The Five Must-Haves

Okay, I’m kicking off a new blog-series this week, the first installment of what I’m calling “The Five Must-Haves for Entertainment/Comedy Success.”

As I continue to develop the comedy mentoring service I offer, I’m finding that although every client has different needs and different goals, there are categories that help me see what those needs are, and which then help me clearly explain to clients what problematic elements are holding them back, and what elements might help them surge forward if we can turn up the power of those positives.  

This idea jives well my general orientation as a mentor, which is to find weaknesses, explain them, and fix them, find strengths, explain them, and strengthen them.  The more problems eliminated, the better, the more power in your power-centers, the better.

So here is the matrix I’m currently applying to clients, the five broad categories I look at to see what needs fixing, what needs powering.

()  Projects/Products

()  Skills/Talent

()  Career pathing

()  Workwithability

()  Psyche-ness

I’ll expand on each of these in the coming weeks, but just as a reference guide, here’s a quickie definition of what each of these mean to me.  

()  Projects/Products:   What have you created that can be used as samples of your work, or as buyable inventory? How ready are they to be seen/sold?

()  Skills/Talent:  What do you do well, at a professionally competitive level? What do you still need to develop?

()  Career pathing:  What makes sense as the most viable career path for you, based on your goals, skills, and life limitations?

()  Workwithability:  What makes people want to work with you, or not want to work with you?

()  Psyche-ness:  What do you need from yourself, and others, in order to stay emotionally strong and engaged in this type of work?