How Sales Enablement Solves the Main Challenges in Manufacturing Sales

Your sales process shouldn’t be working against you. Forrester states that manufacturing companies with optimized sales processes close deals 37% faster than competitors relying on traditional methods.

Because in manufacturing sales, speed wins.

Here’s what’s happening: reps can’t find the right materials, dealers default to selling what’s easiest, and leadership lacks the visibility to fix it. Meanwhile, competitors who move faster are winning the business.

Messy processes, outdated content, and siloed teams don’t just create friction—they cost revenue. And in manufacturing sales, every delay gives buyers a reason to walk away.

Sales enablement won’t fix everything overnight, but it will reshape how sales and marketing teams collaborate and align to create a buyer experience that makes it easy for your buyers to say ‘yes.’ —so your sales process stops getting in its own way.

Let’s break down the biggest challenges slowing your team down—and how to fix them.

Breaking Down the Biggest Challenges in Manufacturing Sales

Think sales enablement is just for reps? Think again.

In manufacturing, every department plays a role in closing deals. When marketing creates content that goes unused, product teams struggle to communicate technical details, or leadership lacks visibility into sales performance, inefficiencies pile up—and competitors win.

Success—and sales enablement—depends on teams working in sync. Marketing must create relevant, high-impact content, sales needs easy access to it, product teams must ensure technical accuracy, and leadership must keep everyone aligned toward shared goals.

When any part of this system breaks down, misalignment leads to wasted time, stalled deals, and lost revenue.

Below, we break down the most pressing challenges faced by different roles in manufacturing sales—and how sales enablement helps solve them.

Explore challenges and solutions by role:

Internal Sales Team Challenges

You can’t sell what you can’t find. Yet, manufacturing reps waste hours searching for materials, pulling outdated specs, or struggling to personalize proposals—leaving less time for actual selling.

Sales cycles drag, messaging becomes inconsistent, and competitors who respond faster win. Here’s how sales enablement keeps reps focused on selling, not searching.

Finding and Accessing Critical Sales Content

You're on a call with a potential buyer who's ready to discuss technical specifications, but you can't remember where the latest product sheets are stored. Is it that folder from engineering? The email from marketing last month? Or maybe it's in that shared drive no one can navigate?

Sales reps spend less than 36% of their work hours actively selling, according to Forbes. Manufacturing sales reps waste valuable time searching for the right materials—only to find outdated versions or, worse, nothing at all.

When they can’t quickly access accurate sales content, deals stall, messaging becomes inconsistent, and competitors who respond faster gain the upper hand.

Ensuring Content Accuracy and Compliance

"Is this the latest version?" It’s a question no sales rep should have to ask—where outdated technical specs or compliance errors can put deals at risk.

In manufacturing, where non-compliance can result in severe consequences, outdated technical specifications present serious risks.

A 2023 Deloitte study found that 68% of manufacturing companies reported at least one significant compliance issue due to outdated sales materials in the past year, with an average resolution cost of $157,000 per incident.

You confidently send a buyer the product safety documentation they requested, only to realize it’s outdated. Now, instead of moving forward, your deal is stuck in regulatory review—delaying the sale and risking customer trust.

When reps can’t easily access the most current materials, they unknowingly share incorrect specifications, outdated certifications, or old pricing, creating costly setbacks and compliance risks.

Too Much Time Spent Personalizing Sales Presentations

Compiling sales presentations takes too much time, especially when documents are scattered across multiple systems.

Reps spend hours pulling technical specs, pricing, ROI calculations, and implementation details from different sources—leading to inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and last-minute scrambling.

Research from the University of California Irvine found that office workers lose up to 60% of their productive time due to interruptions and tool fragmentation, which can be an effect  when switching between multiple platforms and sources to create sales materials.

Lack of Visibility into Buyer Engagement

You sent that detailed proposal three days ago and haven't heard back. Is the prospect reviewing it? Did they share it with other stakeholders? Are they stuck on a particular section? 

Reps have no way of knowing if prospects have opened their proposals, which sections they reviewed, or if new decision-makers are involved. Without these insights, follow-ups are poorly timed, key stakeholders are overlooked, and opportunities stall.

McKinsey’s report on the Future of B2B sales highlights a crucial takeaway: Put the customer at the heart of growth. This means prioritizing personalized engagement and value-driven interactions to build trust and loyalty.

Without visibility into buyer behavior, sales teams miss the opportunity to deliver tailored content and solutions that resonate with customer needs, ultimately weakening engagement and reducing conversion potential.

Lack of Product Knowledge

Manufacturing products often involve intricate technical specifications, component interactions, and engineering requirements that sales reps struggle to effectively communicate to different stakeholders.

Engineers may need detailed compliance documentation, while procurement officers focus on ROI and operational compatibility.

When sales teams can't quickly access and understand these complex details, they default to generic descriptions, miss critical differentiation opportunities, and lose credibility with technically sophisticated buyers.

The Aberdeen Group reports that organizations without structured training programs experience 24% lower individual quota attainment and 32% reduced team quota achievement. These gaps can lead to lost credibility, delayed deals, and costly compliance issues.

Accessing Sales Materials Without Reliable Internet

Manufacturing sales reps are always on the move—jumping from virtual meetings to on-site visits. You've arrived at the customer's manufacturing facility for a critical product demonstration, only to discover there's no reliable internet connection on the production floor.

Your cloud-based presentation won't load, your product videos are inaccessible, and your carefully prepared digital materials are useless.

Another opportunity squandered because you couldn't access what you needed when it mattered most.

Disconnected Sales Software and Technical Infrastructure

Manufacturing organizations often operate with a complex ecosystem of specialized systems—PIM for product data, built-in CPQ for configuration and pricing, CRM for customer relationships, and DAM integrations for digital assets.

When sales enablement exists as a separate silo, reps must constantly switch between systems to access critical information.

This fragmentation leads to information gaps, inconsistent pricing, outdated technical specifications, and ultimately, delayed sales cycles.

Dealer Sales Network Challenges

Your dealer network isn’t on your payroll, and that’s exactly why keeping them engaged is such a challenge. Without structured onboarding and easy access to sales materials, they’ll default to selling what’s easiest—not necessarily your product.

To stay top-of-mind and turn dealers into an extension of your sales team, sales enablement is key.

Ineffective Dealer Onboarding and Knowledge Transfer

Managing manufacturing sales is already complex—but when dealer networks come into play, the challenge multiplies. Selling through dealers means giving up control—over messaging, training, and even sales priorities.

Unlike direct reps, dealers juggle multiple brands, and without structured onboarding, your product takes a backseat to whatever they know best.

If they don’t have the right knowledge or easy access to sales materials, they’ll default to selling what’s familiar.

Staying on Top of Mind of Dealers

Your dealers represent multiple manufacturers, and your products are constantly competing for their attention and sales focus. When they lack easy access to your sales materials and training, they naturally gravitate toward selling competing products with better support systems.

Without effective tools to stay top-of-mind, you're losing valuable shelf space in both their showrooms and their sales conversations.

McKinsey research shows manufacturer representatives who provide dealer-friendly sales tools see a 23% increase in dealer spending compared to those relying on traditional materials.

Effective Dealer Communication and Support

You sent updated technical specifications, but dealers are still using the old ones.

A new product line launched, yet half your network doesn’t know how to sell it. Key pricing updates were buried in inboxes, leading to confusion and missed opportunities.

And when dealers need quick answers, they struggle to get the support they need—resulting in delays, frustration, and lost deals to more responsive competitors.

How Gaggenau Stays Top of Mind with Its Dealer Network Using Showell

With Showell, Gaggenau ensures dealers always have up-to-date sales materials—online or offline. No more lost emails or outdated files—just a single, intuitive hub for presentations, videos, and product info.

READ CASE STUDY HERE

Marketing Team Challenges

Marketing teams pour effort into creating sales content, but if reps can’t find it—or worse, don’t use it—it’s wasted effort. Keeping materials updated, ensuring brand consistency, and tailoring content for different markets is another uphill battle.

But what if there was a way to ensure sales teams not only used your content but used it at the right time with the right buyers?

Sales Content Is Not Used 

You just spent weeks developing visually appealing product brochures highlighting technical specifications and features. Then, only for you to discover that salespeople rarely share these materials with customers. Frustrating, right?

Despite your best efforts, there's a fundamental disconnect. Reps struggle to find the right materials, while buyers expect detailed technical insights, real-world application examples, and clear ROI justification.

In manufacturing, 49% of companies struggle to produce high-quality content, often creating materials without knowing what actually works.

Without insight into what content actually supports sales, marketing teams waste time and budget on materials that go unused.

Keeping Sales Materials Updated and Accessible

Your teams work hard to create and update sales materials, but getting those updates to reach reps is another battle.

Files are scattered across multiple locations, requiring you to track them down, update each version manually, and then notify sales—hoping the latest materials are used.

In manufacturing sales, where accuracy is critical for compliance and technical specifications, outdated materials can lead to lost deals, miscommunication, and sometimes even regulatory risks.

Without an easy way to manage and distribute content, reps either use outdated files or waste time searching for the right ones.

Managing Brand Consistency Across Channels

When reps can’t find the right content, they take matters into their own hands—tweaking slides, pulling outdated product sheets, or even creating their own materials from scratch.

This results in inconsistent messaging, off-brand materials, and sales conversations that drift from compliance and key value propositions.

With multiple sales channels—direct reps, dealers, and e-commerce—keeping messaging consistent without limiting necessary personalization feels like an uphill battle.

Delivering Localized Content at Scale

A European distributor asks for sales materials with region-specific compliance details. Meanwhile, your North American team needs case studies tailored to their market.

Your team scrambles to tweak content for each request, but with so many versions floating around, brand consistency starts slipping.

Your sales reps and dealer networks span multiple regions, each with different regulations, buyer expectations, and competitive landscapes. But delivering the right sales materials to the right market in their local language is a logistical nightmare.

You either create rigid, one-size-fits-all content that reps and dealers ignore, or they struggle to manage countless localized versions—leading to inconsistencies, outdated materials, and brand dilution.

How Asendia Simplified Content Management & Marketing Alignment

With Showell, Asendia centralized all sales and marketing content into one hub, enabling tracking and instant updates to ensure reps always had the latest materials at their fingertips.

READ CASE STUDY HERE

Sales Management Challenges

Sales success shouldn’t depend on a handful of top performers, but too often, it does.

Some reps excel at handling objections and closing deals, while others struggle—leading to inconsistent revenue and long ramp-up times.

Here’s how structured training, seller activity tracking, and data-led insights with sales enablement makes success repeatable.

Lengthy Sales Ramp-Up Times

You finally found the right hire—someone with industry experience, strong sales instincts, and the drive to succeed. But months later, they’re still struggling to get up to speed. 

They’re buried in scattered training materials, shadowing top performers with little structure, and relying on trial and error in customer conversations.

Meanwhile, deals are slipping through the cracks. Your seasoned reps are stretched thin trying to mentor new hires. And leadership is left wondering why ramp-up takes so long. 

Without a structured onboarding process, every new hire feels like a gamble—and revenue growth remains unpredictable.

Inconsistent Sales Execution Across Sellers

Some reps confidently handle technical objections and sell on value, while others fall back on generic feature lists and price concessions.

This inconsistency leads to unpredictable revenue, making it difficult to scale and replicate success across the team. It leaves you wondering where you might be lacking.

When only a handful of top performers drive most of the sales, your business becomes reliant on individuals rather than a strong, repeatable sales process.

Limited Visibility Into Sales Activities and Buyer Engagement

Your CRM shows plenty of activity, but you still can't answer critical questions about what's actually happening in your pipeline.

Which stakeholders are engaging with your proposals? Where are deals typically stalling? Which content actually influences buying decisions?

Without this visibility, you're managing based on lagging indicators and incomplete information—making it nearly impossible to provide effective guidance or accurately forecast results.

Product Management Challenges

Your team is constantly improving your products, but if sales can’t position those updates effectively, new features go unnoticed.

When product updates don’t reach the field in a clear, compelling way, messaging remains outdated, and your competitive edge fades.

How can you ensure product knowledge turns into revenue? Here’s how:

Effectively Communicating Product Updates to Sales 

Sales teams can’t sell what they don’t understand.

When product updates are buried in long documents or scattered across emails, reps default to old messaging—or worse, overlook key innovations entirely.

Without a clear system for delivering updates, new features fail to reach customers, and your competitive advantage goes to waste.

IT, Security, and Legal Team Challenges

Failing to keep sales materials and processes compliant with regulations can be extremely costly.

Yet, when materials are scattered and shared through unsecured methods, outdated content circulates, and security risks increase.

Security doesn’t have to mean complicated. Here’s how sales enablement can help:

Ensuring Content Compliance Across Sales Channels

Your manufacturing company operates in a heavily regulated environment where non-compliant communications can create significant liability.

Despite your best efforts, outdated materials continue to circulate, regulatory requirements aren't consistently met, and sensitive information sometimes escapes your security controls. 

Outdated or unsecured sales collateral can pose serious regulatory risks. In a recent audit of marketing content, 1 in 5 assets (20%) were flagged for potential compliance violations (missing disclosures, misleading claims, etc.)

This shows how frequently content risks breaching regulations if not properly reviewed.

In heavily regulated industries, ensuring that only approved, up-to-date content is shared is critical, as using unapproved or outdated sales content can trigger legal action. But when sales materials are scattered across multiple systems, enforcing compliance becomes nearly impossible.

Sharing Confidential Information Safely

When sharing sensitive information like engineering specifications, or proprietary designs, traditional methods like email attachments create significant security vulnerabilities.

Documents can be forwarded without authorization, sensitive information can be exposed to competitors, and there's rarely visibility into who has accessed confidential materials.

These gaps create constant tension between sales needs and security requirements, often resulting in either excessive restrictions that hamper sales or loose controls that create security risks.

Conclusion

Your manufacturing sales challenges aren't just frustrating—they're costing you deals, market share, and revenue. Siloed departments, fragmented content, inconsistent training, and limited visibility create friction that slows deal cycles and erodes competitive advantage.

Sales enablement changes that. By connecting teams, centralizing resources, standardizing processes, and providing actionable insights that drive revenue.

When implemented with a role-based approach that addresses the specific needs of each department, it creates a unified sales ecosystem where everyone contributes to sales success.

The most successful manufacturing organizations recognize that sales enablement isn't just another tool—it's a strategic approach that aligns people, processes, and technology around a common goal: delivering exceptional buyer experiences that drive sustainable growth.

Winning in manufacturing sales isn’t just about what you sell—it’s about how efficiently you sell it. See how Showell can address your specific challenges and uncover new growth opportunities. Book a demo with our sales enablement experts or get Showell Free!

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