Creating Cookie Monsters
It’s true there are some things you can’t start teaching kids too soon-reading, for example. But marketing? I dunno. But the Girl Scouts of America seem to think so.
The Nov. 12, 1998 New York Daily News reported the GSA kicked off Corporate Cookie Connection Day with “Turning Cookies Into Dough,” a workshop held by Sales Staffers International, a sales coaching firm that works with companies like AT&T and Bell Atlantic. After a few tips on introducing, building and closing sales, the girls were selling cookies “as aggressively as Sales Staffers’ other clients sell wireless phone service.”
We’re training adolescents for careers as bad telemarketers? This is a good thing?
I have nothing against the Girl Scouts-I was one myself (and have the merit badges somewhere to prove it). And I’m all for the idea of building girls’ self-esteem and confidence and letting them know they can be anything they want when they grow up, even if it’s a bad telemarketer. But in a time when 5-year-olds want to pierce their belly buttons and dress like Scary Spice, can’t we keep anything simple and innocent? Children shouldn’t be worried about upselling and sales quotas, or how their cookie-selling aptitude will affect their future earnings potential. Girl Scout cookies should be sold the old-fashioned way-knocking on doors and badgering relatives.
The caption of the photo accompanying the Daily News story says the scout pictured is showing her “undivided attention” to the sales workshop. Actually, she looks like she wishes she was at home playing with Barbie dolls. Then again, so do attendees at some of the less scintillating DM seminars. Maybe the Girl Scouts are on the mark after all when it comes to preparing young women for marketing.
