"THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF MY ENTREPRENEURIAL CHANGE"

"THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF MY ENTREPRENEURIAL CHANGE." Gianni Larcher's story - Entrepreneur | PANTANO S.R.L. Marble, Onyx and Granite

I've worked in the marble world for many years. I advise on materials and produce items in marble, onyx and granite. It's a hands-on trade, made up of numbers, measurements and specifications, and for a long time my way of communicating with clients was the same: correct, technical, but bare-bones.

My quotes were all much the same: "Thank you for your enquiry, the price for the flooring and cladding is X, the price for the steps is Y, I remain at your disposal, kind regards." But something fundamental was missing: the why, the value, the promise behind those numbers.

With Private that changed. Not overnight, but through ongoing work on Mission, Vision and values. Today every proposal that leaves my company contains an explicit value proposition: what I promise, how I commit, what I bring to the client that's different. It's no longer just a quote – it's a clear statement of identity and positioning.

One of the episodes I most associate with this shift in perspective is the experience with the Hospitality event, born within the community. We found each other around shared values, and on those we built our Mission and Vision for our contract offering. The result was a stand unlike the usual ones, built on a new way of thinking about work in Hospitality: values first, numbers second.

When I asked Combine to help me prepare an outline for a new trade fair appearance, one of the pointers that struck me was to schedule a short briefing with the team every morning at nine to realign on Mission and Vision. Ours is a particular kind of contract work: from the outset we identify all the parties who'll take part in the job, especially on the construction side. Sharing values before talking about prices means creating common ground, both within the team and with visitors to the stand.

At Hospitality this approach really showed: people came to us not just for the product, but because they sensed a clear message. We had worked on the why and the how, not just the what. And, thanks to the Private method, we'd invited people to the fair who were already in line with our values. There was no trick to it, but the effect was a stand that was naturally attractive.

What I didn't expect to find in Private was a genuine cultural and methodological vision of business. Cultural, because it offers a way of looking at your company that's different from the classic training courses and networks I've attended. Methodological, because the path is clear, structured, and stays with you over time.

The phrase "Vision & Mission Driven" has become almost a mantra for me: letting my values guide me towards goals that match my abilities and my ambitions. It's not just a phrase – it's a criterion I now use to make real decisions.

The method works through the Mindset, the LABs, the monthly meetings, and discussion with other entrepreneurs and with the community managers. I've had the chance to receive valuable input from people in other Communities, who came to us bringing tools and perspectives we hadn't picked up on our own. Even a "refresher" on sales, delivered in a direct and practical way: that's not something you find just anywhere.

A key moment for me was the Mindset itself, back when everything was still done on paper. It was two intense days, in which I put myself, my family, my company and my goals on the table. The first version of the Mission and Vision I presented was very technical. At the end, a colleague told me plainly that the Vision wasn't me: I had come across as passionate and emotional, but the Vision itself felt cold. It was firm feedback, one of those "jolts" that make you stop and reflect. I took it on board, redid the Vision, and the second version was recognised as more authentic, more mine.

This kind of honesty is, for me, one of the great values of Private: if someone only tells you "well done" out of politeness, you don't grow. In the community there's the freedom – and almost the duty – to be honest with your peers.

Our own community, Pietra d'Angolo, tells the story of our journey well too. The name came about almost as a joke, the logo from an even bigger joke. And yet we've been walking together for more than a year now. We've changed venue three times; today we meet at the Golf Le Vigne in Villafranca, a more engaging and inspiring setting, suggested partly through group discussion. This change has helped consolidate the group: when the setting is elevated, so is the way people engage with each other.

We're not interested in numbers, we're interested in quality: we want people who want to work on themselves and on their own company, not people who show up to be carried along.

Combine, meanwhile, has become part of my everyday work. I use it to build quotes and presentations, to write letters – like the one for Japan – and to revise tools such as my LinkedIn profile in light of the Mission and Vision. The result is cleaner communication, concise when it needs to be, but far richer in meaning. Anyone who visits my profile today understands what I do, why I do it and what kind of professional I am.

The monthly meetings, the Mindset sessions, the daily "nuggets", the discussion within the community and the use of Combine mean that Private isn't, for me, a simple training experience, but a real presence in the way I do business.

If I had to sum up what Private represents in my story, I'd put it like this: a Vision & Mission Driven method, a community that offers honest feedback, and a journey that shapes you over time, in which human tools and artificial intelligence work together to bring out the best in me and my company.