Company: Cutco & Vector Marketing
Website: https://www.cutco.com
Founders: Alcoa and Case Cutlery
Welcome to my 3rd party review of Cutco & Vector marketing!
This review will be slightly different then most of my others due to the fact that I am briefly reviewing Cutco’s products and then switching focus to Vector Marketing.
Vector Marketing is the MLM company that sells Cutco products.
I think it is worth mentioning that I have ZERO affiliation with either of the companies, or any company that I review.
This means you don’t have to waste your time with tasteless sales pitches and bias information.
Whether you heard about Cutco products from a friend, relative or some advertisement on social media, you are probably wondering if you can make money.
I mean, why else would you be here.
There is a lot of information to go over because Cutco products have been around since 1949.
However, the information on Vector Marketing is another matter altogether.
In this review you will see an overview or history of the company.
Then you will get a brief description of the products.
I will also break down the compensation plan and provide a link so you can review it yourself.
After that, I will provide you with the breakdown of the Better Business Bureau page.
The last section of the review is a list of things to be wary about.
It is no mystery that MLMs are risky to a certain extent and I want to make sure you are aware of everything before you make your final decision.
This leads me to my next comment.
I will never recommend something to you because you are the one making the decision.
I will only provide you with information so you can make the most informed decision possible.
You can also check out the step-by-step training that helps me earn over $10,000+ per month working from home.
Contents
Cutco & Vector Marketing Overiew – What is the Company?
Cuctco is has a great line of cutlery and has had an amazing reputation since 1948.
Unfortunately they market the products via a MLM called Vector Marketing which uses distributors and associates and affiliates.
They use the following strategies to recruit and sell: cold calling, warm market networking, door-to-door, home demonstration parties and the distribution of fliers.
You see, Cutco offers a lifetime warranty on all of their products and is competitive in all cutlery markets.
They have a great name and people love their products.
The problem lies with Vector because they practice aggressive sales tactics that are annoying and substandard.
Door-to-door went out of style 20 years ago.
Cutco Products
Here is a short list of products that Cutco has to offer.
• Kitchen Knives
• Table & Steak Knives
• Sporting Knives
• Knife Sets
• Table & Steak Knives
• Knife Gift Sets
You should check out their website if you want to buy Cutco, that way you don’t have to deal with annoying sales reps.
However, you may be added to an up-sale list so the risk may not be worth it.
At any rate, there are dozens of products and they seem legit.
Cutco Compensation Plan
I could not find a PDF of the compensation plan and there was very little information about how people get paid.
What I found was this.
You get paid $18 an hour which is pretty good money.
What the company doesn’t tell you is that it is only for conferences, which isn’t 40 hours a week.
To make matter worse, you are either paid the $18 an hour or you are compensated through commissions, not both.
So if you make sales you get paid a few extra dollars rather than the full retail difference because you should have been compensated with an hourly wage plus commission.
See how this company forces you to become a recruitment monster and takes you for granted?
I wish I could say was a commission breakdown.
Class Action Lawsuits Vs. Vector Marketing
Here is a little backdrop information on the following image above.
Remember when I said that the Cutco products were not the issue but Vector Marketing (MLM) was?
This is why there is legal trouble with Vector.
The people that went through the training for selling Cutco knives should be entitled to compensation for wages and possible damages.
These allegations are in regards to California labor laws that were broken stating that employees must be paid at least minimum wage for any employees going through training.
The exact laws that were possibly broken are the Fair Labor Standards Act among other state laws.
I guess failing to pay employees for training is against the law, huh, go figure.
This person’s comment sums up a lot of people’s frustrations with Vector Marketing.
So many people are being misled and the MLM side of Cutco is hurting the company more than helping.
I really hope that the company has taken measures so that these kinds of issues are resolved because refusing to pay employees is the definition of a scam.
There is more on the training provided by Vector later in the review.
I will take a stab at analyzing this delusional commenter real quick.
The first comment is “None of this is true” but then quickly states that employees were unpaid.
They justify this by saying that Vector discloses that fact that the training is unpaid and therefore, it is OK to do.
Unfortunately, there are these pesky things called laws and California is renowned for strict labor laws.
Take a look at the two class action lawsuits that I linked below.
They are much useful in providing legal terms to the illegal actions taken by Vector.
The next statement is “they provide great training” and that the only reason people fail is because you are “lazy.”
These comments are just plain ignorance and clearly the person making them is either an affiliate of Cutco/Vector or a member of leadership trying to defend the company.
The image below is what the training is all about and it is complete garbage.
Vector Marketing teaches you how to take advantage of your warm market leads.
This means that they teach you to annoy your friends, family and current customers.
This is not training and any idiot can go talk to a friend or family member and try and sell cutlery.
The problem is, who the hell would want to.
I think it is embarrassing to try and push product on your close ones in order to make a buck.
This reeks of desperation and if you want really training, focus on how to generate leads within the cold market because once you run out of family and friends to annoy, you are finished.
Remember, I am not saying the knives and other products are not worth it, but being a door to door sales(wo)man and making cold calls is archaic and yields few results.
The last comment that makes me laugh is as follows, “major fortune 500 companies look for Vector on a resume.”
Wow, I don’t know where to begin but here it goes.
Fortune 500 companies look for Ivy League eduction, years of experience in various fields and absolutely smash on recommendations.
When was the last time a Fortune 500 company said, “sorry Sir/Ma’am we cannot hire you because you were not trained by Vector.”
The obvious answer to that is, never.
The training is crap, get over it.
The best advice I can give you is to find real training and you can find it in many places.
HARRIS VS.VECTOR MARKETING COMPLAINT
WOODS et al. VS. VECTOR MARKETING COMPLAINT
Better Business Bureau (BBB)
Take a look at the image above. The Cutco & Vector Marketing BBB pages are identical. I will provide a few comments so that you can see what the main issues are. I would like to point out that the vast majority of the complaints are about Vector Marketing.
See, the product is great, but the MLM side is just typical MLM hype and lies. It seems like Cutco and Vector have a horrible time trying to keep their affiliates under control. There are so many shady practices that some new guidelines might be needed.
There are plenty more comments like this and you should take the time to review all of them. Here is the Cutco/Vector BBB Page.
The Final Verdict
It seems like I have been really hard on Cutco but in reality, it is the Vector side of business that is getting all of the negative feedback.
I do not understand why a great company with a great product is relying on network marketing to get sales.
In my opinion, the MLM side is not needed and they should let the product do all the talking.
Why not make some contacts at some of the biggest retail stores in the U.S. and things of that nature.
That way they don’t have worry about affiliates that are breaking laws and driving down sales through shady sales practices.
Anyway, I feel like you have enough information to make the right call and I hope you found this review beneficial in some manner.
If you are looking for a way to make money online, you should find a training program.
There are tons of them on Youtube and they are free.
There is no need to rely on MLMs to make money because 9/10 are pyramids.
If you are looking for an example of a training program, check out this review.
If you have any experience with Cutco, would like to ask a question or leave a comment, fill out the form below.
Cheers!
Adam
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This is coming from a college student that was handed a flyer at a job interview. I followed up and was hired the day after in a group interview. (which was a pretty positive experience.)
I was told everything up front. There was no question about paid training or anything.
I finished my first day of training, and I can tell you it’s top notch. I have had no affiliation with this company before, but I’ve had nothing but positivity coming into it.
We specifically don’t do cold calls, and we ask anyone beforehand if it’s okay to call them.
I’d would also like to point out that the op said “I will only provide you with information so you can make the most informed decision possible.”
And then later on went to say “The training is crap, get over it.”
And, “In my opinion, the MLM side is not needed and they should let the product do all the talking.”
Yes, how informative from some one who hasn’t even gone through the training?
From what I am learning we DO let the product do the talking. We first explain the downsides of other knives, and explain why ours are such high quality. We give the knives/ peelers/ shears whatever to the customer and let them try it for themselves. I don’t think you can get any closer to “letting the product do the talking” than that.
They advertise this to HS and college students. I have never had a sales job in my entire life, I know nothing about this.
Sure, it sucks to not be paid for the training time, but I am learning so much that I never knew. In this 3 day training period, they are taking me from someone who knows nothing about sales to being compitent.
I feel confident in the training I am receiving and appreciate it. They are also very uo front with you that you aren’t getting paid for this, but you also aren’t paying them anything.
I do admit, the training is really long, and it sucks to not get paid, but it’s not like they DON’T tell you.
Pay wise, you have a minimum pay of 17$/ appt. So if you have 10 appt you guarantee make 170$ even if you don’t sell anything. There’s also a commission, and you get whatever is higher.
It starts at 10% commission, and goes up as you get more sales, going up to 50%. You get whatever is higher.
Using the previous example, if I’m hot out of training and sell 2000$ of product in 10 appointments, I’ll get 200$ (10% starting commission). Commission on top of 17/ appt. Would be absolutely nuts. But your commission percentage does go up as you get more sales.