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Oh how many times I had to lecture the girls to not pout when adults ignored them on the way out of the store entrance!!!
Good times, I tell you..goo"d times
I have so many stories about lessons learned when doing cookie sales with young children. It's a good thing they are cute, because good manners and business sense do not come naturally to all them:
1. Do not break off in the middle of your sales spiel to sit down on the customer's front porch, take off your shoe, and shake out a rock. Same goes for pouring out piles of sand.
2. When receiving a request for one of the less popular varieties, the appropriate response is: "Thank you!" and not "Really? Hardly anybody buys that type."
3. Do not stuff your mouth full of cookies and attempt to speak to a customer at the same time.
4. Do not ring the customer's doorbell until you are ready to talk, and have your buddy who's pulling the wagon full of cookies, right next to you. Then you will not have to yell, "HURRRRRRRY UP!" at the top of your lungs while standing 18 inches from a would-be customer.
4. "Thanks anyway, have a great day!" is the appropriate response to a would-be customer's "No thank you." They may not be buying from you this time, but they might next time...if they don't have a negative impression of you. Remember you are representing the whole Girl Scout organization, in addition to yourself.
5. Don't put the customer's money on the table when doing a booth on a windy day.
6. Don't have a drink without a lid on a table when doing a booth. There is a 100% chance it will get knocked over.
7. Make eye contact with people exiting the store. You're young and your enthusiasm is cute, work it, girls! (we always stay 15 feet from exit, as per our Council's guidelines, and never block entrances/exits - you can avoid us if you really want to. Also, I would never "evil eye" somebody who doesn't buy - I am too busy making sure the girls are behaving and keeping the booth stocked).
8. Be prepared to answer the most popular customer question, "What's YOUR favorite type?" It doesn't matter what your favorite type is, but a shrug and "I dunno" is not the best way to get a customer interested.
9. When at the cookie booth, just give the customer their change with a smile and a thank you. Asking, "Do you really want your change?" while hovering your hand over the military donations jar, is a little strong, tactic-wise. The customer sees the jar. It's impossible to miss, with its big ole American flag plastered to it.
10. Exclaiming "Oh my GAWD, this is awesome!" may or may not be appreciated by all clientele.
I think this needs to go into the Psychology forum under the "First World Problems" thread.
So you had to pass a bunch of little girls selling cookies on your way into a supermarket where you could buy any type of food you could want. The horror. The horror.
I was assisting my 8 yr old daughter selling girl scout cookies, going door to door. We approached this one house, daughter rang the doorbell. Since the door had side glass panels, we could both see inside the house. My daughter peeks in, and we can both see a lady sitting on the couch, looking at us, waving and shouting "GO AWAY", over and over. By her tone, she was not happy to see us there.
I rolled my eyes, but my 8 yr old daughter was a bit shaken up, she could not understand why she was being treated like that. I can understand a person's reaction to any type of door-to-door sales person, but to an 8 yr old girl selling girl scout cookies, i thought it was really rude, inconsiderate and over the top. My lesson to my daughter - that person is exactly the type of person you do *not* want to be when growing up. One can not be interested, but polite at the same time.
Now here's the dillema. My wife was extremely angry over what had happened, and wants to send a letter to that home, calling her out on her rudeness. At the same time she would be polite about it, including a "no solicitors" sign so they can ensure other girls are not impacted by their rudeness. I'm saying leave it be, if that person wants to be rude in their home, that is their right.
Thoughts?
IMO it's a life lesson learned, people are rude sometimes, deal with it. A person has a right not to be disturbed in their own home if they don't want to be, and it was out of line, also IMO, for your daughter to peek into those windows to look inside when there was no response to your knock at the door-people also have the rights not to answer their doors. She wouldn't have shouted at your daughter had she not peeked in those windows. Of course, I figure that is the reason for curtains and other window coverings, and the woman could have covered her windows too, but that is another matter.
I think your wife should let it go, she would be out of line in sending anything but an apology to that woman for the invasion of her privacy.
Our neighbor placed two yard signs in front of their house saying "Girl Scout Cookies Here." It's a perfect solution! If we want cookies we ring THEIR doorbell. Of course that person my husband knocked over running down the sidewalk to get to their house might not think it's perfect!
^^I dunno. I like the idea of the girls going out for business, not the other way around, though I'm not crazy about door to door. (My own kids did do door to door.) A kid from my neighborhood used the neighborhood email to send a notice that she was selling;I sent one back for her to come over. Another neighbor did the same.
I was assisting my 8 yr old daughter selling girl scout cookies, going door to door. We approached this one house, daughter rang the doorbell. Since the door had side glass panels, we could both see inside the house. My daughter peeks in, and we can both see a lady sitting on the couch, looking at us, waving and shouting "GO AWAY", over and over. By her tone, she was not happy to see us there.
I rolled my eyes, but my 8 yr old daughter was a bit shaken up, she could not understand why she was being treated like that. I can understand a person's reaction to any type of door-to-door sales person, but to an 8 yr old girl selling girl scout cookies, i thought it was really rude, inconsiderate and over the top. My lesson to my daughter - that person is exactly the type of person you do *not* want to be when growing up. One can not be interested, but polite at the same time.
Now here's the dillema. My wife was extremely angry over what had happened, and wants to send a letter to that home, calling her out on her rudeness. At the same time she would be polite about it, including a "no solicitors" sign so they can ensure other girls are not impacted by their rudeness. I'm saying leave it be, if that person wants to be rude in their home, that is their right.
Thoughts?
I rarely tack posts to threads this long, but I guess this one struck a cord with me.
I do hope that you decided to talk your wife OUT of writing that letter. Everybody has the right to not answer the door to anybody, and if that was me in that lady's situation I likely would have stormed to the door in a fit of RAGE.
What annoyed the woman was not the knock at the door - it was the intrusion into her privacy when your daughter peeked in through the glass. The only time anyone has done something similar to that was by a Jehova's Witness, and that person never came back to my house again. Your daughter is old enough to learn to never peek into anyone's house like that.
I have a No Soliciting sign and so do most of my neighbors. Unfortunately, a lot of people pretend to not notice it. But selling door-to-door is risky business, even for kids.
Imagine the OP's reaction if the kid peeked through the glass and found the woman with her husband and their girlfriend, naked, all three of them going at it on the living room floor.
Imagine the OP's reaction if the kid peeked through the glass and found the woman with her husband and their girlfriend, naked, all three of them going at it on the living room floor.
"Sally, go home and tell mom to write some letters; I'll catch up with you later."
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