Q&A: Marques Colston on marketing, entrepreneurship and Saints’ ‘meritocracy’

Peruse Marques Colston’s Twitter bio these days. Small signs of his former NFL life exist.

Like Colston wearing a Saints shirt while working out in his background photo. And a mention of his role on the advisory board for NFL Players Inc.

These days, however, Colston embraces the first three elements of his bio within his professional life: entrepreneur, speaker, advisor. It’s a life he began cultivating only three years into his 10-year NFL career and a football afterlife that he’s working on rigorously to excel at the same level as his prolific playing days.

I recently caught up with Colston about his business ventures (one that includes current Saints punter Thomas Morstead), his journey through the NFL Draft process and his anticipation for the Drew Brees-Tom Brady matchup:

You’re working with Thomas Morstead as partners with Main Squeeze Juice Co. He said he wanted to jump at the opportunity once you approached him. Also working with NFL Players Inc., how much have you tried to include former teammates and such in the business world?

For me, it’s actually something I started when I took the course at Columbia. I’ve always felt like there were opportunities for teammates and just peers to work together. When Main Squeeze came about, Thomas was one of the first people that I thought about. Just having a chance to see how he lived and how he trains and knowing how his family is always front and center in his life. When he initially expressed an interest, I was super excited because I think he’s somebody that really is the Main Squeeze brand. Obviously still being an active player, he represents the brand to the fullest extent.

It seems like every time I chat with you, you’ve added five more ventures to your portfolio. What are you dipping your toes into these days?

Main Squeeze is one of them, obviously. I’m still in the sports data and analytics space. There’s actually a start-up that I’ve been working on for the last year that we’re pretty close to doing something with. Still been in the cannabis space with the company I’ve been working with out of Jamaica. And if that’s not enough, I’ve been building a personal lifestyle business. I’ve been doing a lot of public speaking and consulting for the last handful of years and really starting to mold that into a professional services business where entrepreneurs work with organizations. It’s kind of a hybrid of public speaking, coaching, idea workshops. Really around the concept of separation. My job as a receiver was to create separation and make plays. In kind of using that conceptually, it helps people figure out what it is about them that makes them unique and what’s their competitive advantage. How can they use that to go out into entrepreneurship and in business culture to really help them stand out and thrive toward the goals they want to achieve.

How much did you dive into this world while playing?

It was pretty early. In my third year, that’s when I initially invested into the indoor football team in my hometown. In 2012, I really kind of dove in to really start to run that organization and run the day to day in that organization. And I’ve been kind of full steam ahead ever since then. I guess about half of my career I was really devoting my offseasons to business, the investments and operating businesses. It kind of became my chance to unplug a bit, and it really helped me miss the game by the time I got back to training camp.

Guessing that’s not the norm for players, right?

I think it’s different times even now where in 2006 when I got in. I think athletes are doing a lot more. I think at that time, a lot of guys were doing foundations and things like that. Or investing in things as maybe a capital partner or more on the marketing or branding side. I think running something at that point day-to-day really made me probably an oddball at that time. Athletes have been doing more and more off the field and just getting more and more involved.

Running day to day sounds pretty complex …

It was humbling more than anything else. In order to do that, and in an economy that was interesting, I play my seasons in the fall and pride myself on being an elite athlete, and then in the offseason I would go back home and literally have to start from ground zero. It was a level of humility in understanding that you’re literally learning as you go along. There was a learning curve. The day to day was everything from putting together sponsorship presentations to putting together marketing strategies to ticket sales strategies. Interestingly enough, the one thing I did the least of was actually on the football side of it. And it was actually by design. I had a coaching staff that I really trusted. The last thing that I wanted to do was be that overbearing person that always came in and undercut their authority and their decisions. I was there as a sounding board and a resource if they needed it if they needed feedback. But I trusted those guys to go out and put the best team together. My job was to make sure there were butts in seats when they kicked off.

How was that experience beneficial?

It gave me such a well-rounded learning experience to where there were things that I thought I had an idea around, but to actually put together a strategy and go all the way through the execution with a strategy. You think something is going to work, you put it out on the market. Then it gets beat up a little bit and you have to tweak it. Then you put it back out there and it gets beat up a little less. You just keep optimizing the product. You can draft a strategy that’s now based on what the market is looking for and wants to see. That cycle and those iterations make you a smarter and more efficient worker. When you’re doing that in two or three different areas, you learn pretty quickly that you’ve got to figure out ways to listen to what the market wants. That becomes your guiding light more than what you think you know.

You look back at players like you, Jahri Evans, Morstead and others, and those Day 3 picks became the backbone of the foundation of this team. How much do you take pride in that?

Whenever I’m asked something about that, I always give credit to the organization. What Sean (Payton) and Mickey (Loomis) and those guys, they made it a point to let it be a meritocracy. When you see that as a player, you really feel like you have a shot. There’s other organizations where their roster is a reflection of draft status and where guys are picked. But when you get into camp, especially as a young player, you can see how a team is built. When you’re a seventh-rounder or a free agent, you know you have a shot and it helps you put your best foot forward. They really made an effort of building the foundation of the organization around that. In that time period, you were able to see the Lance Moores, the Pierre Thomases, the Morsteads of the world, really shine and go on with confidence.

How was your draft process?

It was an exhausting process. … You try to talk yourself out of the second round and the third round. When it doesn’t happen, you try to stay grounded in that you could be a free agent. But the reality, though, is that the expectation has already been engrained. ‘I could be going in the second round.’ When that comes and goes, the third round comes and goes, fourth and fifth and sixth, it just becomes exhausting and borderline embarrassing when you’ve got family kind of at the house and just there waiting for two straight days of almost nothing.

The moment that stuck out for me was when Donte Stallworth is traded and Sean Payton names you as a reason …

They kind of sprung that (reasoning) on me late. So I didn’t have a lot of time to think about that. Good thing (he laughs) because it might have gotten in my head. I’m glad I just went to practice and produced without that over my head. There wasn’t enough time for me to process what that meant. Looking back on it, man, it’s a testament to what the organization stands for. Not just lip service to the concept. The best players are going to play. And in a way, they’re putting themselves on the line. If that ends up backfiring, that’s egg on their face. They were really serious on instilling that culture. As players, you buy in when you see it and really appreciate it.

How curious are you to watch Drew Brees and Tom Brady share the field twice this season?

I know I’m in the right place as a fan. You have two of the greatest of all time that have a chance to go at it in the same division? And add Teddy (Bridgewater) in there? The NFC South is going to be some serious football. I can’t wait to watch and see how it all plays out.

(Top photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)