Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Selling incentives

I have picked up the prizes for the Girl Scout Cookie sales for my girls who sold cookies and did well. I am troubled by sales incentives for kids who sale for groups or organization. I think that 1 - To purchase these prizes we're taking money away from the group that they obviously need or else they wouldn't be doing these sales. 2 - There are various levels of parental support/push that happens with these types of sales. Which leads me to 3 - Kids who do poorly are made to kinda feel bad for not getting that next prize (or even a prize at all). I know that a huge portion of why I struggle with this was my own youthful selling of crap. My mom only worked off and on and she never worked in an office of more than like 5 people so she wasn't very helpful. My dad worked with a max of 5 people. They would encourage us to go door to door (oh my how times have changed) but I was always so shy about doing that that it would take me like 5 min of agonizing just to walk up to the front door of a house to offer them my wares. (hence when I lived in suburbia I ALWAYS bought from children selling door to door even if I didn't need wrapping paper/magazine subscriptions or additional crap in my life) As a result, I never won a good prize... hell I almost never won any prize, and I remember that sucking. Especially when you knew some parent would take their form to their office and sell like 300 boxes or candy bars or whatever. My little sister's best friend in elementary school was the big editor of the local paper. All his underlings bought crap from his daughter and she was always one of the top sellers. Is this fair? Is life fair? Isn't it all about who you know?
So back to present day Brownies. I had two little girls who did not do any presale. Does this mean they are not worthy of a prize? They were out at all our site sales with us and sold there. The mother of one of my other girls commented that if she had known it was a big deal to sell cookies she would've pushed harder. Her daughter only qualified for the bottom prize. Ultimately, I have 7 girls... 4 sold over 100 boxes and got the 2nd level prize as well as the bottom prize. The other 3, well technically 2 didn't qualify because they didn't presale and 1 qualified for the bottom prize. Are all 7 getting the bottom prize? You betcha. I can't exclude those other 2 just because their parents didn't 'push' them to presale. Will they all be happy with their carabeener keyrings with a clock? Sure until it breaks. :) Will the other 4 be happy with their ladybug bears yup. Will the 3 who didn't get one realize the error of their non-selling ways and repent for next year? Probably. Will I have to go through this every year I am a Girl Scout leader. Of course, how else can we pay for camp? And ultimately that's the deal. We paid for our encampment with these cookies so that's a good thing.

1 comment:

TIMMY! said...

I hated selling things. My mom was a homemaker and my dad was a cop.

I sold two candy bars once. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and my brother walked in and saw the candy bars...he said, "selling these?"

Me - "Yeah."

Bro - ".50 cents each? I'll take two."

Me - "Okay."

Bro - "Thanks."

Me - "Sure."

Then I'd feel semi-bad when the other kids would sell like 756 candy bars or some impossible number. It was like their parents took a loan out so their kid could win a cheap prize from the dollar store or something.

I just realized this is really long...sorry =p