Goal-Setting and Becoming a Better Communicator

Discover the secrets to achieving success through effective goal setting and communication in this empowering podcast episode. Join host Gboyega Adebayo and guest Evan Marshall as they explore the art of setting goals and its vital connection to successful execution. Learn the importance of celebrating both major milestones and small victories on your path to success. Gain valuable insights from Evan's personal journey in developing communication skills as a leader, and discover the transformative power of self-reflection. Unlock practical strategies to enhance communication and bridge the gap in execution. Don't miss out on this transformative conversation that will propel you towards unparalleled success. Maximize your potential and boost your career today!

Are you an entrepreneur, start-up, or business owner with a great founders story? Follow this link to get featured.

FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

INTERVIEW WITH EVAN MARSHALL

Gboyega Adebayo: Right. Right. So, so to that point, how do you guys go about setting goals? Do you set goals around for, for your business? I'll just leave it there. Let me not lead the witness. Like, how do you guys go about setting goals? 

Evan Marshall: Oh, 

Evan Marshall: I mean, we're, we're still in any business, you 

Evan Marshall: know, uh, we have revenue goals. Um, in terms of acquiring new business. Uh, one of our goals this year is we've done transparently to date. We've done all project base. Uh, so one of our goals this year is to get, uh, at least four clients on a monthly retainer. Um, in terms of, you know, that's just being 

Evan Marshall: the pace. Now we're scaling this business. So if you scale the business, you wanna have infrastructure. So, uh, that's one of our goals this year is to be able to have a monthly retainer, um, expanding our offering and outreach in terms of listening to the feedback that we've gotten from our clients and the people that we've pitched before.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Mm-hmm.  

Evan Marshall: in terms of, Hey, we like this [00:25:00] proposal, but the reason we didn't go with you is because of a Okay. Understood that. Well, that is a offering that we might not have within our arsenal right now. Okay, one, one, 

Evan Marshall: how can we combat that? Do we add somebody with that skillset to our team? Do we uncover a new opportunity to help alleviate that concern while not maybe a hundred percent directly addressing it, but are we alleviating that concern based up of the skillset of which 

Evan Marshall: we have? That's a new goal. Um, I think those are how we look at in expanding our 

Evan Marshall: goals is kind of built around that way,  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. How, 

Gboyega Adebayo: um, 

Gboyega Adebayo: how frequent, like, do you guys do short-term goals, long-term goals? Like what? Like how do you guys approach that? Because for me, as a, as a full-time entrepreneur now, I found that. , I can't just set the long-term goals when I had that stability of a job like I used to. And so I, I try to plot out, okay, these are the things that I wanna [00:26:00] accomplish this year. 

Gboyega Adebayo: And then I try to chop these things up into like sometimes week by week . Um, so that I can keep that balance of looking forward, but also managing my hands and some of that kind of hands on keyboard work. So I'm curious for you guys, um, given the success that you guys have found and your attempt to scale and grow, like how are you guys level setting, sitting back and evaluating your success or failures, uh, or learnings, I should say, around the goals? 

Evan Marshall: That's a good question. I was actually talking just to somebody about that. One of the things I say right now is I remind myself daily  

Evan Marshall: that this is working.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.  

Evan Marshall: I think a lot of times as you're building the business, like the, to your point, The, the the goalpost keeps moving, right?  

Evan Marshall: Like if you make a million dollars, you wanna make 10 

Evan Marshall: million, you make it 10 million, you wanna make a hundred million,  

Evan Marshall: right? [00:27:00] But you gotta remind yourself, 

Evan Marshall: and I like this is working. Like I no longer have to, like going back to with the side side, I don't have to, I have a business that's not a question, that's not the problem. The business is there now my job is scaling this business. That 

Evan Marshall: is two entirely different things. But at the same time within that to be able to look back 

Evan Marshall: and say this is working right. You know, even for me to be able to say, um, I had a call this week with this C-suite of this Fortune 100 company one-on-one. Like even if that doesn't get money directly from 'em, like this is working. The fact that I was able to do, I was referred to this person by somebody else, or I got this person email on LinkedIn and did a code outreach, but our capabilities decks were strong enough to where they wanted to have a conversation with me. 

Evan Marshall: that is working. Like, that's a win. Even if it doesn't make any like immediate financial success in terms of, all right, here's a RFP or here's a SOW, [00:28:00] like the fact that they're willing to have that comment with me as a position of my business, not one of these larger 50 million, a hundred million dollar agency conglomerate with me that is valid, like this is working. 

Evan Marshall: Because if they, if they didn't see any value in me at all, they 

Evan Marshall: wouldn't even be having the conversation. Right? So I say in to, to your point in terms of how do you, in the day-to-day focus 

Evan Marshall: on goal setting, that is a goal. I think one of the quotes I heard, I forget who said it, or one of the quotes I heard, um, before, was sometimes the goal is just enjoying the journey itself. 

Gboyega Adebayo: That's real.  

Evan Marshall: Um, and if you look at it from that ass, because it's like you don't really have control of what happens, you can have a great business plan, but the how you nothing, 

Evan Marshall: how you pivot 

Evan Marshall: is how you prosper, right? Like you can have a hard set business plan. and then you get to start at step A, you get to step D and then you know, ease afterwards. 

Evan Marshall: But then once you got to D someone like, Hey, I can actually this person buy my opportunity to go straight to G [00:29:00] are you gonna then go to Eve if you can just skip, go straight to G? You probably gonna go straight to G, but 

Evan Marshall: you didn't know that 

Evan Marshall: opportunity was gonna come.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Right,  

Evan Marshall: But like you have to have the big level vision of well to be as well, to be able to, how you 

Evan Marshall: pivot is how you prosper. 

Evan Marshall: So I would say that in terms of that and in terms of, um, in terms of lessons and learnings, kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier in terms of no, especially when this 

Evan Marshall: advertising business, no, doesn't mean never, right? One of the things I'm really big on is, and I tell my team, even if when we finish a proposal like A R F P, even if the pro I tell 'em, Hey, even if we don't win this, 

Evan Marshall: this proposal's strong. And I tell you that all the time, even if we don't win this, this pro, like we can look each other in the 

Evan Marshall: face and say, this strategy is good.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Mm-hmm.  

Evan Marshall: recommendation is solid. This is a solid proposal. Come mind you, they're not, it's not just us. They're going in, they're getting other proposals out there as well. 

Evan Marshall: So they might pick somebody else, but there's no way they look at this proposal and 

Evan Marshall: say, this [00:30:00] was not good. Right? I'm saying there's gonna be somebody else that's better than ours. But the goal within this business, like do you firmly believe when they look at this proposal, can they and turn say 

Evan Marshall: like, this is a strong 

Evan Marshall: ass proposal, right? 

Evan Marshall: They might not pick it, but if they do that, they 

Evan Marshall: gonna come back to you for another R F P, right? And that may then you pitch that one. Or they might even come back to you, Hey, based on the last proposal you had, you know what, you know, at the time it didn't really fit, but we liked a lot of what your messaging was, a lot of what your strategy was in that proposal. 

Evan Marshall: We wanna carve out some budget for you guys specifically 

Evan Marshall: to do That That has happened. Those are the kind of things in terms of like, it's like just 

Evan Marshall: learning along the way that way.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. 

Gboyega Adebayo: No, it's, 

Gboyega Adebayo: it, it. I think what you said is really powerful and it makes me think, um, I, I listen to a lot of sports podcasts and athletes often say there are no moral victories. Um, but I think in business there are such things as moral victories, right? Like the big win is winning the deal. There's a whole lot of [00:31:00] other small wins that can happen. 

Gboyega Adebayo: And like you said, if, if you as a team, if, if your team can sit back and say, this was a strong proposal, and if the person we sent it to has a positive perspective and we gain their respect, that is a win. Even, even if we don't get the, even we get the dollars and cents of the business because it can turn into a future proposal or a referral to, you know, a competitor or a friend that's like, Hey, you gotta talk to these guys, these guys are amazing. 

Gboyega Adebayo: Like, that is, that is a really good perspective to to, to have and, and  

Evan Marshall: And, and I think, and I like that analogy to, to the point 

Evan Marshall: in the sports world, it doesn't work like that in the 

Evan Marshall: business world. It does. Right. So that in the business world it does. So that Exactly, and that's, and that's kind of how we say that. But that's also, and also it's understanding, it's like really understanding the 

Evan Marshall: feedback as to why they didn't like it. Like one of the things my mentor told me, it was like the feedback that we've got on a couple proposals, [00:32:00] it was like, like, Hey, well can you do this? Can you do that? Can you do this? And I'm like, okay. And his feedback was, don't 

Evan Marshall: be upset that you didn't win, because like if they didn't like your 

Evan Marshall: strategy, they'd have just told you, Hey, we went another 

Evan Marshall: direction. Or they wouldn't responded. The fact that they came back and they even added, already started asking questions. That's to validate 

Evan Marshall: if your strategy is actually correct. So that means that you have this, your approach you took was strong, your recommendation at a high level. So obviously any client's always gonna 

Evan Marshall: tweak. Even a winning proposal to fit their fit, their true needs, but the fact that they even come back with questions, even if you don't 

Evan Marshall: win, that is a positive because it reminds you that like the work that you are putting out there 

Evan Marshall: is being received well,  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. 

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah, absolutely. 

Gboyega Adebayo: so, 

Gboyega Adebayo: So, um, another thing that we, we said we wanted to talk about is self-reflection and leadership and continuously learning. And I think that the conversation around moral, moral victories or kind of seeing the positive and the wins and things that is, is super helpful. [00:33:00] One of the questions that I have, and I, I'm gonna borrow from another guest, um, who's a learning coach, and he, he talked about this framework of, you know, plan, do, reflect, that's how you get better at anything. 

Gboyega Adebayo: And a lot of times people forget about the reflecting. Um, and so I would like to hear from you, what does reflecting look like for you, not only just on your personal journey as an entrepreneur, but also in business. How do you reflect and what does that look like? And is that practice just tremendously useful for you? 

Evan Marshall: No. Yeah. Um, reflecting is always key for me. Um, I do a lot of, reflecting a lot. Cause honestly, I know, I know I have a very unique personality, um, in this sense that like, very direct. Um, and to that point, when you can be very direct, when people can also at times take that as [00:34:00] abrasiveness or abrasive because they're not really 

Evan Marshall: used to people being direct, uh, for that. Like, to the point, like one of my least favorite forms of communication is the compliment sandwich. Like, uh, I get why people utilize it, but I don't need, 

Evan Marshall: just gimme it 

Evan Marshall: to me straight. That's how I am.  

Evan Marshall: Right. Um, but I say that to say as I'm continuing reflecting, I understand that. Like, I realize like I can be in the midst of conversations and wheres like, people that know me know 

Evan Marshall: that it's like, duh, duh, duh.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Hmm.  

Evan Marshall: I remember I was on a call with a client one time, transparently, and it was two people in a client with like our day-to-day client lead and then another person on the call and the secondary person was on our day-to day client lead, trans transparent, like Evan, like I wanna be honest with you. Like I feel like you're a little bit difficult to work with. And then the woman who was the client lead on my call actually chimed in before I said anything and was like, is he, or does he just know what he's talking about? And I [00:35:00] was like, um, but I realized it's like a lot of people that you deal with, they're not used to people even challenging them. Even with strategic, with strategy based behind it. 

Evan Marshall: They're a lot of, they're just used to a 

Evan Marshall: lot of people just saying yes.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.  

Evan Marshall: Or just adhering. Especially if you're dealing with clients, just adhering to what they request. And I'm not, obviously, obviously if you are, uh, advertising is a service-based industry as an agency, so I'm not saying that. I obviously, I go. Do my most to go beyond, above and deliver for my clients. But I realize that also that in my delivering approach sometimes, because how I do just challenge and ask questions to try to get to the root of conversations, but oftentimes people can take that as pushback or of that nature. So I'm constantly, constantly kind of reflecting about, um, how that went or how this conversation went. 

Evan Marshall: And then even my business partner, he's very different than me. He's very, like, if you had a good cop, bad cop, I 

Evan Marshall: would be the bad cop. So [00:36:00] if there's situations like that, I'll even call him and he like, 

Evan Marshall: Hey, how did you think that conversation went?  

Evan Marshall: Or like, did you think what I said? I could tell when I said this and, and he'll give me honest feedback that way. 

Evan Marshall: So that's one of the things I've kind of continued to grow and improve and evolve in that regard is learning that not everybody, um, is receptive to every 

Evan Marshall: single  

Evan Marshall: communication style. So, 

Gboyega Adebayo: yeah, yeah. No, there's, um, it reminds me back when, when I was a consultant, I, I have, It's a blessing and a curse. Um, people call it the likability factor, which is, which is kind of, kind of a weird thing to say. I don't know if it's a compliment, but I'll take it as one. Um, but at the same time, it becomes very hard to flip the switch and be direct. 

Evan Marshall: Yep.  

Gboyega Adebayo: And, and, and like turn the switch of like, well, are you mad at me? It's like, I'm not mad. I'm just gonna tell you exactly what I feel like needs to be said in this moment. And, you [00:37:00] know, trying to manage the emotions and try to kind of manage the relationship and still maintain that trust, especially in the client services business. 

Gboyega Adebayo: It's just so hard. It, it's, I mean, some of the bags, some of the bags I have are because of that 

Evan Marshall: It's funny you say that. I actually, I get the ous a lot like to, then when we go out to dinner, go out to drink and be like, you're very different like in person or when you have to drink. I'm like, yeah, this is not work. That's right. Yeah. Now, now we, now we just kickin' it and hanging out having a good time. 

Evan Marshall: Like, we're like, like work is, that's work, right? This is, this is like, we can I talk to you about your kids, your nieces, your nephews, your wife? We, 

Evan Marshall: we can, we can be friends, 

Evan Marshall: but when we at work, we working, you know what I'm saying? A lot of people are like, that's kind of just like, that's kind of what's kind of a unique difference between me too is like, um, a lot of people don't really know how to separate 

Evan Marshall: friendship and  

Evan Marshall: business kind of gonna make you saying that likability  

Gboyega Adebayo: sure.  

Evan Marshall: So to your point, like they like you a lot, but then when 

Evan Marshall: it's time for you to be stern  

Evan Marshall: and you're stern and not, [00:38:00] it's not 

Evan Marshall: a personal thing, it's a strictly business. They take it personal. Cause it's like, Hey, I thought you were my friend. How could, like, what's up? Why are you doing like, and like, and you're trying to say like, no, it's not personal, it's business where it's like, my thing is 

Evan Marshall: like, this is business Evan. 

Gboyega Adebayo: Mm-hmm.  

Evan Marshall: personal, Evan, like, you know, we're discussing business like you don't have, there's no if and a, but like we 

Evan Marshall: can disagree today and it can get kind of heated 

Evan Marshall: and then six o'clock, hey, you wanna go get drinks? And then we 

Evan Marshall: don't gotta talk about work at all. You know what I'm saying? So it's like we also understanding like that doesn't work for everybody. 

Evan Marshall: So those are kind of one things I'm constantly reflecting and constantly kind of learning and growing, evolving. I've got much better than even the last two years really. But that's kind of one of the things you gotta,  

Evan Marshall: you just gotta keep it growing and keep  

Evan Marshall: evolving and keep it learning. 

Evan Marshall: So.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. So, so I'm, I'm, I'm curious, as your team grows and, you know, you're inherently, you know, the team lead and you're kind of building folks that work with you, how are you man managing that [00:39:00] as a leader? Right? Like, how are you balancing, like, is it just everybody just knows that Evan's gonna be the direct guy, , or, or is it, you know, you know that there are areas that you've gotta evolve in certain contexts, in certain contexts and conversations or with certain people. 

Gboyega Adebayo: I mean, I'm curious how you're looking at that.  

Evan Marshall: I think it's a mixture of both. Uh, I am gonna, I like being direct is who I am is my personality. It's like I'll never not be that 

Evan Marshall: because that would me being inauthentic.  

Evan Marshall: Um, I think what I've gotten better at is being an over communicator in the sense of upfront, this is what I'm doing and this is why, this is 

Evan Marshall: why I'm what I expect. Uh, a great quote I heard the other day was, um, People love to make 

Evan Marshall: excuses for lack of 

Evan Marshall: execution. 

Gboyega Adebayo: Correct. For  

Evan Marshall: And um, that's one of the 

Evan Marshall: things that bothers me. Uh, for example, cause one of the, and the reason it bothers me is because say today, say you and I were working [00:40:00] on a project and we agreed on Monday that this delivered you having to us by Friday at 10:00 AM I'm not a hand holder, so I'm not, I'm not a micromanager, I'm not a handover. 

Evan Marshall: We agree Friday at 10:00 AM so I expect Friday at 10:00 AM 

Evan Marshall: to go. I'm not, I'm not the kind of dude like world does. I'm not the kind of dude that, just a reminder, Hey, how's things coming along? I'm not that dude. Like, I expect you as an adult and a professional leader, if things are not coming along, you 

Evan Marshall: need my assistance to reach out to me.  

Evan Marshall: Right?  

Evan Marshall: So, but what I don't do well with, and this is why I say excuses, uh, excuses for lack of execution is if it gets to be 9:00 AM. And it's like, oh, now I need to end the day today. 

Evan Marshall: That bothers me because you knew Wednesday today, what is it, three o'clock, that you was not gonna be 

Evan Marshall: able to get this to me by Friday at 10:00 AM You knew 

Evan Marshall: that it, you knew that 48 hours in advance. And the reason that bothers me is you could have said something, za, you haven't reached out to me. You could have said something to me at [00:41:00] that time. Hey, a, B and C D has come up. I'm not gonna, can I get, can I either A, I just need more time. Cool. Or if I, if you need assistance, what can you do 

Evan Marshall: to help me to get this across the line? So then the problem is there isn't even a lack of execution, it's the lack 

Evan Marshall: of communication.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Correct. Correct.  

Evan Marshall: So, and that is, that is one of the things in terms of like me being 

Evan Marshall: directors, that's what I struggle with. It's like all you had to do, and the reason, and the reason that communication is key is because if you communicate with that person up front, me or anybody else included, That empowers that other person to put another plan in place to adjust. So what you, so one of the things we do is we have a bunch of influences we manage, and I tell them all the time, and I gotta ex and I gotta break it down to 'em. I think why this is not accountable. So for that example, say they had to deliver a piece of content Friday at 10:00 AM like for you say, today what? 

Evan Marshall: Like what you're doing is you're making it all about you. I'm not [00:42:00] minimizing what you had to do throughout the day. I'm not minimizing what you had to do on Thursday. But you gotta look at it from this standpoint. If they requested it Friday at 10:00 AM they 

Evan Marshall: requested it, that deadline for a reason. This agency or client could have an internal review with their 

Evan Marshall: team at one o'clock. So that's why they requested it at 10. So they get your content now they need to put it into the deck, put it in a keynote, whatever they need to do to make a presentation, to walk through your work. And I'm sure there's probably other people submitted work at one o'clock. So what you've done now by answer the end of the day, now you've put that person. In the position to either have to move that meeting, ma, you talking about Friday? So either they have to move that meeting till 4:00 PM Friday or till Monday, or that person's in the position to be like, why doesn't so-and-so have this 

Evan Marshall: work? I don't even know. I don't know. It's not a sufficient answer to them because you weren't, you didn't communicate in 

Evan Marshall: enough time to be able to get it done.  

Gboyega Adebayo: right, right.  

Evan Marshall: like if you'd have told me this on Wednesday [00:43:00] when you didn't know, I can say on Wednesday, Hey, so-and-so Friday's not gonna work with us. Is there a way we can do this? That's an entirely different conversation cuz now she has two, a whole business day even in between 

Evan Marshall: to reschedule that meeting to level expectations on her end. Those are the things I think people like, like when you're going back to your direct question about how do you go about adjusting, 

Evan Marshall: it's explaining it to them in that. This is not all about you in that if you, when you, the reason you're making, again, I'm not minimizing your excuses, but your lack of execution does cause a domino effect when it comes to work that affects other people and other people's jobs. So you have to look at this as this 

Evan Marshall: is not all about you. And, uh, too many times when people are doing, especially when it comes to work, the excuses for lack of execution, they, that's because they've internalized this and they made it all about them. And all you have to do is communicate [00:44:00] ahead of time and do that. 

Evan Marshall: So what's what I've gotten better at? Okay, I'm being direct and I'm telling you why this is not acceptable to me, 

Evan Marshall: but here's why.  

Evan Marshall: Like, so I've gotten better at that and trying to explain to 'em here's why. Uh, but then cuz what that also does is like, once you know the why, it's like, whoa, like now 

Evan Marshall: we gotta have personal accountability, bro.  

Gboyega Adebayo: yeah, 

Gboyega Adebayo: yeah. .Yeah. I, it, it's, it's funny because that story reminds me of a boss that I had very early on in my career, um, and, and, and she said, if I ask you to do something, I'm not thinking about it until you bring it back up or the deadlines come.  

Evan Marshall: A hundred  

Gboyega Adebayo: And, and, and, 

Gboyega Adebayo: and for me, I, I remember, I think I was, I think I was probably 19, it was probably like a, in like in my marketing internship or something. 

Gboyega Adebayo: And, and I remember thinking I was just like, Uh, [00:45:00] uh, what if I got questions? She's not gonna ask me if I have questions, so I guess that means I've gotta go to her if I have questions. And, and it just started creating the habits of over-communicating, to your point. And, and I think that as I went on in my career, it became a leader. 

Gboyega Adebayo: I realized that a lot of people don't inherently pick up on that, and a lot of people become, become kind of fearful 

Gboyega Adebayo: of looking stupid or having those questions, or they think like, oh, I can get it done tomorrow. Oh, I can get it done tomorrow. And then the deadline's there, and it's just like, well, if you had this question, you could have asked me that on Tuesday. 

Gboyega Adebayo: And so I think, I think you're, you're right. I think all of it boils down to communication. And as, as, as leaders, as we grow kind of our prospective teams and our business, it's important to make sure that people have the context of. , your job isn't just about what you see  

Evan Marshall: Mm-hmm.  

Gboyega Adebayo: there's a whole other chain of events that are happening [00:46:00] that are depending on this one thing. 

Gboyega Adebayo: And if you can't tell me ahead of time that what we've agreed on is not gonna happen, then all of these other things are gonna be gonna go wrong. And the frustration of all of that will be on you. It's not necess. It's not just, oh, you missed the assignment. No, you messed up this entire campaign. 

Evan Marshall: So, and it's funny you mentioned it that not funny, but it's that your point is a hundred percent correct. Cause that makes me think of people don't like 

Evan Marshall: to have difficult conversations,  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.  

Evan Marshall: but oftentimes the conversation is actually difficult. It is not even kind of what you say it is. Not even the fact that you have to ask me a question or that you might not understand something. The reason the conversation is difficult is exactly what you said. Cause you did not ask the question. Now this conversation is difficult because as you just mentioned, 

Evan Marshall: this whole campaign got messed up. I have no problem. Most people actually don't have a problem. [00:47:00] Even if you just talking about, uh, what your, uh, family, spouse, wife, girlfriend, significant other. If you, if you have a situation with them and they do something that bothers you and you talk to them about it. That's okay. It might not be great, but you have the competition where oftentimes it becomes heated and the good thing is 

Evan Marshall: when you let it fester and animosity builds up, and then you've actually had something or a myriad of different things that this person's done build up over time that have bothered you and you 

Evan Marshall: never said anything to that person. So then now when you do finally have that conversation, the person's like, oh, like I didn't know you'd been feeling this way. And like, that's what makes that conversation difficult. And it's not even, and it might not even at there, like if you'd have just told 'em from the front, 

Evan Marshall: they'd done, just stopped doing it from the beginning, but you never told them. So, and that, and so I just think that level that people don't wanna have difficult conversations. It's, and I, again, [00:48:00] it's like, and I get why, because a conversations diff difficult. Conversations can be emotional, but oftentimes they don't look at it in the aspect logically, rather than take the emotion of it. 

Evan Marshall: The reason this person actually is a difficult conversation is because you didn't 

Evan Marshall: empower them.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah.  

Evan Marshall: Upfront with enough 

Evan Marshall: information to make a decision for themselves.  

Gboyega Adebayo: Yeah. Absolutely.