There’s a girl scout in San Francisco who knows how to sell. She took her boxes of cookies to a medical marijuana clinic, set up her table outside, and two hours later, sold 117 boxes. The next day she did the same thing outside a grocery store, and in the same time period, she sold 37 fewer boxes. 
She’s discovered what some small business owners are still having a hard time understanding. She found customers at the moment their pain was so great, they had to buy something from her. She applied some rules that business owners should remember:
1) Identify the pain that the company can solve for customers. People buy when they are in pain or have a great need. The girl scout understood her customers would get the munchies, so she was there to offer cookies as a solution to meet their needs.
2) Identify customers who have money to solve their pain. Businesses should find customers who can afford to allocate funds to meet their needs. Her cookies were affordable, so she determined people who went to the clinic would probably have a few dollars to spare for a box. Sales were probably not as strong outside the grocery store because there were a lot of cookies inside, thus increased competition, and those customers already used their money to buy other food.
3) Be there when customers are ready to buy. She was strategic in finding the right place to sell cookies and made it easy for customers to purchase them. All they had to do was walk outside and she was right there waiting for them with a product they wanted.
4) Have a marketing and branding campaign. She got a lot of publicity for her unique approach to sales. Mashable reported it, there were thousands of shares in social media, and various news outlets also picked it up. It ended up being an effective marketing campaign for the next time she sells. People will not only know who she is, but the Girl Scout brand is strong, so sales will probably increase next year.
By the way–the Girl Scouts of Northern California didn’t criticize her sales approach.
