Page 114 - James Caan - The Real Deal

Chapter 11

Pall Mall (1985–1986)

‘ Putting myself in the position of the people taking my call

was what turned things around. ’

y business plan wasn’t much more than my original
M doodle. Two placements a month meant an income of £13k.
I deducted the rent, the phone bill, a few expenses and that was it.
It seemed so easy, too easy in fact, that I thought there had to be
a catch. The only way to find out was to give it a go.
The weekend before I went to the office in Pall Mall for the first
time I spent several hours reading the Yellow Pages, looking at
sectors, companies and categories and highlighting pages of
companies and industries where I thought there was an opportun-
ity. I decided I would start approaching financial services com-
panies for no other reason than I knew the language and I could
talk intelligently about the sector. I knew the jargon and I knew
how the industry worked.
I reckon I made forty to fifty calls a day that first week asking
to speak to the sales director, the head of HR, the managing
director or whoever was in charge of hiring. I’ve never found
cold-calling particularly comfortable, and it didn’t help that the
person I needed to speak to often wasn’t there, and my calls never

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