Over the years that my husband and I have worked together in show business (my writing and performing music, he creating and performing magic) I have learned what I have found to be some potent principles of business dealings. Just as his is a line of work that requires a high skill level and fluency of craft while interacting with people, creating music for someone else's project requires rising to the occasion creatively, efficiently and appropriately within the client relationship. To even get to this point, however, you need to get the gig. If you are already a busy working professional, you have undoubtedly developed a method that works for you. If you are at all green in the ways of dealing with new clients, some of what I have picked up might prove useful. The Opener On the face of it, it seems that if you have a good product, in this case a service, you should be able to simply show representative work, give a price and let the chips fall where they may. However, there can be much more subtlety...

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In our efforts to be all that we can be career wise, we invariably run into several bumps, obstacles and forks in the road. At some point, we may face the question of whether or not we need either degrees, course work or perhaps a shot in the arm in the form of hands on training to accomplish our goals. We all desire roughly the same things- competence in the form of know how and connections leading to work. But how to get there? When you are early to mid- career, these questions do not have obvious answers. There is no one way to get to where you want to go. All you know is: you want to be there and you want to get there as painlessly as possible. While this desire is understandable it is one that over time requires the addition of much flexibility and patience. No doubt there will be periods where the path is dismayingly unclear. Sometimes it doesn't even appear obvious what technical know how you really need to have. To confuse matters, there are varying opinions as to what constitutes the "right stuff"...

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