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Mike Grinberg, founder of Proofpoint Marketing, breaks down why positioning is an operational discipline — not a messaging exercise — and how agencies can use buyer research and de-risking frameworks to win more deals and stop getting ghosted at the finish line.
Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
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Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey everyone. Today I'm joined by Mike Grinberg. Mike is the founder of Proofpoint marketing, a positioning consultancy that works primarily with boutique firms in regulated industries like think life sciences, financial services, med tech. Now I wanted to have Mike on because selfishly, we think about positioning very similarly. Mike's take on positioning is that he doesn't treat it as a messaging problem. He treats it as a business design problem. But in addition, he also has a great way of viewing positioning through the lens of de risking, like de risking the buying decision, and it's incredibly helpful. In this episode, we discussed why positioning is an operating system, not a marketing problem, the four box risk matrix that agencies can use to understand how buyers evaluate them, why personal risk matters more than organizational risk in most deals and more, no one was asking for another community, but I made one anyway. So what's different? The dynamic agency community is designed around access, rather than content, access to peers who've done it before, access to experts who've designed solutions, access to resources that have been battle tested. And right now, the price for founding members is only $97 a year. Join today, so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow, you can join a dynamic agency, dot community and now. Mike Grinberg,
Chris DuBois 1:28
it's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward. What made you see positioning as an operations problem and not just marketing?
Mike Grinberg 1:51
So I'll tell you, there's a personal side to it, where the initial iteration of proof point was a demand gen agency, and my wife and I ran that for number of years, and then we ended up winding it down a couple years back, and toward the end of that, we we, I knew that we were struggling with positioning, what I believe positioning to Be, and all the kind of telltale signs were there. We were losing deals last minute. We were struggling to get a kind of consistent inbound. It's not that there wasn't there, but not consistent quality. Are the referrals that we would get, very few of them were like the best ones we'd get referrals. They just didn't feel like the right ones all the time. So the meaning the clients didn't really know how to describe us or what we actually or at least they knew how to describe us and what they saw, but not in what we wanted, right? So that gap was there. So we worked through a number of things. You know, first, we made the mistake of going, Oh, it's, it's a messaging thing. So we brought up, you know, messaging consultant or two actually, that did absolutely nothing. It was, it was very clearly just veneer, and it wasn't their fault. They did their work, where they did what they were hired for. We just hired the wrong thing. And then we're like, Okay, well, let's bring on an expert that's in an expert in positioning. So we did that. We spent a decent amount of money on it. And same thing, though, I was kind of left going, that's it. This is what we call positioning. Like I'm kind of in the same place. I don't feel like I'm any better off for doing this work. Like, yeah, we maybe more clearly defined our ICP, but barely like, it just didn't, didn't feel like we got anywhere so that let me down this well. And then one more thing I mentioned, we're losing deals last minute. I posted about this on LinkedIn, actually, not too long ago, but a very specific example, we had an inbound lead that came in. Everything was going great, and it was going to be like the biggest deal. I mean, at that point we were, you know, pushing toward 2 million in revenue. This was going to be a north of quarter million dollar deal at the base. So it was a big deal, and everything was going well, like the Met the CRO was the champion we had. I'd met the entire executive team. We were like they were nodding along, everybody, like we scoped everything together. Contracts were set. CFO was in red lines. We were talking about, like payment terms at this point. That was the only kind of minor sticking point.
Chris DuBois 4:59
Yeah.
Mike Grinberg 5:00
And then they go dark. And then a little bit after that, they're like, oh. And I knew that they were kind of choosing between two prospective partners, but it seemed like they were like they were literally asking us, like, Oh, should we work with them and you, or should we work with you first? Like, it's almost like they were asking us, like, how best to make this work. Okay, cool. We got what this is in the bag, right? And they go. We went a different direction. Shit. What? What the hell just happened? And I'll kind of get to the point the punch line here, that after, you know, doing like a post mortem conversation and all that, it became very clear that the it was buyer risk. They did not feel comfortable enough, because we were an unknown to them, like it was inbound. They learned they got they saw some of our stuff. They got introduced to my director of demand, Director of growth at the time the conversation started, and then I get involved so we were no name, and through that whole process, they just didn't feel comfortable enough. And our champion didn't feel comfortable enough fighting for us, because the CEO was the one that decided to go in a different direction last minute, and that's where I go. Okay? This is the problem. It's risk. So what does that mean? Why? Right? And that's what made me dive into all the, you know, decision science stuff. And I, you know, I'd always been interested in it, so like, you know, kahneman's work and Prospect Theory and Paradox of Choice and all that, all those books and whatnot. And that's where I realized the problem isn't the message. You can you can say whatever you want on the front end, but there's got to be proof throughout everything, including the sales process, which we didn't have, that was the problem there, because obviously they weren't a client yet. But then afterwards, it's the delivery side of things, which is what you communicate in your sales process, needs to also show that, right? And we just didn't have it. There wasn't really that core differentiator there. We talked about, you know, we at that point, we were talking about, you know, we were calling relationship like growth and whatnot. But there really wasn't. There wasn't any supporting material, if you will, right? There's nothing about our staffing model or process that would have shown that, yeah, there's actually something supporting this thing that we say, that we do. And that's what led me down this whole rabbit hole of, okay, positioning isn't the message. It's, it's the business. It's everything about the business, delivery, business development, hiring strategy, all that jazz,
Chris DuBois 7:57
yeah, I think the so I get very frustrated when I see positioning coaches who are just just doing the messaging. Because I think, like, the huge issue there is, like, it doesn't matter if we change the headline of our website as soon as they start going into those one on one conversations, or they start working with us, like, if we, for some reason, want to be the fastest agency, and as soon as we, like, we have to deliver something a month out, it's like we just lost all credibility, like, you know, agency.
Mike Grinberg 8:27
That's my favorite, that's my favorite example to use because it's so easy
Chris DuBois 8:30
to illustrate.
Chris DuBois 8:30
Yeah, and I would never recommend someone choose being the fastest as because, like, anytime you use an ESD, it's really hard, I think, to if someone just says, well, who's second place? And if you don't know who is second place, how do you know your first Yes,
Chris DuBois 8:43
you
Mike Grinberg 8:43
don't claim fastest, but you, if you're if you claim speed, right, speed to market, which
Chris DuBois 8:49
is one of those whatever triangle, right, like a speed, quality or price. So like, it is one of those core elements you can choose. But yeah, so I guess so, what I like about the idea of like de risking, right? And thinking through it that way, it's like, literally everything, everything that you could be doing within your business to just show up the way you want to be seen can help with the de risking process. What are those, I don't know, like, what's like the low hanging fruit for like, an agency that wants to just, like, enact this right now? What are the things that they could do to start de risking potential sales engagements and stuff so people feel better going into this? Yeah, I think the probably
Mike Grinberg 9:30
the biggest thing is, is understanding the how your buyers perceive risk, okay, and more specifically, understanding what the pro how they view personal risk. So especially if you're selling to like, if you're selling to like, really like, vs MPs, like very small businesses that it still exists, but it's a little bit the personal risk and the organizational risk tend to kind of merge. Merge. I think to a certain extent, it's not that it's invalid, not that it's not valuable, but it's not as valuable, maybe. But any organization of any sort of size or whatever, even like, if it's a 10 person firm that you're selling into, you have that right, because you're not selling to one person, you're probably selling to multiple there's usually a boss or an owner or a board that they're reporting into, there is personal risk. And I've not like I've done countless buyer research interviews across the spectrum of industries at this point, and there hasn't been a single time I can think of that some level of personal risk was not discussed, and it's always in terms of them protecting themselves. It's always CYA,
Chris DuBois 10:53
right,
Mike Grinberg 10:54
which, again, it shouldn't be surprising to anybody that's again going into decision science, that's where prospect theory comes from. We're going to protect what we have, rather than take a big risk. A lot of us, not everybody. I mean, there are risk taking is on a spectrum, etc. But unless you're selling to VCs, you know who are, that's their MO they're much less likely to be risk takers, and especially if you're not selling to the founder themselves, because founders tend to be a little bit higher on the risk taking spectrum, just by nature of being the person that started the business. But outside of that, you know your VP of R and D, their first priority is to make sure they don't lose that VP of r&d title at that company,
Chris DuBois 11:42
right?
Mike Grinberg 11:42
You know?
Chris DuBois 11:44
Yeah. So the higher up the chain you go, the more organizational risk is going to influence that. But, yeah, I do think once you, once you realize that status plays a role in every single decision, it's it's so much easier to go in and just say, Okay, if this is the champion, right? I got to get them selling on my behalf. What would actually make them look good in this engagement, and make it so that they feel there's no risk here,
Chris DuBois 12:09
so
Mike Grinberg 12:09
it's understanding, like, what is it that they find risky? So I'll give you an example. Just did a did a project in the banking space. So I interviewed banking CFOs and Chief Risk officers, and a common thread in that one was that unless the firm, and again, my client's a boutique firm, unless the firm is known to the regulators, they're going to proceed as a risk because they don't want to bring this up to the board, get somebody hired, and then the regulator goes, Oh, well, yeah, I don't know who that is. I don't trust this opinion,
Chris DuBois 12:51
right,
Mike Grinberg 12:52
right? So what's a way to de risk that again? So the answer to your question would be different for everybody, to a certain extent, but the core is understanding what's behind that, that personal risk side of things, and the solution for them as well, get known to more regulators. And there's a bunch of things you can do to do that. So that's an example of it,
Chris DuBois 13:14
right? So I guess when you're what's the process for uncovering that? Are you doing customer interviews? Are you like,
Mike Grinberg 13:22
yeah. So by researching which I try not, I try to stay away from customer interviews, because they never become biased. As much as possible. I want to talk to other people, like their customers, but that haven't actually worked with the firm yet, because that allows me to get into I can ask them anything, and that doesn't, they're going to tell me more unadulterated stuff, because they're not going, Oh, well, you know, I don't want to hurt, you know, so and so's feelings, or whatever it is, like, there's just, you know, there's biases and inevitably, and from, from The client,
Chris DuBois 14:00
right? Yeah. And I think that's where even just you doing it, instead of your client being the one to go out and do it, is going to change 100%
Mike Grinberg 14:08
like, if we were getting interview clients, like, yes, it's
Chris DuBois 14:12
yeah,
Mike Grinberg 14:13
if you can afford it, right? There's budget involved. But if you can afford it, definitely get a third party to do all of this work for variety of reasons. One is, they probably know how to interview better, at least they should. And two, it removes much more of the bias that would exist otherwise,
Chris DuBois 14:29
right? Yeah. And I think when you can, I was talking to someone about this recently, there was like, there's a piece when you go into as a third party, go into the conversation and say, like, we're not, I'm not sharing who said anything, but like, when you give me the bad stuff, it helps me with also making sure that we're going to fix that for them. So like, it's all good stuff that you're going to give me, yeah, yeah, you get way more control over that, that conversation. Okay, so we do the. Buyer's research, we have an idea of what risk means to the potential buyer. How do we go about rolling this out within the business?
Mike Grinberg 15:09
So once you understand what the what the risk is, and again, I look at it as a risk as a four box matrix. So think about it like you have on the x axis, you have personal risk, organizational risk. On the y axis is you have internal, external. So internal skepticism, external questioning, the internal external is also important, because internal is like they're going through it in their own minds. External, they're bringing other people in, and they're questioning it inside the buying committee, usually, or peers, etc. So kind of understanding that and the it kind of goes through, you have the first question you get answers well, like, do I? Do I feel comfortable with their they, meaning the agency or the consulting firm are going to deliver for me, right? That's the cya piece. Then the next question is, do I, do I have what I need, or do I feel comfortable that I'm gonna, I'm gonna be able to answer questions from my peers or from my team about them, right? That was, if you think back to my example that I mentioned, where the you know, my prospective client just lost me. I lost them last minute. That was part of the
Chris DuBois 16:29
problem.
Mike Grinberg 16:30
There was just not enough confidence for the CRO to fight for it, even though she wanted to work with us in theory, to fight for it, when the CEO will decide to go the other direction. So then you get into organizational stuff, which is, you know, have you delivered for a company like mine? And do I feel that you're going to get me to the Promised Land, if you will? That's the the funny part is, most people want to start at that last one. And that's not that it's the least important. But if you start there and you miss all the other ones, that's where you end up getting ghosted last minute. Like, what just happened? I thought we were good. You saw my case studies and you like them. Doesn't matter,
Chris DuBois 17:13
right? There's an order of operations to it,
Mike Grinberg 17:15
yeah. So once you understand what, how your champion in the buying Committee sees risk about organizations like yours? Then you start looking at, okay, well, what do I need to do to answer these various questions, right? So as an example, like the example I was talking about earlier. Okay, well, we need to get known by more regulators. What can that be? Well, do we there's a functional component to this. We probably need to have more regulators on staff, whereas, you know, 1099, consultants or whatever, because they those regulator former regulators will know current regulators, which makes you just the network kind of expand that way, right? That's, that's a functional thing. The other thing is, you probably need to start creating content that's quote, unquote, regulator friendly, right? That's going to get the regulators interested in reading and whatever, and seeing you as the an expert in the field, okay, well, again, that could take up a bunch of different forms, but that's a thing you probably need to ensure that, you know, regulatory stuff is included in your service offering and the kind of the the core delivery component, right? And again, this, this isn't banking, but I've had a similar kind of thing in life sciences, space, with biotech, like pretty much any regulated industry. I'll just say it's a common type thing, but so that there isn't a like one answer again, the nuances. Once you understand it, and you understand that four question framework, you can start going, Okay, well, what are the functional things I need to change? What are the like? Is there IP I maybe need to kind of flesh out and create that makes me known to the right people, so known to the regulators in this case. And then, how do I then evangelize it and get that in front of them right? And then all these things tend to connect. So again, the functional thing might be we need regulators on staff. Well, now and then we need to create this IP, and then the go to market piece is, okay, well, let's get these regulators we have on staff. Let's get them speaking engagements talking about this IP, and then at conferences that regulators go to. Now I've just connected all the dots as an example.
Chris DuBois 19:38
Yeah, yeah. I'm loving it. Every time we chat, I realize how in sync we are with with thoughts. We have different ways of talking about everything. I look at like, there's 11 levers for like differentiation, and you just brought up a lot of them. And when I think about it's like they all do the de risking, right? Like our our economic model is one of the. Ways we can differentiate. But like, really, if we have the right economic model, we can de risk for our buyer. And so it's another way to do this our operational constraints, right? Saying, Yeah, we're a web agency. We will not do your SEO content. We're not writing blogs for you. We only focus on this so we can be the best at this that de risks for the right buyer. It all ultimately, does come down to the act of de risking in this process. Yeah, yeah, just crazy.
Mike Grinberg 20:27
It's a different frame, right? I mean, I think I'm definitely not like like you said like you, and I think about it differently. I talk about in the frame of de risking. And for some people that like, something clicks, right? And again, for my audience, here's actually an example. I tend to work, not originally, not on purpose, but I tend to work with firms that are in regulated industries, so life sciences, financial services, med tech, etc. And that's actually where, for that matter, partially, the de risking kind of came from those industries, because that's what they do. Especially do, specifically in the med tech engineering firm I worked with, like they have to literally de risking is a job that they need to do at each stage of the product development journey. So that's partially where I got some of that language from, or borrowed. I guess you could say, but it also resonates with those types of people, because they just get it like, oh, de risking, yeah, we do that. That makes sense, but that's an example of on the front end where the like, the language does matter. I don't want to say it doesn't, but it only matters if my services also then say, well, you do this service to de risk this decision. You do this service to de risk this decision, which is exactly how I position my services, right. And they
Chris DuBois 21:50
get to be able to walk it, walk the talk. So it's, how are you? How do you test your positioning? Like, if we we say all right. This is what we want to be seen as. This is how we feel we're being presented. What's next? Like? How do we how do we know that we've actually achieved this?
Mike Grinberg 22:13
Just real quick. Sorry, this is a brand trying to reconnect, yeah? Make sure you have a stable internet connection. Are you seeing that on
Chris DuBois 22:20
your
Chris DuBois 22:20
end? Yeah, yeah, I think we can just keep running. Hopefully it's
Mike Grinberg 22:25
fine, but
Chris DuBois 22:25
yeah,
Mike Grinberg 22:27
although it's possible that my daughter unplugged the route. Couldn't be the router, but maybe
Chris DuBois 22:32
one of the, one
Mike Grinberg 22:33
of the spots, whatever she 16 months, she unplugs everything she can find anyway. Sorry, repeat the question,
Chris DuBois 22:40
how do we how do we test our Oh,
Chris DuBois 22:44
yeah.
Mike Grinberg 22:44
So I'm, I'm a big fan of, I don't want to say, throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. But once you go through the process of thinking well, identifying like, what the potential issue is, and understanding risk, identifying like, the structure and the infrastructure that needs to be developed. Then just start, and then well, and then you develop the message, right? Because at the end of the day that's for you're kind of getting tested in two places, net new and existing clients. Right on the new side, you are going to test it through messaging, because your goal is, is this going to resonate with them? They don't know me yet. The only thing they have to go on as what I'm putting out there right now, if they're a referral, it's a little bit different, obviously. But I just like, like, even as the process is still rolling, I like to start putting stuff out on LinkedIn or whatever channel you're leveraging, right? Like, if you're gonna spend a bunch of time creating a, like, an IP asset of sorts, whether that's a some sort of assessment or a model, or can be a white paper, but you know, not like the crappy ones that don't tell you anything, but like something that's actually deep and makes people think, etc, whatever it is. I just like starting to test stuff out. I like to start testing things in conversations as I'm whatever networking events or even in like speaking engagements and things like that. Just start tweaking some of that stuff, and then with existing clients. Two things, one is that is where I would go. Okay. How do you see us like we want to be seen in this way? How do you see us, right? And again, as we talked about, ideally, it's a third party that does that. And there you identify, what's the current gap right within my existing client base. And then you start going, Okay, well, how do I close this?
Chris DuBois 24:57
Right? So the. Yeah, I always find that's the the challenging part of right just like getting those conversations to see, to get pulled the right words from someone, to see, okay, are we actually being seen there and to be able to close that gap? I don't know if anyone has, like, a bulletproof way to just quickly get that from someone, or it's just,
Mike Grinberg 25:22
I don't know. I mean, I the couple of questions I like, I like to ask is I got this one from, I think it was Max trailer a long time ago. But like, when I'm doing interview, client interviews for somebody else, I'll go, Hey, if I was this type of if I had this type of problem, sorry, I take that back. I'll do two things. When I'm talking to my client, I'll ask them, if you were to introduce me to a to a reference, who would it be? And then, why? Right? So one, I want to understand how they actually see themselves and like, why this person versus a different person, and then when I talk to that person, I go, Okay, how would you just like, if you were going to refer somebody for such and such agency or what or consulting firm or whatever, what would you what would you put in your in your referral email?
Chris DuBois 26:40
Because
Mike Grinberg 26:40
that gets them to that gets them to go, Okay, well, I would say x, y and z, and then we dive into that, right? Is it a bulletproof way? No, of course, not, not close. But that's sort of how I tend to approach it.
Chris DuBois 26:53
Yeah, yeah. And it's definitely, it's more active the because, like, I know, passively, you can do the whole when we get on sales calls and people are using the right words back to us that we're trying to lean into with our marketing, it's like, okay, like we're we're obviously moving the right track, but that could also just be that they've heard you use those words, and
Mike Grinberg 27:14
it could just be mirroring exactly
Chris DuBois 27:16
right? And so, yeah, so yeah, hard to do that. It's, I guess, how would you so, I mean, like, besides, like, just using LinkedIn and kind of posting, as we go to like, see, are there any other things you would do to pressure test your positioning, even just to make sure that it's aligned with whatever you
Chris DuBois 27:35
want?
Mike Grinberg 27:35
So again, because positioning is everything to a certain extent. Let's say part of what we're doing to support the positioning is redesigning services and pricing. I'm going to take a small subset of my existing client base and go, Hey, we're making this change. How do you feel about, you know, moving over to this new pricing structure? You Hmm, it's simple things like that, because if they go, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, I think we're on to something. Versus No, no way. It probably means one or two things. Either A, we got that wrong, or B, they're the wrong type of client,
Chris DuBois 28:15
right?
Chris DuBois 28:19
Yeah. So I
Mike Grinberg 28:21
wouldn't do it with everybody. I wouldn't go, Hey, you got 50 clients. Let's get everybody. Let's message everybody, because then you're liable to, you know, tank your business all of a sudden, right? You take whatever, whatever. Again, this gets into also the founders kind of risk profile, 5% 10% maybe 20% at most, right? Again, depends on the size and, you know, whatever, and kind of go from
Chris DuBois 28:46
there, right? Yeah. So
Mike Grinberg 28:49
now it also kind of with that, sorry. One other thing is, I would look at, okay, let's define, because we part of the process defining who your ICP is. Okay, let's take a small group that's that we believe is not your ICP, and propose this to them, because that gives you one trial
Chris DuBois 29:03
it with them.
Mike Grinberg 29:04
Well, you try it because they might go, oh, well, that may actually maybe make sense. And maybe you got them, maybe you labeled them wrong, or that's an easy way for them to exit, you know, after Right,
Chris DuBois 29:14
yeah. And
Mike Grinberg 29:15
you can kind of prove either way. It proves that. And then you do it with your best clients. And same kind of thing, like, if they, if your best client goes, go, God no, this is why would I want to do that? Like, Ooh, okay, maybe we're missing
Chris DuBois 29:26
something. Maybe give them a Yeah, you're right. That was just a joke. We would never consider that. All right, so, so what's the 8020 here? If someone had to focus on one thing that they could be doing to improve their businesses positioning today? Where would you send them? What would they do?
Mike Grinberg 29:45
I would, 100% say, do the do the bio research. I just, I think I have yet to come into a boutique firm where they have, number one, even formally done any of it. I. Um, if they've done anything, they've talked to their own clients, which just means they've not saying it's not worthwhile. But there's a bunch of bias there, and they likely missed asking certain questions that are probably important. So I would, for sure, invest in that.
Chris DuBois 30:18
That'd
Mike Grinberg 30:19
be the probably the number one place
Chris DuBois 30:24
got it. So two more questions as we start winding down here. First one, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?
Mike Grinberg 30:36
Good question. Lately I've been a lot of my conversations have been focused on business development, and that's where I tend to recommend Chris FOSS book. Never split the difference. Yeah, probably that
Chris DuBois 30:58
cool. Yeah, it's a good one. And then last questions, where can people find
Chris DuBois 31:04
you?
Mike Grinberg 31:05
LinkedIn is the best
Chris DuBois 31:07
one. Awesome. Too easy. Mike, thanks for joining.
Mike Grinberg 31:11
Yeah, that's great.
Chris DuBois 31:19
That's the show. Everyone you can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on substack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward.
Chris DuBois 31:42
You
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