Cookie sales tend to make home life for leaders a bit chaotic. Here are 10 simple tips to get ready for Girl Scout Cookie season and keep your family and you happy.
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Updated January 2023
For more cookie season help, download my FREE Girl Scout Cookie Booth checklist.
If you are a member of any of the Girl Scout Facebook groups, you may be reading post after post about how stressed some leaders are getting with cookie season looming. There are even more posts from new leaders who are confused about how to Girl Scout cookie season and how to manage it all.
There were a ton of helpful hints that I have compiled for you, as well as a few of my own based on my experience selling cookies with my daughters.
Do Not Be the Leader and The Cookie Mom
There, I said it. As the leader, you have enough on your plate without adding the stress of selling cookies. In my Council, having both roles is not permitted. The first time we sold cookies, my girls were second year Daisies. It was small and we did not do booths. My Cookie Mom was difficult to contact and I was frequently stressed about her lack of communication.
When my girls became first year Brownies, that girl had moved so we has no Cookie Manager. When no one else stepped up to be the Cookie Manager, we did not sell cookies until sixth grade Cadettes.
You can tell parents this and if no one steps up for this role, then parents will have to pay out of pocket for everything.
Ask Questions About Selling Girl Scout Cookies
As a teacher, I have always told my students that there are no dumb questions. I need them to ask me what they do not understand because I am not a mind reader! How will I know if they are lost, confused, or lack understanding unless they tell me?
The same holds true for asking questions about Girl Scout cookie season. While Facebook pages are always helpful, every Council does things their own way. What might work in one Council will not be the way it works in another. Ask your Cookie Manager to clarify what you do not understand.
Gauge Parent Interest
Prior to Cookie Season, it is best to have a short and sweet parent meeting to gauge how invested they are in cookie sales. How committed are they in helping their daughters? Are they willing and/or able to help with going door-to-door and doing booth sales on the weekend? How many booths? If parents tell you one or two versus six or eight, then you know to schedule two booths and not eight.
When you know their expectations, you can let go of the stress of having no girls at booths if you schedule too many. You can also guesstimate how much money your troop will earn based on the responses of your parents and plan future activities accordingly.
Focus on Troop Goals
Leaders, you chose to sell cookies with your girls. Your parents told you how vested they are.
Now is the time to be Elsa and “let it go” when you have a few girls who sell twenty boxes or less while your daughter has a goal of 1,000.
In this updated blog post, Why Girl Scout Do Not Sell 1,000 Boxes of Cookies (and Why Leaders Need to Stop Stressing Over It), you will read valid reasons why certain girls in your troop are not going to sell a lot of boxes (if at all). While it may seem unfair to you, this is how the GSUSA set it up. Little girls cannot sell without parental assistance.
There is nothing you can do about it and remember, troop money is troop money, regardless of how much a girl sells.
How to Determine How Many Cases of Cookies You Need to Order
If you are a seasoned leader who has sold cookies with her troop, you have the numbers from last year. Then you need to look at this data:
- How many girls are in your troop this year compared to last year
- Is your top cookie seller(s) still in your troop? If she sold 1500 boxes and is no longer involved with scouts, that will affect how many cookies you order
- What was your per girl cookie average
- How many booths do you have scheduled (if any)
- How many cookies you averaged at booth sales last year (bearing in mind last year’s cookies sales during the pandemic affected your totals
If this is your first cookie season, then asking your Service Unit Cookie Manager how many cases to order is your best place to start.
Remember that you can always order more cookies if you need them.
Create a Cookie Central in One Room of Your House
I remember when my troop finally had a well organized and seasoned cookie mom. Her living room became Cookie Central. She was very organized and had a system for everything.
She treated her role as Cookie Manager like her business.
- We had a cookie meeting with the girls and parents to discuss how cookie selling works and to set troop goals. When the girls went into another room to hang out, each family discussed how much time and effort they were able to put in and how many booths were we willing to do.
- She had business hours/days as to when we could pick up more cookies, as she worked during the day.
- You had to count the cookies in front of her. Then she counted them again.
- PAPER TRAIL…she had her receipt book and you were given a receipt to keep. She took her time because when you rush, you tend to make mistakes.
- She used an Excel spreadsheet to double check and keep track of the inventory and numbers.
Whoever is in charge of the cookies needs to set firm boundaries. Some leaders have multiple pick up times while others will have one night a week. Tell parents what times you are available for texts and talking about cookies, or better yet, keep it to email. Create a separate email address that you check only at certain time. All cookie questions and orders go through that address. Let parents know that you only check it on certain days and times. Do not make yourself available 24/7 or you will burn out.
Larger troops will need to be even more organized. A binder with each girls name on a separate tab will help you keep track of the receipts.
Another leader who was also the Cookie Manager made a Google Doc that parents could write their cookie requests. She informed parents that on X day of the week, she would look at it. That was the only way she took orders. On the day she looked at the document, she could check the inventory and then order more of what was needed.
There was a leader who noted that she took a picture of the cookies being picked up as well as the receipt. While that may be extreme to some, perhaps she had issues in the past. There is nothing like a paper trail and photo evidence to deter a potential problem parent.
Divide and Conquer With Your Co-leader
Booth sales help in achieving troop goals and it helps girls achieve sisterhood by selling together. These also help girls whose parents who are unable to sell at work or cannot take them door-to-door.
That being said, if you are a leader who does multiple booths each weekend, you cannot go to each one. Let your co-leader take half of them…after all, she signed up to help you. If you cannot get coverage at every sale, seriously consider relinquishing that time slot to a troop who wants or needs it and has the adults and girls to man it.
Take Advantage of Online Selling
In this day and age, you can sell to family and friends both locally and across the country.
Cookies Must Be Paid Before New Ones are Taken
Now this may seem like a no-brainer, but there are leaders and Cookie Moms out there who permit parents to take out hundreds and hundreds of dollars of cookies without paying for them. This causes a lot of stress because troop money will have to cover these loses and you will need to report these families to Council for non-payment.
It is very simple. If you want more cookies, then all the cookies that you took in the prior order must be paid for in full. Otherwise, no more cookies.
Use Your Crockpot
Available for FREE on Teachers Pay Teachers
I have always been a huge fan of my crockpot. When I was working two and three different teaching jobs on Tuesdays, my slow cooker was always my go-to kitchen appliance. I made soups in it over the weekend and found many easy pasta recipes to throw in when I just did not feel like making a full blown dinner.
In this free crockpot recipe book that I wrote, I share five tried and true family favorites. Imaging selling at a booth on a cold winter day, and then you come home to a hot meal ready and waiting for you.
Do you have any tips for Girl Scout Cookies season that you can share?
