Re: Trail's End Popcorn
Charles Batteau (B3ZAATN@CPSLSOPS.BELL-ATL.COM)
Mon, 1 Apr 1996 11:49:02 -0500
Matthew -
Our troop has sold Trail's End popcorn for quite a while. The only
BAD experience was the year when the SM (not me! <g>) just ordered a
large bunch of buckets and then tried to get the boys to sell them.
We STILL have buckets in our closet.
After that experience, the troop quit selling TEP for a couple of
years until I took over as SM. I've found that the younger boys are
the best salesmen. That may be because the prizes for the sales,
especially at the low end, appeal more to younger scouts. The prizes
that the older scouts would value require selling LOTS of popcorn!
I believe that the best method is to sell door-to-door in uniform,
collecting money up front (no arguments with parents, later). If you
can have a short interval between the order and the delivery (under a
month) you should get no complaints from your customers. We do this
with a chicken barbecue and it works well.
You probably COULD order extra buckets and boxes IF you were to
arrange with a local mall or shopping center to allow the boys to set
up a table selling popcorn. This is a common practice with the Girl
Scouts in this area. If you do this, I would concentrate on the
microwave popcorn, since that is our biggest seller. It wouldn't hurt
to have a few buckets and tins available, however.
The one thing I wish BSA would do is to arrange with Trail's End to
call it BOY SCOUT POPCORN. I suspect that BSA is trying to protect the
term "Boy Scout" from commercial use, but if our councils expect us to
sell this stuff, we should have a strong identity from our customers,
much the same way my company (Bell Atlantic) revamped its corporate
name structure so all our customers would know that they were dealing
with a branch of a very well known and respected company.
YiS
Chuck Batteau -- SM, Troop 751, Glen Allen VA USA
-------------------------------------------------
CHARLES.R.BATTEAU@BELL-ATL.COM
maybe they meant an hour a DAY! :-)
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
