Adam Learns to Sell

Last fall my son Adam, a then ten year-old Cub Scout, was handed a form to sell popcorn to raise money for his Cub Scout pack. The incentive was a modest commission and an Apple iTouch for the boy who sold the most in the pack of 35-odd boys. The leader announced that the goal for each boy should be to sell $600 of popcorn and then asked the boys to write down a commitment and turn it in.

I looked over Adam’s shoulder as he filled out the form. He wrote $2,300. I thought it was time for a life lesson and asked him if he was sure he wanted to make a commitment that large. He seemed firm in his resolve so I thought it would be a good lesson for him to learn about over committing. I was wrong. I was about to learn a lesson about underestimating a ten year-old.

Clearly I saw the need to jump in and point out how high of a hill he had committed to climb, so on the whiteboard on the wall by our dining room table, I laid out the daily plan for him in order for him to make his goal: $100/day for every single day of the 20 potential selling days between the next day and when he had to turn in his orders. I explained the need to sell every day and not stop until he sold $100 and if he missed a day, he would need to sell $200 the next. Surely this would dampen his enthusiasm, right? I mean 20 days in a row (except Sunday), giving up his afternoons to sell popcorn? I was wrong. Every single day, he rushed to don his uniform and went out to sell popcorn. And he didn’t stop at $100 per day. Most days he sold twice that. Below is a chart of his weekly sales:

He ended up selling slightly over $4,000, won the iTouch, won several other prizes, pocketed $200 in sales commissions, and personally out sold nearly every single pack of the 34 other Cub Scout packs in our Scout Council. Let’s just put it this way. On my next trip to the Scout Shop, I was stopped by no less than two employees to comment on Adam’s performance.

Here are a few lessons he shared with me:

“Knowing how much I needed to sell every single day was really key, otherwise the $2,000 would have seemed huge”
“My first week selling I was really excited, but my second week I was tired and not very enthusiastic. My sales were down, so I learned to force myself to run between each house to keep my energy and enthusiasm up.”
“Selling to businesses was a lot easier than selling homeowners. At one bank, every lady behind the counter bought some.”
“The more I smiled, the more I sold”
“I really wanted that iTouch”
“Having my named called out each week as the sales leader of the pack was fun”
“I liked all the prizes I got”

Like I said, I set out to teach him a lesson, but he ended up teaching me.

See Adam attending a board meeting and Maria attending a financing meeting with me and read about Adam's car wash business here and here.