Do I Still Hate the Word Marketing?

By Josh Law

[This is a little Josh-style mini rant about the word marketing—a word I’ve wrestled with for a long time.]

For nearly a decade, our company was called Flood Marketing. It worked for a while. I didn’t hate it in the beginning. But as time went on, something started to bother me. I started to notice that marketing—at least in how people heard or used the word—had all these artsy, fluffy, design-y connotations. Like marketing meant just making logos or posting on social media or whipping up a catchy tagline.

Now, I’ve got nothing against those things—they’re part of the process. But that’s not what I was trying to build. That wasn’t the full work.

To me, marketing always meant taking something to market. Actually building something. Doing the deep, strategic work to help someone succeed—to position a product, attract great people, move the needle in real, measurable ways.

So I started to resent the word-quite a bit. Enough that we dropped it from our name completely and repositioned our whole company. Today, we’re called Only Co.—and we help companies grow. We help them hire better. Lead better. Position themselves better. We solve problems. We build businesses.

And for us, that’s always been so much more than just marketing. (at least the way most people define the word.)

Still, I’ve softened a little. I do love marketing. I just don’t always love what people think it is.

Case in point: the other day, my friend Bill Murphy, SMP—he’s the Environmental Health & Safety Manager at Admiral Beverage Corporation in Worland, WY—was looking us up while I was sitting next to him. He started typing in our site and saw that Google categorized us as a marketing agency. He paused. Kind of blinked at it. Because he knows what we do, and from his view, it’s way beyond that label. I appreciated the reaction. It reminded me I wasn’t crazy for thinking this way.

The next day, I was talking to a great business teacher at the high school here in Sheridan, WY. I offered to come speak to his class again sometime, and he was totally up for it. But his first response was, “I’ll let the marketing teacher know.”

And again, nothing wrong with that. I get it. But there it was again—this assumption that what we do starts and ends with marketing. I know he didn't mean anything by it, and I wasn't actually offended - but I tend to resonate more with business students than I do "marketing" students. Although I'm happy to speak to both groups about marketing and business building.

When I took Intro-to-Marketing in college (after already starting my business), I actually liked it. Some of it was outdated, sure—but the basics made sense. The four P’s: product, price, placement, and promotion. That part stuck with me.

And when I think about it through that lens—yeah, maybe we are a marketing company. But not in the narrow way people tend to use the word. Because marketing isn’t just promotion. It’s how the product is built. How it’s priced. Where it’s sold. What it feels like to buy it. What it feels like to use it. And what kind of people need to be involved in delivering the product/service.

Peter Drucker had the best definition I’ve ever heard: “Marketing is everything you do from the customer’s point of view.”

That’s it.

That means your brand, your communication, your product design, your pricing model, your hiring process, your leadership style—everything. All of it matters to the customer. All of it is marketing. It's what you do to take something - to market.

So do I still have issues with the word? Yeah, kinda. But I’m getting over it.

Because at the end of the day, I love the work. I love helping companies solve real problems. I love building brands that are worth working for and worth working with. I love giving teams a competitive edge with their story, their systems, and their people.

Call it what you want.

We just call it business building. And we’re grateful to be doing it.

//Rant Over 🤣