Cookie-Selling Scout Claims ‘Trade Secrets’

Most of the time, Jessica Warren has two things on her mind: camping and cookies.

As a 9-year-old, the South Hill Girl Scout could probably teach Madison Avenue a thing or two about marketing.

For three years running, Jessica has sold more Girl Scout cookies than anyone else in Spokane County and North Idaho.

Last week, the Inland Empire Girl Scout Council honored Jessica and other Scouts for their cookie sales.

As a cookie entrepreneur, Jessica’s found the secret to success. At age 7, she sold 454 boxes. At age 8, she was up to 1,112. This year, she sold 1,424 boxes.

The second-place seller sold 612.

“Will I have to give away my trade secrets?” Jessica asked her mother, Amy Warren, before consenting to an interview.

One of her secrets is long hours, her mother said.

During spring breaks from Jefferson Elementary School, she often spends 12 hours a day hawking cookies outside local grocery stores, video stores and apartment buildings.

“We had to cut back her hours this year to eight,” her mother said.

Jessica also writes her own letters on the family computer - using the hunt-and-peck method - to ask local car dealers and motels to buy her cookies.

She asked Empire Ford to keep a supply on hand for customers in need of something to nosh on after a test drive. “They bought 20 boxes,” said Jessica, swinging confidently back and forth in a chair at the offices of the Inland Empire Council.

The more cookies Jessica sells, the more Girl Scout camps she can attend during the summer, and the more money raised for local and regional Scout programs.

This year she’ll attend seven camps.

“I like to do motorboats, all the games, all the swimming, all the songs, and I like camp because they still praise the Lord before the meals,” Jessica said.

Two of the seven camping sessions allow her to bring her parents.

A box of Girl Scout cookies costs $3.50. A portion of the sales from each box helps support the national organization, the local council, the troop and Girl Scouts who don’t have the funds to attend camp.

Jessica has helped a fellow Scout attend camp three years in a row.

“I want to have someone there that I know,” she said.

“We don’t push them to sell. We want them to have fun,” said Lisa Engh, program and adult director for the Inland Council.

“We emphasize self-esteem and entrepreneurial skills.”

Still, the number of cookie sales puts a smile on Jessica’s face year after year. Her goal next year is 2,003 boxes, which would give her a special recognition pin from the national Girl Scout council.

And after three years, Jessica has developed a loyal clientele of cookie munchers who know her by name.

She sells all the boxes herself.

“My parents only keep watch over me and the money,” she said.

Her mother agrees. “She does all the work. She’s really strong-willed and determined. Every year she comes up with a new way to meet her goal,” Amy Warren said.

“These days parents do so much for their kids, I don’t know how kids learn to work for themselves.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo