Diario di un consulente • Passodue

Engaging the Heart in Business

The English version of our book Business in Love has been available in all countries for a few weeks now, with a very charming title: Engaging the Heart in Business: A Revolutionary Market Approach Based On Love. I take this opportunity to reflect on the reasons that led us to write this text, which are deeply connected to the social and economic changes that we are experiencing - including the pandemic, the lockdown, the shift to remote working - and to the way we are facing these new challenges, seizing their evolutionary opportunities.

28/09/2020

Human skills

Punctuality as a choice: maintaining elegant and efficient relationships

While walking in the streets of Milan we came across an advertising poster of a well-known tailoring company, which said “A gentleman knows the value of time”. This expression made us think about an important issue: the value of punctuality. This healthy but often neglected habit, which Calvino described as necessary to social order, not only has the power of making our days more productive, but it can also add respect and elegance to our relationships. Here are some tips to learn how to be punctual and some of the resulting advantages.

21/09/2020

Business in Love

Story telling, story making, story living: bringing your values to life

Summer 2020 started with a mixture of impatient desire for payback and fear for what the following months would actually have in store for us. On the basis of these emotions, it seems that the majority of Italians opted for short journeys to rediscover the local beauties: a kind of holiday which is much the same as our fathers’, who “were just happy” to spend their holidays visiting their distant relatives, going for car trips or reading a good book under a beach umbrella. We believe that, after all, this might have been a good thing as slowdown, return to traditions and time spent with family can play a very important role in making us reappreciate our true essence and values, giving us the opportunity to literally see them in action and perhaps teaching us something useful about our jobs and our way of approaching the market! And that’s why…

31/08/2020

Guest posts

On the way to the future: Italian holidays in 2020 as seen by a true professional

Gianluca Manuzzi is CEO and co-owner of Viaggi Manuzzi Srl one of the top 5 travel agencies in Italy (source Sole24Ore). He also serves on the board of directors of Travel Specialist Srl, which is composed of 20 of the greatest business travel companies, with a cumulated turnover of more than €150 million. In addition, he is a member of the Welcome Travel tourism committee, which brings together more than 1,000 of the approximately 8,500 agencies operating in our country. Therefore we think Gianluca is the most qualified person to answer a number of questions about the tourism sector and to give us some advice on how to best manage a holiday in 2020.

27/07/2020

Best of sales calls

Cold calling: soliciting new business

In this article we are going to examine the 4 elements we consider strategic for designing and implementing successful telemarketing activities, and see how to combine them to achieve even more effective results.

13/07/2020

Best of price

Promotions: what they are, what they are used for and when to launch them

January and July are usually the best months for promotions. However in this "strange" market period it is not uncommon to see “sale” signs in the shop windows, or to come across discount offers, 3×2 deals or similar reductions – which are all aimed at supporting demand and restarting the markets. This is why I’ve decided to propose an article on this matter, in order to explain why, when and how to use promotions.

15/06/2020

Guest posts

A wake up call

We have contacted Carolina and Pietro, who are great experts of the world of luxury and of the market dynamics related to it, to ask their opinion about the future of this sector and, by extension, about the tastes and trends of post-coronavirus consumers.

01/06/2020

Sales Ethics

I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

“Is it necessary to always tell the truth when dealing with clients?” this is one of the most common questions we receive from those who take part in our courses. As the creators of the Sales Ethics method, our only answer should be “Of course!”. In fact it is not so easy to be always completely sincere with clients. Not so much because of the budget and sales targets we need to achieve; in fact sometimes expressing our personal opinion can prove useless, if not detrimental to our clients. Let’s see how and when this might happen, and analyse what serving the truth really means!

04/05/2020

Business in Love

Business as (un)usual: facing the challenge of change

“Business as usual” is an American expression used to stress how in economics things are always expected to go on in spite of everything. Personally we have never agreed with this point of view: in business (as we intend it in Passodue) the concept of “usual” should not even exist, neither in good times nor during emergencies. In order to survive in modern markets, business models should adapt to the variation of situations and interlocutors. Therefore let’s try and seize this opportunity to make innovations and evolve: the only certainty in what we are experiencing is change.

14/04/2020

Best of ethical leadership

Manual for Ethical Leaders – Chapter 4: providing solutions

Companies, as evolving ecosystems, need changes and modifications in order to improve. Here are some considerations about how leaders deal with internal tensions.

23/03/2020