Page 146 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

a team of temps just taking down those details, and candidates
weren’t allowed into the main hall until we had their information.
By the end of the day we’d placed over 100 people, which meant
the clients were ecstatic. The average cost per hire for them was
nothing in comparison to what they could have paid. It worked
out brilliantly for us, too, and the next quarter was the best we’d
ever had. We went back to the office with stacks and stacks of
forms; we broke them down into sectors, divided them between us
and then sold them to prospective employers. Our problem of not
having enough candidates had been solved, and after that we had
a recruitment fair every three months. The candidates were happy,
we were happy and our clients were happy: as my dad would have
put it – win-win-win.
The recruitment fairs were another innovation that helped
Alexander Mann get a reputation for being different, and maybe
a bit awkward. We were a young company that was turning
conventional wisdom upside down and taking business away from
other agencies. In the years since, people have come up to me and
said things like: ‘You were really pissing me off in those days,’ or
‘You had some front. Who did you think you were?’ Others have
told me I was really brave: these could easily have been high-
profile failures instead of successes. The way I look at it, if you
don’t try things, you don’t give yourself a chance to succeed.
Alexander Mann seemed to be on the threshold of becoming a
really great company, but I was wary of feeling too confident after
what was happening to Reid Trevena. I knew there were no
guarantees, and perhaps that’s why I made just about the most
outrageous purchase of my life while I had the money. I sold my
Rolls-Royce and promptly bought another. The reason why I say
it was an outrageous purchase was because less than two years
earlier I had bought a house for £75,000. My new Rolls-Royce
Corniche cost £77,000. It was such a massive amount that I felt
nervous about it, and there was a little bit of me that worried I’d

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