Like many other children, I used to have nightmares, when I was a little girl. My mum would do her best to comfort me and one of her favourite sayings was: “Darling, even if you dream that you got eaten by a monster, remember that you have two ways out!"

What can you do, though, when you really want to stand out from the crowd? Of course it makes a difference whether you have spoken with the person before, perhaps on the phone or by email, but for our purposes today, let’s assume you’ve never met these people before.

It smacks us all – usually mid-afternoon, when we’re trying to get through a productive period at work, and muster up energy for the remaining 8 or so hours of our day.