Lessons Learned

Their are some who say that one of the basic life skills we need to succeed is the ability to sell. Whether it is a convincing others to listen to our ideas or trying to earn a living, convincing and persuading others (of course in a non manipulative and honest way) is important in much of what we do.

With this in mind, Ethan, our youngest, is working on a campaign to sell popcorn for his scout troop. I think he has learned some valuable things in this endeavor.

 Among the lessons learned:

- Setting goals and not giving up until you reach them.
He is looking for $1,000 in sales and plans on pushing until he reaches the goal or runs out of time.

- Rewards for hard work and the power of incentives
One of the reasons he set this goal, which is much higher than the goal he set last year, was because of the rewards and incentives he gets for reaching this level.

- Basic communication skills
He has found that you have to talk to and relate with people in order to get them interested in your product (idea, adventure, etc.)

- Dealing with setbacks
We recently learned that some of the donations collected (not the ones that were sent to him personally, but the ones that were collected at the store sales events) were not counted towards his total sales. This set him back a little over $100 in his campaign. Consequently, he has learned that you can give up on our goal, or you can try and overcome the setback and still go for the win.

Even if he does fall a little short of his goal this year, I think he has still gained some value from the effort.

 But, if you do want to help him with these valuable lessons, you can still order online at this link:

http://www.trails-end.com/shop/scouts/email_referral.jsp?id=15403351