Quick & Easy Negotiations

One customer wanted the contents team to use baking soda and vinegar to get the smoke odors out of her kitchen (she had heard that “natural” cleaning products were way better than “manufactured” innovations).

Baking soda and vinegar are great for science class volcanos, and the grit in baking soda works with vinegar if you don’t get it too wet, but we have far superior odor removing solutions. And we have some splendid “botanicals” (made from herbs) that actually clean, deodorize and produce an antimicrobial action (one even appears on the FDA list for treating COVID-19 surfaces).

So when the Contents Manager explained that the botanical kills germs and viruses, but was more harmless than vinegar to humans (and showed her a few websites, including one that showed that the product was judged to be so safe — by the FDA — it required no warning labels at all), the owner liked the new family-friendly cleaner/ sanitizer, embraced it as a “natural” solution and the job was completed in a timely manner.

Sometimes a two minute education is worth an hour of disagreement.

For another customer we had used hydroxyls to deodorize the children’s room. The result? No odors and no fragrances at all. Then the owner came in and announced, “But it doesn’t smell fresh.”

The Contents Manager explained that most rooms are at their “freshest” when there is no smell. But the owner was adamant, “You know, ‘fresh’ like a recently cleaned hotel room.”

So the Manager went out to one of the trucks and found some old pine cleaning liquid that no one used anymore. Then she came back and “pine-cleaned” a small desk next to the kid’s bunkbed.

When the owner entered the room the next time she insisted that it was, “Much better.”

Occasionally, a little “evidence” is worth all the scientific “proof” we can present.