10-year-old could be one of top sellers in the nation By David Berlin UNION-TRIBUNE San Diego, CA
April 5, 2008
CHULA VISTA - When you hear Madison Perno's presentation, it's hard to imagine this unassuming 10-year-old is a shrewd cookie-selling machine.
"Hi, my name is Madison and I'm selling Girl Scout cookies," she starts out. "There's a sugar-free chocolate chip cookie and a Lemon Chalet Cream cookie. They're $4 a box and five for $20," she continues, innocently enough. You don't realize you're speaking to the next Warren Buffett until you find out that Madison sold 3,311 boxes of Girl Scout cookies between January and March, more than 30,000 other Girl Scouts in San Diego and Imperial counties.
"I sold them everywhere," said Madison, who lives with her family in Chula Vista. Literally everywhere: Supermarkets, banks, military bases, car dealerships, schools and door-to-door.
At $4 a box, multiplied by 3,000, that means Madison grossed about $12,000 for her troop. Not bad for a fourth-grader.
Kathy Cloninger, chief executive office of Girl Scouts of the USA, said Madison may be one of the top cookie sellers in the nation. For most girls, selling a few hundred boxes is an achievement.
"I think the program is the nation's largest and best entrepreneurship and business program for girls," Cloninger said.
If Madison had a business plan, it was to play the numbers game, making her pitch to as many people as possible. She heard her share of nos, said her father, Bill Perno, but she heard just as many yeses.
"She's a 10-year-old with 10-year-old energy and it was a really rewarding experience listening to her give her presentations," Perno said. "It was a lot of quality time for us as we walked door to door in the neighborhood and we were holding hands.
"I think it's really important as a parent just to be able to participate and go with her to see her talking with people, communicating with people and getting those life skills that are so important in today's world," he said.
Cloninger, who is based in New York City, was in San Diego to purchase Madison's final box of cookies on Wednesday in a ceremony at the San Diego Girl Scout headquarters at 1231 Upas St., next to Balboa Park.
"People think that the national Girl Scouts organization benefits a lot from the cookies, but it really doesn't run through the national organization," Cloninger said. "It all stays in the local area. So the troops get to decide what they want to do with their troop portion."
Eighty cents from each box goes to the troop, and the rest goes to the local Girl Scout Council and also pays for the cost of making the cookies.
One local troop in Rancho Peñasquitos put its cookie money in a CD and made even more money. Now it plans to take a cruise in Alaska, according to Mary Doyle, director of communications with the Girl Scouts San Diego-Imperial Council.
Madison's troop, which meets at Chula Vista Hills Elementary School, is still deciding what to do with its proceeds.
There are eight types of Girl Scout cookies, sold only during the first three months of the year. So if you want them in July, you have to buy a few extra boxes and freeze them, Madison said.
Thin Mints are the most popular cookie, and are best enjoyed when crushed up and sprinkled on top of vanilla ice cream, she said.
This was Madison's fourth year selling cookies and third year being a top seller. As a reward, top sellers are flown by helicopter to a ceremony on the deck of the USS Midway aircraft carrier and congratulated by admirals and generals for a program called "Operation Thin Mint."
"Operation Thin Mint is when you buy extra boxes of cookies, you donate them to the Girl Scouts, and the Girl Scouts send them overseas to the men and women in the military to give them a taste of home," Madison said.
This year, Madison sold 903 Operation Thin Mint boxes and as a result, she has a binder full of letters from troops abroad, thanking her for the cookies.
One letter was from South Korea, others came from the Middle East. This year Madison's cookies were even sent to service members in the Arctic Circle and Antarctica.
Her binder is also filled with photos of her with generals and admirals and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, from last year's top-seller ceremony on the Midway. More impressively, Madison was able to recall what seemed like dozens of names of people in her photos on the spot.
As for being the next Warren Buffett, Madison has her own ideas.
"After high school, I am planning to go to college and I am going to be a lawyer when I grow up," she said.
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