Dinnertime salespeople could be much more effective if they talked less about saving on energy bills and more about saving parents' energy, says Margaret Langdon.

I'd like to know which marketing guru thought up the brilliant idea of sending salespeople around at dinnertime to talk about electricity accounts. Come on, 'fess up! We know you're out there. We've all had the tap on the door at that moment critical to the souffle. Okay, so I'm fibbing - I don't do souffles - but I did get The Tap last night.

The kids tripped over themselves with excitement trying to get there first, thinking it might be our neighbour wanting to show off her new puppy. But it wasn't the neighbour - it was a stranger with a clipboard saying,  "Is your mother home?" Any souffle in the vicinity would have sunk along with my heart at those words. The disappointed, puppy-less children slouched away and I plodded to the door.

It was 6.20pm. I'd just finished the ironing and was cooking dinner. Before the dreaded tap on the door, I was also folding the laundry, feeding the fish and washing some dishes. (Or maybe I was folding the fish and feeding the laundry). I'd also been helping one child with his homework while mopping the brow of another who was lying on the couch like a dying swan (before the prospect of a puppy temporarily cured her cold).

There was so much multi-tasking going on in my house I could have thrown a multi-tasking seminar... as soon as I'd served dinner, washed more dishes and done the mending, that is. But I digress.

What I really want to know is this: did Mr Marketing Guru stop to consider what goes on in the average household at dinnertime when he brain-stormed his ingenious plan for electricity salespeople? Well? Did he?

Do you know anybody this side of dementia who actually likes talking about the cost of utilities? One single person who might say, "Sure! I'll stand here with the door open letting in hot blasts of air and waste my expensive gas and electricity, while you tell me how I can save money on gas and electricity?"

Well, Mr Marketing Guru (and I'm calling you that because I have this nagging feeling you might be a bloke), you may claim to know people just gagging to compare kilowatts but I've never met them. Not one. Ever!

However, Mr Guru, because I'm a nice multi-tasking sort of gal, I'm willing to offer you a better idea that actually might work. Next time you send your team of hopeful clipboard-clutchers to tap on the doors of my neighbourhood, why don't you get them to do the following:

Tap tap tap...

"Hello! I'm here to talk about energy plans. Like saving energy. Like saving your energy, Ms Tired-Wage-Earner-And-Mother-Who's-In-The-Middle-Of-Cooking-Dinner. How about I do all your household chores for an hour while you sit down with a glass of wine and read this short brochure about our electricity plans. Yes, that includes the dishes, ironing, mending... anything you have that needs doing! And what's more, I've brought along some chilled white wine, a foot spa and one of those weird chairs that massages your back."

Don't you think that might be a better approach? And maybe it would actually work! My friend Phoebe has a new baby. The baby has a cold at the moment and is waking her mother up seven times a night. Yes, you heard me, Mr Guru, SEVEN. I reckon if someone tapped on the door and offered to let Phoebe get an hour's kip, she'd just about sign up for anything. "Electricity? Sure! Whatever you say. Chardonnay? Thanks. Just turn up that weird chair a bit... Zzzzzz."

I really think I might be on to something here. I propose that all clipboard-holding door-tappers should be retrained immediately in the art of multi-tasking household chores. Either that or they should at least bring along a puppy.