Recently I came across an interesting video on How To Girl Scout Cookies and was amazed seeing how soon this video became viral and ended up with huge sales. Coming to think of it, marketing techniques are implemented by every company, but how this young girl has showcased her “cookies” is beyond comparison. You can see the video below and you will be blown-away by her innocence and complete honesty.
I think there is a lot of things to learn from this video alone, marketing skills can be acquired and learnt by going to college for a couple of years, but how will you succeed in this vast universe with a certificate is the challenge. Kids always have something that we adults ignore and pretend that it is of little significance, but they come out with such enormous potential, that it is hard to not see it.
Who Are Girl Scouts?
I am sure many of you would already be familiar with the term ‘girl scouts’, with the program being so famous in the United States, and everyone’s daughter wants to be a girl scout and go door-to-door selling cookies or chocolates or even some bring along Panera bread coupons!!!
You may want to know how this program came into being and you can read the entire history in this article here – Who are girl scouts?
Why Sell Cookies?
Girl Scouts Cookie program is just one among many activities that the scouts do, and since only girls are allowed to sell these cookies, there is a specific time-frame when they are available and they usually run out pretty fast. They may be available for a 4-6 weeks period when you see young girls knocking on your doors asking you to buy their cookies.
When you buy these cookies from them, you open up life-changing opportunities for these young girls, giving them a chance to sometimes tour the nations’ capital, or even organize summer camps.
Entrepreneurs in the Making?
But it is not only limited to just getting benefits out of a sale in monetary form. This exposure allows these talented young girls to showcase and portray their products (cookies) to you (cookie-customer). In this exchange, there is interaction, where the girls learn how to speak to different kinds of people of various ages and religions.
The girl scouts learn how to run a small cookie store business and how they can get to their target of selling suppose 300 cookie boxes in just 6 weeks. Communication and collaboration are the major tools of marketing and they are exposed to this at an early age, allowing them to nurture these business tactics to grow as young entrepreneurs for sure.
How to Sell Anything Differently?
I think this is a question all the marketeers around the world always think about, how to make their product unique? How to showcase their products to the world in the most interesting way that customers will be drawn towards them and cannot resist buying.
This simple technique is shown by this young girl – Charlotte McCourt, who writes a letter to her dad’s “rich friend” asking him to donate cookies to the troops of the nation. But how did this go viral? What was so special in this video that Charlotte reached her goal of 300 cookies within no time (and possibly much more)?
Her Dad works with Mike Rowe (whom you might know from the Dirty Jobs series), and Mike himself couldn’t resist reading out this girl’s letter in this video below!!!!
As you can see the video has close to 10 million views already since it was uploaded I think around end of Jan 2017. I can imagine how many people after viewing this would have straight away gone and purchased those cookies. An honest appeal is the best bet I feel while trying to sell your products.
If you hear what Mike reads out, you will see how Charlotte first begins by telling her dad’s friend to buy lot of cookies for troops serving our nation overseas. Then she goes on to explain all the types of cookies that she sells, giving an honest opinion about each one. She even says that one of her least favorite one is some kind of gluten-free cookie which she calls as a ‘wasteland with no flavors what so ever’ !!! She then mentions which ones are her favorite and you wouldn’t go wrong with those.
If you visit her website HERE, you can actually see that she has already reached her goal and with such simple marketing technique!!!
Over To You
We as bloggers also try various marketing and promotional methods to get noticed and make our posts go viral. We read many articles that says how to improve her traffic 10 folds, adopt many social media techniques to share. But have you ever approached this problem with such simple honesty that your article is “one among millions??” Have you started off by saying that you use ‘false advertising’ as this young girl scout cookie mentions at the very beginning? Do you think being honest in marketing will help you sell whatever service you are offering? Leave your thoughts below.
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Hello Praveen,
Great thing it is! These activities can help well such girls become great marketers in future.
Loved the video.
Thanks for putting up here.
Yes Atish, in the US we see these young scouts come and knock on our doors selling cookies. I let them explain their products and see how they do that. Some are really professional and would sell their cookies with a lot of conviction.
Thanks for your comment.
Praveen Rajarao recently posted…The Awesome Tree House by Neha Praveen
Hi Praveen, Thanks for all the great tips and how-to’s in this article.
Thanks for the blog The Girl Scouts are going digital to sell you cookies and this blog is very help for me to sell girl scout cookies thanks a ton.
Girl Scout Cookies are cookies sold by Girl Scouts of the USA as one of its major fundraisers for local Scout units. I suggest you sell your products online to get more customers.