Sasa Djokovic, sales manager at Grohe Adria for Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia – Give it your all

(Sasa Djokovic) In business, as in life, you needs to give it your all, and the results will follow. This is how Sasa Djokovic, the sales manager at Grohe Adria for the territory of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, explains what motivates him in his 20-year-long career.

The results and employment in the leading world producer and supplier of sanitary equipment have led to our interviewee's being put in charge of new tasks several months ago.

– Since April 1, following the reorganization of Grohe AG, I've been put in charge of the sale of our products to installers in the countries of Northern and Eastern Europe. This is a large territory and a very interesting area for doing business. It is usual to get new markets when you're making results, and our results in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro are remarkable. We are also market leaders within the European boundaries.

When he came to the company, he was put in charge of the distribution network.

– We have increased the number of points of sale from 50 to 200. The distribution network has changed, since Grohe is a dynamic company which adjusts itself to the market. We are growing rapidly in Macedonia, establishing a distribution network and tracking the projects. Last year's result in Montenegro has provided us with a good foundation for this year's results.

An excellent student and a mechanical engineer, he has built his career in local and foreign companies.

He is the most proud of his wife and his sons Luka (13) and Kosta (7).

– I am dedicated to my family and this is my foundation, their support is truly important to me. I started dating my future wife at the beginning of my studies. It was a great love, and still is. We met in 1991 and haven't let go of each other since. We are trying to teach our children proper values, to be polite and well-behaved. I also find my friends invaluable.

Uzice

Sasa Djokovic was born in 1972 in Uzice. His parents and his brother Dejan still live there.

– I spent my childhood in Uzice, where I finished elementary and high school. Life there was happy and we lived at a relaxed pace the likes of which will probably never come back. There was time for everything and studying came first. When I compare my childhood with how my sons are growing up, I can say that I spent my childhood playing with children from my parents' families, school friends and birthdays were a very important thing. We chose gifts for our friends carefully, whether it was a book or a small toy. It was quite a different time.

He remembers that they used to spend their weekend in the countryside at their grandfathers and grandmothers, working on farms and enjoying it. He says that he never found farm work hard.

– I guess that's the source of my work ethic. I was an excellent student at school and never had trouble there. After the elementary school, I attended the famous Gymnasium of Uzice, where I and several other students were getting straight As. Having such a good foundation, I enrolled at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade. Before enrolling at the faculty, I attempted to enroll at the Military Academy, as per my parents' wishes.

He was not admitted, as he says, due to the rule which said that a certain number of students needed to be admitted from each of the Federal Republics of Yugoslavia.

– I was incredibly lucky, too, as the breakup of Yugoslavia began in 1991, the year I was supposed to enroll, and a lot of bad things happened to the Army, especially outside of Serbia.

He knew what he was going to study back in elementary school. Technical sciences were his default choice.

– I had no affinity for languages or art. Economics was not considered either, as we lived in a country where the industry was highly developed, so I choose to study technical sciences by default. At the time, there was a single entrance exam for all technical faculties, so everyone ended up where they wanted or where they could. I initially wanted it to be electrical engineering, but I ended up studying mechanical engineering and I've never regretted it.

His studies also went by mostly smoothly and he was one of the first in his generation to graduate.

Dreams

– We all have our dreams and illusions, some of which become realized, while others don't. I believed that I would go to America immediately following the graduation and earn my first million before I was 30. This was before I enrolled, and then, during the studies, people of my generation started leaving for America, Canada and Europe in droves. I somehow cooled off towards the idea myself.

Probably one of the reasons was that he got a job in the Srbijamont construction company in Uzice only 10 days after the graduation.

– At the time, Srbijamont was relatively small, but very active, with numerous projects in both Serbia and Russia. I remember that on my first day there, after meeting the colleagues, I went with an older colleague to the construction site of the Pozega Bus Station and was introduced to a group of installers to lead on the project. I realized that reality is rather different from paper and pen, the only tools during the studies. I understood quickly that you could draw and write anything on paper, but when you had to deal with tradesmen at the the construction site, you were playing with a different set of rules and it all became a matter of compromise and adjustment.

In addition to running construction sites in Serbia, he went through all the phases of the preparing quality bids at tenders, as he says.

Once he received his first salary, our interviewee remembers, it was higher than the salaries of his parents combined, which caused him some discomfort.

– It was probably only then that I fully realized how challenging it must have been for my parents to cover all the family expenses while my brother and I were studying in Belgrade. Considering there were periods when I was penniless as a student in Belgrade, eating at the students' cafeteria, I saw the first money I had earned as a sort of compensation and an opportunity to give more to myself than I previously could.

A career in two phases

He divides his business career into two phases – the first one, in which he worked as an engineer, planning and executing projects, and the phase in which he basically deals in sales.

– The switch sort of happened naturally and without any previous intention for it to be that way. After Srbijamont, I founded a family and moved Belgrade. For several months, I worked at Klima M. After that, I started managing the operations of the Belgrade-based company Tehnikomplus. Already at the time, I started turning towards the sales, initially as a combination of thermal and technical installations and selling air-conditioning devices. From there, I moved to Boreaparti d.o.o. as the sales manager. That's when the most important change in my career happened. Since then, I've only worked for foreign companies and all my job positions were basically related to sales. The switch to the Swiss Geberit is a result of my cooperation with the company in the period while I was working at Boreaparti. I stayed there for 8.5 years.

As the technical support manager, he was in charge of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, along with additional responsibilities related to all former Yugoslavian markets.

– Those years were marked by numerous beautiful moments in my life. Geberit became a symbol of certain technical solutions in this area and I believe that my contribution to that was considerable.

At the age of 40, he realized that he needed to switch jobs if he wanted to move forward. That's when he started working for Germany's Grohe.

– It was a very brave decision to move to something new and in a way start establishing Grohe in Serbia at a time when the majority of the market had already been taken. Four years later, the market has changed completely. In a way, there's more awareness of the importance of buying quality, reliable water taps and toilet cisterns. The fact that Grohe products can be found at around 200 retail stores in Serbia and the large number of implemented projects – hotels, residential blocks, business facilities – only prove this.

An optimist

Our interviewee believes that hard and honest work based on expert knowledge must produce results.

– I am an optimist and I love to encourage others, but when I'm alone with myself, I'm realistic and have both feet on the ground. I try to think several steps ahead, especially while doing business.

Still, he says with a certain amount of caution, if you work honestly and give it your all, you are sure to produce good results.

Marija Kambic

GSD Consulting d.o.o. Beograd

Sasa Djokovic

Sasa Djokovic CV

Grohe Adria

Luka Djokovic

Kosta Djokovic

mechanical engineer

economist

sales

Srbijamont

Klima M

Geberit

Boreaparti