Cutco Knives

[dano_24_26]

I miss Ruanulaw's avatar.

 

[jonmchugh]

i sold these knives like 5 years ago.. didn't make that good money doing it. you had to pay for the starter set of knives. i think the starter set was like $175 at the time. so you had to pay that and sit through all of these gay ass classes. i lasted 2 weeks. i actually sold my set on ebay for like 225. i got a letter from the company saying i am not allowed to sell their knives any more because i broke the contract when i put them on ebay lol .

 

[the_chief]

Like I said this isn't a career for me. I'm 18 and it pays more than almost anything else I could do right now, and I make my own schedule which is important to me. I also caddy so I wanted a job with a flexible schedule. I don't have to pay for training, which is only three days, or the knife set I use for the appointments. I realize it's not the best job ever, but its far from the worst.

As far as the resharpening goes, you just have to send them back to the factory and pay for shipping which I think is $9 for a whole set. You don't even need a receipt or anything.

Also when I said "Can't really beat that" I was talking about the guarantee sorry if I was unclear.

 

[bgfalcon]

I did this the summer before my freshman year of college. Probably spent more on gas driving to the appointments than I made. Always hated trying to hound my friends and their families to buy overpriced knives. It is a good guarantee on the knives, but it doesn't make up for how shady of a corporation it is.

 

[ssopata]

So I just got a job selling Cutco knives and was wondering if anyone had any interested. I live in Mentor and would like to keep it within 30 minutes driving distance. All knives are American made, come with a forever guarantee and free resharpening. PM me if interested.

Are you an obsessed baseball fan?

 

[Phills14]

My wife sold Cutco while she was in school or just out, I can't remember now. Anyway that was 8-9 years ago.

The product is solid. We still have our set and they are very sharp and just a good knife set.

She sold it for a number of months and did fine with it but it was a drag. For the most part she got a sale out of it everytime but it was more of a pity sale. People felt bad she was doing it and had to travel all that way so they bought the lowest set they could find in the catalog. The driving was killer. We lived in Solon at the time and she was going from Ashtabula to Stow to find people. Finding people was also tough. You run through your family and friends to set appointments and when that dries up it gets a lot harder finding people to present to. She finally got burnt out on it and quit. Found out a number years after she quit, my one friend who is a lawyer ended up suing her old boss in an aggressive case of sexual harrasment, talking physical violence when he was shot down.

You really have to be dedicated at it to make money on the deal. If you want this as a side job to get a couple extra bucks it won't work because you'll spend too much in gas and wasted appointments. If you go full bore at it and want to do this for a while you can make money, especially if you can sign people up to work underneath you.

 

[Lee]

Like I said this isn't a career for me. I'm 18 and it pays more than almost anything else I could do right now, and I make my own schedule which is important to me. I also caddy so I wanted a job with a flexible schedule. I don't have to pay for training, which is only three days, or the knife set I use for the appointments. I realize it's not the best job ever, but its far from the worst.

As far as the resharpening goes, you just have to send them back to the factory and pay for shipping which I think is $9 for a whole set. You don't even need a receipt or anything.

Also when I said "Can't really beat that" I was talking about the guarantee sorry if I was unclear.

Here is your first lesson on cutco. The way they market is they intentionally hire college aged kids that are desperate for work and dont know any better. They dont really pay the kids anything and then they expect them to go out and sell to friends and family. You will hear allot about how you get referrals and thats how you will continue your business. Its a bunch of crap. Once you have exhausted the 20 or 30 friends and family that will let you demo them, you will not have anymore appointments and will quit. I know you know more than us, but cutco has been doing this for at least 25 years. Their entire marketing plan is based upon hiring kids for 3 months then spitting them out after they are used up only 3 or so months later.

They are like the Kirby of knives. Good product, but they take advantage of kids that dont know better. You will annoy some people, but if you actually count your hours worked and gas spent, working at McDonald's would make you more money.

All that said, this will be a great life experience. I did Kirby, my brother did Cutco, both when we were 18 or 19. Everyone should learn their lesson. Only one real way to learn a lesson like this, the hard way.

Good luck.

 

[CornerThree]

Lee is totally spot on. I remember they were running this scam back when I graduated in the 90s. I went to the interview and midway through it, i realized that it was basically a scam and I was going to have to unreasonably hustle and annoy friends & family in order to make money. The interviewer took the other girl to finalize everything, and I walked out of the interview and escaped and went home. I was telling my wife about the story when we saw an ad the other day, and she said she had walked out of her interview too.

I mean, if you got a lot of rich friends/family, you might make some money I guess. You're way ahead of the game if you work at sheetz though.

 

[Phills14]

I won't go as far as to say it's scam. It's 100% illegal and Lee hit the nail on the head. It's a numbers game. They want as many young kids as they can get their hands on. They know the kids will hit up their friends and family then quit but if that kid can contact 20-30 people about Cutco, then they've done what the company wants. There is nothing wrong with their business practice, I wouldn't call them scam artists or snake old salesmen, it's just a different way to market the brand than most companies do. It's not like they have all this going on and they are selling an inferior product, they aren't.

The problem is it's a grind and the folks that set you up to do it, don't tell you the reality of the situation. You have to find out for yourself.

 

[The Oi]

Please also keep in mind that as you get older and get more experience, there's a reason why outside sales positions compensate you for your gas and expenses.

 

[The Oi]

You're way ahead of the game if you work at sheetz though.

:chuckles: Talk about nepotism!

My wife and I have been discussing moving to PA and I gotta say...Sheetz is one good reason. Fuckin love those places.

 

[Lee]

I won't go as far as to say it's scam. It's 100% illegal and Lee hit the nail on the head. It's a numbers game. They want as many young kids as they can get their hands on. They know the kids will hit up their friends and family then quit but if that kid can contact 20-30 people about Cutco, then they've done what the company wants. There is nothing wrong with their business practice, I wouldn't call them scam artists or snake old salesmen, it's just a different way to market the brand than most companies do. It's not like they have all this going on and they are selling an inferior product, they aren't.

The problem is it's a grind and the folks that set you up to do it, don't tell you the reality of the situation. You have to find out for yourself.

Its not a scam, but i do not like taking advantage of kids that take advantage of family.

That said the reason they market like this is so they can severily over charge for the product. Is the product quality? Sure, but they do their best to remove it out of a free market place? What do i mean? Most people that buy Cutco knives werent even in the market for new knives. They have disposable income, like the person who is trying to sell them, heck might even be related, and they see how great the knives are. They dont shop or compare and there is no other brand offered. Heck, 50% might even realize they are over paying but they dont care since they know it helps their nephew.

While its not a scam, I am not ok with this type of marketing. Abuses the customer, abuses the sales person, over charge the customer, etc. But hey, maybe I am only mad because I am not the one making all the money of the knives, lol

 

[theSTEREO.]

Its not a scam, but i do not like taking advantage of kids that take advantage of family.

I've had a few family friends or distant acquaintances between myself and my parents that have tried to sell us the knives. And 9 out of 10 times, they were people I knew had no business being put in that position. Not sales people at all, especially in that kind of environment.

But, like you guys have said, the best way to learn is to make the mistakes and go through the grind like this. I'm not in sales, at least not directly, but in my field, I tried a lot of things when I was younger, most notably starting my own business and getting a first hand taste of got screwed in bad business deals, contracts, and client bankruptcies and non-pays. But, the last few years I finally feel "reasonably successful"... The hard work is starting to pay off once I got smarter about who I work with, my own work ethic, and how I require contract terms. None of that would have been possible if it hadn't been for like 7 or 8 solid years of three steps forward, two steps back.

 

[Phills14]

Its not a scam, but i do not like taking advantage of kids that take advantage of family.

That said the reason they market like this is so they can severily over charge for the product. Is the product quality? Sure, but they do their best to remove it out of a free market place? What do i mean? Most people that buy Cutco knives werent even in the market for new knives. They have disposable income, like the person who is trying to sell them, heck might even be related, and they see how great the knives are. They dont shop or compare and there is no other brand offered. Heck, 50% might even realize they are over paying but they dont care since they know it helps their nephew.

While its not a scam, I am not ok with this type of marketing. Abuses the customer, abuses the sales person, over charge the customer, etc. But hey, maybe I am only mad because I am not the one making all the money of the knives, lol

I don't have a problem with their tactics. Your point that these people aren't in the market for knives doesn't hold water to me. Just because they aren't in the market doesn't mean they don't need them or want them. Tonight I may not be in the market for a Blizzard from Dairy Queen but if I see a commercial on TV for it, I just might change my mind. The anology works for the the knives too. They might not be in the market for knives, but it's presented to them, they have an opportunity to say yes to no to the sales pitch and then have another opportunity to say yes or no after they see what the knives can do. Instead of paying $$ for print, television, product placement, internet ads, etc they use direct marketers who work as independent contractors as their advertising. Therefore, their advertising spend is a fixed cost with every sale they do.

The concern I have is their middle management isn't honest with the kids when they start up. They don't tell them what really happens once they are turned loose. They all talk about what could be and how much money they can make but the reality is kids don't get rich doing this and usually are fed up within 60 days of starting.

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

I remember going to the interview right when I turned 18 and seeing 12 other people there. It ended up being a "group interview" session and I didn't realize it was a scam until the "manager" called everyone one by one into her office and had them go out through the back. That's when I realized she accepted everyone and had planned to accept everyone the entire time. I never showed up for the training session and called her a scam artist in the one phone call she gave after the fact. Man, that was a LONG time ago and they're still up to the same old tricks.