Conclusions

The Second Step

I am grateful to the many, many people who have helped me. I cherish the hope that by helping me they have received something in return that they would not otherwise have found.

—Lorenzo Cherubini, Gratitude

We are sitting on the grass at the Harvard campus with our computers on our laps. It’s a wonderful day in Boston and we feel happy and lucky to be here. Our period of stay is drawing to a close, but we know it’s only the beginning of the adventure that binds us to the town that led us to write this book.

Everyone we met has given us something, whether it was content, ideas, or the motivation to continue. It was difficult at times, but hard work becomes something extra special when you give shape to a project shared with the people you love.

Over the months, we read a mountain of books and then prepared carefully for each meeting and each interview with weeks of hard work. Nevertheless, we are together, and the boundaries between our professional and private lives are sometimes so blurred so that it no longer seems like work—we find ourselves discussing the contents of the book while we cook, when we prepare lessons, or while we sit out on the lawn.

It might seem inadvisable to mix leisure and work—there’s always the risk that you never fully unwind—but we love what we do and are happy to do it together. Seen this way, we don’t need a respite, in fact we rather enjoy getting ever more caught up in our project! Perhaps this is the secret we would like to pass on to you as you read our book: If you give yourself the chance to do a job you love and respect your values, you will merge your professional and personal goals. Indeed, we believe this is the real secret of success, well-being, and ultimately, happiness.

It may all seem easier now that we recognize our true needs, but getting here was no easy task. There were times when it was such an uphill struggle that we thought our heart, lungs, and legs would give out on us.

Happiness, and the success that comes from it, has to be achieved through daily training, which allows you to develop the skills and expertise needed to win in life and at work. You could consider Sales Ethics as our personal notebook of training exercises.

We hope that you also—by accustoming yourself to recognizing and respecting your idea of value and that of others day after day—can shape first your mind, then your instincts, and finally your soul to think and act in an ethical way and become a promoter of shared well-being.

Our original business idea is now a prospering enterprise with a broad portfolio of clients and an agenda packed with courses and consultancies, which means our future looks bright. Every year we meet thousands of people (salespeople, directors, experts and professionals in various fields) and our blog www.diariodiunconsulente.com has an increasing number of followers.³⁴ But we know we can’t rest on our laurels, and we must be ready to meet further tests and challenges.

We called our professional partnership Passodue (step two) because we wanted to emphasize the fact that we are a couple whose personal and professional lives are bonded together, that each enhances the contribution of the other, and that being together gives sense to what we do.

Passodue also reminds us that the second step is often more important and more demanding than the first, as we are forced to cast off from our haven to set sail for new waters where our ideas can take form. All too often, people make an exciting start, but then they find their passions and actions washed up on the rocks of reality and what may seem as rationality is no more than an ill-concealed pessimism.

We want this book to help you take that second step so you may finally set out along your very own personal road to happiness, success, and fulfilment, with no looking back.

Enjoy your work and thank you for your trust!

Alice and Alberto

P.S. But what happened to Renato?

Renato has become an ethical salesperson and his business is thriving. He no longer needs to be aggressive in his relationships with colleagues and senior personnel or to force customers to buy by making false promises or adding discounts: All his relationships are based on ethics. Initially, this change of approach was a concern to everyone at Joy Motor who feared he would lack the required determination to attack the market and lead to a further drop in sales. His boss actually called him in to ask, “What’s happening? You’d better squeeze your prospects harder if you want to reach your target at the end of the month.” But Renato did not give in and continued to evolve and implement his method of Sales Ethics successfully. It did not take long for the results to show he was right! Soon other sellers were turning to him for advice, and the entire company has since decided to adopt an ethical approach to customer relations. In short, our salesperson has managed to change Joy Motor from below, both greatly improving sales and enhancing morale and motivation in general.

Renato’s evolution and growing awareness have led him to appreciate his talents and recognize his limits, taking responsibility for his own level of success, which in turn has stimulated his entrepreneurship. This moved him to take over the dealership where he started out his professional career becoming an entrepreneur. Thanks to his efforts, skills, and abilities, he has been able to turn his new dealership into one of the most valuable parts of the Joy Motor network.

His new commitments still leave him time for the personal contact with customers that he enjoys, sometimes assisting one of the young sellers whom he trains.

Occasionally, someone or something reminds him of his days in Milan, and Renato smiles thankfully now aware of how crucial the experience was in showing him where his real ambitions lay.

³⁴ To be precise, in 2013, the number of readers corresponded to 10 sold out events at Sydney opera house, as the zealous WordPress team was kind enough to inform us.

³⁵ The structure of our Covenant and many of the ideas owe much to the text “The Hippocratic Oath for Business” written by Angel Cabrera, which we came across as transcribed by Leigh Hafrey in his book The Story of Success (2005). Obviously, the text has been completed and adapted to the needs of our book.