The 14-year-old sales champion

Marquette Andrew has sold more than $80,000 in Girl Scout cookies since she started selling them at age 7. The best salesperson in the world today doesn't care if you call her "little girl." Every day after school, she went door to door selling cookies. After a few years of training, the shy girl became an expert salesman, and at the age of 13, she found the secret to marketing. And it all started with a dream.

Marquette Andrew's mother is a waitress in a restaurant in New York. Dad left mother and daughter when she was 8. Marquette and her mother live a miserable life, but they have a dream: to travel around the world together.

"I'm working hard so you can go to college." One day, her mother said to her, "When you graduate from college, you can earn money so that we can travel around the world together, okay?"

When she was 13, she read in a Girl Scout magazine that the champion of selling the most Girl Scout cookies would get a bonus: two free tickets to travel around the world. So she decided to try her best to be the one with the highest sales.

But dreams are not enough. Marquette Andrews knew that to make that dream a reality, she needed a plan.

"Make sure you do it professionally and wear a uniform." Her uncle told her, "When you do business, you dress like that. When you arrive at someone's door at 4:30 or 6:30, especially on a Friday night, ask them to buy more of your merchandise. Whether they buy or not, smile and treat customers with respect. And, most important: don't ask them to buy your cookies, ask them to invest."

Of course, there must be a lot of scouts out there trying to get the free tickets, and there must be a lot of scouts with plans of their own. But it was only Marquette Andrew who insisted on putting on her Scout uniform after school and getting ready to go door to door asking people to invest in her dream.

"Hi! Hello! I have a dream. I want to earn two free tickets by selling Scout kits so my mother and I can travel around the world." She would stand at someone's door and say, "Would you like to buy a dozen or two cookies?"

That year, Marquette Andrew sold 3,526 boxes of Scout Doozy, winning two free tickets to travel around the world. From then on, she sold 42000 boxes of scout ditty, also in a speech to the national sales meeting many times, her legend was made into a Disney movie, she is still a best-seller, one of the two authors of the book to introduce people to how sales ditty, apartment, Cadillac cars, computers, and all other things.

Marquette is no smarter or more outgoing than thousands of other dreamers, young or old. What makes her different is that she has discovered the secret of selling: keep asking, keep persevering. Many people fail before they even start selling because they don't dare to ask for what they want. The fear of rejection leads many of us to reject ourselves before we have the chance -- no matter what we're selling.

Everyone is selling. "You're selling yourself every day -- at school to your teachers, at your company to your boss, to people you just met." "My mom is a waitress and she sells the specials every day," said Marquette, 14. Mayors and presidents are selling themselves... Sales are happening everywhere I look. Doing business is part of the world."

It takes courage for people to ask for what they want. Courage does not mean not being afraid, but overcoming the fear, and keep doing it. Marquette found that the later on, the more persistent you are, the easier and more fun the process becomes.

Once, during a live television broadcast, the producers decided to give her the hardest pitch. Marquette was asked to sell her Scout Dookie to a live audience member.

"Would you like to invest in a dozen or two Scout cookies?" She asked.

"I don't want to buy it at all." He said, "I'm a federal prison warden. Every night, I have to put 2,000 rapists, robbers, murderers, and child abusers to sleep in peace."

Marquette calmly shot back, "Sir, if you had a little Boy Scout Cookie, you wouldn't be so angry or upset. And, Sir, I think it would be easier for you to do your job if you could bring home a little Boy Scout gadget for all 2,000 prisoners."

Finally, the jailer signed a check.