
Ask HN: How do you approach enterprise sales in an unfamiliar industry? - ianmobbs
Or for that matter, any industry. I feel like the default response is &quot;if you&#x27;re not familiar with an industry, you shouldn&#x27;t necessarily be working in it&quot; - but I&#x27;d love to hear what y&#x27;all think about it.
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dstik
The best way to start is by tapping your networks (personal, professional,
online communities) for conversations. Your first step should be trying to
understand how the industry works, what types of partnerships exist (and what
the value exchange is for both parties), and understanding the
responsibilities of folks with different job titles in that industry.

Start with a single conversation with anyone you know who's remotely related
to that industry (preferably someone in the industry, if you can). Look for
second degree connections on LinkedIn to folks at companies in that industry
and ask your mutual connection for an introduction. Treat these meetings as
informational interviews where your goal is to soak up as much knowledge and
info as possible - be curious, ask a lot of questions, and listen more than
you speak. Always end the conversations by asking for other introductions to
people they think might be relevant or helpful.

By the time you've finally understood the landscape, you've already started
building your network in the space. You've likely been building your product
during this time - probably by integrating with non-paywall publishers and
smaller news outlets. Work your way into the smallest paywalled news source
first and start having conversations about the value prop with them and why a
partnership with you will be beneficial to them. From there work your way up
to the bigger guys. Remember that it will take many conversations and you're
building relationships - deals like this are not closed overnight.

Hope this helps - good luck!

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ianmobbs
Awesome, thanks for this advice. I'll start trying to set up meetings ASAP!
Also, I dig what you've done with Tape - 98% open rates is very impressive :)

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ianmobbs
Some context in a comment, as not to sound too spammy, and I'm more interested
in answers to the general question than to my specific situation:

I read a lot of news. It's most of what I click on on Facebook. I have a
custom multireddit with all my favorite news-oriented subreddits. And every
day, I hit paywalls. So, I'm currently trying to build a "Netflix for News" or
"Apple News for the Web" (the implementation is pretty simple - just set up an
OAuth2 Provider). The market is definitely niche (news junkies who prefer the
browser experience) but I think the value prop is high (newspapers keep
readers on their platform + receive monthly payout based on customer time
spent on their site, readers don't have to worry about looking up news in one
place).

The problem is that I've never worked in the newspaper industry. I think I
only know one person who does. How do I go from that, to convincing a brand as
huge as The New York Times (or whatever) to put a "Sign in with
NetflixForNews" button on their paywall? The idea feels good, and the
technical solution is simple, but the sales problem just feels insurmountable.

