The Cookie Kid

A young girl sold 3,526 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in one year earning herself an all expenses trip for two around the world.  Back in the late 1970's, Markita Andrews joined the Girl Scouts to make friends.  Her father had abandonned her at the age of 8.  Her mother found a job as a waitress in New York City, giving them a steady, but small, income.  However, Markita had big dreams:  she wanted to travel the globe one day.  But in the meantime, she would have to be content with New York City.  Every day after school, Markita would don her uniform, her green, badge covered vest, her green skirt and her white blouse.  Wearing her biggest smile, she would travel door to door in her 3900-unit apartment building with her boxes of cookies.  Armed with a sense of humour, Markita would ask a potential customer:  "Would you like to make a $30,000 donation to the Girl Scouts?"  When they responded negatively, she would ask:  "Well could you at least buy a box of cookies?"  Markita gained confidence from every sale she made, but if she did hear "No" she did not let it deter her, always eager to knock on the next door. 

When she turned 13, she read in the Girl Scout magazine that the scout who sold the most cookies that year would win a trip around the world.  Now, she was more determined than ever to succeed.  Her burning desire to sell cookies brought her immediate results and she fulfilled her dream of travelling the globe with her Mom.  Articles appeared in newspapers and magazines about the young entrepreneur and she was invited to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  On another TV show, she was asked by the host to sell Girl Scout cookies to another guest and she agreed.  With her signature smile, she used her sales pitch on the guest to which he responded:  "I don't buy any Girl Scout cookies!  I'm a Federal Penitentiary Warden.  I put 2,000 rapists, robbers, criminals, muggers and child abusers to bed each night."  Undeterred, Markita replied:  "If you take some of these cookies, maybe you won't be so mean and angry and evil...and it would be a good idea for you to take some of these cookies back for every one of your 2,000 prisoners, too."  Disney asked Markita to star in a sales training film explaining her approach called "The Cookie Kid".  Miss Andrews later wrote a book titled:  How to Sell More Cookies, Condos, Cadillacs, Computers and Everything Else.  Her recipe for success?  Ask, ask, ask.*

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you."
(Matthew 7:7)

*  Source:  "Ask, Ask, Ask", Chicken Soup for the Soul (Part 1).



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