If you’re saying you want more sales but rarely directly ask people to buy, your sales problem might be simpler than you think. In this episode of The Real Truth About Business podcast, I’m breaking down the difference between soft selling and direct selling, when to use each, and why service-based entrepreneurs need both for consistent revenue growth. After 9 years of experience, I see business owners creating content, mentioning offers, sharing client wins, and assuming their audience will figure out the next step. But people are busy and overloaded with information. Sometimes your best business strategy is simply making the sale easier. We’re talking about direct invitations, follow-ups, clear calls to action, and knowing exactly where someone should go next in your pipeline. If your sales process feels slow or you’re sitting at a revenue plateau, this episode will help you evaluate whether you actually have a sales problem or whether you simply aren’t selling enough.

What You'll Learn:

• The difference between soft selling and direct selling and when to use each
• Why mentioning your offer is not the same as actually asking for the sale
• How direct follow-up can move qualified leads through your sales process
• Why every prospect needs a clear next step in your pipeline
• How to make direct selling feel simpler by focusing on helping buyers make decisions
• What sales actions to track before deciding your offer, funnel, or messaging needs to change

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] Introduction: Why wanting more sales requires actually selling

[02:00] Soft selling and keeping your offers top of mind

[04:30] When it’s time to stop hinting and directly ask for the sale

[08:00] Why interested prospects are already giving you permission to sell

[11:30] Creating clear next steps throughout your pipeline

[15:00] Using your lead tracker to make consistent sales actions easier

[18:00] Wrap-up: Stop making the buying decision for your prospects

Key Takeaways:

Soft Selling Keeps Your Offer Top of Mind

Soft selling absolutely has a place in your business strategy. I do it on this podcast all the time. I mention the Focused Visionary Accelerator. I share client stories and results. I tell you about the Sunday Morning Brew. That is soft selling.

It creates awareness and keeps your offers visible. But soft selling requires your audience to connect the dots. They have to notice the offer, remember it, find the link, and decide what to do next. In an environment where people are consuming massive amounts of content, that can create unnecessary friction.

Sometimes You Need to Directly Ask for the Sale

Direct selling is different. It sounds like: “You told me you were interested. Here’s the link.” Or, “I have two spots available. Are you ready to talk again?”

That can feel uncomfortable, especially if you associate direct selling with unsolicited pitches. But there’s a huge difference between randomly pitching someone and following up with a qualified lead who has already expressed interest.

Your job is not to decide whether someone can afford it, whether they’re too busy, or whether they’re ready. Your job is to clearly present the next step and let them make the decision.

Your Pipeline Should Tell You What Happens Next

Inside the Focused Visionary Framework, this is where Pipeline and Sales work together. Every person in your pipeline should have a logical next step.

Maybe they downloaded a lead magnet and the next step is a workshop. Maybe you had a coffee chat and there’s another resource that makes sense. Maybe they already expressed interest in your offer and the next step is a direct invitation to buy.

When that path is clear, selling becomes much simpler. You’re not trying to convince someone. You’re helping them understand what comes next.

Stop Burying the Sale

If you have an offer, promotion, deadline, or open client spot, say it.

Don't bury the actual offer at the bottom of a 500-word email and assume everyone will find it. Don't mention something once on social media and assume your entire audience saw it. Don't make someone hunt through your website to figure out how to work with you.

People are busy. Make buying easier.

Sometimes the best direct sales message is incredibly simple: Here’s what I have. Here’s why I think it could help you. Here’s what to do if you’re interested.

Don’t Call It a Sales Problem Until You Look at Your Sales Actions

Before you change your pricing strategy, rebuild your offer, rewrite your sales page, or create another funnel, look at the actual data.

How many people did you personally invite to buy this week? How many follow-ups did you send? How many new conversations did you start? How many direct calls to action did you make?

You can change your offer, content, funnel, and messaging all day long. But eventually, somebody still has to sell it.

Revenue growth requires sales actions.

Make It Easier for People to Say Yes

Direct selling doesn't have to mean pressure. Think about it as removing friction from your sales process.

Your prospects are busy. They may not see every email, social post, podcast episode, or call to action. A clear follow-up can actually make their decision easier.

So use soft selling to create awareness and build trust. Then, when the moment calls for it, make the direct ask.

Sometimes you really do just have to ask for the sale.

Resources Mentioned

• Subscribe to Back Pocket Insights for FREE
• Book a CEO Strategy Call
• Learn more about The Missing Piece Intensive
• Learn more about The Focused Visionary Accelerator
• Download the FREE Lead and Conversion Tracker
• Subscribe to the Sunday Morning Brew Newsletter

About the Host:

Michelle DeNio is a business strategist based in Sarasota, Florida, specializing in helping service-based entrepreneurs break through revenue plateaus using her Focused Visionary Framework. With over 300 podcast episodes and 9 years running her consulting business, she helps coaches, consultants, and service providers scale sustainably through strategic planning, pricing optimization, and sales process development.

Connect with Michelle

1. Website
2. Threads
3. Instagram
4. LinkedIn
5. Facebook

I have been having so many conversations with clients, business owners, prospects in general who want more sales.

And then when I ask them what they're actually doing to sell, the answer is not too much.

And it's usually that they're creating content, they're mentioning their offers, right?

They're putting a link somewhere, they're maybe talking about client results, hoping people, right?

But they're not actually selling.

And listen, I love a good soft sell.

I soft sell to you guys in this podcast all the time.

We're going to talk about that.

But there's a time for soft selling and then there's time when you just need to sell direct.

Here's my offer, here's who it's for, here's why you need it, and here's how you can buy it, right?

Especially in the world we are living in right now where people are on overdrive all the time.

They're overstimulated, they're over consuming, right?

Like, soft selling is actually probably costing some of you the sale.

And that's what I want to talk about today because I know that for so many of you this direct selling is very difficult and it's not something you enjoy.

I have multiple clients this past couple weeks who have, I've challenged them to do some direct selling.

And then when we celebrate wins at the end of the week, their.

Their response is, I did not die, right?

You, you will not die by selling your offers, I promise you.

But I want to talk about the today in this podcast episode because I just think so many of you are burying the lead and hoping people read between the lines.

And right now people are too oversaturated, saturated with information to read between the lines.

Okay?

So let's dive in between soft selling and direct selling, when to use each one and how.

All right, so soft selling, I talk soft selling on this podcast all the time.

Soft selling.

I mentioned the Focus Visionary accelerator in almost every single one of these podcast episodes.

That's soft selling, right?

It's me letting you know I have an offer.

It's me talking about my clients, it's me sharing a story, sharing client results and, you know, mentioning, oh, by the way, if you haven't opted into my email list, if you're not on the Sunday morning brew list yet, right?

Like that's soft selling, right?

Putting a call to action in your email footer, putting, you know, a link in your bio, having these like, right where people are.

You're keeping your offer top of mind.

That's what it is.

It's like Brand awareness.

You're talking about your offer, but you're, you're just mentioning it, right?

Again, it's like this soft selling.

A lot of times people will do this on a call and they will say like, oh, you know, by the way, I had this call with a client, right, whatever.

And so again, there's a time and a place for soft selling.

They're really, absolutely.

You want to keep your offers top of mind.

You want to create some brand awareness for your offers, you want to share your stories, right?

But you know, your audience needs to know when you are also taking on clients, right?

And sometimes your audience just needs to hear like, here's this offer.

If you want it, buy it.

Right?

Like sometimes we just have to sell them.

I sent an email, I'm going to give you an example.

I sent an email a couple weeks ago with a replay to a training that I did.

I did a training inside of the Focus Visionary accelerator.

Hint, hint, soft sell, right?

I did this training and I, I got great feedback on it and a lot of people wanted me to, to run it again and make it a paid offer.

And I just didn't have it in me.

I just didn't have the time.

We were traveling, all the things and so I created, I just literally put the replay up and I created a payment link and I sent an email that said, I have this replay of this training I did.

It was amazing.

Here's people's feedback and if you want it, you can buy it.

Here's the link.

Like, I don't even think the email was three sentences long.

It was so simple.

And there was a big buy button.

And literally in the buy button I had, if you're not going to implement it, don't buy it.

Right?

Like it was so blatantly obvious that I was selling something.

Okay, then there's other times where in my Sunday morning brew, at the bottom of the email, after I write the whole big story and whatever, I have a, sometimes I'll have a section that says like, worth tapping in.

And I'll just have like a note in there.

Like I've been soft selling in there.

My event that is happening in Boston, whatever.

Like there's like a soft sell.

But I have not come right out and said, here's why you should be here, here's why you should buy a ticket, okay?

And, and a lot of times we do all of this off selling because we're doing it to a group, right?

You know, you're talking around the offer, you're mentioning it, you're letting people know, hey, by the way, when you're ready.

But again, you're, you're hoping that people are going to know where to find the information.

You're hoping that they're going to take all the extra steps to go find the link, to find your website to open up the email again, right?

Like, that creates a lot of extra steps when we are kind of just beating around the bush, all right, and you just kind of have this assumption of like, well, they'll know what to do.

Do.

They'll know what to do.

A lot of times your audience is not going to take the time.

And it's not that they don't want to.

Again, if somebody really wants to work with you, they're going to figure it out, they're going to send you a message, whatever.

But my point is, why not make it easier, right?

Why not make it easier for people to do business with you?

And this is where direct selling comes in.

The direct selling is sending a message to somebody who said they were interested in saying, hey, you said you were interested in this.

Here's the link.

Right?

Or hey, I, I've got two spots open.

Not sure if you're ready yet.

Do you want to jump on another call?

Or.

I've been, you know, if I were going to do a hard sell or a direct sell on for the Focus Visionary accelerator, I would literally probably make the email very, very short and say, here's some results that my clients have been getting.

Here's why I think you should be here.

Here's the link to check it out.

Right.

Or something like that.

But again, it's this following up.

It's, it's the following up.

It's getting into the DMS or sending that private email.

And again, just.

You were interested.

Here's the link.

Do you want to jump on a call or especially if you're running a sale or a promotion or some type of like, I don't know, like, I've got a client right now that's running a promotion on something and she has like seven hot leads and she sent out this one big long email and literally the sale of it.

And like the mention of the sale was in the very bottom of the email.

You had to get all the way to the bottom and it was not even super clear what the sale was.

And so I had her rewrite all the emails to her hot leads and say, I'm running a special on this offer that we spoke about.

Here's what the special offer is.

Here's why I'M mentioning it to you.

Here's the conversation we had.

Are you interested?

Do you want to jump on another call again?

And that feels scary.

I understand that for many of you that feels scary.

But the reality is, is that sometimes your buyers need that.

They're busy.

They're getting kids back to school.

They're on vacation, right?

They're not reading every single email.

So why not just get in the DMs, right?

You' already had a conversation with them.

And I had another conversation with a client who was saying, like, she'll get people on a.

An original, like, strategy call and then they'll say, oh my gosh, I need this, or I wish you could do this for my team.

She works a lot with teams, so she might do a strategy call with the owner.

And then they're saying like, oh, can you, you know, can you teach my team this?

And she's like, then I gotta sell them again.

And then it doesn't feel right because I already sold them on one thing.

And again, here's a mindset shift for you.

They literally said, we want you to do this with our team.

They are already sold.

You're not selling them again.

I think that's what you guys have to remember when it comes to selling, if you have this fear, is like people that have shown interest are already asking you to sell to them.

The problem is, is that what we relate to when it comes to direct selling or direct messaging or inviting somebody to buy is because you're relating it to the one time or the multiple times that we get sold something or get sent a direct message, be sold something that we did not ask for, right?

If we didn't ask for it, then it's like, what the frig this?

I didn't ask you to sell me on this thing, right?

But if somebody, if you've had a conversation with them, just sell them.

But here's the other flip side of this, is that you don't know who is lurking, right?

And oftentimes your best buyers are lurkers.

They're not letting you know that they're getting ready to buy.

They're not letting you know that they're interested.

They're just silently lurking.

I did a big push back in February, if you remember this, when I raised the prices and changed everything up with fva and I sent out so many emails about price increasing.

Here's your deadline.

It was a direct sell email.

I had three people buy from that that I did not even know were in my pipeline.

But because I was Selling to them and giving them a reason.

They came in and said, you know what I think, think I'm interested in this.

Can you give me more information?

I had a quick conversation with them and then they purchase and they're still in and they're happy.

Right?

People are busy and they don't always.

I'm long winded.

If you guys are on my Sunday morning brew list.

You know, I'm long winded.

You listen to this podcast, you know, I'm long winded.

So sometimes I have this really amazing story that I'm telling you and it's like, get to the freaking point, Michelle.

Right?

That's how people are feeling when you're trying to sell them too.

If you're constantly over talking them or you're trying to, you know, talk about all the reasons why, then it becomes this convincing energy.

Then you start to feel like you're getting desperate.

Then, like the whole energy changes.

Instead of just going in and saying, here's what I have to sell, here's why I think you might need it.

Here's the link if you're interested.

Right.

I think that's the thing, is that you've got to remember that you're just simply making it easier.

It's not sleazy.

If somebody feels like it is sleazy for you as a business owner to sell your services, that's a them problem, not a you problem, okay?

Because business ownership relies on sales to stay in business.

You have to sell your.

Your stuff, you have to sell your services, you have to sell your offers, okay?

So again, but you got to get used to this direct selling because you just can't.

You cannot rely on the fact that your audience is seeing every single piece of content.

And if you're only putting a call to action in one piece of content out of every 10, what happens when the person doesn't see that one piece of content?

Then they don't know that you're taking on new clients.

Then they don't know that you have a special offer.

Because what if I was busy that day?

I had two weeks in a row where I was back to back on zoom calls.

I had 14 plus hours of Zoom calls in three days.

I wasn't checking social media or reading my email for shit, right?

But if somebody sent me a direct message, I was reading those, okay?

Because they're much easier to read.

So if I knew that there was something I was interested in buying and it had a deadline, which there was, I got a direct message and I bought it, right?

Because I had told the person I was interested.

All right, You've got to understand that just people are busy, and this is, like, so helpful.

I'm the ADHD busy entrepreneur doing a million things like, please just send me the link.

Now, I understand not everybody is like that, but for the most part, it's making life easier.

So what is so, like, what's hard about making somebody's life easier?

Right.

Switch your mindset a little bit.

Switch your thought process a little bit of, like, how can I make this easier for somebody to say yes?

Okay.

And one of the other things that makes this easier is knowing the next step.

You know, I talk about your pipeline all the time and making sure that you have a next step always laid out in your.

For people in your pipeline.

Okay.

This is.

This is something that we work very hard on in the Focus Visionary accelerator.

It's something that many of my clients struggle with.

Right.

But when you know exactly what the next step is and you have your pipeline built out and it's super clear, that makes that direct selling or that direct message or that direct invite so much easier.

Right?

So if somebody is.

You had a coffee chat with them, or you had a discovery call with them and they said, I'm not interested right now, or you had a really great call with them and they just.

You weren't sure, but now you're running a free workshop because, you know, workshops convert.

It's so easy to say, hey, Michelle, we had a great conversation.

I went, wanted to let you know I'm running this.

This workshop.

I don't know if you're interested in it, but I thought I'd let you know.

Right.

Again, you're giving people the information to make a decision, but all you're doing is presenting the next step to them.

It is not on you to make a decision for your buyers as to whether or not they are interested.

It is your job as the CEO to present the offer, to present the next step, not to make the decision for them.

But so many of you are scared or fear this direct messaging because you've already made a decision in your head that they're not interested.

You've already decided that they're too busy.

This is not what they need.

Whatever.

Whatever emotional decision you've made, you made it for them.

But remember, it's not your job to make those decisions for your clients.

It's your job to present the next step.

That's it.

So again, knowing what your next step is.

So when somebody joins my email list or I'm working on A new lead magnet for like the first time in forever.

Like an actual lead magnet if I ever get it done.

But again, I already know what the entire pipeline is from that lead magnet.

Right?

It's lead magnet.

Invite to a workshop, have a call if needed, or whatever, and then invite to my offer.

That's business.

You can sit here and be like, oh, she just wants people to get on her lead magnet and then she's going to sell them into a workshop.

I'm not going to sell you into a workshop.

It's a free workshop.

And yes, I'm going to sell you, because that's the whole freaking point.

I want to help you.

And in order for me to help you, you need to join one of my offers.

But I am going to give you these logical next steps that are going to help to build trust for you to exp Experience me, for you to get a taste of what it's like to work with me.

And then I'm going to let you make that decision.

But I'm not going to make that decision for you.

What I am going to do is give you the steps to help you make the decision.

Right?

And that's the whole point.

That's all you're doing is help letting people know.

Here's your next step.

If you're interested, make your decision right.

So know you know where to lead people.

Don't assume your audience knows what their next step is.

Right?

And that's what makes selling so much easier, is when you know exactly how you're following up with them, when you know exactly what that next step is.

So this is where your lead tracker comes in.

Again, if you don't have a good lead tracker, I will make sure the link is in the show notes.

I have a great lead tracker where you can literally see where they are in your pipeline and you can put in their next step and then you just have it all right there.

So when you're sitting down to do your sales actions, which literally could be on Mondays, I do mine on Mondays.

That's it.

I don't do this all week long.

I encourage a lot of my clients to incentivize it, to gamify it, to have fun with it, right?

Like if you get to do it on Monday, you don't have to touch any more sales actions for the week, right?

And just do something fun with it.

But you open up your lead tracker, you look and see who's on there and you give them the next step.

Sometimes that's going to be an invite, sometimes that's going to be an actual direct sell to say, I have this offer, right?

But you've got to be doing direct selling.

Do not bury the lead.

And a lot of times you'll start to do this direct selling, right?

You'll have the conversation, you start to reach out and you send this big long email or you start to send a text and you have this full on long conversation.

No, you gotta keep it succinct.

If you're gonna do a direct invite to a sale, keep it succinct.

Hey Michelle, checking in.

We had this conversation.

I've got this offer, wanted to see if you're interested.

Right.

Like that's kind of the formula that I use.

You can change it up, you can make it more your voice, whatever you want to do.

But again, it's not a, hey Michelle, how's it going?

What's happening with your business?

Da da da da.

We had the, you know, I saw this, I saw that, right?

Like that you're not having this like full on long conversation again.

The direct sale is the direct sale and people appreciate that.

Even people that I haven't talked to in a long time.

I did a direct invite to my event in Boston, right?

Because why not?

They live in Boston.

We've had a conversation.

It's like, hey, I don't know if you saw it, but I'm going to be up in Boston and I would love to meet you in person.

I'm hosting this event.

If you're interested, I'm going to drop the link.

Let me know.

Right?

Like most of them said, I'll check it out.

I am going to follow up with a few of them because why wouldn't I?

Why wouldn't I?

This is how you get sales.

You get sales by following up with people.

You get sales by presenting offers to people.

If you're not doing that or if you're burying it in a 500 something plus word email, then people likely are missing it.

And so it's not that people aren't interested, it's that they just don't know how to work with you because it's not easy to find.

So I want you to really look at your sales actions in a week.

Okay, maybe two weeks.

But like how many times did you personally invite someone to buy this week?

Even if you did it in a group email or like a mass email.

But was there a personal invite for them to buy and was it easy to find or was it buried way deep?

How many follow ups did you send?

Right?

How many new conversations did you start?

How many direct calls to actions did you make in those conversations?

Right?

Don't tell yourself sales are slow until you've looked at how many things, how many times you've actually sold.

Okay?

And again, sometimes there is a need for soft selling, right?

We should always be soft selling.

And all of our conversations, everything that we're doing, we should always be talking about our offers.

We should always be talking about how we're helping clients.

But sometimes you really just need that direct sale.

And I think that is the missing piece for so many of you is there's just a fear around this selling.

But I want you to try to shift your mindset again.

You're not selling to people that don't want to be sold to, okay?

And if somebody unsubscribes because they don't want to be sold to, so be it.

If they stop following, so be it, right?

Then they're just telling you that they're not interested.

That's okay.

It's okay.

All right?

You don't need to change your offer.

You don't need to rewrite everything, right?

I find so many of you changing things up, but at the end of the day, it all still comes down to it still needs to be sold.

So you can change your offer, you can change your funnel, you can rewrite the sales page, you can create more content.

But if you're not selling, it's still not going to sell, right?

You still have to sell it.

And sometimes that requires that direct invite.

And right now, I think more than ever, it requires that direct sale.

And I think people appreciate it more than ever because literally, we are just consuming so much freaking content.

Make it easy.

This is all about making life easier.

Literally.

That just say, like, oh, how can I make somebody's life easier today?

How can I make this prospect's, you know, decision easier today?

Right?

Like, when you think of it that way, it's like, well, let me just go send them the link.

That's.

That's totally simple, right?

Like, make life easier, okay?

Go sell your shit.

Go sell your shit and don't make the decision for your buyer, right?

Your job is to sell and present an offer, not to make a decision for them.

Okay?

I love you.

I believe in you, and I will talk to you soon.