I am interested in your program, and would like a brochure.
HA! Where have you been hiding!
That’s how I read it, too.
But I thought the price was enforced by scary blue-suited high-school age girl scouts with hand-crocheted garroting wires. Since when can the seller change the price?
Two by two, suits of blue
The surprise is it’s prepared with adult seal.
Maybe most of them just don’t care enough? I mean, little kids who probably do have an interest are probably too young for that kind of enterprise, and by that point, the older ones probably have dropped out or aren’t really all that invested.
For some reason I am now seeing the Teutonic Girl Scout from Airplane! selling cookies at an Ohio drive-thru package liquor store. “Buy some cookies, mothafucka! [whomp]…”
But they were made from real girl scouts!
With oily palms.
I dabbled with Aflac for a few months out of college, and I still get e-mails from my District Sales Coordinator. I really should ask him to take me off of his mailing list. Anyways, he forwarded this story to all of his associates. The e-mail was prefaced with, “Hearing the economy’s bad?” This was mainly because, as a new associate, we learned a number of common objections we’d hear out in the field. A poor economy was one of them. I was just wondering how relevant this story was to selling supplemental group health insurance. Unlike the Girl Scouts, insurance salesmen aren’t quite as adored. It’s a nice story, but it didn’t inspire me to make an attempt to sell insurance again.
As a troop cookie mom (and parent of a scout, obviously) this story horrifies me! The entire family put their lives on hold for over a MONTH, to help with this goal. I’m also rather stunned that the local council didn’t put a stop to it - ours has very strict rules about where you can set up cookie sales booths (locations must be pre-approved, strict time limits, etc.).
“Put a stop to it”? Are you kidding? The girls all got a trip to Europe out of it. Would you wanna be the Scrooge that says “No” to that?
Since this has been going on for years, apparently nobody at the council has a problem with it. [shrug]
And presumably their long-time location was preapproved years ago, and they did observe the five-week time limit.
My GS council here stopped offering prizes at all after extensive cheating and outright thievery the year my eldest daughter was in the 4th grade Brownies.
17K boxes plus whatever all the other girls sold, and they only get $21K? That’s a lot taken off the top!
Yeah. The exact ratios may perhaps vary by council, but here (DC metro area), of the 3.50, the council keeps 2.85 (which pays the supplier, and goes to council operations etc.), and the troop keeps 65 cents. (younger troops only keep 60 cents a box, but the girls get cheapcrap toys etc. as prizes).
So 17,000 boxes would net the troop 11,050. It sounds like other girls in the troop sold a lot also if they profited 21,000 - that would require selling over 32,000 boxes.
I wonder if the troop saved up money from multiple years - some teen troops do that. That would make more sense than the entire rest of the troop selling that big also.
We really are prevented from sales like this, due to Council restrictions. All the parents take the order forms to work, of course, but even with that my biggest sellers have never done many more than 300 boxes. Some girls in other troops, who have access retail locations due to family businesses (eg. a family-owned drycleaner) have done a thousand or more but that’s pretty unusual. Traditional booth sales (tables at grocery stores etc.) sell maybe 50 boxes an hour. I was cookie mom for a Junior troop and a Cadette troop and the teen girls barely sold anything.
They can’t – it’s clearly a mistake in the article. The article should have said that if you buy FIVE boxes of cookies at $3.50/box and hand her a $20 bill, she says “Hey, for only one dollar more you can have another box!” Since 6 boxes at $3.50 a box is $21. The classic “upsell” technique.