Page 212 - James Caan - The Real Deal
P. 212

The Real Deal



             partly for that reason that we made a very early decision that the
             franchising operation we were about to set up wouldn’tbe
             branded as Alexander Mann.
                One of our first meetings was with a branding agency, and we
             told them we needed a name for our headhunting franchise that
             would operate all over the world. Coming up with a name that
             means something in China and Brazil and France – without
             offending people in Indonesia or Finland – isn’t as easy as you
             might think. The agency suggested ‘Humana’, which we both liked
             because it was generic and was easy to pronounce. It also
             suggested that it was a business about people. We then asked them
             to come up with a logo and other corporate identity material,
             because when you’re selling a franchise the brand is an extremely
             valuable part of the franchise package.
                Franchises generally work like this: franchisees pay an upfront
             fee and then a percentage of future profits to the franchiser. In
             exchange, they are taught how to operate the franchise and given
             help in managing their business. With Humana, we were going to
             teach people how to headhunt for a fee of £30,000 and then take
             10 per cent of what they billed.
                Some of the biggest names on the high street are franchises –
             McDonald’s, the Body Shop, Kall Kwik – and it’s easy to see why
             you’d buy one of their franchises: the chances are you’ll do much
             better selling Body Shop cosmetics than unbranded ones. With
             Humana, I realised, we had no track record to offer and no brand.
             It was a huge oversight and I couldn’t believe that neither Doug
             nor I had anticipated it. We’d got so caught up in replicating MRI
             internationally that we forgot we didn’t have MRI’s brand.
                Oh, my God, I said to myself, I’ve just hired this guy. I’ve
             brought him over here, paid a fair whack of cash to a branding
             agency and this isn’t going to work. So I took Doug out to dinner
             for a crisis meeting.
                ‘Tell me again how this is going to work.’




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