The Vector Marketing Corporation sent my girlfriend a letter offering job opportunities in summer work in a marketing/sales field - a “customer sales and service company.” Does anyone have any experience with this organization? It smells a little fishy to me - telemarketing or pyramid schemes sometimes seem to be the only jobs thrown at students, especially in this economy, so the fact that they’re sending letters to college students offering jobs seems suspicious.
I worked for them one summer. They are the marketing company that sells Cutco knives.
Aha! So that’s what it is. Some guy came by my parents’ house last year and my parents were the first people who both listened to his presentation and bought the knives. They’re great knives, BTW. He explained to them that he just needed to do the presentation to a certan number of people in order to get his scholarship. He told me as he left, “Dude, you’ve got the greatest parents in the world.” But, alas, I don’t think either my girlfriend or I are made for door-to-door knife selling. Do they do anything else?
Yeah, they sell Cutco.
Cutco is a fantastic product, if maybe expensive. It’s expensive because it has an unbeatable warranty.
The problem for me was that it’s all referal based. They don’t have leads, they expect you to sell to your friends and family, and then get referals from them. If you can hack that, then it’s pretty good. The product is great, and people really will be appreciating it even 20 years from now. I love the ones I have. They’re the first knives I reach for.
You also have to be a bit of a bazaar market dealer, because you’re allowed to throw in things for free to sweeten the deal, but if the client gets the idea that they can just act uninterested, they can get you to throw in more and more.
It all just depends on who you are as to whether it’s for you.
It’s a pyramid scheme of sorts–I got one of those letters when I was in high school, called them back, made an “appointment” for an “interview,” drove all the eff way out to where their “corporate offices” were, walked in, was handed a form to fill out in a room with about twenty other people, then we all had to sit and watch a presentation on knives. Like an infomercial. They want you to pay $300 for a set of knives, then go door to door selling them, getting a bonus or whatever for each set you sell. No, wait, it’s not door to door, you have to make appointments with people in a certain age group and of a particular marital status for it to count. So if you do your presentation thingie and sell $200 worth of knives to an unmarried twenty year old guy, you don’t get your commission because the person doesn’t fit their target group.
You drive your own car and spend your own gas money and have to find your own people to sell knives to.
It was six or seven years ago, so I may have some of those details wrong or their scam may have changed, but that’s what I recall.
It’s pretty rediculous. I figured out what was going on almost immediately upon walking in the door of their “corporate offices,” but couldn’t figure out how to gracefully say “thanks for lying to me, shithead” and walk out… so I ended up sitting through the whole thing.
Point being, don’t waste your time.
Peace,
~mixie
No, that’s sounds pretty much like my experience. Except I don’t remember anything about selling withen a target group.
I wouldn’t know. I fell for it, but wised up and bailed after the 2nd day of “Training”. Fortunatly, the office was right down the street and I didn’t buy any knives so all I lost was a couple hours of my life. That was 3 years ago.
I was disturbed by the fact on the 2nd day I was asked to write down the names and phone numbers of all my friends. I wasn’t comfortable doing that. I LIKE having friends.
When my sister got a letter from them, I told her exactly what they were and she tore the letter up and threw it away without bothering to look.
If there products are so good (they are- my mother has some of these knives that are 30 years old and still cut like new) then I wonder why they think they have to resort to these tactics?
I would love to buy some, but I guess my money’s no good since I’m not in a targeted group.