"Indeed, it is. Entrepreneurs
everyday must figure out ways to get around idiotic regulations, on top
of satisfying customers and shouldering heavy tax burdens."
Girl Scouts get lessons in how
the market works
By Douglas French | Special to the News
Published: March 14, 2011
Spring is in the air and that means Girl Scouts are selling cookies. Of
course, when I was a kid, my classmates in the scouts would be peddling
Thin Mints and the like door-to-door: Excellent training to overcome
fears, deal with a variety of different people, teaching the satisfaction
of offering a good product and not only making the sale, but being
responsible for delivering that product later as promised, since
customers paid up front.
These days doctors don't make house calls and neither do Girl Scouts.
Scouts and their mothers are now stationed in front of supermarkets and
other businesses and attempt to flag down busy shoppers as they enter or
exit the store. "Sir, would you like to...." is about all they
can get out before I'm out of earshot.
Not to be rude, but these girls aren't interested in a certain
granddaughter in
New Jersey who instead of parking herself in front of stores on
weekends, employs the other current cookie selling strategy which is to
make sure each and every relative living in the continental
United States, in addition to anyone employed by her father, buys the
bare minimum of cookie goodness. No muss, no fuss, and she makes her
quota.
It seems Girl Scouts in
Savannah, Ga., a long time ago thought it would be apropos and clever
marketing to sell their cookies on the busy sidewalk fronting the
childhood home of
Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts back in
1912.
However, the little girls in green, after decades of selling in front of
10 E. Oglethorpe Ave., ran smack into
Savannah city hall. Reportedly, someone complained, which prompted
Randolph Scott, the city of Savannah's
zoning administrator, to thumb through his rulebook. Sure enough the
girls were setting up their table on the public sidewalk, which violates
city ordinance.
He told the girls and their mothers they should set up on the other side
of the property. However, scout leaders told
him fire marshals wouldn't allow it because it blocked an exit route
from the house.
Savannah isn't the only Georgia city harassing cookie-selling scouts.
A police officer in
Villa Rica told Girl Scouts they had to quit selling outside a strip
mall because they didn't have a peddler's permit.
Taking the high road,
Jan McKinney, who heads product sales for the Girl Scouts of Historic
Georgia said, "We try to teach them that in business you have to
adjust to things that happen, adapt to the market and follow the law.
It's a real-world experience."
Indeed, it is. Entrepreneurs everyday must figure out ways to get around
idiotic regulations, on top of satisfying customers and shouldering heavy
tax burdens.
As it turns out, the cookie crumbled in the scouts' favor. Once this
became more than a local story, the Savannah Board of
Aldermen came to their senses and provided an exemption for the girls
to sell their cookies where they had been for years prior.
Thoughtful scouts will no doubt take away this lesson from the
controversy: Have friends at city hall.
http://www2.oanow.com/news/2011/mar/14/french-girl-scouts-get-lessons-how-market-works-ar-1578039/
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