<p>Does anyone out there have any experience with this company, has anyone children worked for this company what was your experience with it good, bad…any comments would be appriciated.</p>
<p>My sister worked for them for a little while 7 or 8 years ago. I don’t think she had very much luck with them. For one thing, I don’t think she worked in a job that she was expecting to be working in. She did not stay with them very long.</p>
<p>ok thanks any other comments</p>
<p>The product is extremely overpriced. Basically just average grade stamped-steel cutlery being sold at high-end forged cutlery prices.</p>
<p>terrible. they try to make you sell overpriced knives to family and friends.</p>
<p>I have to say that the pizza cutter I got from them is the best I’ve ever used. Expensive, but worth it to me.</p>
<p>I’ve known one person who sold Cutco who did well, but she was very good–she had experience and could sell you anything. All others (mostly inexperienced people trying sales for the first time) failed miserably.</p>
<p>FWIW, my Cutco knives are my favorite in the rack. I go back to them time after time and reach for them first: they get far more mileage and are more ergonomic and reliable for me than any of the other knives I own, and the shears are better than any others I’ve ever owned. For me, they were worth every penny. (And my father still uses the Cutco knives my mother bought 35+ years ago.) I have taken them up on their “lifetime sharpening guarantee” without further commitment. I’ve purchased Cutco knives as gifts (gave S#1 a pair of them to take to college with him); once you’ve purchased them, you can buy further products from their website.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend being a salesperson for them, though, since I don’t like the idea of home sales for young people. A student’s network mostly consists of family and friends, who feel obligated to sit through the sales pitch and then either feel as if they must buy something to avoid the guilts, or don’t produce any revenue to the student if they only look and don’t purchase. It’s not reliable income for a student, and it might cause personal discomfort, so I wouldn’t recommend it.</p>
<p>My son interviewed with them – I did not think it was a real summer opportunity and advised him not to take the “job.” Buying your own samples and having to set up appointments with family, friends, and neighbors is not my idea of a legitimate business.</p>
<p>My son went through their “training” but balked when it came to the part where he was supposed to pay them to get his display kit or whatever. He was about 19 and pretty hard up for work, but not that hard up. He did find the training interesting – he definitely enjoyed the knife demonstrations. Of course I’m just as glad he didn’t take a job that involved playing with knives. </p>
<p>It is one of those things where only people who are very motivated and aggressive at sales will make money. I think its a good product – my son said that the knives were definitely a lot better than anything we have at home – but still probably way overpriced and the marketing scheme really takes advantage of young people. My son figured that he would have to spend too many hours working on generating contacts in relation to sales for it to be worthwhile – fortunately, he was aware that he would get dozens of people turning him down for every one that even agreed to let him into their home.</p>
<p>It is a great opportunity for the right person, but I’d STRONGLY DISCOURAGE anyone from doing it… I tried and it was a waste of my time and money.</p>
<p>Love the knives, would not recommend it for a young person. I’ve known two college students that tried it and found it very hard going. As calmom said, you’re pretty much relying on parents friends and relatives to get started - pretty awkward all around.</p>
<p>Actually, cnp55 said the bit about the friends & relatives… we don’t have relatives in the immediate area and our friends aren’t the type that would buy anything, so my son would have had to develop his own contacts. I don’t think that’s the part that bothered him, as he has proven with the work he has done since that he’s not shy about approaching strangers and asking for money (he does nonprofit fund raising work, including door-to-door canvassing) – but I think the problem for him was that the knives are so costly and the sales presentation so time consuming. Too time-intensive – he was initially attracted by the claim of hourly earnings, but Cutco makes those claims based on the time spent at sales appointments, not the time that goes into scheduling the appointments. My son already had experience with doing telephone solitications of a pre-screened group (alumni fund raising for his college), and he knew that even “friends” will say no 19 times out of 20. So at the time he figured he would spend 10 hours on the phone trying to set things up for every 45 minute appointment he manage to arrange. </p>
<p>The type of person who could make money with Cutco would be someone experienced in sales of home wares who already had a good customer base, such as someone who already represented different companies and was picking up Cutco as an other product line. In other words, if you already had a list of all the people who bought Tupperware from you the previous year, and Avon products the year before, you’d be off and running. But that isn’t the type of person Cutco recruits – instead, they advertise summer jobs for students, who are the least likely to have the interpersonal skills or contacts to do much.</p>
<p>Our nephew had an extremely successful summer selling for CutCo, but he’s a natural-born salesman.</p>
<p>They are really great knives, and still all made in the USA. The problem is your kid has to be quite a salesman. We have a friend (a college kid) who has worked for them for years and actually makes a lot of money - but he is a super hustler.</p>
<p>If your kid is hard up for a job be sure he contacts all the temp agencies in your area. Mine went in just one to drop off his resume and came out with a 40+ hour/week job (lots of overtime too) with UPS at a distribution facility they own. He’s making $8.90/hour ($13.35 overtime), all daytime hours, no weekends, and he really likes the place! Whew!!!</p>
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<p>Not really. They are actually quite ordinary. Basic alloy steel, not one of the newer hi-tech vanadium alloys. Stamped blade construction. Rather antiquated handle design and construction. Not a bad knife for maybe $25 for an 8-inch chef’s knife. Unfortunately, they charge three or four times that much. For the same money you could buy a forged Henckels or Wusthoff knive which is a vastly better product.</p>
<p>For mid-priced stamped steel cutlery, I’d look to some of the Japanese companies. The Japanese steel alloys are amazing.</p>
<p>My son did the Cutco sales one summer and had a good experience. My mother still uses the paring knife she bought when first married almost 50 years ago. I really don’t know anything about knife construction but the Cutco I bought from my son (yes, I was first customer) does very well and the shears are great. My Henckels have been relegated to the back of a drawer as the Cutco perform better. I think my son learned alot about sales and actually helped him later on. He grad. in business and he felt all the cold calls and demos helped him later in the job interview process. He didn’t want to do it more than the one summer, but for that short time he made some decent money and got alot of sales experience. He was top sales person in NC for that quarter (or whatever the period was) and was invited to attend some regional meeting which made him feel good.</p>
<p>A daughter (who is a college student) of a good friend of mine worked briefly one summer for Vector attempting to sell Cutco knives and was not successful. We found out afterward after doing our own research (just by looking it up on yahoo by typing in “Vector marketing scams” and other similar titles), that, it was a scam. There are all kinds of articles and testimonials with regard to that fact.</p>
<p>Obviously, interesteddad, we have varying tastes in knives here. I do not care for Henckels or Wusthoff, and I love my Cutco knives. Their handle design feels much better in my hands and they have never let me down. I am satisfied with every penny I paid for the Cutco products, and I use them extensively, daily. To each their own.</p>
<p>I still don’t recommend a college student sign up as a marketer for them, though. ;)</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutco[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutco</a></p>
<p>I am not so picky about knives- I have various favorites- but unless someone really enjoys selling and believes truly in the product IMO it is a fate worse than death to be selling and trying to make a good living unless you like it.</p>
<p>This site seems to back up my opinion
<a href=“http://cutcocomplaints.blogspot.com/[/url]”>http://cutcocomplaints.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p>It’s not really a matter of taste. It’s a matter of the grade of materials and construction for the price. I have no problem with inexpensive stamped steel construction, as long as it’s sold for a stamped steel price. There’s no reason to pay $90 to $100 for a stamped steel chef’s knife. It’s just poor value.</p>
<p>BTW, my “taste” in knives runs to traditional forged white steel, wooden-handled single-sided bevel Japanese knives. Very interesting manufacturing process – forging a very hard cutting edge layer to a somewhat softer steel. They cut like razors. Alas, they are not terribly practical. </p>
<p>They are dangerous as heck. No nicks with these knives – they would just slice your finger off. They start to rust by the time you finish cutting something, so they have to be washed and dried immediately. In order to get the extreme razor edge, the steel used for the cutting edge is exceptionally hard, but this makes the edges brittle so you have to be very careful with them. A softer steel is more forgiving when it hits against the sink, but can’t be sharpened to the same microscopic edge.</p>
<p>There are stainless stamped-steel versions that are quite inexpensive ($30 to $100) and terrific for stuff like prepping veggies. Not quit as sharp, but more practical. If you are going to spend big bucks on everyday knives, any of the mass-produced forged-style knives from Germany (Wustoff, Henckels, etc.) or Japan (Global, etc.) are fine. I have no problem with the Cutcos except that they are seriously overpriced to support the pyramid scheme marketing.</p>