All Selling Aside With Alex Mandossian

It’s 1972, at Allendale Elementary in Pasadena, California, and an 8-year-old Alex is participating in his Cub Scouts fundraiser. The goal was to sell as many boxes of chocolate chip cookies as possible because the scout with the top sales got to go to Disneyland with a friend. Alex’s friend Billy, a neighbor from down the street, was also in his troop and so they came together to create their first joint venture opportunity. If Billy sold the most boxes of cookies, he’d take Alex to Disneyland and vice versa. Billy proceeded to try door-to-door sales. He approached over 50 houses and only managed to sell five boxes of cookies. It was then that Alex realized the trip to Disneyland was up to him. He took a moment and thought about the best place to find people in the mindset to buy cookies, and realized selling door-to-door wasn’t going to cut it. Instead, he had his mom take him to a grocery store and positioned himself in front of the entrance.  He also crafted several different offers. He’d start by asking