Today's guest post is from David Hunte. David a is a professional musician and blogger.  You can find his blog here.

These 4 things – Music, Life, Business, & Marketing, have one thing in common. They are all sound and flow better if you have the ability to Play It By Ear.

Playing by ear involves the ability to take input or circumstances and create something beautiful and lasting. In Business it may mean being able to think fast on your feet and to make fast critical decisions. This may mean the difference between a successful performance and dismal failure (epic).

I remember one occasion where a young man was singing a song using a backing track on CD. Suddenly the CD stopped playing. As he kept on singing someone ran to the piano and started to play the song by ear. It saved the performance and everyone remembered it for a long time afterwards.

There is a method to the madness of playing by ear. It's called PREPARATION. Yes PREPARATION. An accomplished musician has spent considerable time and effort playing different progressions and scales so that it becomes second nature. Similarly a small business owner can get a sale or create a networking opportunity by having his/her business cards or merchandise samples readily available when they meet someone looking for their product.

As a musician I think about this a lot. People have come up to me asked me, “I love your piano playing. How can I learn to play by ear like you?” At those times I wish I had my book on playing by ear already written so that I could give it to them to read. I would also point them to my blog on playing by ear.

The next key to playing by ear is to be DECISIVE. In life sometimes you have to take things as they are, but when you make a decision based on the facts, then you go with the decision that made and stick with it. It helps to know your market and products and try to anticipate what you would face in each situation.

The next thing to remember is to be FLEXIBLE. You can't play by ear if you are inflexible. That's called playing by the book. For some people if it's not in the book, it cannot be done. This will kill a business so fast your head will spin. There are some business models that will not utilize social media to promote their products and services. But if you want to do business in this modern age, you have to use social media to promote and grow your business. It is one of the reasons why I've decided to take up blogging and my blog is now listed on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Path. More will be added later.

So just remember that Playing By Ear does not just involve music but it also can be applicable to life, business and marketing. You just have to be Prepared, Decisive and Flexible as you meet each challenge that you face. Just Keep Smiling and Play It By Ear.