Sales Lessons from the World’s Greatest Sales Force

First Posted May 15, 2009

Have you ever considered stealing sales ideas from an unseasoned sales force that moves 200 million units a year; their products are not available in stores and are sold only during the spring…yet sales revenue exceeds $700 million. Who is this incredible sales organization?
It’s the Girl Scouts, of course

Behind this small and mighty sales force are several successful sales lessons:

1.   Identifying performance gaps is essential for success. Develop “Gap Teams” that find gaps between how things are done now to what needs to be done to reach future goals.

2.   Teach Them Well. The Girl Scouts provide entrepreneurial programs at Cookie College for scouts to develop business acumen including presentation, marketing and money management skills. The “eat-them-up and spit-them-out” mentality of high turnover sales teams does nothing to build the self-worth of a sales person. Taking a personal stake in advancing the lives of your sales force has a direct effect on the bottom line.

3.   Go From Box to Bulk. With the majority of members living the busy life, the old one-box-at-a-time approach has been tossed for the bulk sales strategy. Older girls are bulk selling to large organizations and local businesses. Boost your sales by looking for large order opportunities. Look for areas where great numbers of prospects gather to maximize your sales time.

4.   Modernize to Change. Change is necessary to appeal to the current generation distracted by the popularity of instant messaging, computer games and FaceBook. The Girl Guides have employed social marketing using tools such as YouTube to highlight vintage cookie ads and maintains a blog. Take the pulse of your sales organization to find out what motivates them as well as discovering what new sales channels customers are using.

For more information about the Girl Guides Sales Force visit these links:
http://sbinformation.about.com/od/sales/a/worldsbestsales.htm
www.girlguides.ca/home