Salesforce’s 2026 State of Sales research found that the average salesperson spends only 40% of their time actually selling, with the rest going on non-selling work such as data entry, research, activity logging and admin. When sales asks for support, marketing would typically provide another asset like a product sheet, a campaign deck, a nurture email, a solution guide or a case study. Each asset may have a role, but it’s often too generic. Sales teams might actually need help with talking to targets in their prospect list e.g. knowing what to ask, what problem to listen for, which claim is credible, which customer story applies and what action should come next. If the marketing material does not help with those decisions, it becomes reference material rather than enablement.

Cuvama’s 2024 research into B2B sales discovery and enablement found that 81% of respondents did not regularly use company-produced enablement to guide discovery conversations, while 66% said they did not have enough customer stories to share in discovery conversations to gain credibility. Sales teams may have content available, but still lack the usable evidence and guidance they need when buyers start asking specific questions.

Obviously, data sheets and case studies are useful, but sales teams need content to be packaged around sales situations, not just internal categories. A seller preparing for a first discovery call, a technical validation meeting or a renewal conversation needs different support.

Buying groups need evidence they can use internally

The buying journey for complex technology is rarely controlled by one person. Allego’s 2025 State of Sales Enablement material says deals now require an average of 12.4 touchpoints, and that buying committees are getting larger. Gartner says 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience and argues that sales enablement must shift from static content to AI-powered buyer support.

A sales rep talking to different stakeholders needs to understand their differing concerns: finance may want to understand cost, commercial risk and payback while IT wants evidence on integration, security and service management, and ops is asking about rollout, disruption and accountability. A generic prop deck is unlikely to answer all of those questions well. For technology marketers, this is where sales enablement should become more focused. It should give sales stakeholder-specific proof, not just broad claims. It should help the salesperson understand which evidence matters to which member of the buying group, and how each asset supports the buyer’s next internal decision.

Salespeople sell into patches, not into the whole portfolio

Another challenge is that salespeople usually work a defined patch: a geography, vertical industry, named-account cluster, customer segment or partner territory. A large technology company may have multiple products and services, but not all of them will be relevant to that seller’s targets. Even when the portfolio is broad, delivery capability can vary. A company might have strong service coverage in one region but rely on partners in another. It may have customer proof in financial services but far less in manufacturing. A proposition may be strategically important at corporate level, but unsuitable for a particular market because of local regulation, commercial model or implementation capacity.

And yet marketing may organise content by product, campaign or corporate message. Sales has to work by account, sector, geography and opportunity. The gap between those two views is where many enablement programmes lose usefulness. A better approach is to build sales plays around buyer problems. For example: this is the problem we can solve for mid-market manufacturers in this region; this is the service we can credibly deliver; this is the customer evidence we can use; these are the stakeholders likely to care; this is the next step the seller should propose. That kind of enablement helps sales make the company’s portfolio specific.

Marketing should be the translation layer

An experienced B2B content strategist or editor can translate product, proof, market context and buyer need into a usable sales conversation. That means shaping content around the account, the stakeholder, the problem and the next decision the buyer has to make. In complex technology markets, that translation work is often the difference between content that exists and content that sales will use. A useful enablement asset should answer four questions clearly:

• Who is this for?
• What buyer problem does it address?
• What proof supports it?
• What should the seller do next?

This does not mean every asset has to be reduced to a script. Experienced salespeople need room to adapt to the account and the buyer but good enablement should reduce the amount of interpretation required before a seller can act. It should make the sales conversation better informed, not more controlled.

Enablement should learn from what sales uses

Sales enablement also needs a feedback loop. Marketing needs to know which assets sales uses and what buyers ask for more detail about. Without that feedback, enablement becomes a publishing workflow whereby assets are created, uploaded and refreshed, but their effect on sales conversations remains unclear.

Forrester’s 2026 analysis of revenue enablement platforms says it expects advances in integrated content and readiness functionality, along with better reporting on the relationship between content, learning and real-world results. Gartner has also described revenue enablement platforms as broadening from sales enablement to include content, learning and coaching for revenue-generating roles.

The platform is not the point, though. Sales enablement should connect content, coaching and evidence with what is happening in real opportunities. That means looking beyond downloads and asset views. It means asking whether the content helped a salesperson move a buyer conversation forward.

For marketing teams, this requires closer contact with sales. It means asking which questions buyers are raising, which propositions are hard to explain, which sectors need stronger proof and which messages sound good internally but fail in front of customers. Those insights should shape the next round of content.

The test is relevance, not volume

Sales enablement should be judged by whether salespeople can use it to have more relevant buyer conversations. That is particularly important for B2B technology companies, where portfolios are broad, buying groups are complex and delivery realities vary by market. Sales teams need help turning corporate capability into account-level relevance. They need to know which buyer problem they are addressing, which message will make sense, which proof they can stand behind and what next step will help the customer make progress.

Futurity helps B2B technology marketers make sales enablement content more useful at the point of conversation. We turn complex propositions, expert insight and existing campaign assets into clear sales-ready stories, proof points and practical next steps. If your sales team has plenty of content but still has to work too hard to use it, we can help close that gap.