Mike and Gaby Israel Grinberg - Partners in Business and Life
Season 2, Episode 16
Summary:
“The way we look at it is, when you have a business partner, your business partnership is built on trust. And if you can't trust your spouse, you got a whole different set of issues, right? It actually helps that you're never questioning the other person's motives – they are both automatically going in the same direction.” – Mike Grinberg on being in business with a spouse
There are many reasons entrepreneurs start their businesses, including necessity. Mike and Gaby Israel Grinberg created Proofpoint Marketing, a remote people first business to business revenue marketing agency, out of necessity to generate income that also met specific family needs. Mike and Gaby share their personal journey that includes their now thriving daughter who was born four months prematurely. Hear how the partners in life became business partners, what works well working with a spouse, the surprising risk of being in business together, and how they’ve extended their family first value into their company culture on Champions of RISK
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Transcript:
Michael Kithcart:
Hello, I'm Michael Kithcart. I'm a high performance business coach and entrepreneur who helps fatigued achievers move from stuck to unstoppable. Welcome to the Champions of RISK podcast, where we examine the many aspects of risks so we can all face uncertainty with more strength, courage and humor together. Well what could possibly be more humorous and risky and require strength and courage than starting a business with your spouse? We are about to find out today my guests are Mike Grinberg and Gaby Israel Grinberg, together, they own Proofpoint marketing. It's a remote people first business to business revenue marketing agency based in the Twin Cities. So Mike and Gaby, welcome to the podcast.
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Thank you. We're excited to be here.
Mike Grinberg:
Thanks for having us.
Michael Kithcart:
My pleasure. So first, since this is a story about having a business with your spouse, how did you two meet?
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
That's an easy one. So we actually met online, we met online and it's funny because we own a business that helps other companies find their ideal clients online as well, when we met this was gosh, now almost almost 10 years ago, right, Mike? Yeah, almost. Yeah. 10 it'll be 10 years ago, since
Mike Grinberg:
we met it was in May,
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
in May this year. And you know, I was very much opposed to online dating, I was not happy. I was very leery of it. I knew that at that time. There were a lot of people that had success with it actually, you know, friends and relatives that had met their significant others online but I was very apprehensive about it. I had just moved to the Twin Cities from the Boston area and I didn't have a ton of friends here I you know, I didn't I didn't know a lot of people I was basically you know, going to work and coming home and then going to the gym and that's about it. And my sister who's who's younger than me, but in many ways much wiser than me told me that I should go on a dating site and try to meet somebody here. And I took her advice and I did and I met Mike and you know as they say the rest is history.
Michael Kithcart:
Ah, Mike what was it about Gaby that just made you eventually realize like she's the one
Mike Grinberg:
If we're talking about the exact moment that was definitely after we've been dating for... I'm trying to remember, I think a couple months, was what September? Because it was a it was starting to get chilly as the fall we went to go visit my grandfather was the first I first time I introduced he's passed since this point, but it was he was a big big part a big part of our family and my life and whatnot. So having is not really a blessing per se but having his approval I guess in one way or the other was important so it may just hit it off. And that was that
Michael Kithcart:
There you go. The approval of grandpa. So Mike, let's I want to start with you. And what was it about becoming an entrepreneur that was enticing to you? Is this a lifelong dream?
Mike Grinberg:
I wouldn't call it a dream per se but it was I always had the the entrepreneurial spirit I guess you could say from like, I'm not gonna give you the whole story. I wasn't selling lemonade as a kid because I definitely was not so I don't know. I don't think it was from back then. I wasn't I wasn't like slinging candy bars in high school or grade school or not gonna give you one of those stories. But pretty early point I was you know, I started freelance consulting for design work pro even while I was still in college, because I double majored in graphic design and marketing. So I started just kind of do an extra income, you know, consulting on the side at that point. And I've got notebooks upon notebooks and domains upon domains, which Gaby can vouch for of business ideas that never really made it to fruition. And I'm not the only one by any means. So it was always I think in the cards one way or the other. The way we got there definitely is not traditional. But it was always sort of planned, but it was, it was always sort of in the goal that I was heading towards
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Mike. Mike is being very humble, because ever since I met him and again, 10 years now that we've we've known each other from a very early point in our relationship, he had literally notebooks where he'd write down ideas, scribble down on paper, Oh, I got this idea for the SAS platform. I got this idea for this, this thing and this dada dada. And so he's being very humble, because I think maybe he was afraid. And there have been many points in times where we talked specifically, where he was apprehensive to take that step to jump into entrepreneurship. But that bug was always inside him that that nagging feeling of man, I just want to do something on my own. I want to start something that has always been in him, I think, at least since the time that I've known him, so I think he's being a bit modest.
Michael Kithcart:
Did you have that same feeling, Gaby, were you as drawn to entrepreneurship as Mike?
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
I was in a very different arena. You know, Mike, both Mike and I are, are by by trade, you could say digital marketers, you know, we've been in marketing our our whole career 17 plus years now but my itch towards entrepreneurship was more in a creative capacity. I from a very early point in my career in my life I wanted to be as I said more in the creative side so think thinking like I wanted to be a salon owner you know I wanted to own a really relaxing spa and salon for a while I also was interested in in floral design and I thought that okay maybe I could go back to school and learn how to make floral arrangements and do you know beautiful stunning floral design i've got tons of flowers in the house I just I love flowers I love greenery so my house is
Mike Grinberg:
Our house is overgrown with greens right now, we need to do something about that
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Yeah, we need a bigger house for all my plants so I had I had definitely thought about entrepreneurship but not in the marketing space again I was thinking I'll own a salon one day i'll go into floral design one day heck I even thought about opening a boutique a clothing store a high end clothing store and we went so far as to start mapping out a business plan on on paper and looking at
Mike Grinberg:
there was the online thing for an e commerce store for athletic equipment
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
athletic - yeah
Mike Grinberg:
athleisure staff please
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Athleisure, yeah so so I think I've always I guess you could say that both mike and I long story short we've both been interested in doing something for ourselves
Michael Kithcart:
I don't think she's the accidental entrepreneur but when she thinks about it she's been doing the same thing that I've been, just in a different different way yeah sounds like you have a pretty good pattern both of you as you said in different ways so what was it that made you to decide to go into business together and create Proofpoint?
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Well that is that is a very interesting story um and it really it really started we like to say that that starting Proofpoint was you know Proofpoint was conceived out of our our family's greatest need our our family crisis really five years ago in 2015 we were we were married at that point for a few years and we're excited to start a family I became pregnant and very early into our pregnancy was 20 weeks that we found out that we were going to have a high risk pregnancy. We didn't know at that point what that really meant and what the outcome was going to be all we knew was that you know we were on pins and needles. And at 24 weeks it was august of 2015 our daughter was born she was born four months premature she weighing less than a pound she was she was 11 ounces at birth until this day five years on she is still the record holder for the second for the second smallest micro preemie to be born and survive at children's minneapolis today so she is I mean I know I'm biased but she's an a remarkable human being just everything that she has gone through in in her short life and that was really the impetus for starting our business as it turned out i was working for an individual at the time of my pregnancy and i lost my job so talk about insult to injury we go from a dual income i was the primary health care holder at the time I lost we lost our income we lost her health care and then to make matters worse we had a child in critical condition she was in the NICU for six months before we could bring her home and and that was the that was just one of the many blips in our journey that eventually pushed us into entrepreneurship it was the premature birth of our daughter losing my job in such a critical moment mike started consulting on his own time to make up he had a full time job at the time that he was consulting to make up the difference of losing our income and when our daughter was two at that point she was doing really well two years old she had she had kind of we had gone through some of the hardships of having a preemie at that time but again you know insult to injury the company that Mike was working for at the time a different company than when we were in the NICU went bankrupt filed for bankruptcy and that was the that was the last straw that broke the camel's back that we said you know what we are not going to be forced into decisions based on other people's bad bad choices you know the company had filed for bankruptcy based on some unsavory business practices that were going on and we just decided that we're not going to be the collateral damage to other people's poor decisions so that was you know in a series of many events obviously the first one being our daughter's birth and the needs that we needed to be you know to become the parents that she needed for us to the culmination of Mike losing his job and us going two months without a salary sorry one pay period without a salary which is you know that's difficult for anybody out there to not have a pay period
Michael Kithcart:
it was a month, it was two pay periods
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
it was two okay sorry it was two pay periods a month of no salary so so that was the push that that led us to start Proofpoint as I had mentioned Mike was consulting on the side he had a number of clients we decided since we both are digital marketers by background we decided to take those clients that he had he had about you know four or five accounts and we said okay we're going to jump in and we're going to take these companies and we're going to build it and we're gonna we're gonna grow from there and so
Michael Kithcart:
Mike I want to ask you at that point and Gaby set up like all the conditions that had led up to it going into it if you go back to that moment in time where you just decided okay now is the time we're just going to start the business what was that risk for you and for the family
Mike Grinberg:
really I mean I vividly remember the conversation we're standing in our in our kitchen and having this discussion as our daughter was taking a nap the reality was is the risk was it was a risk not to do something about it because well they really we kind of looked at each other and said well we either go with both can I go on good corporate gigs or we're gonna do take the these three clients that I've got on the side and build something I remember Gaby's stipulation was if we're going to do it we're not just going to be consultants and do an independent work we're going to try to build an agency because I don't want to do that because she'd already she'd already done that and long story short didn't work it didn't work out as well as maybe could have so
Michael Kithcart:
so you took your past experiences that really helped determine that this were building a company
Mike Grinberg:
yeah this was like it's either just like going into debt or do this because it would have taken us probably a month or two to get the types of jobs that we actually wanted we could have gotten jobs much quicker but it wouldn't have been something that we would have wanted to stick with
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
and the biggest you know the biggest impetus in all of this was our daughter you know she was as I mentioned she was almost two at that point she was doing really well but she still needed a high degree of of interaction from her family from her parents and so we did find a nanny at the time that had had a nursing background to help us out with Lana but we wanted to be home that was the biggest thing is that we knew that
Mike Grinberg:
We had a whole bunch of appointments still in there she still needed a bunch of time with us even with the nanny around
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
yeah we knew that it was going to be very difficult for us to both find rewarding jobs that were going to that was gonna give us the flexibility that we needed to be the kinds of parents that we want it to be for our daughter and that you know that was that was five years ago that would well I'm sorry that was in 2017 so that was almost four years ago now the world has changed significantly since then and I think that we are starting to finally see a shift in companies in their mindset around employees around a flexible work working environment around remote working you know we're finally it took a pandemic to get there but but you know we were I like to think that we were slightly ahead of the curve because we said that not only do we want to have a business that's beneficial to our family but we want to really scale the company bring on employees and allow them those same the same desires that we were seeking for ourselves a flexible work environment 100% distributed team remote you know working remotely and the ability to truly have in your you know to truly be the balance your family and your work you know so often especially for moms especially for young moms we have to make sacrifices have to make sacrifices for either our job or our children and we and I and I knew that at that point you know I had taken two years off of my career when after Lana was born to be home with her to care for her she had very acute medical needs when she was released from the hospital and I knew that that wasn't in my career plan actually it wasn't none of that was in my within our plan right you know you get pregnant and the idea is you're gonna have a healthy baby nine months later and you come home and everybody's happy that didn't play out as we had expected but you know as we like to say this whole the whole situation has pushed us in the right direction of where we need it to be and not only for ourselves and for our family but for the culture that we're building and the and the people that we hire on our on our team at Proofpoint
Michael Kithcart:
yeah and just to also build on because you've mentioned Lana and really how that made you decide what type of business you wanted to create you also still are very much involved with other family leads that are going through similar situations. And so how are you helping others? How are you, using your experience with Lana to maybe make it a little bit easier f or other families,
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
you know, I would love to do more than what we are currently doing. And hopefully Mike and I will get to the point where we can be even greater advocates for prematurity awareness and, and maternal fetal health. One of the things that we said from the very beginning and in that very conversation that we had when we decided to start Proofpoint was that we were going to take a portion of our of our earnings every year and give back to organizations that that inspire us. So you know, children's Minneapolis, the March of Dimes, Preeclampsia Foundation, and then there's a local organization here called the neonatal neonatal
Mike Grinberg:
Minnesota, Neonatal
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Minnesota Neonatal foundation that were involved with, I had a brain lapse at the moment. So we so we do donate directly from the company. And then on a personal level, we were involved with the March of Dimes until the pandemic struck, I was part of this the family Ambassador council here locally, I'm very involved online, there's there's a really strong premium community here in the Twin Cities that that I've tried to be vocal and try to be a part of and connect with families on a personal level. And then something that we started doing recently that we hope to continue and maybe make it into a formal foundation as we donate a care packages on Valentine's Day at the hospital at the local NICU. So Lana was discharged one week before Valentine's Day, she was just charged February 6. So we decided that on Valentine's Day in honor of her discharge, we would bring some some care packages and spread a little bit of love to the families that are currently in the NICU. So those are a few of the ways that we're currently supporting. And like I said, we have exciting, exciting plans on the things that we want to do to continue to build off of our personal experience with prematurity and preeclampsia, which was the gestational disease that that led me to have preterm labor. Yeah. And and one of the big things that I'm working on is, is a book. So we want to write a children's book, hopefully a series of children's books to support families that are that are in a similar situation.
Michael Kithcart:
Yeah, that's, that's great. I want to so I appreciate kind of setting up how the business came about, Mike, let's get real here. What's it like working with your spouse?
Mike Grinberg:
It's, I mean, for the most part, it's great. Honestly I know it's- and I'm not just saying I mean, it's, it's funny, because the general response you get when, oh, my God, you work with your wife? Or Oh, my God, your husband? Like, I could never do that. Right? That's probably 90% of time is what you hear. And my answer to that is like, wow, you must really have a crappy marriage, then. I don't know. Like, it's, and they've done me wrong. It's not for everybody, I get that. It's really not. And I'm, I'm joking, obviously, when I when I say that, but the way I look, the way we look at it is, you know, when you have a business partner, it's built, your business partnership is built on trust. And if you can't trust your spouse, you got a whole different set of issues, right? So just just that makes it easy. The other thing that helps, actually is, you're never questioning the other person's motives are both automatically going in the same direction, right? Like we have, we have the same personal goals, which means what we want other businesses the same and sort of doesn't mean we do we don't ever disagree on strategic initiatives in the business and things like that, but they are just that they're strategic initiatives for the business, not overall, where we're trying to get to, right. So all those things that actually are great. Now, it's not without its faults, for sure, right, it makes it hard to separate we, it makes it harder to separate work from home, it makes it harder to sort of, you know, take the business out and focus on your kids and things like that, because it's always sort of happening. it you know, it does create strain from time to time of when we do disagree about something, right. Because it's hard to be like, Hey, we're going like this about how to better marketing strategy that we're going to do. And then hey, let's go have a family dinner right now. 99% of the time we just talk it through and everything's good and but sometimes Yeah, it does carry over so it does have its its drawbacks, I would say but I definitely think the the positives way outweigh the negatives.
Michael Kithcart:
I'm curious along the way cuz you've been at it now for several years. Are there any kind of rules or guidelines that you've established that have helped make it easier to separate?
Mike Grinberg:
We're still figuring some of that out to be - Yeah, but there's definitely like over the last year, we've invested a lot in coaching kind of outside things. And there's a few in a few things that we've done more recently that I think have really, really helped not that to say that from before, like the, one of the main ones sort of is, we don't have like a formal rule around cuz I know some people will advise this like, Okay, once 6pm hits, there's no more business talk or where if we're at, out for dinner, there's no business talk three audience for us, that's just not realistic, because it just comes out like we're not even trying to. And for a while there, I was the one doing it. But I think Gaby now does it just as much as I do. So it's just as you're in it, it just, it's, it's the thing that we talk about the most, our daughter? Pretty much. So for us, one of the the thing is is like one at any point, either, either one of us has the right to say, I'm not dealing with business right now. And then at that point, the other person goes, Okay, got it. That's it. That's just how we treat it. It's not an argue about it. Well, no, no, no, let me know. It's as soon as the same as the other person says, no, that conversation is done. And we pick it up the next day, because it's, it's just not realistic to for somebody to have that discussion when their heads not in it. And then the other big thing is, we've, it took us three years to figure this out, even though we knew we needed to, but we finally put together job descriptions for each of us. And that's the first year that we sort of said, okay, Gaby, you're focused on marketing, client success, and HR and Mike, you're focused on operations, business development and client strategy. that's now been completely separate. So like, there's all things that we're getting done that we just could never get to before they Gaby's off, is now digging into, hey, how do we automate expense reports? And this that the other which was, it's not a major thing, but it's always something that's just been hanging out there. And nobody was getting to? Because we're both doing God knows what.
Michael Kithcart:
And Gaby, what would you add to that?
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Yeah, well, I think Mike touched on the big ones. And the biggest one for us is that we realized that we can give each other permission to tell the other, Hey, you know what, I need my space. And I need my space today, or I'm not ready to talk about this, or, you know, what, it's, we're going on a walk, let's just enjoy the walk, let's enjoy being with our daughter. So that was the big thing is that we, we realized we can give ourselves the permission to tell the other when we're not receptive to talking about business, which, which was a huge lifesaver in our relationship, because we were both getting to the point where work was becoming very suffocating, the business was becoming very suffocating, it was not giving time to breathe for for other areas of our relationship and of our family life. So that was a big one that Mike touched on. One thing that he forgot to say I thought he was gonna say it is. So last year, we started a podcast called Mixing Business With Pleasure, in which we interview other couples in business together. The podcast is currently on hiatus, we're going to pick it back up in a couple of months, we needed to focus on some things for Proofpoint, we decided that it was it was a good time to put it on pause. But we recorded 25 episodes last year, into this year. And we got to meet some absolutely amazing couples that work together. And that and that was a big impetus for us was okay, you know, what, we're a couple in business. We need help, too. We want to learn we want to, you know, we're four years into this journey of entrepreneurship. That's, you know, that's baby years for entrepreneurs. And we wanted to learn from others that, that have been doing it for longer. And so we were able to connect with some amazing business owners, both here in the Twin Cities as well as nationally. And so that was that was that was a huge help in our not only in our business, but also in our marriage, to learn from others and to bring those those stories to life of people that are just like us, you know, a couple in business and how do they do it? And so that that was a huge help in our relationship.
Mike Grinberg:
Because it might sound it might sound counterintuitive, but being in business with your spouse can actually be pretty isolating and lonely, not because you don't have someone to talk to on a daily basis. But because you have nobody, not nobody but you it's harder to find somebody to get business advice from, because it's one thing to be like, hey, I've got this problem when my business partner, what do you think I should do? But my business partner is my wife. So if I got a problem, I'm not gonna go complain to somebody else that doesn't get it and the advice they're gonna give me is probably not realistic, because the way you would handle it with an outside friend, that your business partner, just an outside business partner is different than the person you're having dinner with and an hour.
Michael Kithcart:
Right. Right. And I'm curious out of those conversations that you had from your podcast, what's one piece of advice that really sticks with you, maybe that is for your personal side or the professional side of things
Mike Grinberg:
yeah all the things that i mentioned actually were confirmed and told to us in all those interviews and interestingly the business coach we're currently working with his name is Eric Urwanger, him and his wife worked together so we interviewed them and then we started working with with Eric over the last couple of months here now now we have a business coach that knows exactly what we're dealing with on a kind of day to day basis I mean not exactly but
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
yeah I think for me one of the pieces of advice that really stuck out in the podcast is is involving your kids as much as possible you know when when you are a husband and wife or a partner you know you're in a loving relationship and you have children it can not only can it be isolating for for the partners but also for the children because they're constantly hearing their parents talk about work and I know that is true for our daughter from a very early point in time you know she's only ever known us to work from home she's only ever known us to work at Proofpoint so at a very early point in time you know we she was maybe three years old at the time and I heard her playing with her dolls and she would say something like oh I'm gonna go check my emails okay I got to go to a meeting you know she just she's just naturally picking up these this business lingo and it's been a boon for us in many ways because her vocabulary and her understanding of the adult world is just amazing for a five year old I have to say that in that regard it's been very fun and rewarding to see her grow and flourish and learn things that she may not have ever come into contact with until much later so
Mike Grinberg:
Now she all of a sudden starts saying hey let's circle back mom and dad then
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
yeah then we know we have a problem but but we try to get her involved you know if we do fun videos for the for the company if we you know we did something special for our clients last year for the holidays and we got her involved and we never tried to push her you know if she doesn't want to do it we don't force her to do it we are very open about our story online you know it's on our website we talked about it on LinkedIn and she started to have an awareness of that you know she's seen us going on our website and she's she's seen her picture on the website she's walked by our computers when we're posting things on LinkedIn and so she's asked questions and she said mom why are you posting about this at work and we're very open with her we say look you know we're posting about you because you are our inspiration we're doing Proofpoint because of you and that's 100% true I don't think we would have at least not at that point in time we wouldn't have had the courage to take a risk and start a business if it hadn't been for all of the external pressures that we were going through and if it had
Mike Grinberg:
Most likely we'll be running a completely different business if it wasn't for her
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
that's also true we probably wouldn't have we probably wouldn't have done Proofpoint we may have gone off and done different things who knows if we would have worked together on those on those projects so we're very we're very open about her involvement not only as our daughter but also as the inspiration behind what we're doing and why we're doing it
Michael Kithcart:
Even though this wasn't you said given different circumstance maybe this wasn't the type of business that you would have started you're also very intentional with creating a certain type of company so would you share your mission about people first
Mike Grinberg:
yeah that's actually where that language might be a little bit outdated where we're it's we have what we call a family first culture because now obviously that is people first but internally I'll kind of give you the thirty second thing and then Gaby will give you more detail I think but the based on our experience again I've you know I was lucky I worked in pretty good companies in the sense that I had flexibility but it wasn't enough when I started to go into the office I started the traveling there was that I started to travel from time to time I traveled less than I did before but I had to travel and you know you always kind of felt like someone's watching over your shoulder and you got to be in the office at a certain time and this that and the other it's like well I just want to spend the morning with my my two year old or whatever right and so I think some of the things that we automatically created is when we have flex time and in terms of we don't force anybody to work any particular hours they can now there's sort of expectations about when they have to be available meaning they got their phone on them but like in we have people that are in different time zones so you know we make sure to adjust schedules so what like I'll give you an example a couple of weeks ago we were trying to get a meeting scheduled and I only had a time slot open at like, 4pm. We have somebody on the east coast. And she goes, well, yeah, that's fine. I'll make that work. I'll just have my husband go and take, take our daughter to soccer practice. That's fine. Let me move this thing. We'll do it early in the day. And then you go take your kid to practice soccer practice, like it doesn't like, I don't want to make you miss that. Right? So it's, it's, it's, it's little things, but I think it's a lot of those little things were the stuff that usually gets kind of put to the side and like the banner, you know, benefits like, Oh, it's 401k, and vacation, whatever. It's don't get me wrong, those are important. But it's those little things that allow you to enjoy family time, and to be able to do the things you need to do that I think are often missed. And those are the things that we just focus on.
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
I think if I can paraphrase what Mike is saying, I think, really, if you think about it, everybody works for for what for themselves, for their family to provide for those that they love, whether they're married and have children, or they're in a long term partnership with pets, or they're responsible for elderly relatives. You know, at the end of the day, family, a family can look and look very differently across across, you know many generations and different people and cultures. But at the end of the day, family is family, and that trumps everything that trumps your work that trumps your industry, that trumps your career, family is the most important thing that we have in this world, at least that's what we believe. And we're attracting people that that also believe that that as well. And, and we never want to be the type of company that impedes somebody that works for Proofpoint to not be to not take care of their family, because in our greatest time of need, again, going back to our story, we're a new family, our daughter's in critical condition, I just lost my job, and we just lost our health care. When you think about the stabilizing factors in your life, you know, it's usually your family that's got your backbone, your job that's providing you career growth, fulfillment, money, and health care and other benefits. And you have you know, you're supporting your supporting group, friends, relatives, church community, whatever that may be, you know, it's a three legged stool as far as we're concerned. And when one of those legs of the stool falls off, your whole world is in chaos. And on the other hand, if you're putting, if you have a, if you have a stool, that's now saying, Well, you can't take care of your family, and cut out everything else from your life, because we want you to be only focused on business only focused on work, you can't balance that either, you know, you need those three legs of the stool to feel I think enriched and, and whole as an individual. And so for us at Proofpoint, it's, it's, you know, work is important, we always prioritize the needs of our clients and delivering for them. But we also can't do that without taking care of our people. And our people are our stakeholders, they're our employees. And if that means they need the morning off to take care of something family related, you know, whatever that may be. There's, there's no force greater than that. And we can't get in the way of that, in fact, we embrace that, and we celebrate the needs that are that our team has outside of work.
Mike Grinberg:
Yeah, I mean, the reality is, is that, you know, I mean, everyone's heard the term servant leadership, and it's kind of a maybe even a buzzword these days. But it's, that's the basic concept is where are our people are the most important. Especially we're in a service based business, right? So we are its people to people, business, even though we're serving other businesses. So if we take, we take care of our employees, and they're, they can do what they need to do and what they want to do, and they feel fulfilled, they're gonna do a kick ass job for our clients, which is exactly what happens. And the other the other, the other thing I'll add to it is, you know, we want people to be able to make the right decisions for themselves, which means we have a very transparent and open environment around everything, right? I mean, you kind of hear about companies not sharing finances and things like that. And we're very open, like once a month, we can show people the full P&L and what things look like and cash flow looks like all that fun stuff, so that if somebody feels like they're not on the right ship anymore, they can make that decision for themselves. We don't hide that from them. And we actually have we had like, during the pandemic, you know, like a lot of businesses we get, we got hit pretty hard and things were things were rough things were tight. Obviously, we're still here. What is that almost a year later, so everything's good. But we had one person that decided, Hey, you know what, I'm just not willing to, I'm not willing to take this risk. And that's fine. Like, that's just that's what we wanted. Like we weren't happy about that fact. But it is what it is.
Michael Kithcart:
It'll be interesting to see as a result of COVID how many other companies embrace more of what you already have in place. Because there's so much logic behind it to a certain degree employees are going to demand it I think now that everybody has been working remotely for a year so we'll just say that you know you guys are trendsetters on on this regard and I also want to just you know mention the work that you actually do because you do work with other business owners and help them grow their revenue and I really like this part about of your marketing agency that it is revenue driven and so what trends are you seeing in the digital marketing space that you really are seeing are are helping businesses grow because people are rebounding from from COVID so what are you seeing?
Mike Grinberg:
I think I mean the the the buzzword if you will which we're part of it is revenue marketing like it's sort of what's happening in the industry in general and it was kind of already just like with lots of other things COVID is like was is and has been an accelerator right so it just made whatever shift was happening move about 10 to 100x faster and I think it's the same thing here where there's kind of been more blurred lines between sales and marketing and everything is trying to move toward driving revenue rather than driving you know vanity metrics and things like that so that that's probably the main trend and that's a lot of the conversations we're having with our customers and we just got off a call a couple days ago with with somebody who's who were saying hey you know I know we originally planned on this volume of leads before we started our engagement with you but now that we have attribution in place and this that and the other we can see that a lot of these weren't actually driving revenue so let's reassess shift budget you know move things around and because the end of the day we're here to help you drive revenue not to help you drive work for your sales team that's not going to go anywhere
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
yeah i think the biggest trend that I'm seeing and again also due to COVID sort of an acceleration from COVID it's just this shift in messaging this shift in approach not just in marketing but also in sales and when we were in the b2b space so we tend to work a lot very hand in hand with marketing and sales and we are just seeing a shift in terms of it's about relationship building it's about the long term game it's about adding value it's about going out of your way making a connection and really making good on that connection not just and I'm speaking specifically on LinkedIn because I think that now you know if you're not on LinkedIn I will say anyone listening out here today if you're not on LinkedIn get on there right now and if you're on there
Mike Grinberg:
No, stay off of it, because then we can we can have more (laughing)
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Well okay mike but but in all honesty you know in all seriousness you know LinkedIn is is a super builder for businesses nowadays in terms of creating a platform for for for dialogue and for really getting to know people and you know I think gone are the days in which people made business decisions based solely on a handshake or solely on how much is this going to cost me it's really about what are you doing what kind of a company are you what what you know what are you doing in the world today what are you doing for your people I think I think nowadays business owners business leaders thought leaders want to work want to do business with other companies that are doing some measure of good in the world and that can be on a small scale you know you don't have to you don't have to solve the world's water crisis problems I mean nope nope no one entity can do that on their own but if you're doing something good out there I think that's going to drive a lot more business forward then the way that people used to do business in the past so I think I think I don't know if it's if it's specifically a marketing trend I think it's more of a business trend I think it's more of a an outcome of what we are seeing in the world today because of the pandemic is that people want to people want to be surrounded by goodness people want to hear good news they want to work with people that are doing good and they want to work with companies that are taking care of their people so I think those are those are some of the things that that we try to espouse and we try to do inherently as part of our as part of our company
Mike Grinberg:
yeah I do, one more marketing trend to point out is the again the the shift of how people are consuming content really is the customer is in control. Right it's even in the b2b the customer is always kind of in control on the b2c side but on the b2b side which is where we operate the customer is now in control like you gone are the days where you can sort of force somebody down your funnel with you know basically nurture emails and retargeting and stuff like that I mean those things still play you have to do them but you have to do different way. And it's people decide how they make their decision. They're not going to take your route, they're going to take theirs. So the companies are going to succeed and that are succeeding now are shifting to more of meeting their customer and kind of not trying to control the journey. But being in the right points along the journey.
Michael Kithcart:
That makes a lot of sense. And it'll be interesting to see how that you're, you're just in such an interesting space because, as you said before, Mike COVID is an accelerator, you're in an industry, the marketing industry as a whole, right has just rapidly rapidly shifted. So we look forward to continuing to follow the growth of Proofpoint. So how can people find you? What's the best way to engage?
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Well, we're very active on LinkedIn, so find us there. Gaby Israel Grinberg, Mike Grinberg, you can follow our company Proofpoint. And then check us out on our website. It's www.Proofpoint.marketing. I also mentioned earlier that we have a podcast Mixing Business With Pleasure. So we are going to be, you know, towards the back half of the year, we're going to pick that up again. And we're gonna love to connect with any business owners that are in a loving relationship and a business relationship that have a story to tell because we know there are a lot of stories out there, we are also launching, you're gonna think we're crazy, Michael, we're launching another podcast. It's a b2b marketing podcast, it's called Show Me The Proof, Get To The Point. And it's really about focusing on b2b Marketing Leaders. And taking a case study a tactic, a strategy that they've done, breaking it down, and then sharing that with our audience so that they can replicate those same strategies. So Show Me The Proof, Get To The Point, a b2b Marketing Podcast. We'd love If anyone listening out there has a great case story that they want to share with us.
Michael Kithcart:
Okay, great. And we'll be sure to put those links in the show notes. So, Mike, and Gaby, thank you so much for taking time to share your story today. Really appreciate it.
Mike Grinberg:
Thank you for having us. We appreciate you.
Gaby Israel Grinberg:
Thank you, we had so much fun.
Michael Kithcart:
If you're like most people you want this year to be better than last year. But maybe some things are getting in the way. Maybe you're not finding time in the day to work on your business or find your next career move. Maybe you say you're committed to doing things for you, but you're letting other things take priority. Or maybe you have a big goal you want to make happen, but you're finding it hard to take consistent steps forward. Any of those sound like that, check out Champion You Group Coaching each month other high achievers just like you meet virtually to learn new necessary ways to break down current barriers and put action and momentum behind their goals. If you're looking to get different results, in business and in life, then discover how Champion You Group Coaching can support you in achieving your very own version of unstoppable 2021. Click on the link in the show notes or go to michaelwkithcart.com for more information and sign up
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