designed to help your team put what they learned into practice immediately: guides, frameworks, prompts, reference tools, and checklists built to travel with your team into your very next naming project.
How it works
The Naming Practice Program is available in four formats to fit with how your agency works.
Choose a single workshop to address a gap, or invest in the full program to build a complete naming capability across your team.
Remote: Single-session workshop
One workshop, delivered remotely. Two hours of instruction followed by a thirty-minute group Q&A. Includes all digital supplemental materials for every participant.
Remote: Full program
All four core sessions, plus the Pricing & Scoping session, delivered remotely over a schedule that works for your team: A two-and-a-half-day immersion, a five-day sprint, or one workshop per week for five weeks. Includes an additional one-hour call to deep dive on the topics of your choice. (All sessions must be completed within five weeks of the first session.)
In-person: Single-session workshop
One workshop, live at your studio. Two hours of instruction followed by a thirty-minute Q&A. Includes all digital supplemental materials. Best for teams who learn better together in a room.
In-person: Full program
All four core workshops, plus the Pricing & Scoping session, delivered across two-and-a-half days at your studio, plus additional dedicated time to 1:1 coaching or open discussions. This is the most comprehensive option, and the one most geared toward immediate traction and long-lasting change.
In-person rates assume travel within the NY tri-state area. Travel to other locations is priced based on travel time and expenses.
Fees
All packages are priced with a base fee covering up to eight participants, with a per-person rate for each additional team member. All sessions are capped at sixteen participants, with the exception of the Pricing & Scoping session.
Remote: Single-session workshop
$6,000
Each additional participant: $400
Remote: Full program
$25,000
Each additional participant: $1,200
Leadership Pricing & Scoping session capped at six people
In-person: Single-session workshop
$8,500
Each additional participant: $500
In-person: Full program
$30,000
Each additional participant: $1,500
Leadership Pricing & Scoping session capped at six people
“Tell me more about how this works…”
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Nope! If you're looking to offer naming for the first time, this program is a great place to start.
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Absolutely. Sharpening your naming practice can be a great way to increase your revenue from naming, but it can also improve your relationships when it's delivered as part of larger engagements.
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We have trained large strategy teams within even larger marketing and branding agencies. We have trained two-person branding shops. (We have trained many, many 6-10 person design studios.)
Even if we haven't trained an agency just like yours, we will get to know your agency ahead of our session and make sure we can offer you material that will support the real-world work that you do.
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If you’re looking to address the entirety of your naming practice, we recommend taking the full program in order, which lets us address process, strategy, creative, and due diligence, and then make sure you’re pricing your offerings right. But if you know you have a specific pain point and want to start there, that's totally fine. Book a call and we can help you find the best place to start.
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All sessions are led by Caitlin Barrett, founder of Wild Geese Studio and an expert namer with 20 years of naming experience.
In some cases, especially with larger groups, Caitlin will be joined by one of Wild Geese Studio's staff namers or brand language researchers to ensure the sessions are facilitated smoothly.
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While the live content is constantly updated, it focuses on process, skills, frameworks, and mandatories of successful naming over the use of any specific technologies. As part of the Q&A, we can discuss how your existing AI investments can support your naming workflow and delivery.
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Most sessions are 2.5 hours, typically designed with two hours of instruction and exercises with a half-hour of questions and discussion. Multi-day immersions will still be based around 2.5 hour modules, so breaks and meals can be timed around them.
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We'll match your level of Zoom enthusiasm. We can complete them all in a two-and-a-half day intensive, or break them up over five weeks. We do require all five sessions be booked at once and within a five-week span.
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We do! We come to your office. In some cases, we can secure a conference room in a coworking or event space if needed for an additional fee. Just let us know during our intro call.
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Absolutely. We would love to come to you. We can provide you with an estimate for out-of-pocket travel fees when you book your session(s).
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Each session comes with at least one guide or workbook that reinforces the content and supports the work participants will do afterward.
All remote and in-person participants will receive their materials via email after the session ends. In-person sessions will also be supported with printed materials and live exercises that vary slightly from the remote session experience.
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To preserve the integrity of a live conversation, we do not record our live sessions, but all critical information will be shared via the supplemental materials provided after the session. Promise.
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The program is designed to tackle the most common naming issues that agencies face delivering naming services, so in many cases the training will speak directly to what your team is navigating, even without customization.
If you're dealing with something specific that you don't think a core session addresses, tell us about it before we start. For in-person sessions, and particularly the mult-day immersion, there's dedicated time built into the program to work through your team's particular challenges, current projects, and naming practice.
If what you're facing feels like it goes beyond the scope of any of our current content, we're curious to know more. If we think we can answer it successfully as a session, it's possible we will develop one. If it feels more like a consulting or advisory engagement, we will recommend that as an alternative.
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We offer an optional hourlong biweekly call and email check-in retainer for as many months as you'd like following your training. The option to add this on will be part of your contract when we engage.
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The base fee covers up to eight participants and includes: instruction, a thirty-minute Q&A, and digital supplemental materials for every attendee. If your team is larger than eight, each additional participant is priced at a flat per-person rate depending on the format you've chosen. All sessions are capped at sixteen participants to make sure every attendee gets meaningful access to instruction and Q&A time. If you have a team larger than sixteen, get in touch and we can discuss ways to get everyone the training they need.
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Yes. The base fee is the same whether you're a three-person studio or a thirty-person agency. It covers up to eight participants, and the per-person rate applies equally beyond that. The per-participant scaling is designed to make the training accessible for smaller teams while remaining fair for larger ones.
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We don't offer a standard money-back guarantee, but we do stand behind the quality of the training completely. If something isn't landing for your team during a session, we can discuss and adjust in real time.
If you finish a session feeling like your specific needs weren't met, we want to know about it and we'll make it right. Every agency that has gone through this training has left with something immediately useful.
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Remote sessions can typically be scheduled within two to three weeks of booking. In-person sessions, particularly the multi-day immersions, book out more like four to six weeks in advance. If you're working toward a particular timeline, reach out as early as possible and we'll do our best to make it work.
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We understand that studio schedules change (we are one!). Rescheduling is available at no charge with at least one week's notice. Cancellations made more than two weeks before a scheduled session are refunded in full minus a small administrative fee. Cancellations within two weeks of the session are non-refundable but can be converted to a credit toward a future booking.
For in-person sessions where travel has already been arranged, cancellations within two weeks may incur additional costs to cover confirmed travel expenses.
Full policy details are included in your booking agreement.