Page 79 - James Caan - The Real Deal

7 · The Job That Changed My Life

averaged a nine or a ten for sales skills, then most people in
recruitment were a three or a four because they essentially just
matched candidates with vacancies.
However, I also knew that recruitment agencies made a lot of
money, even though the individual consultants didn’t – even
getting 10 per cent commission was rare. I suppose it was then that
I had an idle thought: I wonder what would happen if you took
the atmosphere of Reid Trevena, the techniques for getting
referrals, paid a generous commission that attracted the best
people and took it into the recruitment industry? I wasn’t seriously
considering going it alone just yet, but something was definitely
brewing.
Before that ‘something’ could develop, though, there are two
more reasons why Reid Trevena has had such a lasting impact on
me. The first is that within a few years the company went bust.
When the Financial Services Act of 1986 was introduced it
changed the way financial products were sold and forced com-
panies like Reid Trevena to reveal the commission they were
getting. So when a rep went out, he had to show his client that
Reid Trevena was getting paid the first two years’ contributions as
their fee. Unsurprisingly, pretty much everyone then turned round
and said: ‘So for the first two years, I’m not actually saving
anything?’ It became virtually impossible to sell any more policies.
It ruined Tom. He lost everything. The house, the business, it all
went because he had expanded too quickly and had branches
outside London that just couldn’t pay for themselves. His fixed
overheads – rent, rates, professional services – stayed the same
when his income crashed and the company went under. This made
a lasting impression on me: the Koran teaches us that there are
several things in life that we are not in control of – things like
when we are born and when we die – and one of them is also that
we are not in control of our wealth. For years I couldn’t see how
this could be, but in recent years I have come to understand that

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