Page 142 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

That was my pitch. I wasn’t going to sell Alexander Mann, I
wasn’t going to try to convince them that our service was different;
I was just going to ring them up and say: ‘Hi, listen, this is just a
quick call . . . I just wanted to mention we’ve got a consultant
who’s been in the industry three years, she’s billing at £150,000.
Is that something you might be interested in?’
‘What sector is she in?’
I had immediately engaged them in conversation, and they
started asking questions.
‘What’s her average fee? Is she permanent or contract?’
They were interested, but they were still confused.
‘What’s in it for you?’
‘Just a standard fee.’
‘Let me give you a call back.’
I could almost work out word for word the conversation they
were having at their end, and within an hour they would usually
call back and say: ‘It’s not something we’ve done before, but I
think we might be interested in meeting this person.’
I had found the pitch! Now all I needed was a candidate! So I
picked up the Yellow Pages, and looked at all the agencies who
specialised in that particular field. I also looked at the recruitment
ads for those agencies in the papers, and at the bottom of each ad
it usually said: ‘Ring Jane Smith to talk about this and other
vacancies.’ So I called Jane Smith.
‘Hi, my name’s James Caan, I’ve got an opportunity I think you
might be interested in and I’d like to get together . . .’ A week or
so later, I sent Jane out for an interview, she took the job and I
got my fee. Bingo!
When I made that placement I was the first person in the UK to
charge a fee for placing a recruitment consultant. Nobody had ever
done it before because it hadn’t even existed as a concept. Yet
precisely because no one else was doing it we became really well
known very quickly as the recruiters’ recruiter, and by 1987 the

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