Business, Family, Gatherings, Stories, Uncategorized

Cookie Time!

27 Comments

Suddenly Girl Scouts and their cookies are everywhere. In the last few days I’ve come across Girl Scouts selling their wares at Cub Foods, at the liquor store, at the hardware store and even in the lobby of my concert Friday night!

This is rough on me because I am a sucker for a kid selling stuff for their cause, even if it is something I wouldn’t normally spend a dime on. Fruit from Boy Scouts, discount booklets from the high school basketball team, wrapping paper, candy bars, cookies, holiday wreaths, pizza.

When YA was a Girl Scout, she was the top seller for her age group in the Minneapolis area. She was ruthless – hitting on folks from my office, folks at church, all my friends and family.  She even talked with relatives out of town, convincing them to donate cookies to Second Harvest.  These sales paid for her trip to Girl Scout Camp every summer.  She was also a top fund raiser in school for years.

I think about her selling cookies whenever I come across a troop with a table full of goodies. Not a good value, of course, but it’s easier if you just think of it as charitable, tax deductible and edible!

Have you ever had to sell anything? Any good at it?

27 thoughts on “Cookie Time!”

  1. i was just in chicago to promote my new company that sells your stuff for you if you are a manufacturer
    i bright along steven because he was a bright receptive guy who speaks chinese and i always have a difficult time getting the chinese to understand my new marketing concept
    chinese are used to selling it to someone and then that person sells it
    my concept is i put it in amazons marketplace for them and look after it for them
    steven got verbal about how he explained it to them and they said no
    i explained that we needed to try it differently with different people because when we explain it correctly they say yes
    at one point we hit 4 in a row who all said yes and he was amazed
    i think the running punchline was steven you are not a salesman
    don’t give them your interpretation of my words
    give them my words

    i love selling
    i did construction worked in an old folks home and other odd jobs like factory work kitchen work janitor stuff but i think back in my days of buying a pound of pot do i could sell 15 bags and keep one and do that 2 or 3 times a year to support my recreation

    i remember meeting with my buddy justin about buying convertibles in september and october and cleaning them up to sell in april
    i was 18

    i am a motivational junkie
    zig ziggler had s talk called bad salesmen raise skinny kids

    we always had enough at dinner when i was growing up he said i know that because when i asked my parents for more they always said no you’ve had enough

    i got an email from the neighborhood consortium with my cookie options
    2 boxes of shortbread should be showing up any day now

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. To be completely honest I should have mentioned above that thanks to seeing Girl Scouts in so many places over the last week, I now have a nice assortment of Girl Scout cookies at my house.

      Liked by 1 person

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        2. From the Girl Scouts’ web site:

          If you buy Girl Scout Cookies and take the cookies home (to consume them), you’ve purchased a product at a fair market value. For this reason, Girl Scout Cookies used in this way are not tax-deductible.

          Many Girl Scouts ask customers to pay for one or more packages of cookies for use in Take Action or service projects or as part of a council-approved Gift of Caring or Cookie Share program. If you would like an acknowledgement of your donation for tax-deductible purposes, contact your Girl Scout’s council.

          Liked by 1 person

  2. I hate selling and I am terrible at it. I suppose, though, that as a psychologist I sell change at some level, to the hopeless and to the skeptical. That I think I do
    pretty well.

    Liked by 6 people

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    As a kid, I would win sales competitions (magazines, chocolate bars) by taking my stuff to a family gathering. The family was so large that even my lackluster presentation would allow me to win.

    I don’t think that counts as skills in selling. While I can be persuasive about some things, I do not like t o sell.

    I was in Iowa over the weekend to visit my mom, who appeared to have a sinus infection. My sister and I had to sell her on the idea of getting to urgent care for treatment—it is hard for her to get anywhere these days and it takes two people actually on their feet to manage her. But we got it done.

    Liked by 5 people

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  4. From my first day selling chocolates for Little League through going door-to-door soliciting housepainting customers to cold calling prospects as a financial planner, I’ve hated selling.

    So naturally, I became an author back in the “old days” (ten years ago) when I thought all I had to do was write a good book and the publisher would sell it to the world. Yeah, right.

    Alas, the internet publishing revolution and gig economy roared to the surface right about that time. Now I find myself peddling my books from bookstore to bookstore, festival to festival, person to person.

    I don’t hate selling anymore. I just see it as a necessary evil. And knowing that each sale helps Big Brothers Big Sisters eases the angst.

    Chris in Owatonna

    Liked by 2 people

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  5. I’m absolutely hopeless in sales. I have attended motivational seminars by guys like Zig Ziglar, Dwayne Dyer, Irwin Jacobs, and Brian Tracy. I have completed a six week Dale Carnegie course in leadership skills, and read books or watched videos by Tony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, and Stephen Covey, all to no avail. I have dabbled as a distributor for several companies, including Watkins, and I just couldn’t bring myself to accost first my friends, then later on perfect strangers. I know I’ve told you about my early failure in selling cosmetics, and later on, baby pictures. Some people like tim and Hans could probably sell a grass skirt to an eskimo. I would have a hard time selling ice cream in a desert.

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  6. I’ve sold a few raffle tickets for charity. I don’t much like doing it. But once someone to whom I sold a ticket won Twins tickets, and got to sit in the fancy big shots’ club area. The Legends Club, I guess they call it.

    Liked by 3 people

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  7. Daughter is a natural. When she was about 10 she wanted to rent a cotton candy machine for a National Night Out gathering at our house. We called the rental place to find out how much the rental was and she went out and hit on the neighbors. She had all the money raised in about 15 minutes.

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  8. I am not a seller. However, last year I had four selling events scheduled where I hoped to sell my photos: two in August, one in October, and one in December. I got ready – got my inventory built up and display stuff bought – and then had to cancel all the events. I still wonder how I would have done trying to sell at those event. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to be a pushy salesperson but could just let the photos speak for themselves and talk to people about where and how the photos were taken.

    Liked by 4 people

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      1. I’m sure you could do that, tim, and I appreciate the offer. But I’m not going to sell anything this year. Long story, but I actually have to make sure my income doesn’t get too high so I continue to qualify for medical assistance. Plus, I don’t want to have to deal with the bookkeeping and all those other details – not this year anyway.

        Liked by 1 person

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        2. Well, hopefully, by the time I’m ready, I’ll be able to do it myself! Maybe with a helper, but I hope I can be there.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. im a cigar box kind of salesman at those table top situations
          we could make certain your income isnt affected.
          the feds hardly ever come after cigar box guys like me

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        4. It’s not the feds, tim, it’s the state or county. It affects my eligibility for health insurance, which I really need to cover lots of stuff right now without much out of pocket expenses for me, plus eligibility for SNAP, which I also need. Plus I just don’t want to deal with it all this year. I’ve made my decision and I’m sticking with it.

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  9. I was a pathetic seller of Girl Scout Cookies, and it never occurred to me to bring them to an extended family gathering – or maybe there wasn’t ever one within the time frame.

    I did enjoy selling books when I had that little business in my friend’s hair salon. It had a built-in clientele, and a lot of them were readers, so the books (as ljb says) sort of spoke for themselves, I just sort of said “Here they are, come and get them.” I realized, though, when she decided to move on that I wouldn’t survive on my own at that point, and was lucky to find a buyer.

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