Cookie Sale
Tips For Older Girls
It¹s sad to say, but there is no denying that the public
tends to buy Girl Scout cookies more readily from little brownies in full
uniform than from older girl scouts. Many are even unaware that Girl
Scouting continues beyond elementary school! Here is your opportunity to
correct this common misconception while offering your older girls a few
innovative approaches to sell cookies.
I have compiled a list of ideas below which was
shared by other leaders in the past and am happy to pass them along to assist
your Cadette and Senior girls. (Our thanks to these leaders for sharing!)
Additional resources for teens are available on
the ABC Bakers website.
Our Cadette troop did surprisingly well at booth
sales this year They realize that the cute factor is gone, so they came up
with a different approach. Billboards are mostly not allowed in our area,
so many merchants use ³walking billboard²¹ out near the streets. The
girls used this same strategy. They took two large poster boards, tied
them together and walked around the strip mall where they were selling. They
would hold a few boxes underneath the posters, so if anyone wanted to just buy
a box or two and had exact change, they could do it on the spot. (Or was that
strategy so they could "hide" their vests????? oh well!!!!!) Mary,
MD
My Cadette girls took over a booth from a troop of
Brownies. Instead of packing up and leaving, the adult with the Brownies
spread out their cookie boxes behind our booth to take inventory. People kept
walking around us to buy from the cute little girls. Did this make us
angry? Of course, but the girls decided they needed to do something about
it. They came up with the idea of teaching the public about the older
girl program and how many things our troop does.
When doing booth sales, put up a board with photos
of older girl activities. A little public awareness that older GS's DO exist!
We have a poster that our troop made... we take it to all our recruitment
events, sales, etc. I'll see if I can describe it... Lettering at the top
& bottom is red. Other smaller lettering is yellow, blue & green.
At the top it says (in large lettering): "Last year the Girl
Scouts in Wasco County..." Below in smaller letters, all at
different angles, it says stuff like: "Hopped Waves, Climbed Mt.
Hood, Slept with a Dinosaur, Went Spelunking, Ate 543 S'mores, Went Whitewater
Rafting, Danced at a Hoedown, Tasted food from 26 Different Countries, Had a
Luau," etc., etc... At the bottom, again in Large letters):
"...What Did YOU Do?" We got ideas for the activities to list
by polling the leaders on their troops activities for the previous year.
After the poster was done we had it laminated so it travels well. Becki
Be innovative. Consider telemarketing or doing a
booth at a major public event, like a sports tournament with hungry athletes!
Or take orders for mid-term or finals care packages for students at a university.
When my troop was Cadettes and Seniors, they did a
good deal of their cookie sales via the telephone. They would keep prior years'
cookie order forms so they would know who their customers were and a couple
days prior to the start of the sale, they would call their customers to remind
them that cookie sales would be starting and that they would be happy to either
stop by in person or call them back after the sales started to get their order.
My daughter had a good deal of success with that method plus she would go
to her father's place of work, just as she had done all those prior years.
His co-workers were used to seeing her each year and enjoyed seeing her
grow up. It is difficult for older Scouts in some ways to sell cookies
but if they present themselves with a nice smile and a uniform, that can go a
long ways in those door to door sales. Mary in Oklahoma
Our C/S also use the telephone method. So
many people are not home anymore!!! My daughter, using her old order
form, calls and says "you bought 4 mints and 4 dosidos last year -- how
many would you like to buy this year?" There is no room in this
conversation for a NO answer!
Also, she keeps track of who has dropped or bridged out of GS, and calls
them to be their new supplier! She has also sold to former leaders whose
daughters are grown.
When the troop complains of not being CUTE
anymore, I tell them what they lack in natural cuteness, they make up in
stamina and marketing savvy. The troop in the past has always done booth
sales, treating them as a social occasion! Our HS kids get out early in
the afternoon and I have had a couple of great parents able to chaperone booths
during the afternoon. We always try to get booths that first week of
sales -- no one else wants weekday booths; we get several -- and we don't do
any booths the last week of the sales. We're tired!!!
When the troop started this fall, the Cadettes
did a survey of why they were in GS, what they expected, what their friends
expected, etc. I have 6th - 9th graders. ALL the Middle School
girls commented that their friends thought that GS was for geeks, dorks, only
dumb, do-gooder, no-life persons. (They didn't! They just knew what
their friends-not-in-GS thought.) I saved the comments from the only 9th
grader in attendance for last. According to her, her classmates' only
comment to her being a GS is "When do the cookies come in?"!!!
My 11th grade daughter agreed - it's true!! Our HS
girls are allowed to sell at school, some of the MS girls can't.
- Mary, GSC of Colonial Coast
When one of Sherri¹s Senior girls was told that
she was ³too old to be a Girl Scout², she politely responded, ³I don't drink, I
don't take drugs and I'm not pregnant. I'm a perfect age to be a Girl
Scout, ma'am.²
My daughter is a sophomore and she has sold over
350 boxes to kids at school and her teachers. My older daughter went to
college this year and we sent her a form to get orders; she sold over 100 boxes
as well! It also was a nice way for us to make a short "visit"
to deliver the cookies. She collected most of the money, deposited it
into her own checking account and then wrote our Troop a check. Who says
they are done with Girl Scouts once they hit college! - Worrywart, GSCM
Both my daughters had great success selling cookies
at their high school. They just took the form to school. By the
time the girls are in high school, no one cares any more what you are doing, so
they didn't get ridiculed. But everyone has had GS cookies in their
childhood and everyone wanted some. A word of caution, get money up
front. They both had a hard time collecting funds once the cookies
arrived. - Alyce, SF Bay Area GS Council
Check with your council...... your council might
have special site sale just for older girls.... such as Ferry Dock or Downtown
Seattle. Girls have done very very well there. - Lee, Seattle
This brought back a
funny (and somewhat bittersweet at this point) memory for me. When I was
in high school we sold Krispy Kreme donuts on Election Day as a fundraiser for
our Marching Band (in our part of VA this was a school holiday because they
used a lot of schools for polling sites). One year, my friend whose father
worked at the Pentagon got permission for us to be on the grounds in the
parking lot to sell our donuts. We went through so many boxes so quickly, as
the (mostly) men and women came through the lot. They'd say, "Ooooh..I
don't have to share!" as they forked over their $3. We probably
wouldn't have a chance of doing that now :-( But, selling cookies at a
place of business that will let you on a school day off is a fabulous idea.
People love to horde the cookies and not share them with their spouses, kiddos,
etc. :-) You'd probably do just as well with cookies as we did with those yummy
Krispy Kremes. Amie
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Updated
December 2007