Have you ever seen a lunch room at work with a stack of Girl Guide cookies saying $5 please put the money in the envelope?  Parents who do this think they are contributing to their kids childhood or are they actually robbing them of critical skills that will stick with them for life? skills they can make a living from?

What if we looked at this a little bit differently?  What if we used this as a learning opportunity for our children and taught them how to sell?  Most people find it a bit awkward to ask people for money or to support them but that is exactly what many people have to do during the workday to be successful.  They have that feeling of anxiety and try to put off asking for the sale so it won’t get “uncomfortable” or to protect from “rejection”.  In reality, the more often you ask or get a rejection, the more equipped and practiced our children get at dealing with it.

How about a reframe?  Hey kids, lets go and see how many rejections we can get!  Expect them because they are going to come, but sometimes they might buy.  What about role playing with them to help them open the shade to purchase with a stranger, determine, understand, verify and handle objections?  Hey, I am with the Girl Guides and I am selling cookies to support my group.  Are you interested in purchasing some cookies today?

If you get a buying signal, could you ask “how many boxes would you like?  It is $20 for 4 boxes or $5 for one box” to provide them an option to purchase 4 right away.  “I don’t like cookies”  Is there anyone in your life who likes cookies?,  “I don’t have the cash” I can come back and get it at a better time or you can email money transfer my dad.

What if you took it a step further and paid your kids a 50% commision on every box so they could get excited about it.  They can easily sell $60/hr which would amount to $30/hr at a 50% commision – that hourly rate is 3X babysitting showing them they could actually make a great living per hour selling!  Don’t forget about teaching the importance of savings rate and investing their earnings as well!

Girl Guide cookies are not for raising money, they are for raising strong, confident girls.  So next time a parent asks you to buy something tell them “Get your kid to sell them to me, let me give them a bit of a hard time so they earn it and I would gladly buy the goods and build up your kid in the process”.