My blog of things and thoughts
Difference between professional and professional
15 July 2011
Last week I was having a conversation with another magician about the phrase "professional magician", discussing what it meant, and what it meant from a potential booker's point of view.
The views being that "professional" gives the impression that the person does this for their main income (not a way to earn money on the side), the transaction will be handled properly (contracts, invoices, receipts, etc) and the product (ie., the quality of the entertainment) will be of a good standard.
To change context, you would want a professional plumber to install a new boiler, but an odd-job man is fine for changing a washer in the kitchen tap.
However, if an amateur magician (who performed a few bits for friends and family) lost their main income then they could legitimately say they are then a professional magician by default.
I could try to explain this more, but thought this Facebook conversation summarises it well. The conversation starts between proper professional magicians (myself included) discussing the level of business. Someone who is "professional" (note the quotation marks there) gets involved.
I'm not doing this to embarrass this person, we all need to start somewhere, but as the saving goes you need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, and this chap is having problems bluffing the talk. (To save their blushes I've smudged their name out, but it's unlikely you'd find them on google anyway.)
Moral of the story: If someone says they are professional they should have a website (not homemade, Facebook page or created by "Mr Site"), business cards (not free/cheapo ones from Vista Print), pictures of previous performances and plenty of testimonials.
The views being that "professional" gives the impression that the person does this for their main income (not a way to earn money on the side), the transaction will be handled properly (contracts, invoices, receipts, etc) and the product (ie., the quality of the entertainment) will be of a good standard.
To change context, you would want a professional plumber to install a new boiler, but an odd-job man is fine for changing a washer in the kitchen tap.
However, if an amateur magician (who performed a few bits for friends and family) lost their main income then they could legitimately say they are then a professional magician by default.
I could try to explain this more, but thought this Facebook conversation summarises it well. The conversation starts between proper professional magicians (myself included) discussing the level of business. Someone who is "professional" (note the quotation marks there) gets involved.
I'm not doing this to embarrass this person, we all need to start somewhere, but as the saving goes you need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, and this chap is having problems bluffing the talk. (To save their blushes I've smudged their name out, but it's unlikely you'd find them on google anyway.)
Moral of the story: If someone says they are professional they should have a website (not homemade, Facebook page or created by "Mr Site"), business cards (not free/cheapo ones from Vista Print), pictures of previous performances and plenty of testimonials.
