I'll start this post with a little upbeat story. We trudge off to the yearly Open House a few weeks ago and get shocking news. The Spring fundraiser was so unbelievably successful that, this year, for the first time, there would be no fall fundraiser. The place went wild! (A note on this: The spring fundraiser was overpriced tiny tubs of cookie dough that I refused to participate in. The fall fundraiser is usually Entertainment Books which I love and always buy and use to death. C'est la guerre!)
But this reprieve from order form pushing was short lived. Here it comes, the Girl Scout Nut Sale, the second hardest thing to sell. What's that you say? Girl Scouts sell cookies, don't they? Oh, we sure do! Lots and lots of cookies! But before that comes the Nut Sale, known as the Calendar Sale back when I was a lass. But the calendars didn't make the money, so now it's nuts and other little snacks in pretty packaging. It's supposed to get the troop year going, but it's such a drag... Luckily none of it is terribly expensive, but that's because you only get tiny amounts.
So then what is the #1 hardest thing to sell? Why it's Boy Scout Popcorn! You want to talk overpriced..... fogetaboutit! The cheapest item is $10 and it goes all the way up to $50. IT'S POPCORN! It's a nightmare to push. And I don't really like any kind of popcorn, so I'm a terrible salesperson. It's hard to be persuasive with the "yucky" look on your face!
Alas! These two sales are overlapping - right now. When people see me coming they scamper up trees and throw themselves into mailboxes. I don't blame them. And I know what you're thinking -- The kids are the Scouts, they should do the selling. Yeah, right. If it was up to them, they wouldn't sell one item. But all in all, I'd rather sell this kind of stuff than work a car wash or a spaghetti dinner any day!
2 comments:
how about I donate 10 bucks to each troop and we call it even? :) We don't really do much popcorn either and the nut stuff was crap last year (the opened, but unfinished tins are all still in the cupboard-blech). I'll send my donation out tomorrow :)
Who the heck came up with popcorn as a fundraiser? That is the cheapest stuff in the world to begin with, unless you're buying it at the movies. All the troop moms need to boycott the fundraiser or start an Internet/letter-writing campaign and push for a new product. The popcorn thing sucks.
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