Zimmer Real Estate Services L.C. I ONCOR International, Kansas City, Missouri
A New Season of Momentum and Change
As I begin my term as President, I look forward to 2011 with
much excitement and optimism. In my 31 years in the commercial real estate business, I have been through several of these
boom/bust periods and while the down years are never much fun,
the subsequent recovery years have always proven to be very
exciting. At SIOR we have strived to surround ourselves with the
“best of the best” in the real estate business, and as the economy
continues to show signs of improvement, it is the members of
SIOR—the experts—who will drive results and continue our
track record of success.
Many people have asked me what I want to accomplish during
my term as president. In anticipation of the coming year, I have
given this a lot of thought and usually my response is, “SIOR is
not broken. We simply need to keep moving it forward.” There
are however, two areas on which I want to focus in 2011 that will
serve as a guide for the leadership team. First of all, I want to
make absolutely certain that we are delivering the highest value
in services back to our membership and I want to be absolutely
sure that we maintain our relevance in the eyes of our members.
Looking Ahead to 2011
We are going to do this by investing in ourselves and focusing on
a number of key strategic initiatives.
Strategic Initiative 1: Branding - We will continue branding
SIOR in real estate circles; not only in the Americas, but in other
cities and countries around the world where we currently have
a presence and where our members tell us we need to be. Our
efforts will be focused and direct. We have budgeted money for
a national ad campaign, and our members and their clients will
see us in both print and web-based advertising. We will continue
to maintain a presence on the street through attendance in major
industry events in order to network and better acquaint people
with SIOR.
Strategic Initiative 2: Recruitment and Retention - Our members
are the lifeblood of our organization and we must continue to
expand our membership by seeking qualified individuals who
have the passion and desire to join the “best of the best” in the
commercial real estate business. In the past year, we added over
150 new active members and 13 new associate members. In fact,
in the past 30 days we have had over 30 applications for member-
ship, not only in the Americas, but from Canada and Europe as
well. We are going to continue supporting the Chapter Stimulus
Program by providing resources to the chapters to encourage and
support their efforts in identifying and recruiting new qualified
members. We are also going to look at reviving the Salesman
Affiliate Program in an attempt to identify the “up and comers”
in the business and get in front of them before they make com-
mitments to other organizations.
Strategic Initiative 3: CCA (The Center for Career Advancement)
- We are going to continue to enhance CCA through an expansion, both in terms of the quantity and the variety of our educational offerings. We are going to explore strategic partnerships
with other professional organizations to deliver our educational
offerings to their membership, thus expanding our footprint. And
we are going to focus on higher profile speakers at our national
conferences which will, in turn, bolster attendance.
Strategic Initiative 4: Communications and Marketing - We are
going to improve our communication and marketing efforts by
keeping you, our members, informed of the goings on of the
Society through quarterly updates. You will see this through the
use of social media along with You Tube videos and other means.
Our website is being updated and our directory of both active and
associate members will be available online, and the Professional
Report will be available online and on your mobile phones as
well, starting with this issue. We are going to continue focusing on increasing our presence through the use of social media,
including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Strategic Initiative 5: International - We have 66 international
members in the Society today with several new applications
pending, and we will continue to expand in Europe, as well as
Canada and Mexico. Our European Regional Council has identified the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany and France as those
countries where we need to establish, or increase as the case may
