Page 120 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

opened the door it hit the desk: there definitely wasn’t room for
another chair. So when I got a call from reception saying my
candidate was waiting for me, I would go down to meet them
rather than having them sent up.
‘Hi. I’m really sorry but all our meeting rooms are booked
today. Would you mind if we pop up to the Ritz and get a coffee
there?’
Some days I was even bolder and I’d tell them that we were
running a big campaign at the moment, and that’s why all the
meeting rooms had been taken! It was important for me to paint
a picture of hundreds of people and constant activity. The beauty
of serviced offices is that nobody knew who took up the rest of the
space, so I let people believe that the whole building was
Alexander Mann’s.
Whenever I talked about the business, I always said ‘we’ instead
of ‘I’. It was natural as I was trying to create the impression of an
established company, but I think it had other benefits, too. There
might have been those who thought that a company run by a
twenty-five-year-old was too flaky to deal with, and I had no
problem with people thinking I had a boss somewhere. Being able
to say ‘I’ll just have to run that past Mr Alexander’ was quite a
handy negotiating tactic. Equally, saying ‘we’ took the focus off
me. If I had used ‘me’ I would have come across as egotistical and,
although I have always believed that appearances matter, my ego
doesn’t need that kind of stroking. ‘We’ sounds gentler, less
arrogant.
When I was in Claridge’s or the Ritz with a candidate, I was
keen to make the candidate feel wanted by the client –‘They are
really looking for someone with your sector experience . . .’– and
it was important that they sensed the vacancy hadn’t arisen in
response to a cold call. I wanted them to feel excited about their
prospective employer so that they would be incentivised to
perform well at an interview, and more likely to say yes if they

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