Help Save Your Carpet Before We Arrive
It’s 8 am, and you’re straightening up your office while you go over plans to discuss with a large client — a client with whom you’re having a meeting in 30 minutes. As you’re turning around with a pile of papers in hand, you accidentally knock your coffee off the edge of your desk. Not only is it a pitiful waste of a perfectly good cup of coffee, you now have a large stain spreading across your carpet!
Don’t fret, though! Here are four steps to take until your cleaner can arrive.
First, call your carpet cleaner immediately. Put down the papers and give us a call. The sooner you call us, the sooner we can get out to you.
Second, blot at the stain with paper towels. Don’t try to clean it, because the cleaning agent might not remove the stain in time or be appropriate to the carpet fabric. If you’re really unlucky, it could leave an obvious spot that is lighter than the surrounding areas, which would just draw more attention. All you need to do here is remove the excess liquid from the carpet fibers.
Third, take stock of your office. What do you have in your office that you can use to temporarily conceal or distract attention away from this new, unsightly development? Sure, it might not look exactly the way you prefer, but it all depends on how you play it off.
A potted plant? A quick rearrangement of furniture? Both of these options play on subconscious psychology tricks to put your client at ease.
A chair brought closer to the desk could cover the stain and subtly hint “I value you, and I want to sit next to you instead of across the desk from you.”
A small table brought in to display a selection of treats (and conveniently placed to hide the stain) is an option, too. People are more likely to be open to ideas when they have their hands occupied or are eating.
What about carrying in a stack of books from elsewhere in the office? This is arguably the easiest one to play off. “I’ve been working so hard on this meeting, please excuse the books.” Just make sure that the spines aren’t visible.
Fourth, set up your meeting in a different room or office. While you want to meet with your client for a while in your office, it might be better to guarantee they don’t get to see that stain by taking them away after a few minutes of talking. Whether you use the walk along the way to show off how industrious and focused your employees are is entirely up to you.
We hope these tips have helped and that you’ll give us a call to set up a free consultation.
