Page 62 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

the company, Tom O’Dwyer and Len Gearing. They wore
fantastic suits, handmade shoes, drove amazing cars and they both
had a great sense of humour. They reminded me of the men I’d
admired from the bus when I was a kid. Reid Trevena employees
went to conferences in Barbados, and the top guys were all driving
sports cars. Tom was like Bobby Ewing from Dallas in his red
Mercedes with the roof down. He had a big mansion in Surrey and
was married to a beautiful Swedish girl – he had it all, really, and
when he walked into a room he was ‘the guy’. Everyone wanted
to talk to him, and I wanted what he was offering.
Reid Trevena was expanding so quickly that they couldn’t get
enough staff, and that meant they were spending a fortune on
recruitment agencies. With me in-house, they hoped to be able to
save themselves a lot of money. Tom then made me an offer I
couldn’t resist: he would split the savings with me.
Tom offered me £12k basic and a range of bonuses depending
on how I recruited. If I used an agency, I’d get a small bonus; if I
hired them direct, I got a third of the fee he normally paid an
agency, and this could be up to a grand. The more senior the
appointment, the bigger my fee. I thought Tom was smart, and I
was already getting caught up in the Reid Trevena atmosphere. Let
me tell you, it was an electric place to work. The staff were all
fairly young, they were earning a lot of money, and the place was
growing fast – I had never experienced such a dynamic environ-
ment.
Reid Trevena made its money selling savings and investment
plans to the public, and every time they signed up a new customer
the company got the first two years’ contributions as their fee. The
fee was so generous that they could afford to pay the individual
sales consultants around £200 of it. The commissions were so high
that consultants were earning £50–60,000 a year – the equivalent
of over £150k a year today. And with commission that good, Reid
Trevena didn’t need to pay any basic, which is why Tom was keen

52