Page 110 - James Caan - The Real Deal
P. 110

The Real Deal



             anything other than a phone to get started. Every half-decent
             recruitment consultant thinks about setting up on their own
             because they know how much they bill and that their commission
             is a fraction of that. However, I knew enough about myself to
             know that I didn’t want to be a one-man band working in the
             spare room, so I started to sketch out a few figures assuming I
             would be paying for an office.
                I thought maybe I could spend a grand a month on an office,
             and if I placed two candidates a month on £25k salaries and
             charged 25 per cent, I could make over £12k a month. That was
             £150k a year! That seemed too easy, so I asked myself, What’s the
             worst that could happen? Maybe I wouldn’t place two a month,
             maybe it would only be one. That was still £75k a year. Then I
             asked myself, What would I need to break even? It worked out at
             less than one placement a quarter. So the only question left was,
             Did I have enough faith in myself and my abilities to believe I
             could do at least that? When I put it like that, I couldn’t actually
             see there was any risk at all.
                At first that seemed too easy, so I asked myself what was really
             involved. Was I really capable of placing two candidates a week?
             I went through my process at Reid Trevena where I would often
             place eight or ten people a month, so I knew that it had to be
             possible. Looking at it soberly, I had to conclude that it would
             actually be relatively straightforward. I wasn’t thinking that I had
             to be the biggest or the best – I wasn’t going to place chief
             executives at FTSE 100 companies; I was just going to start an
             agency doing something that I knew I could do. It was believable,
             understandable, logical. I was unstoppable.
                I spoke to Aisha about it, and she was really pleased that I had
             found something I could be passionate about. She could easily take
             care of the boutiques without me, and as all I was risking was my
             time and whatever it cost to rent an office she encouraged me to
             go for it. After we’d talked, I remembered my policy of not taking




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