If you feel like people are finding you but not buying from you, this episode is going to connect a lot of dots. In this episode of The Real Truth About Business podcast, I’m sharing behind-the-scenes insights from my private Back Pocket Insights podcast, where I coach through real questions from service-based entrepreneurs navigating growth. This is for those of you sitting in a revenue plateau, doing the visibility work, but not seeing consistent conversions. After 9 years of experience, I can tell you this is rarely about needing more leads. It’s about gaps in your business strategy, specifically inside your pipeline and sales process. In this episode, I break down what’s actually changed in buyer behavior, why people aren’t moving as quickly as they used to, and how overworking your leads can actually hurt your revenue growth. This is about building a smarter, more intentional pipeline that supports real business growth.

What You'll Learn:

• The missing steps in your pipeline that are blocking conversions
• Why buyers no longer move from awareness to decision quickly
• How to strengthen your lead generation and nurturing process
• What “overwatering” looks like in your sales process and content strategy
• How to balance follow-up with giving prospects space to decide
• Why patience and timing are critical for sustainable revenue growth

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] Introduction: Back Pocket Insights and coaching-style episodes

[03:00] The trust economy and what’s actually changed in buyer behavior

[06:00] Pipeline breakdown: awareness, interest, consideration, decision

[09:00] Missing pipeline stages and why leads aren’t converting

[13:00] The “overwatering” analogy and what it means in business

[17:00] Over-following up, over-creating, and slowing down growth

[20:00] Letting your pipeline work without forcing results

Key Takeaways:

Your Pipeline Is Missing Critical Steps

Here’s what I see constantly. Service-based entrepreneurs expecting people to go from discovering them straight to buying. And for a few years, that actually worked. During the COVID years, buyers were moving fast. Awareness to decision happened quickly.

That’s not the case anymore.

Inside the Focused Visionary Framework, the Pipeline pillar is all about movement. Awareness, interest, consideration, decision. If you’re missing those middle stages, your business strategy is incomplete. People need more touchpoints now. They need time to explore, understand, and evaluate before they buy.

If your conversion rate is low, this is one of the first places I look. Not more leads. Better movement through your pipeline.

More Isn’t Always Better. Sometimes It’s Too Much

This is where the “overwatering” concept comes in.

I see this all the time. Over-following up. Over-posting. Over-explaining offers. Constantly trying to push people to a decision. And what happens? People pull away.

Desperation energy is real. And your audience can feel it.

Your sales process needs space. Your leads need space. Your content needs time to actually work. When you overwater, you don’t speed up growth. You suffocate it.

Buyer Behavior Has Slowed Down. Your Strategy Needs to Adjust

Buyers today are more intentional. They are consuming more content. They are watching longer. They are making more educated decisions.

That means your lead generation and sales process need to support that behavior. More nurturing. More value. More opportunities for people to experience you before they buy.

But that does not mean more pressure.

It means better structure. Better sequencing. Better timing.

Growth Requires Patience and Strategic Restraint

This is the part most people don’t want to hear. You can’t force growth.

After 9 years, I’ve seen this pattern over and over. The businesses that scale are the ones that know when to take action and when to step back. When to follow up and when to let things breathe.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business growth is nothing. Let the content work. Let the relationship build. Let the pipeline do its job.

That’s CEO-level thinking. Not reacting. Not forcing. But trusting the strategy you’ve built and giving it the space to actually perform.

Resources Mentioned

1. Book a CEO Strategy Call
2. Learn more about The Missing Piece Intensive
3. Learn more about The Focused Visionary Accelerator
4. Join Back Pocket Insights
5. Download the FREE Lead and Conversion Tracker
6. 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

Hey everyone, I've got a really special episode for you today.

What you are going to be hearing on today's podcast is actually two or three episodes from my private podcast called Back Pocket Insights.

Some of you probably don't even know that I have a private podcast because I don't talk about it a lot.

And that's why I wanted to start sharing it with you guys here on the pod.

This, these episodes are part of my Back Pocket Insights community.

It's my low ticket community.

The link is in the show notes.

You can absolutely jump in on this.

This is like my networking community.

And in addition to the monthly training that we do, I also have this private podcast directly for the members of that community.

And a lot of these episodes are very much driven from questions received inside of the community.

So they're a little bit like private coaching episodes.

And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to bring them on the main pod and just kind of share with you once a month or so some of the most popular episodes from that previous month that the members were loving and talking about and resonating with.

So that's what you're getting today.

I hope you enjoy it.

I would love to see you inside of Back Pocket Insights.

If you want access to these private podcast episodes, if you want to ask questions where you can get your question answered in a private podcast episode, you can do all of that inside of Back Pocket Insights as well as network with a community of over 50 women and men, there's men there too and you know, learn.

There's always a training every single month or some type of challenge or something that we are focused on to move the needle in our businesses.

And so anyways, enjoy these episodes and I will see you and talk to you soon.

We're hearing a lot lately about this trust economy, right?

And so people are talking a lot about this.

And here's my quick little take on this is I have a lot of thoughts around the trust economy, but here's what I think is the biggest shift that has happened in most recent years is that there are people are still buying people.

We've always done business with people we trust.

Here's the difference is that there were years, the COVID years, 20, 21, 22, some of 23, where people could go from awareness to decision.

So I talk a lot about pipeline, making sure that you have your pipeline set up in all these different steps, right?

So like somebody moves, they become aware of you, then they move to the like interested in learning more and then they're considering whether or not they want to work with you and then they move to a decision.

And here I think is the biggest shift is that during those Covid years or for the past several years, right.

People were moving from awareness to decision very quickly.

There was no need, like there was not a lot of interest, consideration happening, nor was there a need for you as a business owner to do a lot of activity or action in those areas of your pipeline because people were kind of just making fast decisions.

And so we got very used to that.

However, that is not typically normal, right?

Like, that is typically not how business has been done for years.

People usually stalk something, they watch it, they wait for a referral, they kind of show up to a free event, they maybe show up to something where it's like you can try before you buy or like a low ticket thing, like even in person, right.

A lot of times we watch something for quite a while before we pull the trigger and actually say yes and build and like go and pay the money or whatever.

So what I want you to think about is that are you still operating from a place of assuming people are going to move from.

Oh my gosh, I just, I just learned about who you are to sign me up, right?

Awareness to decision, where they're kind of skipping those in between steps of like doing nurturing and being able to like show interest and then being able to like tell you they're considering it again.

You never know.

Like, you can't control your pipeline completely, but what you can control is making sure that you have these steps in play so that people can move through your pipeline in the whatever speed and in whatever format they need.

There will still always be people that move and make decisions very quickly, but not, it's just not going to be as normal as it once was during those, those three years there of the, the pandemic.

So anyway, I just wanted to kind of put that out there because I've been having the conversation a lot with a lot of clients in the sense of like, what are the steps that you are taking people through to help them to make that decision, to help them to consider it, to get them interested.

Right?

And for most people this is the missing step and this is what we're talking about.

And especially in fva, almost everybody's got these missing stages in their business.

This is, I'm having the conversation one to one and in fva and so I wanted to share that here with you so I would really take a look at if you're feeling like why aren't people converting, I would look and see.

Do you have gaps in your pipeline where you're expecting people to move from?

Oh, my God.

I just felt like I just realized you existed and I just learned about you to hire me.

And if so, what things can you put in play to kind of incrementally increase that trust, that experience, that giving them a.

A taste of what it's like to work with you so that they can move through it and make a more educated decision?

Because that's what I think it is.

It's not about lack of trust.

It's just that people are taking time to make more educated decisions, and they can't make educated decisions if they don't have data points to make those decisions from.

Right.

So that's really what it really comes down to.

And so take a look at your own pipeline and see if you feel like there's some spots missing there.

Okay, I've got an analogy for you today.

I've been having a lot of conversations.

When I jump on coffee chats, people always ask me if the plants behind me in my videos are real.

And it always inevitably turns into like, oh, I've got a brown thumb, or I don't have a green thumb.

I can't keep plants alive at all.

And so the conversation I usually have is like, that used to be me.

But what I figured out is that plants really don't like to be watered near as much as we think they do.

And when you actually just kind of ignore them, they do better.

And I was thinking about this from a business perspective because I think sometimes in business, we over water things.

We.

And we over water them so much that they end up dying or falling off, and we're like, what the hell?

I'm putting all this time and effort into it.

Why is it not growing?

Right?

And sometimes it can't grow because you literally have over watered it.

And so I think this applies to following up.

And I'm a big fan of following up.

So I want to make sure that I'm super clear on this.

What I mean by is like, are you giving people the time and space to make decisions?

Right.

Sometimes it.

When people start to feel like there's a desperate energy around it, then sometimes they're like they're getting over watered, right?

And I think sometimes if you feel like your pipeline is not that big and you're kind of nurturing only a few leads at a time, we tend to do this.

I know that I have done this.

I have over watered people where I'm like, hey, hey, just wanted to check back in.

Hey, just, you know, following up with you, I said I would do this.

Do you want to come here?

Do you want to go do that?

Right?

I found myself more recently even doing that with a recent connection.

And I thought, you know what, Michelle, like, you've watered her, like, let it dry up a little bit, right?

But I find that we do this even with our content, and we think we've got to put more out there.

We've got to put more out there.

We think we've got to do it with our offers, right?

Where we're constantly feeling like we've got to water, water, water.

We've heard this, this state saying before about like, you need to plant seeds and then let them harvest, right?

And take time to let them harvest.

And sometimes it's like it just takes time.

And so, keeping with the plant analogies, I'll give you another little analogy, is that I've been trying to propagate my money tree.

So I have a, a money tree that I have been trying to propagate since December.

And I've been using, I send it pictures and it's got all this calcification on it.

And I was like getting super impatient because a lot of my other plants that I have propagated, they propagate much faster.

They grow roots in water much faster.

And this money tree just is not growing roots.

And so I was like, the other day I was like, I'm just going to plant the damn thing.

Like, I sent a picture to AI Gemini and I was like, I'm just going to plant this.

And they, it said like, you can plant it, but the chances of it living are, are not good.

Like it doesn't have the roots that you need to be put into dirt.

And so I was like, fine.

And so I put it back in the sun up in my windowsill and I just like forgot about it.

I'm like, I'm just going to leave it sit there, like at this point, like, whatever.

If it grows roots, great.

If it doesn't, I'm not out anything.

But I've literally been like checking on this thing pretty much every, a couple, every couple days since December.

I'm over it, right?

And all of a sudden it has roots.

Right.

Again, I really, you know, I had an episode on here about releasing the pressure.

And this is very similar too, right?

Like, you sometimes just can't make.

Move faster in your business.

And more water, more content, more follow up, more, more of whatever is not always the right answer.

Sometimes you just have to let things grow in their own time frame, right?

And sometimes you need to just let it rest a little bit and give it time to do its thing.

And that comes, you know, play with people.

That comes in, play with content, Right.

Like, the amount of times I've talked to people that are like, especially with content marketing, like, expecting it to yield results overnight.

And if it doesn't, it's like, oh, maybe I need to show up more.

Maybe I need to show up more.

Maybe I need to show up more.

No, really, you don't.

Right?

You just need to give it time.

You need to give it the time to do its thing in the environment.

To do its thing.

So, anyway, kind of a weird analogy.

Hopefully you gain something from it.

I think there's a lot.

If you really think about it, I would ask yourself, like, where are you over watering?

Like, is there something that you are over watering right now that you need to just let it dry up and give it a little bit of time to grow and do its thing?

Because we all always want things to move faster in our business, but sometimes the best thing that we can do is just take our foot off the gas, stop watering it, and let it grow.

Okay.

All right, I'll talk to you later.