Trajce Nikolov, Sales Manager, is a colleague from the sales department at Pivara Skopje, who joined the Pivarci family in May 2016. He speaks with great pride about how out of more than 150 registered candidates in advertisement at the time, he managed to get the position. And with even greater emotion, he talks about the challenges and experience he has gained over the years.

Through a few short questions, Trajce will tell us his career story at Pivara Skopje, he talks about his personal career growth and development, about the successes he has achieved, about his involvement in the development of his colleagues in his team, as well as about the role he plays today she is in the company.

1. Trajche, you have been part of the Pivarci team for 6 years. You started in the position of Team Leader, where you managed to fight with more than 150 registered candidates. If you had to remember your beginnings, what would you share with the readers?

My story at Pivara begins in May 2016 when I applied to an advertisement for a Team Leader where more than 150 candidates applied. It was quite a challenging period, I remember going through a process that included tests and quite detailed interviews. Since I got the position I was extremely happy and satisfied because they chose me from so many candidates. Like all beginnings, my beginning at Pivara was not easy because I entered directly into the position of Team Leader and had to simultaneously learn the position of Market Promoter and Team Leader, and at the same time lead the team and achieve results. But from this perspective today, I am happy that I had such a start in the company, in which thanks to my professional qualifications and capacities, I was able to cope with the challenges and ready to take over the team with which we managed to achieve excellent results from the very beginning.

• 2. He stayed in this position for 5 years, but you changed two regions. What can you single out as a particularly good experience from this period?

  That’s right, I had the opportunity to lead two wonderful teams of which I am particularly proud, at the beginning I led the team in Strumica for a period of 2 and a half years, which was a period of my adaptation in Pivara as well as the adaptation of the team with me for high achievements. Then in November 2018 I took over the Ohrid team and together with my family we moved to live in Ohrid, there I met many people who are still my dear friends today. What is common to the two teams that I led as Team Leader is that my primary goal was people and their development, and through their development to top results. The experience I gained was quite significant for my professional development as I had the opportunity to see two markets, one extremely developed and the other where everything happens very quickly and depends on the tourist season, as well as our ability as a team to act quickly.

  3. Last year, you acquired a new position, i.e. you became Field Sales Manager. Tell us a little more, what does this position cover, what are your responsibilities and tasks?

  After the wonderful 5 years spent in the role of Team Leader, as well as the results achieved during that period, last year in September I was promoted to the position of Sales Manager, in the segment related to field sales of our product portfolio. This represents a huge success for me and is a step forward in my career that I must take to reach my career aspirations. At the same time, this position carries a huge responsibility, since the team I lead consists of 49 people and is the largest sales team in the country, which is responsible for half of the total sales volume within Pivara Skopje. The duties and responsibilities as a Sales Manager are really greater and have a significant impact on the overall performance, so I try to be in constant and open communication with my colleagues. I am focused on team energy, mutual cooperation of team members, ambitions, growth and development of people in the team, all of which lead to smooth achievement of excellent results.

  4. If you had to look back on the past six years, what would you single out as your greatest achievement?

  For me, the greatest achievement is certainly the record results achieved by Pivara Skopje. Here we all work with the same goal, that’s why I’m especially pleased with the contribution to the overall result of the teams that I lead. For these wonderful six years we have made many successes and broken many records. I am proud of all the people who received my support to fulfill their aspirations and get the positions they want in their career development.

  I can especially single out the last success we made with the High Impact Team, where I had the opportunity to lead the first such team at the corporate level, which ensured rapid progress on expanded business priorities and at the same time a platform for talent development. This team continued to function and was shared as a best practice in the corporations we belong to, Coca Cola Hellenic and Heineken.

  5. This year Pivara Skopje celebrates 100 years of its existence, and you belong to the generation that has the privilege to witness this achievement. Tell us, what does being a Pivarec mean to you?

  Being a part of Pivara Skopje is the pride of each one of us. The responsibility we have as Pivarci motivates us to help each other every day, to continuously learn and upgrade ourselves so that we can keep Pivara Skopje at the level it is at today, when it is actually celebrating a century of existence. Pivarci are “thirsty” for new victories and new achievements in the next 100 years. Being a Pivarec means having a second family that is always with you in all life and professional trials. Cheers and Happy 100th Birthday Pivarci!