Sales and Girl Scout Cookies! The Girls Know How to Sell!
In business, we are all in sales—everyone of us. Everyone sells something. A teacher sells an idea, i.e., in algebra, finding the side of a triangle. A tangible product, i.e., Girl Scouts cookies, professional advisory services, i.e., consulting services, insurance or financial services. The key to any sale is the relationship that one establishes between the buyer and seller. Girl Scouts are excellent relationship builders.
BACKGROUND
Girl Scout Cookie sales are the largest female owned business in the USA. Each Girl Scout is an independent business person. Girl Scout Cookie Sales teach these important business concepts:
- Goal Setting—Sales goals, how many boxes to order
- Decision Making—Where to set up, what location, what time
- Money Management—How to spend the profits that each girl makes
- People skills—Working with many people, rude, nice, mean, friendly
- Business Ethics—Honesty, responsibility, integrity
Here are 2 experiences we had recently with Girl Scouts—both of which were very positive!
Experience 1—One of our staff went to the store, was asked by the Girl Scouts if they wanted to buy any cookies. The answer was NO, we bought some yesterday when we were at the store. OK, thank you. 20 minutes later, the same girls were at the other side of the store, asking folks leaving if they wanted to buy Girl Scouts Cookies. When our staffer asked, “What did I tell you when I walked in?”, the Girl Scouts replied, “You said you would come and look when you left!” Well no, that is NOT what was said, however, the passion and motivation of the Girl Scouts made the staffer buy another box of cookies!
Experience 2—A colleague goes to the store. The Girl Scouts ask her to buy cookies. “How much are they?” was the question asked. The Girl Scouts response, “$20.” “Well, how are they $20?” asked our colleague? Well, you get 5 boxes was the response! This time, our colleague took one box and let the girls keep the remaining $16 for troop projects.
In both cases, each Girl Scouts had the drive, desire, passion, motivation and pride to sell Girl Scouts cookies! The girls were polite but always had an answer to a relevant objection. This answer caused the buyer to again buy another box of Girl Scouts cookie. Another sale was made!
OUR ADVICE
In each instance above, the “overcoming the objection” answer was smooth and easy. In both cases, the answer was easy to understand and made each buyer spend more money. When a client raises a sales objection, think “outside the box” to address the objection. A sale will most likely result! They did each time in our examples above!
