James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
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Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
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Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » Tommorow myself and my business partner are off to a meeting with a buyer at a large museum who may hopefully, possibly, maybe, want us to create a product specifically for them. This would be our first commission and we are pretty nervous about the meeting.
We don't have any experience in this area and so we have absolutely nothing on which to base our expectations. So what do you do when you don't know what to do? Well, if you're anything like me, you go ask someone, anyone what they might do in that situation.
So we've consulted with our lawyer (she's in the family so she's free - surely the best kind of lawyer) and she told us to remember our T's&C's and disucssed the possible intellectual property issues we should be aware of.
We consulted with our advisor (my brother, he has no formal qualifications in this area but he is a bit more business-minded (read - ruthless) than we are, and he told us to consider a mimimum order and to think about charging for the consultation.
We've chatted to friends and work colleagues (from our 'proper jobs') and we've done the obligatory surf of the web but I have to say I'm as nervous now as I was a week ago when I didn't have all this useful advice up my sleeve. Until we have experienced this first meeting we really have no idea how it will go or what will happen. And that's actually pretty coolio because we're in this business for the ride as much as anything (we sure aren't doing it for the money yet ;) and to get to do something that we haven't done before and for it to hopefully take us and our fledgling business in a new direction, has surely only got to be a good thing, right?
So, we will go to our meeting, heads held high, armed with the knowledge that we have no knowledge in this area and that there has to be a first time for everything.
Will we negociate a successful deal?
I don't know, I'm not qualified to answer that question.... ask me tommorow.
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