~by Haley Lynn Gray~
How many times have you just done something because it was faster to do it than to rely on someone else? How many times, because you could do it better, or you didn’t feel like communicating with someone else or dealing with them? Would you believe me that good teams are stronger than the individual can ever be, and can reach greater heights?
I can give you several examples from my life of this. One of the easiest to talk about is Girl Scout Cookies. As I’ve talked about before, my troop sells a LOT of cookies. What I may not emphasise so much is that we actually will allow any girl in the council to come and sell with us. We’ll credit the proper number of boxes, donations and so on back to her home troop at the end of the sale.
Why would I let girls from other troops sell at our booths?
Because teams are stronger. I have several girls who are trying to sell over 1,000 boxes of cookies each. That is a LOT of booths. When you have five or six girls trying to sell that number, they can’t all go to the same booths. Quite simply, it’s easier for everyone to reach those numbers if more girls are working more booths. Even if it means having girls from other troops come and sell with us.
Even if we give other troops some of our booths.
Why? Because we have certain locations where we try to have a booth every single day. We condition people to seeing us there. They know that at that particular spot, they will find a Girl Scout ready to sell them cookies the entire cookie season. And we publicise that spot. It’s a win-win for everyone.
We form an unconventional team, and turn the idea of cookie selling on its head. After all, who would ever think of multiple troops working together? But it works better that way because we approach the process with the idea that working together is better; that we aren’t really competing with one another, and that all of us together are stronger than a single one of us standing alone.
What this actually demonstrates
There are two business lessons buried in a cookie booth, and neither is “teamwork is good.”
The first is about reliable presence beating occasional effort. The reason those locations work isn’t the sales technique. It’s that we are there every day, for the whole season, until people expect us. Most businesses do the opposite — a burst of visibility, then silence, then another burst, and they wonder why nobody remembers them. Showing up in the same place consistently is an unglamorous strategy that quietly outperforms cleverer ones.
The second is about who you think your competition is. On paper, another troop chasing the same customers is a competitor. In practice, treating them as one would mean fewer booths, less coverage, and worse results for everybody including us. The girls who sell the most are in the arrangement that looks least competitive.
That translates directly. The businesses in your market that look like rivals are usually the best source of referrals, comparison, and honest information about what things should cost. Guarding against them costs more than sharing with them.
What do you think? What has your experience been? Are teams stronger?
About the author
Haley Lynn Gray is the founder of Leadership Girl, of In2itive Biz Solutions, and of the Women’s Entrepreneur Network — a community of more than 77,000 women in business.
She writes here about what happens when running a business starts demanding that you lead one. More about Haley →
