Webinar summary: “What if Selling Revealed You!”

Organized by Christine Marlet -Global Women Hub Board Director

Speakers: Céline Monnier-Gillette, Diretcirce génnérale vente directe and Dr Murielle Thézenas, business coach, creator of ©LoveClosing,

Céline approaches sales through the prism of direct selling and female emancipation. Backed by exceptional experience – over 10,000 salespeople under her management and sales of up to 450 million euros – she shares a deeply human vision of the profession.

For her, direct selling is above all a formidable lever for the emancipation of women, including those without qualifications or self-confidence. She recounts having seen shy women, hiding behind a pole at a meeting, radically transformed within a year: new look, new confidence, new life. Selling, she says, reveals strengths that the women didn’t even know they had.

It focuses on three essential pillars:

1. Know your customer’s needs. The best pitch in the world is useless if you don’t know what the person in front of you wants. She takes the simple example of someone who doesn’t like chocolate: even a 75% promotion won’t make them buy. The customer relationship always takes precedence over the sales pitch.
2. Careful relationship and follow-up. Customers never spontaneously call to order. It’s up to the salesperson to reach out to them, to follow up sincerely and regularly – not just when you need to sell. This genuine follow-up naturally generates co-optations and orders. She cites the inspiring example of a jewelry saleswoman who slipped a personalized note into every box, delivering up to 300 boxes a week, and who was the best saleswoman in France.
3. Identify your differentiating factor. In a saturated market – especially coaching – you have to find what makes you stand out. It doesn’t have to be something extraordinary: it can be your attentiveness, your audacity, your way of being. Céline even advises you to ask those around you to find out, because others can often see better than we can what makes us unique.

On the question of price, it’s straightforward: a price that’s too low devalues both the service and the seller. If an offer has value, it must be priced accordingly. She goes so far as to say: if you have a problem with money, volunteer – but don’t pretend to be an entrepreneur.

Finally, she reminds us that the salesperson is the conductor of the orchestra, not the beggar. It’s the salesperson who sets the pace, sets the limits and leads the way. To let yourself be stepped on is not only to harm yourself, but also to lose all commercial credibility.

Murielle is a business coach, the creator of ©LoveClosing, and treats sales “ills”.

The ©LoveClosing is a unique method she created to teach women entrepreneurs (coaches, consultants, trainers, freelancers…) to sell ethically, aligned, assertively and without manipulation.

Ranked among the top 15 coaches in Paris in 2023, she has coached over 800 women in their relationship with sales.

Its starting point is philosophical: everything is a sale. A conversation, a marriage, a religious conviction – everything is based on an exchange of values between two people. To understand this is to desacralize and de-dramatize sales.

Love Closing is based on three levels of love:

1. Loving yourself. It’s the absolute foundation. Murielle overturns the classic “customer is king” dogma: in her approach, the entrepreneur is at the center. When you’re not aware of your worth, when you don’t feel legitimate, you can’t sell with peace of mind. Working on your self-esteem, confidence and self-assurance means working directly on your sales. Sales then become magnetic: you naturally attract the right customers.
2. Respecting others. Because we respect ourselves, we respect our prospects. This means taking the time to understand their real needs, listening actively, and sometimes recognizing that you’re not the right solution for them – and not forcing, let alone manipulating. The sales meeting is like a date: you don’t close the deal right away, you discover each other first. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay.
3. Love what you offer the world. You have to be proud of your offer to talk about it with conviction. Too many women love their mission but don’t really love their company. But it’s the company – and therefore the sale – that makes it possible to accomplish this mission. The two must be aligned.

On the technical side, Murielle focuses on the closing stage, the pivotal moment when the prospect becomes a customer. In particular, she works on :

• Anticipating objections: 80% of objections are predictable. List them and turn them into selling points. The “it’s too expensive” becomes an opportunity to talk about value.
• Qualification: budget, urgency, commitment. Only present your offer to people who are really ready. Out of 10 appointments, you may only convert 3 or 4 – but with a closing rate close to 100%, because you’ve made the right selection.
• Personalized presentation (sales pitch, negotiation, rocking the boat…): you don’t present your offer, you present the solution that’s exactly right for the person. “We present the baby that’s just like him.
• The right to say no: Murielle recounts turning down a client with a perfect financial profile, but whose behavior (4 previous coaching sessions, all criticized) was a red flag. Knowing how to say no means protecting the quality of your client portfolio and your own energy.

When it comes to price, his position is in line with Céline’s, but goes even further: price isn’t justified, it’s embodied. It needs to be the subject of real strategic reflection – in relation to the market, its different offerings, its positioning. And if the price bothers you internally, it will show. So you need to work on your relationship with money, your awareness of its value… as much as your sales techniques.

In conclusion, for Murielle, selling is an act of leadership and responsibility.

It’s not suffering, it’s creating. It’s not begging, it’s providing a solution to real pain. And when a woman understands that, she not only sells better, she reveals herself.