Here’s a potentially unpopular opinion: I don’t think we should entirely embrace Girl Scouts selling their cookies virtually.
A few things before you come at me. First, I’m not casting shade on parents. I was a Girl Scout myself many moons ago. I was involved in the program all the way through eighth grade in Girls Scouts of the USA, Hudson Valley, Troop 406, until our troop disbanded when we all went to high school. I think I was the only one who wanted to continue, but without a troop, I couldn’t.
Our troop earned our Silver Award by making tactile books for children with visual impairments. We were very proud of our work. (For the uninitiated, the Silver Award is the second highest honor offered by the Girls Scouts).
So, I went through this whole cookie selling thing myself. Back then, the most ridiculous and controversial thing about cookie sales was the price hike – $3.50 a box!
But let me take a step back and describe what cookie sales were like in the 90s.
The daughter of a salesman, I had a certain knack for convincing people that my idea was actually their great idea first. I also had a certain level of competitiveness that drove my desire for success. This was partially fueled by my dad, who wanted his kids to be the best at whatever they did, regardless of what it was. When it came time to sell cookies, I really put my all into it.
I started off small in the first few years, asking family and close friends and a couple of the nearby neighbors down the street. My parents made a point of making ME physically ask each member of the family, and go through my spiel each and every time – to practice being nervous, to practice speaking, and to practice the art of conversation. It wasn’t about the obligation each aunt and uncle felt at my cousin’s birthday when I accosted them with my order form, it was about becoming an independent person…woman; one who could handle herself in sometimes uncomfortable or awkward situations.
But when I was in fourth grade, we decided to up the ante. We set a goal of selling 500 boxes. At the time, this was unheard of. Most girls sold between 100 to 200 boxes.
But once my dad had the idea and laid out his plan, I was all in. We drew a map of the neighborhood and figured out the route we would take. We also estimated how many houses we would need to hit each day in order to meet the goal, assuming of course that each house would order at least 2 boxes. If a customer only bought one, we needed to make that up somewhere.
Dad and I designed these little notes to leave on neighbors’ doors that said, “Sorry I missed you!” and asked them to call me back to place their order. This helped me practice my phone skills. (And yes, this is indeed a talent; I will have words with anyone who argues otherwise.)
Once word spread about our plan, some of the other girls expressed, shall we say, jealousy. Some thought I was encroaching on their “territory” in the neighborhood. But as all good salespeople know, the early bird catches the worm. I was taught not to mind the other girls and keep my eye on the prize.
My parents worked, but they didn’t have an office to go to every day. I mentioned my father was a salesman, but he was often on the road. My mom was the “lunch lady” at our school, and later a daycare provider. While I was hearing complaints from those other girls who supposedly would have sold their cookies to “our” neighbors if only they had gotten there first, I knew darn well that their mothers and fathers were taking order forms to the office and guilting coworkers into coughing up some (ahem) dough.
I did sell those 500 boxes– – 503 to be exact. I didn’t get my celebratory patch right away because they didn’t have one on hand. No one in our area had ever sold that many boxes before. I got my patch late, but I wore it with so much pride.
My dad had the idea, my mom walked me to every house, but I sold those boxes of cookies myself. I did all the talking (if you know me, I’m sure you’re not shocked by that). I learned how to “upsell” before that was even a popular term. I learned how to set a goal and work for it. I learned how not to care what other people think.
I carried those lessons with me and subsequently became the top seller of all the things one might sell going through school. Remember Entertainment Books – the ridiculously fat books of coupons? I sold a bunch of them every year of high school so that I could get a free yearbook. I can’t even imagine trying to sell something like that now.
Fast forward to today, actually a couple years ago I think; I started seeing parents of young girls sharing links to their online Girl Scout cookie pages. And you know what? I haven’t bought a box of cookies since.
I’m sure some folks will read this article and claim that the cookie sales are just a fundraiser, and the goal is to raise money for the scouts, no matter how or where the selling takes place. However, the Girl Scouts’ own website disagrees, stating that the program “prepares girls with the business smarts they need to take on the world!” and “is the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world.”
Another lesson I learned back in the 90s at the ripe young age of 9, is that successful business has a lot to do with failure. Girls who sell cookies online will never know what it’s like to have a door slammed in their face after a doorbell interrupted the inhabitant’s afternoon date with “Matlock”. They won’t know what it’s like to keep walking door-to-door (uphill, both ways!) after a whole block of “no” to get to that one corner house that results in a “yes.” Persistence is important too; just as important as learning how to handle a punch in the gut when you fail.
The Girl Scout website lays out the skills that cookie selling is supposed to afford those who participate:
● Skill #1: Goal Setting
● Skill #2: Decision Making
● Skill #3: Money Management
● Skill #4: People Skills
● Skill #5: Business Ethics
I’m not sure how a girl can learn all five while a parent shares a link to an online sales page.
I understand that things are very different right now due to the pandemic. I’m quite certain that if there was a pandemic in 1994, my parents wouldn’t have let me walk door-to-door to sell cookies. One of my mom friends involved her daughter in the online process, which included rehearsing sales pitches to post on Facebook.
The mom in question, Stephanie Ferraioli, told me: “We would help give her an outlet, but she had to do the bulk of the work. She made the videos and FaceTimed with family and friends. We still did some door-to-door to our close neighbors (masked of course). But we wanted her to earn her sales.”
Outside of the pandemic, if we parents just post links on our respective social platforms and don’t involve the girls in all steps of the process, what are we really teaching them? Maybe we should think a little bit more about what skills and lessons our girls will be missing out on before running to the internet to make things easy.
