NewsBridge’s Playbook: How to Turn Technical Resistance into User Advocacy in Enterprise Sales
The scene could have been from any tech founder’s nightmare: a room full of hostile potential users, actively resistant to your innovation. For NewsBridge CEO Philippe Petitpont, this wasn’t a nightmare – it was reality during a crucial accelerator program that would reshape their entire go-to-market strategy.
In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Philippe revealed how this confrontational experience transformed into a breakthrough moment for selling AI technology to traditional industries. The lessons learned would become central to NewsBridge’s enterprise sales strategy.
The Wall of Resistance
The resistance NewsBridge encountered wasn’t just skepticism – it was outright hostility. Philippe recounts the scene: “When we started to add them, okay, so we want to learn more about your job… what they said is ‘are you crazy? You are going to replace my job. I will never share anything with you.'”
The situation escalated beyond mere verbal resistance. As Philippe describes, his co-founder “was taking apart in the small rooms with lots of people around him and he was totally surrounded and you are going to reply us by robots and all the cliche like that.”
The Strategic Pivot
Instead of retreating or doubling down on technical capabilities, NewsBridge made a crucial strategic shift. They stopped leading with AI and started focusing on the mundane pain points that plagued media professionals’ daily work.
The conversation changed dramatically when they asked simple questions: “Do you like logging videos? Is that something you like to do in your life?” The answer revealed the opportunity: “No, I don’t like to do that and sometimes I need to come at the office on Sunday to transcript everything manually.”
Building Trust Through Understanding
This shift from technology-first to problem-first communication marked the beginning of their successful enterprise sales strategy. They acknowledged the limitations of their technology while emphasizing its role in eliminating tedious tasks: “AI is not so good, it’s not as good as you think… here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to do the heavy lifting for you.”
The Transformation
The results of this approach were dramatic. Philippe shares a pivotal moment: “We had one young journalist that come back at the end of the accelerator and said sorry to be in this mindset at the beginning because now thanks to you, I know what my job will be in the future and I know that my job will be definitely better.”
The Enterprise Sales Framework
This experience shaped NewsBridge’s entire go-to-market strategy. “Now we are going things totally differently,” Philippe explains. “Our first people, our first personnel we are talking with are users because they need to understand what the tool will be doing for them.”
The approach recognizes a crucial reality in enterprise sales: “Users are key because top management will ask to the users, okay, does the tool will help having you better productivity? And if they say no, top management will never buy the tool.”
This strategy has driven significant growth, with the company hitting “the million dollar in recurring revenue early last year” and maintaining a pace to “double this turnover each year.”
For technical founders selling to traditional industries, NewsBridge’s experience offers a crucial lesson: transforming resistance into advocacy requires more than superior technology – it demands a deep understanding of user pain points and a willingness to position innovation as an enabler rather than a replacement. By leading with empathy rather than capabilities, founders can turn their biggest skeptics into their most powerful advocates.