It's rare for a business to finalize a corporate logo before they decide upon a company name. But our company has always been different. In a classic case of thinking outside the box, here's the story of how the NSBT "boot-print" became our corporate identity, and then became the catalyst for our company name.

In 1993, Suzanne Gust (our founder) was trying to create a name for her brand new corporate training company. To make the process fun, she invited a group of friends over to brainstorm some possible ideas.

To begin, they identified what made her company different from other corporate training firms. That was easy: her training sessions were highly interactive, participants were provided with relevant information (not fluff), all of the sessions were extremely motivational, and her participants were encouraged to put their training to use immediately. In other words, she didn't just lecture, she engaged the participants' senses, made sure they understood the material, and then she'd kick'em in the rear!

Well, Suzanne couldn't call the company "Kick'em In The Butt" Training. However, she needed to show that her audience was always encouraged to put their training into action. She needed a metaphor. Something strong, something showing movement, something motivational...something like a...boot-print! A boot-print would represent the important "step" her participants took when they went from learning the material to applying it to their job. It also would come to represent the "impression" that was left after she completed her training sessions (so they won't forget what they'd just learned).

She specifically chose the left boot because the right side of the brain (the creative side) controls the left side of the body and we need all sides of the brain working in training!

Once the boot-print logo was finalized, a member of the group correctly pointed out that Suzanne still didn't have a name for her company. Someone else mentioned that the logo resembled an impression made from an army boot. They immediately thought of "Basic Training". One problem, this company's training methods were anything but "basic".

Since then, her company has become known as NSBT! We hope you love it as much as we do!