Eat My Words » Speaking Engagements

Crib Notes

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:14:53 +0000

We have been busy cooking up names for everything from caveman food to church software to consumer electronics. Our clients are choosing some fantastic names and having tremendous success in trademarking. We’ll let you know as soon as we can take them out of the Easy Bake Oven. Our superstar namer Gina (not to be confused with Rena, below), just had the ultimate creative challenge – naming her new baby. Congrats to Gina and Jeff on the birth of Graydon Peressni Clarke, born 9/22/11. Outside the office, I’ve been doing a lot of public speaking, including engagements at the Chamber of Commerce and Rocket Space. If you belong to a group that might enjoy my entertaining presentation, “How to Create Brand Names with Buzz,” please let me know. Finally, I rented our former digs to some colorful tenants and have completely transformed the loft from the Eat My Words office into the pimped out “Candyland Crib.” Before we moved, I rented it out for a few hours to Swaggaville Entertainment to shoot rapper Metro P’s new video. Of course I spent the entire $1000 rental fee on bling.

San Francisco's Eat My Words Makes Million Dollar Business Finals

admin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:45:00 +0000

Founder Competes for Financing, Mentoring, and Other Prizes to Help Catapult Her Businesses’ Revenue to a Million Dollars

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Sep 09, 2008 — Business growth program, Make Mine A Million $ Business(TM), selected Alexandra Watkins of Nationally Acclaimed Naming Firm, Eat My Words, as one of twenty finalists to compete for an awards package at the New Mexico event on September 18, 2008. The event will feature female entrepreneurs from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California who competed for business development packages including money, marketing, mentoring and technology assistance to help their businesses grow into million-dollar enterprises.

The upcoming competition provides the twenty finalists the opportunity to present their business in a three-minute “elevator pitch” to a panel of business experts and a live audience. Ten winners will be chosen by the audience and judges.

Watkins founded Eat My Words in 2005, a distinctively different naming firm whose primary passion is generating conceptual, unforgettable names and taglines, after a successful 15-year career as an advertising copywriter where she discovered she had a passion for naming things. Without a college education or any formal business training, the 44-year-old entrepreneur has turned her passion into a company with clients like Frito Lay, Del Monte, Plantronics, InterContinental Hotels and infomercial giant Guthy-Renker.

Finalists will receive several of the key components of the Make Mine a Million $ Business awards package that will help their businesses break the million-dollar barrier, which includes inspiration, community, business coaching and mentoring from a “dream” team of coaches and business experts from Count Me In, and select discounts from national sponsors.

Launched in 2005 by Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence and founding partner American Express OPEN, the Make Mine a Million $ Business program was created to help post-start up, women-owned businesses grow to one million dollars in annual revenue. Since its inception, the program has hosted 18 competitions in cities around the country and grown into a nationwide movement. For this year’s event, more than 400 applications were submitted in hopes of securing one of the finalist spots.

For more information about how women can grow their businesses please visit www.makemineamillion.org.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Alexandra selected as a finalist in Make Mine a Million $ Business Program sponsored by American Express

admin — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:23:00 +0000

Out of 400+ women entrepreneurs who went through an arduous application process, I was chosen as one of 20 finalists for The Make Mine a Million $ Business Program from Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence. Their goal is to inspire one million women entrepreneurs to scale their businesses to annual revenues of $1MM by 2010. I plan to be one of them.

On September 18, I will join the finalists in Albuquerque to compete for business development packages that include money, marketing, and mentoring. Described as a cross between “The Apprentice” and “American Idol,” each of us will have 3 minutes to pitch our company to a live audience and panel of business experts. Ten winners will be chosen. Based on what I’ve heard from previous winners, including our client Allison Evanow of Square One Vodka (who encouraged me to enter), I have an excellent chance of winning. My playful personality, polished public speaking skills, interesting business, amusing anecdotes, and potential to scale are all things that will give me an edge. Plus, considering I bootstrapped the business in two and a half years without a college education or any formal business training, I am living proof that if you follow your passion you can do anything. Please cross your fingers for me.

Alexandra featured speaker at City Club of SF "Secrets of Success" series

admin — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:07:00 +0000

Next Tuesday afternoon. Alexandra will be the featured speaker at the City Club of San Francisco for their “Secrets of Success” series. She was invited to talk there after someone on the board heard her speak on how she broke into the naming business through some quick thinking on a Match.com date. Alexandra will be telling this hysterical story and many others (writing letters to prisoners in high school, launching the first line of retro greeting cards with Paper Moon Graphics, a juicy story of poetic justice for a boss who fired her 23 years ago, and more). Below is the copy from the announcement that the City Club sent out…

Alexandra Watkins is the creative visionary behind Eat My Words, an innovative naming firm known for developing brand names that generate buzz and revenue. While she started out specializing in things that make people fat and drunk, her clients quickly discovered that she also had a talent for naming things you don’t put in your mouth. Since then, her firm has generated countless evocative names and taglines for clients including Frito-Lay, Altec-Lansing, Guthy-Renker, Glu, THX, Clorox, The Sydney Opera House, Del Monte, and Stanford University. Her recent successes include a chain of frozen yogurt stores called Spoon Me, a home cleaning robot named Neato, a social networking site for investors called Cake Financial, and a nationally-advertised bacon cheeseburger, which ironically must remain nameless. (Hint: it was inspired by a Schwarzenegger movie.)

Throughout her colorful 20+ year career in branding and advertising, Alexandra, whose education includes an entire semester of community college, has used her unabashed creativity, charm, and fearless attitude to open doors, scale walls, and create endless business opportunities for herself. Her highly entertaining stories of success and perseverance will inspire you to tap into your own creativity and try bold and unexpected approaches to any personal or professional challenge you face.

$35 for members/$45 for non-members

San Francisco City Club
155 Sansome Street
The Stock Exchange Tower
San Francisco, California 94104

RSVP to 415.362.2480 or reservations@cityclubsf.com