How to Earn the Girl Scout Junior Cookie CEO Badge

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Updated April 2023

While selling cookies was not on her radar when Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of the USA back in 1912, it is know a tradition for troops to sell these classic treats as a way to raise funds for their troops.

Girl Scout cookie selling season is the perfect time to earn the Junior Cookie CEO badge. 

                Photo from Pixabay and altered by the author in Canva

Step 1 Set a Group Goal

Whether your Council uses Little Brownie Bakers or ABC Bakers, each one has its own incentives for individual girls to earn. While this is important and be quite motivating for a girl who is really interested in selling, it is more important for the troop to establish group goals.

Goal Chart from Amazon

To save yourself time, use this chart to establish your goals. It is easy to carry to each meeting. You can use printed out pictures of cookies for each goal line and at every meeting, fill it in and see where you stand as a troop. 

Step 2 Explore How a Small Business Works and Step 3 Create a Cookie Sale Job List

Ask the girls how a school is run. They need to know that there is a hierarchy of people who help make it an institution of learning. Ask them what would happen if one of the people in the chain of command, for example, the principal, is not around. What would happen?

Then ask the girls how would cookie sales work if there was no Cookie Mom or Dad? 

Photo from Pixabay

After the discussion, create a cookie sale job list and get to work! 

Some examples of Cookie Jobs are:

For Booth Sales

Greeter

Cookie Expert (answers questions about the different cookies)

Money Counter

Goal Tracker

Cookie replacer

Sign holder

Closer (thank each person who purchased cookies)

Even if a girl is not doing individual sales, she can participate in making posters for the booth sales or decorating the donation jar (if that is permitted by your Council).  If the girls are into costumes, then have them design something special to wear at the booth sales.

Step 4 Make a Good Impression

Girls need to wear their uniform to sell cookies. For many troops, it is the coldest time of year, but that only means that sashes or vests are to be worn over coats. Not only do the girls dress for the weather, they need to dress neatly. Discuss how parents dress for work-are they neat or sloppy? Adults need to look a certain way on the job, and the girls need to look a certain way to sell cookies.

This is also an opportune time to role play different scenarios that can happen at a booth sale. Many people are kind and polite, and since your troop are Juniors, they have more than likely already had cookie sales experience. It is important to reinforce smiling, speaking politely, making eye contact, and closing a sale or non-sale with a response such as, “Thank you for supporting our troop”, “We appreciate your support,” or “Have a nice day”.

Photo by Hannah Gold and used in Canva

If a girl encounters an adult who starts complaining about how cookies are expensive, bad for you or are tied to other organizations, tell the girls they must always get an adult if this happens. They are too young to deal with people like this. Leaders and parents need to step in and diffuse the situation.

Step 5 Track Your Sales

This is something that can be done at each meeting to start it off. Discuss the booth sales and fill in the goal chart. Ask girls how they can increase sales at a slow location or toward the end of cookie season when passersby are getting cookie fatigue.  Use these strategies to help reach their goals.