Jim Sinai
How an $11B Powerhouse Tackled Pre and Post IPO Marketing
Jim unpacks the intersection between product marketing and demand gen, the hardest challenge facing modern marketers, the future of webinars, and much more.
Procore Technologies, Inc. provides cloud-based construction software to clients across the globe. Using its award-winning suite of project management tools, hundreds of thousands of registered Procore users manage all types of construction projects including industrial plants, office buildings, apartment complexes, university facilities, retail centers, and more.
INDUSTRY
Construction software
FOUNDED
2003

Jim Sinai is the Senior Vice President Marketing at Procore, where he is responsible for leading the global marketing and communications team. Jim joined Procore from Salesforce where he served as a marketing leader on various businesses including Salesforce Einstein and Salesforce Platform. Prior to Salesforce, Jim held sales and business development roles across different technology companies, but he’ll remind everyone that his first ever job was as a laborer in construction so it’s only fitting that he’s back in the industry. Jim graduated with a BA from Brown University and holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Episode Summary

This episode features an interview with Jim Sinai, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Procore Technologies, a global cloud-based construction software company that recently went public at an approximate valuation of $9B. 

Prior to Procore, Jim held numerous senior leadership roles across 8 years at Salesforce, including leading the launch for major product rollouts of Salesforce Platform and Salesforce Einstein. 

On this episode, Jim unpacks the intersection between product marketing and demand gen, the hardest challenge facing modern marketers, the future of webinars, and much more. 

Key Takeaways

  • Every product marketer must think like a CMO. Messaging is important, but messaging for an entire audience is more important. 
  • Whenever you have a disagreement, the answer is not going to be found inside the four walls of the building, it's outside with the customer.
  • If you're a CMO and you're not willing to learn how the demand gen systems work, you're not going to be CMO for very long.

Quotes

“The best demand gen leaders out there can do product marketing. I've seen them do product marketing, and they all have the same attributes in common, which are stakeholder management and alignment. At the end of the day, what makes for great campaigns and great demand gen is when you have the sales team and the marketing team focusing on trying to say the right message to the right people.” 
“All good campaigns are really just about trying to get eyeballs back to your website where you're trying to convert things. We have this mantra at Procore in our marketing team that the website is our most important asset. And we put all of our attention to make sure that we have all of our merchandising on the website.” 
“Just think about how your buyers are humans and they want a really delightful experience on the website. [Maybe] that's integrating a chatbot...One of the things that I think is fantastic is when you don't have to talk to a salesperson to book a meeting with the salesperson. I want to talk to sales and I want to talk to them either now via chat or I want to pick up the phone. Giving the shopper that channel is really important.”
“Whenever you have a disagreement, the answer is not inside the four walls of the building, it's out with the customer. So the person who has tested it the most is the person who will likely have the winning argument in a dust-up.” 
“If you're a CMO and you're not willing to learn how the demand systems work, you're not going to be CMO for long, unless you have a phenomenal demand gen visionary as your right hand..”

Sponsor

Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.


Links

World of Concrete Conference

Procore is hiring! 

Follow Jim on Twitter

Connect with Jim on LinkedIn 

Follow Ian on Twitter

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn

www.caspianstudios.com


Episode Transcript