Cookie Booth Basics

It's not only Girl Scout Cookie Sale time it is also Cookie Booth time!  Every where you turn you should see a Girl Scout Cookie Booth for the next month or so!  Corner of the drug store, Wal-mart, local school, everywhere you go you should see an adorable girl asking for your support of her cookie business.  

Here are 10 Cookie Booth Basics that a little experience has given us:

1) Have stock!  

      It's hard to sell cookies if you don't have any!  So make sure that you have at least a case of each variety as you never know what customers will love and you can't sell what you don't have.  I would recommend having two cases of the most popular varieties in your area - for us that is the Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties, and Caramel Delights.

2) Have change...

      This should seem pretty obvious, however it is very important to have change.  

3) But not too much change!  

      Our cookies are $3.50 in our area so it's important to have quarters but I would recommend the following to start your cookie change: $10 in quarters, $10-15 in $1's and approximately $20-$30 in $5's.  One of our local booths was given a counterfeit $50 the first weekend of cookie sales (I know stealing from a Girl Scout!) so I would not give change for anything over a $20.  You can also get those counterfeit pens, however we've heard of mixed results from them.

4) Make sure you have 2 adults to work the booth!

     This is extremely important so that some one can help watch girls and cookies while unloading vehicles as well as bathroom breaks!

5) Set out a donation jar

     Make sure you have a place that customers can donate to the cookie share program - the first day one booth received $30 in donations.  We simply attached this sign to the front of a mason jar and set it at the front of the table.

6) Ask for donations!

     Towards the beginning of our booth we were not getting much jingle in our donation jar, however after about 30 minutes the girls started asking customers if they would like to round up their change before giving their change to them.  Once they started asking to round up, almost every customer would drop $0.50 to all of their change into the donation jars.  Tell customers what you are donating to as well!

7) Practice, Practice, Practice with your Troop

     Before the booth we practiced with the girls how much 2 boxes of cookies cost, 3 boxes, etc. so that they could quickly do the math in their heads.  The booths get frenzied and customers want to get their cookies quickly!  We also practiced how to stand at a booth and how to greet customers.  Not to yell at them but to smile and say hello, ask how they are doing, etc.  The girls got a kick at the meeting because I acted out some things not to do.....like we don't pick our noses at the booth, we don't shout at customers, we don't scratch our butts, etc.  They thought it was hilarious!

8) Have a cheat sheet just in case!

     We had a clipboard with this sign attached to it to remind the girls of salesgirl tips as well as cookie multiples.  My daughter takes this clipboard around when selling by herself too!

9) Hold the change but let the girls do the math!

     This is their business!  Help them and keep the money safe, but let them make change for the customers.  Teach them to count it back to customers and let them do them math!

10) Have fun!

     Bring a snack and something to drink, sing a song.  We tried to break our booths into no longer than 1.5 hours for each girl but sometimes it was a little longer.  They will keep trucking as long as they are having fun!

Girl Scout Cookie Time 2

Ok - we are in full Girl Scout Cookie mode right now as lamented here......

And while I am feeling a little soothed by the Cookie Sales Tracker and all of its Excel glory, my marketing background is itching to come out!

Now before everyone jumps all over me - this is Rose's business.  She is extremely involved in every step.  For instance, while I may have created the Cookie Sales Tracker she and her brother have logged 90% of the orders.

This morning at church, she patiently waited for a conversation to end in order to ask for business. She wanted me to go with her but I reminded her that this is her business not mine.  She went and she asked and she received another order.....then came bounding back to me with the biggest smile on her face and a sense of pride for a job well done.

I remind her that people are going to say no (something I hate to hear myself and struggle with the fear failure in my own business), but am there to support her when they do and help her move on to the next customer graciously.

So cookies will make their way to our town tomorrow for the first round of disbursement and Rose is at about 350 of her 900 box goal.  Sorting and separating and preparing for delivery have my Six Sigma skills tingling!  (#nerdalert!)  So in order to do so, I have tried to think of what the flow will look like (big believer in setting something up right from the beginning if possible!).

Step 1 - Using the second column of the Cookie Sales Tracker we've got the sales broken down into different groups - church, friends, mom's work, etc. so that we can easily group the cookies.

Step 2 - We've gotten bags donated from a friend's husband who is a local State Farm Agent - you might remember Ann Kelly from Recipes We Love, she coordinates our monthly cooking nights that are being revitalized from the dead.  Anyways, this will make for easy grouping of cookies sold since they are generally 2-4 boxes.

Step 3 - I've made a Girl Scout Cookie Thank You card to help keep up with names, varieties purchased, amount owed (or can write "Previous" in the amount field if already paid), and number to purchase more cookies at if desired!  I searched Pintrest for one that I didn't have to buy and came up empty handed when looking for everything I wanted so I just made my own!  I hope that it may help you as well!  My thoughts were to write the name of the customer up top, then the Troop number in the blank.  You can indicate varieties ordered and amount total in the spaces provided.  Rose will sign everyone one of these below the "Thank You-" and then included my phone number for additional orders in the space provided.

Step 4 - The cookies will be sorted, grouped and a Thank You Card placed with it for delivery!

Step 5 - Rose will call all customers to let them know cookies have arrived and to step up a time for delivery!

Step 6 - Cookies will be delivered!

Good luck Girl Scouts!  And may the cookies be ever in your flavor! #cookieboss

Girl Scout Cookie Time!

In case you are living in a dark hole somewhere you have undoubtedly experienced Girl Scout cookies at some point in your life, and they are good.

Well it's that time of year that my girl and her troop are selling them again.

I will be honest last year, we sold a little here and there and participated in the booth sales as required but nothing major.

This year I have been volunteering as the co-leader and Rose really got involved and excited in the Fall Product Sales.  So when it came to Cookie Sales, she set her goal and we are helping her work towards it.

Now the thing I like, and am encouraging with her and all the girls, is that this is their business.  So her Dad and I will help her, as every business has employees, but it is her business and she has to do the brunt of the work.

Her goal this year is 900 boxes.  For some of you that might be chump change but for us, it's a lot! Plus it will allow her to earn a free week at camp - and when your momma just quit her job that's a big deal!

So I've got a Pintrest board going with Girl Scout Cookie ideas, and some she will probably elect to do - especially some form of the thank you cards for future business.

But my business background left me feeling a little lacking as we tried to track sales via the sales paper we were given.  So I created this Cookie Sales Tracker file (linked here to Google Docs - feel free to copy and use!) and Rose entered all of the sales so far!

		Total Boxes	0	Total Dollars	$0.00	Troop Dollars	$0.00			0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2015 Girl Scout Cookie Sales									$3.50	Cookie Share	Thanks-A-Lot	Cranberry Citrus Crunch	Lemonades	Shortbread	Thin Mints	Peanut Butter Patties	Caramel Delights	Peanut Butter Sandwiches	Total Packages	Amont Due	Paid
Sort	Group	First Name	Last Name	Address	City	State	Zip	Phone	Email										0	$0.00
1
2
3
4

Already I love it because it quickly allows us to quickly add totals, check dollar amounts, see counts on cases, etc. and for an Excel nerd like me it makes my heart smile.  It also made me very proud to see both of my kids want to type and enter the information and happy to see them learning to type!

I hope that it helps someone else and as I figure out some more I will add them! #cookieboss

Attitudes and my own mutiny!

My daughter is six, let me start of by saying that first.  She has seen Miley's Wrecking Ball, although not that I wasn't happy about it, and has definitely started showing her developing attitude a lot more lately.   My grandmother has noticed it.  Rose and I have talked about it.  My neighbor and I were consoling ourselves this morning because we are seeing the same thing in both of our little girls - snarkiness, extreme sassiness (I'll be honest I'm okay with a little sassy and feel like it is my motherly duty to develop it correctly.  I'm always in awe of other women who are able to reply at the right time with just the right amount of sass and not come off snarky or naggy - I'm sooooooo not that woman!), whininess, moodiness and just plain attitude.

I asked Rose where she is learning to act like this (I'm not delusional, she's in public schools and I know that I can't protect her all of the time - but I do think that it is my job as a mother to continually open the lines of communication and redirect behaviors that are not appropriate) - her response was the older kids at school.  Not terribly surprised, about the answer I expected - monkey see, monkey do - right? 

And I completely understand that she is learning to develop her own personality, I just don't want it to be one that is so snarky. 

So I know that I can't control what she sees at school (okay, I guess I could spend all my time with her at school and monitor everything and everyone she interacts with.......but that might be a little crazy and I would never get any work done!), and we really try to monitor what she watches at home - so I'm left with what do I do?

Quite honestly, I don't think this is just a problem that we are experiencing in our house, or just across the street.  I think this is reflective of a bigger societal problem in how we still see women as a society and the impact it is having on our young girls. 

I came across this video that really hit home, Media views on Women in 2013.  I'm not that old (in comparing myself to a generation that had to walk to school for miles in the sleet and snow with only one pair of shoes for the whole year - you've heard that story right?) but I do remember when you didn't see ads for Viagra or tampons on TV and the Huxtables were the family that you wanted to go home to (I was watching the episode where Claire took Theo to Family Court in their living room for lying the other day, I hope I can be half the mother I think she was!).  The role models that young people looked up to generally remained true role models - not like Miley, Brittney, Lindsay, and Amanda have become.  I mean when Madonna first started singing and making videos those were risqué right (I only got to watch them by sneaking at friends house.....hmmmm probably how Rose saw Wrecking Ball, I guess)?  However she continued to push the envelope about bigger issues in society, not just focusing on herself.

I have to admit, I definitely wasn't as sensitive to all of this until I started watching my daughter reflect some of the behaviors she was witnessing - being worried about her body image (she thinks she needs to go on a diet to be beautiful and SHE'S SIX!!! For those that know me well, dieting is not a common word in our house - being healthy, yes, but not dieting!), wanting to wear make-up to be pretty (I've tried to tell her since she was born how pretty she is, inside and out, every single day of her life), all in addition to the attitude.

Soooo what the heck does a mother do?  Well, this one is waging my own personal mutiny against the way society is telling my daughter the way she should look, act, think and behave.  I'm committing to talking to her daily, letting her know that I'm here for her no matter what, monitoring what she is exposed, and reminding her of how blessed she is to be made in God's image.

Will you join me in my mutiny for our children??