Theres a lot of weight to whats been said in this thread.
I agree with 99% of it.
The only thing I can add really is that you have to be persistent. All the people, professional, sales, friend, and fan skills in the world won't help you if you don't help yourself.
You have to get out there, mingle, network. Yes, a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time. A well-networked musician who works diligently will have a far better chance of being in the right place at the right time, just because he or she will KNOW or find out when and where that is.
As far as the OP's statement about getting calls for various deals, I'd have to ask-
Are these actual phone calls from agents, bookers, industry scouts, forums? I get tons of "calls" in the sense of emails and the ocasional phone call from a LOT of scammers who pick up my info from 1 of 20 sites I'm probably on. Right now, there's a horde of these guys out there offering services, for your $$. Some can actually deliver what they promise, but most can't. Check their references. Never, ever trust anyone whose website starts with
www.myspace.com\Imakeufamous, or facebook, etc.. Watch out of email addresses from hotmail or gmail.
If the guy saying he can help you doesn't even have his own web domain, chances are 99.9% that he can't even help himself.