Children-Selling-Crap Season in Full Swing
There's a crisp bite to the air as the leaves march from green to rich yellows, oranges and reds. Weaving their way through the falling leaves is a stealthy army of small soldiers invading my neighborhood. They're fully equipped, armed to the teeth with supplies and are being unleashed all over this country. They're small children and they're selling crap.
I'll admit it. I'm a veteran of this particular army. I served 7 tours of duty armed with cases full of World's Finest Chocolate from the age of 5 to 12. I knocked on doors, faced complete strangers and engaged in a ritual that's deep and ancient: trying to convince a positively ancient adult that the $2 candy bars in my cardboard case truly were the world's finest confectionary treats. When that failed, I fell back on my training and recited a litany of beneficial purposes toward which the proceeds would be applied.
Unfortunately, with school budget cuts, it seems that this kind of activity is now a nearly constant presence. They've branched out from candy and sell magazines, frozen pizza, frozen cookie dough, home interior decorations, and lots of other crap, nearly all of which I either could buy at much lower cost in a store or that I have absolutely no use for.
I do sympathize with the need to fundraise and how appealing the door-to-door sales method appears. Since I'm right in the middle of the target market for this stuff (high disposable income in a family-centric suburban neighborhood filled with school-aged children), I figure I can share my take on what gets me to buy. If you or your child are newly enlisted into this army or you are a commander looking to deploy a local division, here are a few bits of advice to get me to buy this stuff.
- The kid needs to sell it. Maybe this just comes from having spent my time in the trenches, but when the parent does the selling, I really don't want to buy it from the adult.
- Sending out your army along with dozens of other small armies leaves me not wanting to answer the door. I've had no less than 7 sets of kids at my door in the first 3 days of this week. I have no intention of answering it for anyone under 5 feet the rest of this week.
- Tell me what the goal is. "Do you want to buy this stuff?" is not convincing. Tell me that your band is going to Chicago.
- No catalogs. I already have enough decorations, magazines, etc. I also don't want to have to spend 10 minutes flipping through the catalog, help the child fill in the form (or wait for them to figure it out) and then shell out 10 to 20 times as much as if the product being sold is candy or something of similar price/size.
- If I can reach in my pocket, pull out a $5 bill and be back in the house in 2 minutes, I'm about 100x more likely to buy.
