Serving as a Girl Scout Cookie volunteer is no easy task. After you’ve gone through Cookie training, set up your eBudde account and prepared for the sale, there may be some questions lingering or challenges you might face that are best learned from experience. That’s why we sought the expertise of Girl Scout Cookie volunteer veteran Linda Grice, who gave us some insight and advice for first time Cookie volunteers.

Last year, Grice’s troop, troop 841 from Arbutus sold more than 8,000 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies! With their proceeds the troop took several excursions including a day of fun at Terrapin Adventures, a sleep over with the dolphins at the National Aquarium and even a trip to Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Two of the girls in the troop were among the top five sellers in the Council last year. This year, the troop is aiming for each girl to sell at least 500 boxes of cookies and the girls have pledged to help each other  achieve their goal.

Here’s some of the advice Grice share with us that helped her troop have a successful Cookie sale.

Let girls choose their goals and show them how they can accomplish them:
“The cookie sale being tied to goals gets buy in from all the girls. The goal should be based on what they want to do and they should determine how many cookies they need to sell to do it.”

“Make a chart that shows how your troop will use the money they raise to reach their goal and show it to the girls and parents. This motivate girls and gets parents involved and allows them to participate with the troop.”

Build an adult support team:
“It’s important that there is a good adult team supporting the troop leader, SUCM and the girls. Ask parents to lend a hand. Don’t stop at the first ‘no,’ keep asking for their help.”

Explore every opportunity to help boost your troop’s sales:
“See if your company will allow girls to sell cookies at your office or if your company will buy cookies to use as client gifts or customer appreciation items.”

“Consider using smart phone credit card reader for your booth sale. I encourage es all troops to use it. Our troop added 200 more boxes to the final total because of the card reader.”

Use the cookie sale as an opportunity for professional development:
“Being involved with the cookie sale has strengthened my communication skills and I’ve become more of a people person because of this volunteer position.”

What advice would you give to first time cookie volunteers?