Despite your best efforts to keep your home out of your office when customers are on the phone, there will be times when something happens to blow your cover. The mailman may ring your doorbell while you are on the phone, for instance, or your cat may decide you're spending too much time on the telephone and leap onto your lap, landing claws out on your shorts-clad, sunburned legs. Or one of your toddlers will start screaming.

If the interruption is momentary, sometimes a clever line will save the day. One entrepreneur I was speaking to on the telephone quipped that someone was testing his burglar alarm system when his two dogs started barking furiously during our conversation.

If the interruption isn't momentary, the best thing to do is to say there seems to be an emergency in progress. Ask for the customer's phone number if you don't know it, and tell them you'll call them right back. Take care of the "emergency" and then immediately make the call back.

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