In their Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants Jay Conrad Levinson and Michael W. McLaughlin define guerrilla marketing as “a full-time business that includes every aspect of a consulting practice…it applies to everything you do. The object of guerrilla marketing is to build and maintain profitable relationships…” What a great example of how someone’s definition of a concept fits someone else’s definition of a different, albeit related, concept; guerrilla marketing is sustainable marketing and vice versa. Interesting, but it doesn’t matter.
Concepts are empty vessels, labeled with names, which we fill with meaning. Christmas means different things to different people, though the core remains the same for everyone. The meanings of democracy are as diverse as humanity itself, yet everyone’s idea revolves around the same center idea. Marketing has different meanings for different people, but regardless of any adjectives preceding it, the main thing remains the main thing: marketing entails everything a business does to cultivate relationships with stakeholders.
In other words, marketing is your business and your business is marketing. No matter what umbrella label you attach to anything in your business plan or marketing strategy, it’s marketing and it must serve to build and grow relationships with your stakeholders. Preoccupation with labels on empty vessels detracts from filling them with meaning.
So call your clients to schedule new-year conversations. Email the people you met at the networking event before the holidays. Update your website with calls to action. Do less talking about doing and more doing toward your goals.
