Page 201 - James Caan - The Real Deal

19 · An Amazing Day

over £1000. I was completely blown away by people’s generosity,
and by the end of the day we had raised over £100,000. Although
the entire team was exhausted, we were also elated: it had been a
fantastic day – absolutely fantastic – and, as well as giving the
money to Barts, with the extra funds we were also able to make a
donation to the Great Ormond Street hospital.
That evening we were featured on the Nine o’Clock News on
the BBC and the News at Ten on ITV, and the following morning
we were on the front page of The Times: headhunter saves
barts. A friend of mine who worked as a media buyer told me the
publicity we generated that day would have cost £1.8 million in a
planned advertising campaign. But the truth is, you can’t buy a slot
on the News at Ten, and the only figure I can put on what that
day did for Alexander Mann is priceless. It was absolutely
incredible how in one day the name Alexander Mann went from
meaning nothing to most people in London to being something
everyone had heard of. It was an extraordinary day.
Apart from the good publicity, it was the most effective
staff-bonding exercise. The atmosphere in our office that day was
electric as the entire team pulled together and rallied everyone they
knew to contribute. It certainly beat paintballing or weekends
away at an expensive hotel. The place was buzzing for weeks after
that, and in the months that followed our increased profile helped
us attract better candidates and better clients. But, of course, the
best thing was that we lodged the appeal to stop the closure of the
A&E unit and I got to know some brilliant doctors and nurses at
Barts who wanted to thank us for what we’d done. I couldn’t have
known it then, but the following year I would have another reason
to be thankful that we had saved the unit from closure.
I now had a reputation as someone who gave to charity and I
was approached by the NSPCC. Although it was one of the biggest
and best-known charities in the country, I didn’t really know much
about their work, so I was invited to visit one of their call centres

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