I remember sitting at my kitchen table at 11pm, approximately 20 browser tabs open and routinely flipping between three specific tabs: Canva, Gmail, and my notes app “content calendar”/ideas space.

I saw an ad on Instagram and was reinvigorated by their color scheme and wanted to refresh everythingggg. 

Meanwhile in my *other* tab (GMail) I had four unanswered emails from people who wanted to buy something from me. They had questions. Some were previous clients who hadn’t quite said “I want your help with X” – but they had questions and they chose ME to help them. 

Actual humans. With actual money. Ready to say yes. Ready to work with me.

And here I was among the unread-turned-read-turned-on-pause-emails because I told myself I’d “get to it later” and now I was about to dive knee deep in a whole new branding project at 11pm on the weekend.

If you’ve ever caught yourself doing this or some version of this

~ polishing a logo

~ rewriting your Instagram bio for the ninth time

~ agonizing over whether your brand voice is “warm but authoritative” or “playful but credible” 

While halting responses to active DMs from leads who are ready to work with you…and are soon to go cold… ‼️

I need you to hear this the way I wish someone had told me, sitting at that same table, before I lost a few months I’ll never get back:

*I’m going to hold your hands while I say this*

You don’t need to do any [insert random marketing project] right now to see more sales in. What you need to do is meet the leads where they are now and stop procrastinating in the form of “avoidance.”

The RIGHT Order When it Comes to Marketing

Marketing is what you do to get in front of people who don’t know you yet. Sales is what you do with the people who already do. And almost every entrepreneur I know (myself included ~ for a stretch that cost me money)… gets that order backwards.

We treat marketing like the foundation. Like if we just get the visuals right, the messaging tight, the content “on brand,” the sales will just… happen. The algorithm rewarding our good taste. We tell ourselves the story that we’re “building awareness,” which sounds so much more strategic than what’s actually happening, which is… that we’re procrastinating.

Sales is the muscle. Marketing is the outfit. 

I think about the entrepreneurs I know who are quietly doing six and seven figures with genuinely simple websites (or no website at all), inconsistent posting, zero “brand strategy” to speak of – just showing up, sharing expertise, and talking *how* to work with them now. 

A gorgeous feed grid and the perfect launch graphics can only do so much, truly,

And aesthetics is typically not the deciding factor. 

You want to get comfortable asking for money and a little less comfy with adding more marketing effort to your list (that just ends up being “busy work).

So why do we often reach for marketing?

I think it’s because it feels and looks like progress without asking anything of us emotionally. 

Choosing a font doesn’t require you to get on a call and hear “no.” 

Writing a caption doesn’t require you to send the follow-up text that might get left on read. 

Marketing lets you stay in the safety of “putting stuff out there” instead of the vulnerability of “asking for the sale” and sitting in the silence that follows while someone decides.

There’s also this sneaky belief a lot of us picked up somewhere (maybe from watching big, glossy brands?)…

That selling is something you do after you’re established… 

That you need permission first…

Enough followers, enough polish, enough “authority.” 

So we spend our early months (or years) building the permission slip instead of building the business. But six-figure businesses are built by people who got uncomfortable early, often, and on purpose, long before anything about their brand felt “ready.”

I had a mentor once tell me something that reframed this completely: “Nobody has ever bought a font choice. They buy a transformation, sold to them by a person they trust enough to hand money to.” That’s it. That’s the whole game. The transformation has to exist and be real, and someone has to actually offer it to a human being, out loud, and ask for the yes. 

Everything else is set dressing.

Here’s how I’d actually do this differently if I were rebuilding right now:

Note: this is close to the exact sequence I use with clients when we’re trying to get unstuck fast. You can learn more about the way I work with clients, here.

1. Start with the people who already raised their hand

Before you write one more piece of content for strangers, go back through your DMs, your email replies, and your “let’s circle back” conversations. 

There is very likely money sitting in your inbox right now, waiting on a follow-up you’ve been avoiding because it feels awkward or because too much time has passed and now it feels “weird” to reach back out. 

Not perfectly worded – just sent! A simple “hey, this has been on my mind – is this still something you want to explore?” outperforms a beautifully written/perfected reply every single time. Your following up with a lead who’s already warm.

2. Get on calls before you get on camera

I know Reels feel more urgent and top-of-funnel – you see a trend and think I have to film this to get more eyes on my content and in turn my funnel. I hear you! BUT – an honest, direct, sales conversation will do more for you, right now.

Inside these sales calls you’ll get clarity on:

• The exact hesitation in someone’s voice when you mention your price. 
• Which part of your pitch makes their eyes light up versus which part makes them go quiet. 

Drafting your newest carousel or trending reel can’t teach you that. Only real sales conversation can. 

And the best part? That sales feedback language becomes your marketing later – so, you’re not skipping marketing, you’re earning the right to do it well, with words that actually land because you heard them from a real person’s mouth first.

3. Build an offer people can say yes to today. 

If you can’t sell it in a DM or on a 15-minute call right now, it’s not ready to be marketed – it’s still an idea, and ideas don’t pay rent. 

Strip it down to the smallest, most sellable version of the transformation you offer, and sell that version first. 

You can build the deluxe edition once you know people actually want it.

4. Let your content come from your sales conversations, not the other way around. 

The objections people give you on calls? That’s your next carousel. The exact words a client used to describe their pain before working with you? That’s your next email subject line. The moment someone said “wait, I didn’t realize it worked like that” – that’s your next piece of content, verbatim. 

Sales generates the raw material. 

Marketing just packages it and sends it further. When you flip the order, your content stops sounding like everyone else’s content, because it’s coming from real rooms with real people instead of from what you imagine your audience might be thinking.

5. Track conversations, not impressions. 

For thirty days, stop counting likes and start counting: 

• How many people did I actually talk to about working with me? 
• How many DMs turned into a real conversation? 
• How many conversations turned into an offer? 
• How many offers turned into a yes? 

That number will tell you more about your business’s health than any analytics dashboard, and it will show you exactly where the leak is – whether it’s that you’re not starting enough conversations, or you’re starting plenty and freezing before the ask, or you’re asking and not following up.

6. Get okay with the awkward middle. 

This is the part nobody puts on a worksheet. There’s a stretch – right after you send the message, right before you get the reply – where your stomach drops a little and your brain starts narrating worst-case scenarios. 

That feeling is a sign you’re doing the thing that actually moves the needle. 

The entrepreneurs who get good at sales are the ones who kept sending the message anyway.

What does all of this mean?

Does this mean marketing doesn’t matter? No, it matters enormously – but the order is important. 

You’ll sell so much better and faster when you’re amplifying an offer with language and positioning that already converts – instead of trying to manufacture desire out of nothing but nicer graphics, new colors, or a fancy new handwritten font.

So, sell first. Get uncomfortable first. Have the real conversations first. 

Then build the beautiful front facing ecosystem (Instagram, website, graphics, etc) around what you now know sells – because you heard it…in your own DMs, your own calls, and straight from the people who said ‘yes.’

If this hit a nerve or you read along with a guilty/called out conscience because you recognized yourself, knee-deep, in that kitchen table moment… tabs open, DMs and emails unanswered ~ I go so much deeper on this over on my free, private podcast, WTF is Happening Online. It’s the unfiltered version of everything I can’t always say in captions, blog, and newsletters. Come have a listen!