Page 152 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

matter – to give up her clients and, crucially, her commission, to
take over some of the administrative tasks that would have freed
up my time. The only way I could see to grow the business was if
I concentrated on those areas, but that meant that I would have to
stop billing.
At the time I was the company’s biggest biller, bringing in over
£200k a year in fees. If I stopped billing, Alexander Mann’s cash
flow would lose around £20k a month, and for a small business
that’s the kind of hit that makes you vulnerable. Making the
decision to stop billing was probably the biggest one I had faced
in my career, and I just wasn’t sure what to do.
I had to ask myself a couple of questions. Firstly, did I believe my
team could bill the difference? And, secondly, did I think the
changes I would be free to implement would earn more than I
could by billing? These were questions I couldn’t have asked
twelve months earlier, but now that the concept of mid-market
headhunting had been proven, now that I had recruited and trained
able and motivated people, it was possible to look to the future. I
lay in bed at night tossing and turning: I was excited about what
could be achieved, but I was nervous of taking such a big risk.
By this stage, the eighties economic boom was in full swing. The
papers were full of dealers making fortunes overnight, young
entrepreneurs like Alan Sugar were making the headlines, and
Dallas and Dynasty were the biggest shows on TV. There was a
culture of thinking big, and maybe somewhere in the background
that was influencing me.
By now, I was talking to my dad every week on the phone. The
damage I had done to our relationship when I’d left home had
been completely repaired, in part because now that I was a father
myself there was a new dimension to our relationship. Talking
every week had brought us really close again, and he was a useful
sounding board for most situations, but this was something he had
never dealt with in his career.

142