Old-school methods lead Scout to sell 750 boxes of cookies
CRANBERRY TWP — As sales of Girl Scout Cookies are increasingly online, one Cranberry Township Scout took a different approach: selling via the phone.
Annie Baker-O’Donnell, 9, sold more than 750 boxes of cookies this year, all sold by cold-calling.
Ethan Nicholas, Annie’s dad, said she started by calling friends and family members, and when she became more comfortable she began dialing up Nicholas’ friends and business colleagues.
“In a time when all her friends selling cookies were making videos and posting to social media, Annie picked up the phone and made call after call until the sales deadline approached,” Nicholas said.
The Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania said in 2019 that, on average, each Scout sold roughly 158 boxes of cookies. Annie’s sales were nearly quintuple the average.
Annie’s success in the analog selling sphere became more apparent when the cookies arrived.
“It comes up to my chest and it’s eight feet long, that’s how big this wall (of cookies) is,” Nicholas said.
Now that the hard work of selling them is over, Annie still is faced with two tasks: delivering the cookies and thanking the buyers.
“I think she is dreading all the ‘thank you’ notes she is going to need to write,” Nicholas said.
