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<\/a><\/p>\nIn HubSpot’s 2025\u00a0State of Sales report<\/a>, nearly 28% of salespeople identified making more effective use of sales enablement content as a focus area for the year ahead. That signals reps know the materials exist but struggle to figure out when and how to use them in live sales situations.<\/p>\n In this article, I’ll walk through why sales enablement content deserves your attention right now, how to create material reps will use, and real-world tips from sales professionals on what makes enablement content resonate.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Sales enablement content used to be an afterthought \u2014 something you created once reps asked for it. That’s no longer the case. The way buyers research, the channels that drive pipeline, and what reps need to close deals have all shifted in ways that make enablement content central to revenue growth.<\/p>\n Here’s what the data reveals about these shifts.<\/p>\n When buyers can demonstrate value to themselves, sales enablement content becomes the bridge between research and purchase.<\/p>\n The data shows this clearly: 37% of buyers see product fit as their deciding factor, and 35% need to justify value for money.<\/p>\n Sales teams are responding by expanding self-serve tools \u2014 40% now offer free trials, pricing pages, and customer stories that let buyers evaluate solutions independently. Another 35% have shifted to solution-based selling, which requires content that connects specific problems to measurable outcomes.<\/p>\n Your enablement materials need to demonstrate value in concrete terms \u2014 through use cases, ROI calculators, and customer proof points, so buyers can build confidence in their decision and reps can reinforce that confidence when they enter the conversation.<\/p>\n Buyers arrive at sales conversations more informed than ever, which changes what reps need from enablement content.<\/p>\n The seller\u2018s role has shifted since 36% say their most important job is now helping buyers feel confident in their decisions, and 33% focus on navigating internal buy-in. This means your content needs to address the specific doubts and political hurdles buyers face after they\u2019ve done their research.<\/p>\n Think fewer product explainers and more content that tackles objections, builds consensus among stakeholders, and provides the proof points buyers need to justify their choice internally.<\/p>\n Social media has moved from a brand-building channel to a lead generation engine.<\/p>\n It delivers the highest cold outreach response rate at 42% \u2014 well ahead of email (26%) and phone calls (23%). It’s also the top source of high-quality leads, with 35% of sales teams ranking it first.<\/p>\n Most telling: 45% of sales professionals rate social media as \u201cvery effective\u201d at driving sales, outperforming even in-person meetings (44%). This means your enablement content needs to be shareable and built for social channels.<\/p>\n Reps need assets they can post directly or send in DMs \u2014 bite-sized insights, customer stories, and data points that initiate conversations rather than requiring someone to download a white paper or sit through a demo first.<\/p>\n Closing a deal is one thing. Keeping that customer and growing the account is another.<\/p>\n The data shows that three of the top five strategies for driving upsells center on proving value:<\/p>\n The timing matters too, since 37% report that the best moment to pitch an upsell is right after you\u2018ve helped a client hit their goals, when trust is high and the results speak for themselves. This means your enablement content can\u2019t stop at the first sale.<\/p>\n Reps need materials that help them track wins, show progress toward what customers care about, and frame expansion opportunities around the outcomes they’ve already delivered.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Creating enablement content that reps use comes down to one thing: starting where they are instead of where you wish they were.<\/p>\n If you build content in a vacuum \u2014 writing what sounds logical without testing it against conversations \u2014 you’ll end up with materials that sit unused in a shared drive.<\/p>\n The approach below works differently. It’s built on listening first, then creating content that fits into the conversations reps are already having.<\/p>\n The disconnect between what marketing creates and what sales needs becomes apparent quickly when deals stall.<\/p>\n Mary Keough<\/a>, Director of Demand Gen at CoLab Software<\/a>, cuts through this in a post where she argues that sales enablement failures stem from treating them as marketing problems rather than sales process problems.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Her observation points to how most enablement content gets created in response to a gap someone noticed, not from systematic analysis of where reps get stuck.<\/p>\n A new competitor emerges, so marketing rushes out a battlecard. A deal stalls on ROI, so someone builds a calculator.<\/p>\n But these one-off responses miss the pattern.<\/p>\n The better approach starts with listening to sales calls \u2014 not cherry-picked wins, but the messy middle conversations where reps stumble that answer:<\/p>\n These moments show what reps need to say with confidence but can’t. Build your enablement roadmap from that reality.<\/p>\n A rep discovers a pain point on a call, sends a follow-up email referencing that conversation, and then needs something visual to share with the three stakeholders who weren’t in the room.<\/p>\n If your enablement content only works in one of these moments, reps will improvise the rest \u2014 and consistency falls apart.<\/p>\n Founder of Productive PMM<\/a> and DemoDash<\/a>, Jason Oakley’s<\/a> \u201cKnow, Say, Show\u201d framework maps directly to this reality:<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The same core message needs to travel through all three formats.<\/p>\n When a rep explains your security approach on a call (Say), they should be able to point to a technical doc that details it (Know) and send a one-pager their champion can share internally (Show).<\/p>\n With the same benefits, same proof points, same language, reps can move prospects forward with confidence in every interaction.<\/p>\n The best enablement content in the world does nothing if reps can\u2018t find it when they need it. Say a prospect asks about your enterprise security features, and the rep knows there\u2019s a great one-pager somewhere. But after scrolling through three folders and two Slack channels, they give up and wing the answer instead.<\/p>\n Ron Baden<\/a>, Head of Sales at GTM Buddy, uses a storage unit analogy in The Cyber Go-To Market podcast<\/a> to describe this problem:<\/p>\n “If we could organize content so I could instantly know where it was and get what I need \u2014 my life would be dramatically different. That\u2018s what enablement has become for content. How do we give reps that one piece of information that\u2019s going to make that one play work in the moment they need it to work?<\/em>“<\/p>\n Organization matters more than volume. Tag content by buyer persona, deal stage, and common objections. Surface materials in the tools reps already use \u2014 their CRM, their calendar, their inbox.<\/p>\n The faster they can grab what they need, the more likely they’ll use it.<\/p>\n Enablement teams that can’t connect their work to revenue may find themselves fighting for budget or justifying headcount.<\/p>\n Lee Densmer<\/a>, a content marketing leader, puts it plainly: sales can’t do their jobs without content in 2025, which means content teams own a piece of the sales outcome.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Her argument centers on training and support. You can’t hand reps a new blog post or ebook without showing them when to use it, which persona it works for, and what stage of the funnel it supports.<\/p>\n Without that context, content sits unused while reps improvise their own materials or lean on what they already know works.<\/p>\n The data from our report backs this up. With 42% of teams measuring success by ARR and 30% by profit margin, enablement content needs to prove it moves those numbers.<\/p>\n That means tracking which assets appear in closed-won deals, measuring how content usage correlates with conversion rates, and identifying which materials shorten sales cycles.<\/p>\n Sneha Mittal at Philips connects AI-powered enablement directly to business outcomes. She highlights in the Sales Enablement Innovation podcast<\/a>: “AI can really help in generating more pipeline, prospecting better with AI-enabled insights, building and growing customer relationships, closing more deals, and shortening sales cycles.<\/em>“<\/p>\n When you can draw a line from a specific piece of enablement content to shortened sales cycles or higher win rates, budget conversations get a lot easier.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Most sales training tries to cover everything at once \u2014 discovery, demo, objection handling, and closing.<\/p>\n Representatives sit through two-hour sessions and retain 20% of the information. The better approach zeroes in on the specific moments when deals fall apart.<\/p>\n Ron recommends focusing practice on weak spots:<\/p>\n “Before they get on the call, have them just redo a five-minute role play of the section of it that they’re not great at.<\/em>\u201c He suggests using real call data to build these scenarios. \u201dTake the last 15 CISO calls that the team had. Here’s the transcript. Feed that into the knowledge base for the role-play engine.<\/em>“<\/p>\n Molly Sestak<\/a>, who built enablement at companies like Okta and Showpad, saw this work in practice. In the Sales Enablement Innovation podcast<\/a>, she highlighted how she created an objection-handling game using Wheel of Fortune, where \u201cyou spin the wheel and you immediately have to answer an objection.\u201d<\/p>\n The focus on one skill at a time built confidence faster than full call rehearsals. As she puts it, the key is identifying where your team struggles \u2014 whether it’s \u201cpitching personas\u201d or handling specific objections \u2014 and building repeatable practice around just that moment.<\/p>\n Your reps might ignore your enablement content not because it\u2018s bad, but because they don\u2019t have time to use it. Between updating CRM fields, preparing for deal reviews, and searching for answers to prospect questions, the actual selling gets squeezed into whatever hours remain.<\/p>\n Ron sees this pattern repeatedly: “I can\u2018t tell you how much people underestimate the amount of busy work we can take away from sellers. I\u2019m learning there’s about 40% of waste in the obvious things, updating the CRM, running deal reviews<\/em>.”<\/p>\n His recommendation? Stop hiring more reps to hit capacity and start eliminating the work that keeps current reps from selling.<\/p>\n Deal reviews offer a clear example. Most teams spend 30 minutes per deal rehashing what happened \u2014 where the lead came from, who attended the last call, and what objections came up.<\/p>\n Baden suggests flipping this: “Why not do a go-forward deal prep? That\u2018s a great use of time for a sales leader to be on a call with someone and say, here\u2019s how we\u2018re gonna go win this call, and let\u2019s practice it.<\/em>“<\/p>\n The same principle applies to content prep. If finding the right case study takes 15 minutes of searching through folders, reps will improvise instead. If CRM updates demand perfect data entry before they can move to the next stage, they’ll batch it all on Friday afternoon when they should be prospecting.<\/p>\n Remove the friction first, then watch the adoption of your enablement materials increase.<\/p>\n B2B deals rarely hinge on a single decision-maker. A hospital might have a CIO focused on system integration, a Chief Nursing Officer worried about workflow disruption, and a procurement lead evaluating the total cost of ownership. Each needs different information, but most reps get trained on a single pitch.<\/p>\n Sneha uses AI-powered role-plays to prepare reps for these varied conversations. She explains the challenge: \u201cSelling into hospital networks is quite complex, because you’re not just speaking to one decision maker. You’re really navigating a matrix of clinical, operational and IT leaders, each with their own priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than generic training, her team creates detailed stakeholder personas. “A hospital CIO is often focused on system interoperability, data security, and ensuring that any new solution that they take integrates seamlessly with their existing EHR platforms.<\/em><\/p>\n And that’s a very different conversation than the one you would have with the chief nursing officer or a procurement lead.<\/em>“<\/p>\n The AI simulates these conversations, challenging reps to adapt their messaging in real time. After each session, it provides feedback on whether they aligned with stakeholder concerns or missed the mark.<\/p>\n When building enablement programs, it’s tempting to start by cataloging everything reps need to know \u2014 product features, competitive differentiators, pricing structures. Knowledge transfer feels productive and measurable.<\/p>\n\n
Why Sales Enablement Content Matters<\/h2>\n
Buyers expect tangible value before they commit.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
AI is reshaping the research process.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Social media drives pipeline.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nReps need to showcase value throughout the journey.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nHow to Create Winning Sales Enablement Content<\/h2>\n
1. Start with conversations reps are having, not the content you want to push.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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2. Build content that works across multiple touchpoints.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n3. Make your content easy to find and share.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. Tie enablement content directly to revenue metrics.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nReal World Sales Enablement Tips<\/h2>\n
1. Use role-play to practice the parts reps struggle with most.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. Eliminate 40% of non-selling work so reps have time to use enablement.<\/h3>\n
3. Use AI to tailor enablement to different stakeholders in the buying committee.<\/h3>\n
4. Focus on outcomes first, then work backwards to skills and knowledge.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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