This is the belief of Kseniia Kuznetcova, who worked in bank sales for many years and then co-founded the vegan chocolate brand MONI Chocolate in Los Angeles, ensuring it was sold on the shelves of one of the most prestigious and demanding markets in the region – Erewhon Market.
In this article, Kseniia shared how she developed her own careful, empathetic, and yet effective product sales strategy, which had worked both in the banking industry and with her own chocolate brand.
Lessons from the Call Center
Kseniia Kuznetcova’s journey began not with chocolate, but with a headset and a list of phone numbers at Rusfinance Bank. In the call center, she followed rigid scripts – greetings, offers, and rehearsed responses. Around her, colleagues pushed quotas, barely noticing who was on the other end of the line.
But Kseniia quickly noticed that something was missing. The human factor was lost, so clients hung up. So she started asking real questions, adapting her tone, and listening to understand the person on the other end of the line, not just selling. This shift became the foundation of her own sales philosophy: empathy first, offers second.
Years later, as a co-founder of MONI Chocolate, she found herself using the same principles. The skills honed in banking – listening, intuition, sincerity – turned out to be essential to creating a brand that unites. As even recent studies, such as the HubSpot report, show, emotional connection drives sales more effectively than pressure. While working in a call center, Kseniia quietly formed a strategy based on attention and trust – a strategy that determined her future success.
Applying Human-Centric Sales to Food Retail
When Kseniia Kuznetcova moved to the US in 2016, she never imagined that her future would be wrapped in gold foil and sweetened with coconut sugar. By 2018, she had begun building MONI Chocolate, a vegan, artisanal brand that would eventually win hearts not just with its taste, but with something deeper: honesty, empathy, and human connection.
At first, Kseniia doubted that her past life in banking – cold calling, financial products, numbers – could teach her anything about chocolate. She quickly realized that some skills transcend industries. It turns out that empathy is just as important in a chocolate shop as it is in a call center.
Kseniia understood that it wasn’t enough to just put the product on the shelf – the chocolate had to speak for itself. She began to shape the voice of MONI through genuine Instagram storytelling and packaging designed to create a personal connection. Each tagline felt like a message from someone who genuinely cared.
Her approach was most evident at tastings and presentations. Kseniia avoided scripts, choosing instead to make an authentic connection with each person, listening and responding in a way that made people want to engage with the product on their own terms.
Kseniia is convinced that before you speak, you must truly see the person in front of you. And only then can your words – or your chocolate – matter.
Chocolate as Dialogue
The conversation with the consumer doesn’t end with words – it continues through packaging, taste, and every sensory detail. That’s why Kseniia Kuznetcova believes that a product should speak as sincerely as its creator.
It’s a philosophy shared by big brands. For example, McDonald’s turned its least popular product in the UK – carrots – into a festive hit by linking it to the warmth of Christmas, resulting in an additional £86 million in revenue. The lesson: emotions and meaning sell better than pushy marketing.
For Kseniia, the goal was never to sell at any cost. First, she listened. Then she learned what chocolate means to people: a sugar-free treat, a moment of care, a well-earned smile. If she had followed a template instead of paying attention, MONI might have blended into the background. But thanks to her listening, the brand came alive through delicate packaging, thoughtful words, and sincere tastings.
Conclusion
Kseniia Kuznetcova has radically changed her field of activity – from online communication with clients at a bank, she has moved to building her own brand of offline craft chocolate. Despite such a spread between fields of activity, she continues to believe in live conversation in business, in a dialogue without templates. Instead of producing a product and putting it on store shelves, waiting for it to be bought or not, she looks deeper into the desires of her clients, their dreams, and the associations she learns from dialogue. This helps to understand why people buy chocolate and what the best ways to present it are.
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