So I finally got a job, actually about a month ago, but it was still finally back then. Anyway, and perhaps you've heard of it as "doing the knife thing". Anyway, so I work for Vector Marketing, and it is so much fun! Dude, I love my job! I just go to people's houses, tell them about an awesome product, and get paid for it.
And I love Cutco more than anyone I know. It's like - I look at all the products, and I just am planning when I will be buying them. Of course money is an issue, and I'll have to wait a while, but I'll be excited when I can.
Anyway, so share your cutco love for all you cutco owners out there.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I've got a friend who works for these folks. Sometimes he likes it, sometimes he hates it. But I think he's making about the same amount of money I am, and he's working nowhere close to as many hours.
But I've got job security! Posted by odouls268 (Member # 2145) on :
I've got a friend who was a Cutco convert. She reached some level of sales success where she got to keep 50% of whatever she sold and yadda yadda. She always talked about how she wanted me to join up and how amazing itd be and if i would just come to one meeting I would see.
Yeah, she doesnt do that anymore. It's been seven whole months.
Posted by gnixing (Member # 768) on :
i've got a set of cutco knives that cost a small fortune. love them, but wish they didn't cost so much!
Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
Wow. I was offered a job working for Vector, but I turned it down. I had no desire to work selling knives. However, I vow to one day buy Cutco knives, because I was thoroughly convinced by the demonstration.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I would be more convinced if they sold them in real stores.
Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
I wouldn't. They're super-expensive, so no one would buy them. And no one would believe it if they just wrote on the box that you can use them to cut pennies into corkscrews. You have to see it.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
As Shown on TV!!!
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
My bf used to sell them so we have them all over the house. The cool thing is you can ship them back to the factory to be resharpened for life.
However, they DO thirst for the taste of human blood. You have to be extra careful around them.
Posted by flyby (Member # 3630) on :
I've had a lot of people say that about getting cut by them, but I've never had that happen. I don't know why.
A lot of the reason they are not sold in stores is to cut down on the overhead. And also our presentation is a lot about education of what to use what knife for, and just some person at a store will have no idea about knives.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Overhead? The overhead they are dodging is the one where they can sell them easier by getting gullible poor people to praise their products as the newest sliced bread instead of actually paying for advertising. Cutco is a pyramid sales scheme, where only the bottom rung actually does any real work and get paid peanuts for it.
Posted by flyby (Member # 3630) on :
Gets paid peanuts? I wouldn't say that... I'm at the bottom rung right now and I'm being paid pretty well. Anyway, and it's not just the company that praises the product. Most customers who I've seen that own Cutco love it. Some have had it for 16-20 years, and they still love it, and haven't had any complaints. It's not just what the company says that's convinced me, but moreso what people who already own it have said.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Define "pretty well" for payment. What is your yearly salary? Monthly? Weekly? As far as I was aware, you only get paid for what you sell. Are you saying that you get paid even if you don't? Cutco only barely falls within the legal boundaries for pyramid schemes as far as the Federal Trade Commission definitions are put down.
Here is a personal account of an ex-Cutco employee.
Here is an article about students being tricked on ConsumerAffairs.com.
[ July 24, 2004, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Jutsa Notha Name ]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
My in laws have some cutco knives, and I think I'm the only one that ever uses them.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I think it pays pretty well, it definatly pays better than my telemarketing job, which paid $7 an hour. If you're working for cutco chances are you're a college student trying to earn money for food and the movies rather than a father trying to feed his wife and kid.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
It only pays well if you're selling. You're expressing belief in what the recruiters were telling you, which if you read the last two links I gave, are misleading at best, bordering on fraudulent at worst.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I've never worked there. One of my friends does, and she gets paid whether or not she sells.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"it definatly pays better than my telemarketing job, which paid $7 an hour"
Not true. You only get paid for the time you spend on "appointments," while the time you spend setting up appointments is unpaid time. Moreover, your commission comes out of your "base pay," meaning you have to sell quite a bit before you start exceeding that base rate.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I really wish I knew of a knife set that I could buy at a store that would approach the quality of Cutco. I don't buy into the idea that I have to buy something from a pyramid-scheme-company in order to get quality. If anyone wants to recommend a good brand to me, I am open to suggestions. I just don't know what's good and what isn't and I am tired of what I have.
The cutco knives are so expensive because people like odouls friend are keeping %50 or more of the sale value! I really don't buy the idea that pyramid-scheme-companies are somehow superior to products sold in stores. They are only superior for the people high-up on the pyramid who make obsene amounts of money. I do *not* want to support such organizations. I hate the very idea of their existance.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
I've used them, and wish we had the money to invest in them. They're great knives -- at least the ones I've used. But work for the company? I don't think so. I've always been pretty uncomfortable with MLM jobs, even though I can fairly readily convince myself that most jobs in companies of any decent size involve a degree of MLM (that is, I work harder and get paid less, with the hope of rising in the company so eventually someone else works for me).
But I really do think they sell a quality product. However, the costs of direct marketing usually exceed those of mass marketing, so what they're really doing is charging more than they otherwise might, and paying a fairly reasonable to the salesperson, leaving more profits to be spread among the lord-high muckity-mucks. But the idea that savings are being passed along to the consumer is just false.
--Pop
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
You're saying you don't work for Cutco/Vector? I guess you're not going to second-guess your personal sources, but let me give you a list of things to think about:
Did they toss the "Fortune 500" line of baloney to you? As described in one of the links I gave, the company that Cutco/Vector claims as being a fortune 500 has not been affiliated with the Cutco/Vector for over 20 years (since 1982). Despite what you may have been told, your company is not a fortune 500 company.
When you were hired or interviewed, were you asked to write down a list of individuals you know who might be interested in Cutco knives? If you did not, I would be surprised, since they have been doing that since I have known them, which has been around ten years. This is a typical pyramid fishing scheme they use to be able to make the legal claim that they are not cold-calling or sending unsolicited junk mail to all of those people on your list. You are essentially giving away plausable deniability to Vector/Cutco.
Get your salary scales in signed writing if you want a guarantee. Otherwise, all you're going to get are flowcharts like this that provide a misleading pay scale based on best-case scenarios of scheduling around four appointments a day and selling to at least one of the appointments. If you don't sell, you don't make money. The job is commission-based, not salary.
You will begin to notice the pyramid-based scheme of Vector/Cutco once you begin working to become a "manager." At this point, you are not trying to make money by selling, but by convincing others to sell for you. For each upward move in the pyramid, there are products you have to buy from Vector (in the form of manuals and material) in order to be eligible. You make the money back by making copies of the materials you get and sell to prospective "employees." How much did you have to pay for your manual? Haven't been asked for it yet?
If you are under the impression that you are employed by Vector, you should re-read your agreement. You are not an employee of Vector/Cutco, you are an "independent contractor" who has agreed to purchase or put money down for a set of knives to sell to homes on an individual bases. As evidenced in the number of lawsuits against Vector, they assert that the people selling their knives are not employees, but independently contracted to promote the sale of their knives. If you don't believe it, read over all the paperwork you signed when you agreed to work for them. I'm sure any copies they didn't give you are easily accesible by asking the rep who hired you.
Be careful with their comparisons to other knife vendors and to the quality of their own. Most of Vector/Cutco's material actually misrepresents the prices of its competitors. Also, 440A steel is actually not the best steel. That title goes to 440C. Don't get caught telling little fibs to people when telling your appointments—all names, addresses, and phone numbers gotten from the referrals of other applications, including your own—about how great the knives are.
Please note: I haven't once claimed the knives are not any good. From reports on the knives, they seem very good, though overpriced for their quality (other equal brands can be had at lower prices, apparently). It is the company behind the Cutco door-to-door marketing scam that I hold as fraudulent. They use incorrect information and applicant gullibility to get names and addresses and phone numbers unsolicited, while convincing a group of people who are often not used to making any money at all to work for measly earnings for doing all the real work.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:I really wish I knew of a knife set that I could buy at a store that would approach the quality of Cutco.
That's the company Cutco likes to compare itself with, and their product is just as good.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Wow. What Papa said.
Thx Justa!
Edit: I mean, Jutsa....
[ July 24, 2004, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: beverly ]
Posted by MacBeth (Member # 5670) on :
I believed the whole rainbow spiel...the unlimited earning potential...make what your worth that sort of thing...amazing product and it does sell itself...but for 1980 no one is buying and regardless of whether or not you believe in the product you still need to move the units...and if you don't move the units you don't get paid and if you don't get paid then they drop you and say you just weren't working out...I somehow imagine it is the same ball of wax for cutco
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
I went through the training for Cutco, but my mother refused to let me buy the kit. She knew it was brainwashing of a sort.
I still really like their products. The sell-to-your-friends'-parents method is really slimy, and that's where I had to agree with my mom. If they could just hand me a list of relatively nice people I didn't know, I'd be happy to market to them. But of course that's not the best method for Cutco/Vector.
Through training, they discover who their prime candidates are. It takes a good combination of enthusiasm, being articulate, and having rich acquaintances. You can make very good money very easily, but remember that it requires your family friends to spend two or three times that much. Really, much of it is family friends humoring a kid by buying a partial set.
A friend of mine's family owns a cutco knife they bought from some kid years ago. It's still their best knife.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
In fairness to Cutco's knives, Justa, the Henckel set to which you linked (your Amazon link) is VASTLY inferior. It's stamped stainless steel, and isn''t even full tang. It is, in other words, worth about the $32 Amazon is asking for it.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I like my Rada Knives that my wife has, they are great knives. Full tang, but "only" 420 steel. They are the sharpest knives I have ever used, and I love them.
I am buying my mom some of them to replace the old set she has.
I hate potato peelers because a knife is so much easier to use...but the rada peeler we got for our wedding shower rocks too!
Kwea
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I was just thinking about MLM companies and the way you tend to have to sell to your friends and family. What if an employee, of, say, Cutco, were to sell them online? Like ebay? Anonymous-like so that Cutco couldn't stop them? You still wouldn't have all the overhead of selling stuff through the regular store-system and you would get "free advertising" via people doing searches.
Plus, if you got high up enough in the company that you were making a sizable profit off of each purchase, you could even start selling them for slightly less and get even more sales that way.
Interesting....
*goes to search ebay*
Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :
Cutco I know two people who sell Cutco. The knives are really expensive, but they are really nice.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
The knives are awesome, but I take issue with anything distributed via a "direct marketing" scheme.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Tom, Cutco's knives are also stamped and not the full tang that forged knives are. In all fairness, I figured I would point that out to you.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
I was asked to leave a CutCo potential employee meeting because of my many skeptical questions.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Tom, Cutco's knives are also stamped and not the full tang that forged knives are."
While Cutco's knives are stamped, they're nevertheless full tang. They also offer a pretty compelling warranty, which makes up for a lot of their other deficiencies.
While Henckel makes good knives, and has even started to offer some of its good knives over traditional retail channels for very affordable prices, those knives in particular are not particularly good knives. The primary advantages that Henckels sets have over Cutco sets are not present here, and the advantages that Cutco sets have over Henckels sets are not compensated for. So what you wind up with is a $32 knife set, roughly equivalent to all the other $32 knife sets you can buy from WalMart.
Posted by gnixing (Member # 768) on :
i got my cutco knives through ebay. it was significantly cheaper, and all were brand new, and wonderful. plus, a warranty like the one for craftsman tools is the best part.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Tom, while you are entitled to your opinion, have you ever stopped to think that maybe it isn't everyone else who is priced so low, but Cutco who is priced too high? Also, if you want finer quality cutlery and are going to be spending what you would for Cutco, then it is smarter to buy forged cutlery instead of stamped, because then you are actually getting something that is actually worth what you are paying. Cutco does fine with their warranty, but I also bet that it is the reason they can't afford to go retail: they would go broke because of an overly ambitious warrantee that they would have to honor.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
In the hardware department at Sears, the lifetime warranty stuff (tough to get more overly ambitious than that) is among the most profitable lines of merchandise.
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