Vector Marketing FAQ

Pros

There is a positive and encouraging atmosphere in the training. Very willing to help trainees. Feeling of trainers personally invested in trainees success. Trainers very involved in every step. Friendly. Easy to practice the demo because they have a practice demo. Actually enjoy giving FREE items to customers which in turn benefits the sales rep.

Cons

A lot of the training is geared towards college aged people, about 18-22. There is an assumption that everyone knows exactly how to use Zoom and trouble shoot for others on the other end. And of course, how to trouble shoot yourself. Not enough emphasis on the tech end.

Advice to Management

Spend more time on teaching and explaining and helping with the trouble shooting on the tech end. Customers ask for a lot of help with the tech end. Some can't get on Zoom and the demo at the same time and some of us who aren't in our 20's anymore can't help because of lack of knowledge. Also, don't put into the demo something is optional and trainers say it's an "almost" must.

Pros

Good coworkers, good atmosphere, no stress

Cons

No benefits, no health insurance

Pros

Good pay and benefits, cool people, fun events!

Cons

Annoying bosses, cold calling, hard work

Pros

Good coworkers, good atmosphere, no stress

Cons

No benefits, no health insurance

Pros

Friendly environment, relatively thorough training, and the management will help you if you have any questions. If you’re really good at it, you can also potentially receive tuition benefits. The knives are also really good. If you’re a customer, they’re pretty cheap compared to other knives of similar value, and they’re truly high quality.

Cons

Vector Cutco is, in my opinion, a scam. It is not a pyramid scheme or MLM like some people think—there’s no option to recruit people in under you to make money off of, and you can genuinely make money selling products, or at least advertising the products (you still get paid even if you don’t make a successful sale). Thinking that all employment scams are pyramid schemes is unhelpful because you could very easily fall into other scams. They draw in struggling college students with a high salary promise, then they don’t tell you until after you’ve sat through at least the interview video (it was either there, or after I was hired, I can’t quite remember) that the wage is per appointment, not per hour. They do not pay you for training either. This means that you will spend hours of your time calling people YOU KNOW (not strangers, you decide if that’s better or worse) to set up appointments, and many of them won’t follow through. If you have a successful appointment, there’s two options: either 1. you make the amount they told you about upfront, or 2. you make a higher amount, which is a percentage determined based on how much that person buys (this percentage does increase all the way up to 50% the more you sell, but it starts at 10%). You cannot make both, meaning that if someone buys something, but it’s less than the amount per appointment, you may as well have not sold anything. If you’re a struggling college student, you might only know people who are similarly struggling, and can’t afford to buy expensive knives. Even still, if this is a job you want, go for it. Some people are extremely good at it, and make a lot of money, but honestly, part of this skill is determined based on how much money the people around you make. I personally felt awful and quit quickly because the people I was trying to sell expensive knives to didn’t have a ton of money, and when they say no, you’re expected to call your manager, and your manager tells you to try and convince them that there’s a money-back guarantee, or that the knives are worth it, or this, or that... It’s been three years and I still feel guilty about doing that, and I only had a few appointments! They do not provide employee benefits, because you’re not an employee, you’re essentially a contractor (you file different taxes, which I won’t even get into here). You’re a door-to-door salesman spending hours of your life on the phone, calling friends and family to ask if they would be willing to listen to you advertise knives, and at the end of the day, you will very likely make between $15-$18. Maybe you’ll make more if someone buys something really expensive, but even if you somehow make $100 after one appointment, is that worth it? Is it worth it to spend hours and hours of your day making phone calls, and talking to management, and listening to them at meetings, just to gamble on making $100? And if you lose, you might only make $15, or even worse, nothing at all? If your answer is still yes, that’s fine. I wish you luck. All I want is for you to be fully aware of every aspect of the job before you take it, because they’re going to hide details from you on purpose in order to scam you out of your time and energy.

Advice to Management

I don’t think they would take my advice.