Appearances can be very deceptive — take Mark Cailes, for example. He looks every inch the young city gent in his expensive, tailored suit; an aspiring civil servant, bank manager potential, or perhaps a successful salesman.

But he's not or, at least, not any more. Cailes jacked in his perfectly respectable and secure job with a Baker Street business broker — where he was an associate director with eight people jumping at his orders — to enter a rather more risky employment number altogether.

After nearly two years of burning the career candle at both ends — that is, slogging through nine to five and desperately attempting to unleash the talents of a band upon the waiting world at the same time — Cailes finally took the plunge and became the full-time manager of the Immaculate Fools, extremely bright hopes for the future, A&M Records sincerely hope.

And it can have been no easy decision for Cailes, because it meant kissing goodbye to a cool £28,000 a year, a company car and a full expense account. What it didn't mean, however, was an accompanying change in clothing style.

"I don't always look as smart as this," he offers somewhat defensively. "But when I go to a meeting then, yeah, I think appearance is important. I'll continue to dress the way I consider that I ought to. If I'm meeting the band, then I probably won't shave for two days and turn up in a pair of jeans and baseball boots — and look very record company-like.

"But there's no reason why you can't be a Jekyll and Hyde, and I like wearing a suit sometimes. Look, I'm a business manager — I take care of the band's finances — and if I'm going to do that seriously, then I have to keep up appearances. At least, it's important to me.

"If I'm going to be swigging out of a hip flask all the time, I don't think that anyone is going to take me seriously. They'd be well advised not to if that's how I was."

Clearly Cailes, 31, means business — in every literal sense of the word. He's nobody's fool either, pardon the pun. Rather than simply being a failed musician or an enthusiast who's slipped ignorantly into a manager's shoes, Cailes has thought long and hard about what he's doing, since first meeting the Fools in 1983 and helping the band out.

It was this logical approach that resulted in the Fools signing with A&M — when another 10 companies were still chasing.

"When you start off and you're after a deal," he says, "you find that the hardest thing for someone like myself, who hasn't got a reputation within the industry and is coming from the outside, is that nobody wants to talk to you. They don't know the name Mark Cailes from Adam.

"I decided that sending tapes in was useless, so I'd get on the phone and try to blag an interview, then I could go along with our tapes and play them. But there was obviously a lot of resistance to seeing me because A&R guys are very busy.

"So I discovered that the best time to telephone was between 6.30pm and 7pm — because then they are off their guard. It's at the end of the day, the switchboard is down and most of the secretaries have gone. So I was managing to actually get through to A&R people I wanted to speak to. And once you confront them with a situation and they see that you are serious, they tended to put a date in their books — which was great.

"You see, they didn't have a secretary to hide behind, which they normally do. Secretaries give you the bum's rush — but they're not able to do that if they're not there."

The ultimate product of such cunning connivance by Cailes was the night when more than 70 record biz types, including the elusive A&R people and reps from publishing houses, descended en masse to a scruffy London club for a Fools gig.

"It was like a bun fight," Cailes recalls. "It was ridiculous."

When it came to negotiating a recording contract, Cailes again applied commonsense; he brought a fresh brain in where his was twitching in confusion.

"Most contracts are basically the same," he says. "If you can read one, you can read them all. I'm very familiar with reading contracts for businesses or for property sales, and therefore I knew a lot of the jargon which is used and could understand most of what was being said.

"There were one or two phrases which I was unclear on — but that's why I got a first-class music business lawyer to sort it out for us. He was very, very helpful and guided us through — which is what you pay a lawyer to do.

"I think a lot of people who would like to be managers of acts are very put off by the fact that they don't understand much of the legal side — but I don't think they actually have to worry about that as long as they employ someone, and are prepared to pay for their services, to act on their behalf."

Recognising his weaknesses and admitting ignorance when required are important facets to Cailes in his method of management. So is the ability to delegate responsibility.

"We employ an agency to set our tours up, for instance," he explains. "It has all the information on hand, such as hotels and routing. Routing is the most important aspect, it takes all the pressure off a band. The tour we've just done hasn't been hard on the band because they've only been travelling 50 miles maximum between each date. You don't play Cornwall and the next day Liverpool if you don't have to.

"I never go on a fully-fledged tour with the band because it's not necessary. If we have a tour manager who's responsible to me, then there's no real benefit of me being on tour as well. I'm more useful taking care of other things."

Cailes applies this technique all around; if you can't count, hire an accountant, if you don't understand, ask questions.

"I think a lot of people try to bluff their way through situations," he says, "rather than saying 'I don't know, can you explain that to me — what do you mean?' What's far more refreshing is for people to own up and say 'Look, I don't understand what you're talking about. Can you put it in simpler terms?'

"That's just the start of the problems, signing a deal. After that it really gets serious..."

"If you just sit there like an idiot going 'Yeah, yeah, yeah', and agree with it all whatever, you might well walk out of the door and think 'I wonder what the hell he was talking about.' A lot of management is to do with that — and damned hard work. You've got to be prepared to work hard and work whatever hours are necessary until the job is done."

Also important, says Cailes, is establishing from the word go what rules the band and manager are going to play by.

"You hear horrendous stories of managers having to go round and blow everyone's noses for them, almost," he sniffs. "They make a rod for their own backs — and I think you have to make a stand against that. I don't think you can be bullied because, otherwise, where does it all end?

"You're just going to be running around making cups of tea for everyone, and that's ridiculous — that's not what a manager should be paid for. You have to make that divide and make it early on. You have to tell your act what the situation is.

"A lot of musicians don't like that — especially after they've signed a deal. Then they are understandably chuffed, their feathers are up on their backs and they're Jack the lad. But that's just the start of the problems, signing a deal, after that it really gets serious and you've really got to knuckle down to it."

Cailes quite rightly considers himself lucky that his band don't come on the precious brat bit.

"It makes my job easier that they want to talk to anyone who wishes to talk to them," he says. "We are all friends. As a manager, you've got to care about the way your act feels about things, too.

"You could steamroller all over people — and you hear about it happening all the time — but, if you're looking towards longevity, then you've got to look after their interests. Because they are the ones who are paying the bills. It's important, too, to apply sound business sense — but you can learn that as long as you aren't afraid to learn."

Bringing about a new dimension of business sense in the industry is what Cailes hopes to do through his undoubted experience and professionalism in other spheres.

"I'm not saying I'm going to set the world alight," he announces with genuine modesty, "but I can offer one or two things which will be of interest to everyone.

"Just different ways of doing things, perhaps just asking 'Why?' a few more times than most. Many people in this industry neither question nor challenge, they simply accept. I think I can look at things from another angle.

"I think there's a lot of casualness in the industry, but that's the nature of it. It's where business and art meet — that's the excuse, of course. But I can't really criticise an industry I've only known for such a short period. It's the same with lots of companies; many of them are their own worst enemies. That's true in various industries and it's all down to personnel, who's employed — who's kicking and who's lazy."

What Cailes finds hardest to come to terms with in the business is the fierce competition.

"The record industry is still very young and, when you look around at some of the other industries that have been established for hundreds of years, this business has come a long way, really. Okay, there are problems to sort out — but it's a multi-million pound industry and it's still very healthy.

"Of course, everyone looks back to what sort of profits they were making 10 years ago and worries about home taping and gets despondent — but they ought to look around because they're doing very nicely despite it all.

"If the industry was more united, then I don't think half of its problems would be here today. But every record company is at each other's throats all the time. It's so competitive; getting those records into the Top 75, Top 40, Top 20 or whatever. They seem to forget that if they did act as a corporate body on occasions they could really get things done."

Mark Cailes is certainly another kettle of fish, a few months on the stock market and 10 years in a collar and tie have seen to that. And anyone who relieves himself of a hefty salary, replacing it with one far less grand, simply because he's seeking a new challenge can't be all bad.

"That £28,000 a year is gone, disappeared," he smiles. "But that's alright, I mean, we all get too complacent. Money isn't so important to me, it's more making things happen — that's what excites me. Money used to excite me but I can no longer say I'm bowled over by having a pocket full of notes. When we have a number one, that will really excite me; not the money it's going to earn, but the success and perhaps the pleasure that people get out of our music."

Yet, in the same breath that he belittles the importance of hard cash, Cailes recognises the potential for extreme wealth.

"It's quite surprising the amount of money a successful band can get from different sources," he ponders.

"In many other situations and businesses, you don't get that. You just earn your bread and butter money from one source. It's a strange old industry where you can be sleeping at three or four in the morning and, because a radio station is playing your record, they're paying over money to you. I find that amazing — what other industry does that?"

What other indeed.