I’d like to say a warm and hearty welcome to everyone to 2011. While 2010 promised so much, and delivered so little (besides a successful World Cup and lots of corporate restructuring), the forthcoming year has not enjoyed such fanfare.

At Sokolic Property Group we learnt a few lessons this last year, lessons you will always learn working in a commission based industry. By far the biggest lesson was about how to stretch a budget. We weren’t so particularly badly hit by our revenues. Overall we experienced a downturn of around 30% in 2010, but rather we were pretty badly affected by the late payment of accounts by clients of ours rightly or not claiming bad cash flow. This has forged a lot of inner will amongst us I’m sure, with all of us feeling the pinch.

Personally I’m far more comfortable with a non expectant, ‘slow’ start to 2011. It’s usually such years that surprise you. Already our marketing engine is purring along nicely and our marketing team is quietly excited about the prospects this year brings.

Of course the Internet has been a massive leveler in recent years when it comes to marketing. Now individuals with good marketing ideas have the ability to reach thousands in a viral manner, at a fraction of the cost of traditional channels of marketing. At Sokolic Property Group we have a well studied and carefully thought out marketing strategy which has served us very well over the last 5 years. This year we intend adding a few strings to this bow, so the sales / leasing people need to brace themselves for what will hopefully be higher levels of enquiries and business opportunities. For 5 years now we have shown positive growth year on year with regards to incoming enquiries and we expect this year to be no different.

Speaking of 5 years, on January 25th this year Sokolic Property Group will be 6 years old. When we first started out we were a couple of guys sitting around in a room with a laptop and a cellphone and a lot of ideas. Its a great feeling to see how in a few shorts years that team has expanded 10 fold and we now have the largest private database of commercial property related information and the largest commercial web site in the country in www.commercial-property.co.za.

In closing, I’d like to say how exciting it is to do business in South Africa and how fortunate we are as commercial property brokers to be involved in the opening of so many small to medium enterprises. These enterprises represent the true entrepreneurial spirit of our country and its always a pleasure to be at the coal face in this regard. To our team, remember we are more than just brokers, we are often the first(free!) level of support a small business gets in their life.

Lets make sure that this year we remember this and give our customers the best service, with the best information, in the best time possible and with the best intentions.

Good Luck for 2011!

Joe Sokolic, Owner, Sokolic Property Group

For more information or advice on buying, selling or letting commercial property in South Africa Contact SOKOLIC PROPERTY GROUP on 021 554 4847 (national call centre) or visit our Contact Page here to view individual brokers’ contact details.