Your situation

Marketing's producing it. Sales ain't using it

When the story gets ignored, it's a messaging problem not a people problem.

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Trusted by sales and marketing teams at leading companies

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The gap is real, and it's costing you deals

Sales teams don't ignore marketing content because they're difficult. They ignore it because it wasn't built for the conversation they're really having.

Sales decks that marketing has never seen

Six regional teams. Six versions of the pitch. None of them saying the same thing. Marketing finds out what sales is presenting when a prospect asks a question nobody can answer.

Campaign assets that don't survive first contact

Beautifully crafted. Strategically positioned. Totally unusable in a real sales conversation. There's a reason sales stops using marketing content (and it's not because they're arseholes).

Positioning that works on the website but falls apart in the room

The homepage makes sense. The messaging doc is approved. But the moment a prospect asks a hard question, the answer depends on who's in the room.

The brief that never got written

Marketing assumed sales knew the message. Sales assumed marketing understood the buyer. Nobody wrote it down. Now everyone's working from a different version of the truth.

The gap between marketing and sales is almost always a story gap.

Fix the brief. Align the narrative. Give sales something they'll use and the rest follows.

How I fix it

Collateral built for how sales really sells

Not how marketing thinks they sell. The difference matters more than most teams realise.

i

One framework. Every room.

A shared messaging foundation that marketing and sales both sign off on. Role-specific enough to be useful. Consistent enough that the story doesn't change depending on who's presenting.

Built for teams where product, marketing and sales have historically told three different stories about the same platform.
ii

Collateral shaped for the conversation

Pitch decks, one-pagers and battlecards structured around how buyers really evaluate. Tailored to the stage of the deal, the seniority of the audience and the objections sales keeps hearing.

Developed for complex, multi-stakeholder buying processes across enterprise security, AI infrastructure and HR technology.
iii

Case studies that move deals

Evidence-led stories structured around the outcomes that matter to the next buyer. Not the ones that looked good in the press release. Short enough to read. Specific enough to be useful.

Created for enterprise audiences where credibility is the deciding factor and the buyer already knows what they're looking for.

Applied in practice

If sales is improvising the story, here's where we start.

i

Sales deck rewrites

One clear narrative. Structured for the decision journey. Built to work without a script.

ii

Messaging frameworks

A shared foundation that marketing, sales and leadership can all work from (and win from).

iii

Battlecards and one-pagers

Role-specific, objection-aware collateral designed for real conversations, not polished presentations.

iv

Persona-led nurture sequences

Email flows that carry the right message to the right stakeholder at the right moment in the deal.

v

Case studies and proof content

Evidence structured around buying criteria, not marketing milestones.

vi

Campaign-to-sales handoff copy

Connected content that carries a consistent story from first touch to closed deal.

Who does this

Hi. I'm Mike.

I've spent a decade writing for complex organisations where the stakes were real and the buying process was long. Meta. Google Cloud. Enterprise security, AI infrastructure, HR tech. Spaces where dodgy messaging gets found out fast.

I know how sales and marketing misalign. I've seen the decks, the disconnects, the campaigns that never made it into a sales conversation. My job is to close the gap.

More about me
Mike Sharkey, B2B Copywriter
Try before you commit

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Send me a deck, a one-pager or a piece of campaign copy. I'll share some honest notes on what's working and what isn't.

No pitch. No obligation. You decide if the notes are useful.

From the B2Blog

Make sure your assets get used.

If sales is going off-script, the story needs fixing. Let's start there.

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Frequently asked questions

On sales enablement and closing the story gap

Why don't sales teams use marketing content?

Usually because it wasn't built for the conversation they're actually having. Marketing writes for the website. Sales needs something that works in a room, on a call, in front of a sceptical CFO. When those two briefs aren't the same thing, sales writes their own version (and the story fragments from there).

What is a sales messaging framework?

A single source of truth for what your company says and how it says it, specific enough that sales can use it in a real conversation. Not a brand guidelines doc. Not a positioning statement nobody reads. Something that tells every person in a customer-facing role what to say when a hard question lands.

Why does the sales and marketing story keep drifting apart?

Because they're working from different briefs. Marketing is optimising for awareness and pipeline. Sales is optimising for the conversation in front of them. Without a shared narrative that both teams sign off on, the story fractures every time someone goes off-script.

What makes a B2B sales deck actually work?

It has to work without the presenter in the room. That happens more than people think. A deck that relies on a good talker to cover for weak copy isn't a sales asset, it's a liability. The best decks carry one clear narrative, structured for the decision journey, with copy that does the selling even when nobody's there to explain it.

How do you write case studies that actually move deals?

By structuring them around the outcomes the next buyer cares about, not the ones that looked good in the press release. The industry needs to match. The problem needs to resonate. The proof needs to be specific enough to be credible and flexible enough to travel inside different deals to different buying committees.

What's the difference between sales enablement and marketing content?

Mostly the brief. Marketing content is built to attract and educate at scale. Sales enablement content is built for a specific conversation, a specific stage of the deal and a specific set of objections. The voice can be the same. The structure, the detail and the job it needs to do are completely different.