Why “Just Sell More” Is Almost as Useless as “Just Give More Value”

Are we supposed to spend our days lovingly nurturing everyone with helpful content until they eventually decide to buy something? Or should we stop faffing around, slap the link on our Stories and tell people to get their credit cards out? 😂

I think both pieces of advice have the same problem: they tell you what to do without asking why you’re doing it.

Because sometimes giving value is exactly what your content needs to do. Sometimes you absolutely need to sell more. And sometimes neither is going to fix the actual reason people aren’t buying.

👀 What Does This Person Need From You Right Now?

Imagine someone has just discovered your account.

They’ve landed on a Reel, they have absolutely no idea who you are, and within thirty seconds you’re asking them to buy something they don’t yet understand for a problem they’re not even sure they have.

“Just sell more” probably isn’t particularly useful advice there.

Now imagine someone else has followed you for six months. They read everything you post, watch your Stories, download your freebies and regularly reply telling you how helpful you are.

But you barely mention what you sell.

Does that person really need another free tutorial?

Probably not.

They might actually need you to sell.

That’s why I don’t think the interesting question is:

“Should I give value or should I sell?”

The more useful question is:

“What is stopping this person from taking the next step?”

Because that answer tells you what your content needs to do.

🧠 Not Every Buyer Is Missing the Same Thing

This is where selling gets much more interesting than simply following a content formula.

One person might not fully recognise their problem yet. Another knows exactly what their problem is but doesn’t realise there’s a different way to solve it.

Someone else might already want the result you sell, but they’re not convinced your particular offer is the right way to get there.

And another person might be completely ready. They understand the problem, want the result, trust you and would happily buy — if you’d actually tell them what the bloody offer is. 😂

Those people don’t need the same content.

Giving all four of them more value isn’t automatically the answer.

Selling harder to all four of them isn’t either.

The better you understand what’s happening in the buyer’s head, the easier it becomes to work out what your content actually needs to accomplish.

📚 Sometimes “Value” Should Create Recognition, Not Another To-Do List

I think one of the reasons give value has become such confusing advice is because we tend to interpret value as teaching.

So we give people steps. Tips. Checklists. Tutorials. How-tos. More things they can go away and do.

There’s nothing wrong with educational content, but value can do something else too.

It can make someone recognise themselves.

Imagine you sell something that helps people create better Instagram Stories. You could write another post containing ten Story ideas.

Useful? Absolutely.

Or you could describe the exact experience of opening Instagram every morning, staring at the blank Story screen, posting something random because you know you’re supposed to “show up,” and then suddenly throwing your offer onto slide seven because you remembered you’re also supposed to sell.

The second piece might teach them less.

But it could make them think:

“Oh shit. That’s exactly what I do.”

And that recognition has value because now they understand their problem differently.

You haven't necessarily given them another thing to do.

You've given them something to see.

💸 Sometimes Selling Is the Most Useful Thing You Can Do

The reverse is true too.

If someone already understands their problem and wants help solving it, continuing to drown them in free information isn’t necessarily serving them.

At some point, you have to show them the solution.

Tell them what you sell. Explain who it’s for. Show them what problem it helps with. Talk about why you chose it. Answer the questions that might be stopping them. Give them a link and let them make a decision.

Selling doesn’t automatically become sleazy because money is involved.

Sometimes the next useful piece of information genuinely is:

“I have something that can help you with this.”

The problem comes when we treat selling itself as the strategy.

Posting your link more often doesn’t fix unclear messaging. Adding another “BUY NOW” slide doesn’t fix an offer your audience doesn’t understand. And telling someone there are only three hours left doesn’t create desire that wasn’t there in the first place.

Selling is an action. Understanding what your buyer needs before they act is the skill underneath it.

🔍 Try This Instead of Asking “Value or Sell?”

Before you create your next piece of content, decide what needs to happen in the person’s head after they consume it.

Maybe they need to recognise something.

They need to realise, “Wait, I’m doing that.”

Maybe they need to understand something.

They’ve been blaming their lack of views when the bigger problem is what happens after they get the view.

Maybe they need to want something.

Not simply understand that your product exists, but actually see why the outcome matters to them.

Maybe they need to believe something.

That the problem can be solved. That the solution makes sense. That it could work for someone in their situation.

Or maybe they’re already there.

They just need you to make the offer.

That gives you a much better starting point for content than blindly deciding you need to nurture more this week because somebody on Threads told you to.

🌶️ The Skill Underneath All of This? Sales Psychology

The more I look at selling this way, the less interested I am in rigid rules about how much value to give or how often to pitch.

I’m much more interested in what makes people move.

Why does one person see an offer and immediately think, “That’s exactly what I need,” while someone else scrolls straight past it?

Why does one way of describing a problem make somebody recognise themselves while another gets ignored?

What creates desire? What creates hesitation? What builds trust? What helps someone feel confident enough to make a decision?

Those questions sit underneath the content itself.

This is what The Secret Sauce is really about: understanding what’s happening in the buyer’s head before they ever hit “buy.”

It digs into the sales and buyer psychology underneath your content and messaging — including things like desire, curiosity, positioning and the reasons people make buying decisions.

It’s less about handing you another rule like “post this many times” and more about understanding the person on the other side of the screen.

Because once you understand that, you can make much better decisions about when to teach, when to shift someone’s perspective, when to build desire and when to simply say:

“Here’s the thing. You can buy it here.” 😂

So, Should You Give Value or Sell More?

There isn’t one answer because your audience isn’t standing in one place.

Some people need to recognise the problem. Some need a new perspective. Some need to understand the solution. Some need more reason to want it.

And some genuinely just need you to stop hiding the bloody link. 😂

So rather than choosing a camp, I’d start paying more attention to the buyer.

Ask what they need to think, understand or believe next and create your content from there.

Because “give more value” and “sell more” are instructions.

Understanding why someone buys tells you when either one actually makes sense.

If that’s the part of marketing you want to get better at too, The Secret Sauce is the resource I’m using to dig much deeper into it.

👉 CHECK OUT THE SECRET SAUCE 🌶️

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