BIFL Companies — The Brand Ledger
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There was the part where you would get a kickback in sales from anyone you recruited to sale, but as often discovered, most people don’t sale for very long before quitting. You could try going that recruiting route, but I was up to about 50% commission when I left there and I had no interest in trying to get other people to join. It was a pretty standard pyramid scheme, but you could still make money without participating in that.
There wasn’t any other way to increase commissions much when I was there. The cap for solo sales was 15%.
On the other hand, selling home security systems door to door, which I also did, did have a performance based pay, which was 10% initial and would go up to 50% plus bonuses to top sellers. And it only went up via sales, not recruitment.
Maybe Cutco found the MLM tactic to be more profitable since you had to buy your own demo sets.
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Lol. I love that Cutco is on this list, despite them having such a bad reputation.
I sold those knives as my sole source of income for about a year. That was about 25 years ago.
I also happen to be a welding and metal fabricator and went to a two year trade program for it, have collected pocket knives most all my life, and as a hobby I sharpen knives and straight razors. Also, I’ve worked several other sales jobs besides Cutco.
All the hate they get is mostly from people who sold them or know someone who sold them, and it’s pretty deserved. Their main tactic is to bring in naive kids with no sales experience and get them out selling to friends and family, and letting them then fizzle out before they make enough sales to earn big commissions on their sales. Very few people can get past that barrier. Setting up appointments and scheduling and selling to what turns into total strangers in their own homes all together is just a set of skills that needs to be trained into and also naturally gifted at. Then, traveling around and doing all the appointments and keeping it all organized and dealing with cancellations all kind of sucks. Even if you make enough money like I managed to, the job wasn’t worth it. I went into advertising sales after I quit there.
The knives themselves (which is why I mentioned all that non sales crap above) are great looking knives that hold up for ages (I’m still using my 25 year old knives, they get tossed in the dishwasher, and they still look great) without much fuss, but they are overpriced for how they’re made. They’re high nickel stainless steel full tang stamped knives with a high quality plastic handle. They will continue to look shiny and new, they’re dishwasher safe, and they have a fantastic and easily useable warranty, but the steel is cheap for the cost of a set. It’s great for people who want pretty and easy to care for, at the expense of a good set of knives you’ll have to wash by hand and wipe dry.
The steak knives will last forever, the straight blade knives like the chef knife and butcher knife will last forever if you know how to sharpen them, and the bread knife will last forever. The other few knives that use their serrated looking edges will last several years, but you’ll eventually want to send those back to get them sharpened (free) unless you have the right knowhow to do it yourself.
Their warranty is so bullshit free that you can find some janky trashed ones at a garage sale (I’ve never found a danged set at a garage sale before) and just send them in and they’ll sharpen or replace them all. Like 70 year old company and their warranty has no paperwork or ownership attached. The knives themselves are warrantied.
For the curious, in 25 years ago money, I could sell the homemaker basic set for around $850 and I’d pocket over $400. Commissions got up to like 55% as you kept selling, your commission would permanently increase more and more to that cap and it could actually climb fairly quick. Just most people wouldn’t make more than like 10 sales before quitting.
Ok knives. Last ages. Look great. Best warranty. Very high price .
Dunno why I wrote all this. Guess I was a bit bored and it brought up old memories.
I actually managed to find a cutco pocket knife at an estate sale last month, I got it for $4.
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I actually managed to find a cutco pocket knife at an estate sale last month, I got it for $4.
I forgot that even existed, but I think I own one. I mean, I know for sure I at least did own one. I just can’t remember if it got lost, or if it’s in a box in my attic with a bunch of other old pocket knives.
I think you got like a 90% discount!
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There wasn’t any other way to increase commissions much when I was there. The cap for solo sales was 15%.
On the other hand, selling home security systems door to door, which I also did, did have a performance based pay, which was 10% initial and would go up to 50% plus bonuses to top sellers. And it only went up via sales, not recruitment.
Maybe Cutco found the MLM tactic to be more profitable since you had to buy your own demo sets.
15%? Seriously? Oh, that would be terrible. I wonder if it’s at discretion of the area manager and he was just pocketing a bunch of extra money. The office I worked out of had a commission bump like every $5k in sales (first bump or two was even quicker). I think it was around a total of $70k in sales to hit your 55% commission cap.
I also had to buy the demo set to get started. I think it was like $125
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The pizza cutter is genuinely awesome! So easy to clean and has no problems with tough crusts. I’d pay $30-40 to buy another one easily if anything happened to mine. Cutco is charging $70 on their website though which just seems delusional.
That’s the only one I had that I lost and greatly regret. I loved that pizza cutter. It really was awesome. I still have a peeler or two. Those work great as well, but yeah. Very expensive.
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After stumbling across a blog post about how big brand kitchen products and appliances are mostly just hollow shells with little to no integrity, I found that same blogger/journalist has a robust list of brands that haven’t gone the way of capital sell-outs that goes way beyond kitchen utensils.
It’s worth taking a look at the list as well as the articles. The articles are conversational, but with lots of links to the source material.
Henkels and Wusthof definitely have shit, disposable sub designs for mass retail sale. Feels like you can’t just blanket endorse brands playing that game, even if their higher end line lives up to the challenge. Need to make that clear distinction.
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Henkels and Wusthof definitely have shit, disposable sub designs for mass retail sale. Feels like you can’t just blanket endorse brands playing that game, even if their higher end line lives up to the challenge. Need to make that clear distinction.
Absolutely, all brands have their cheap lines. I mean they’re fine but they’re not quality. I have a reasonable Henkels knife which I use for everyday kitchen tasks but I also have my Japanese chefs knife which is razor sharp and is only used (by myself only) for fine cutting.
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So far I have sharpened a few times using the base of a mug. Its not a great surface to use but I have a few shitty novelty mugs no one is going to use so it works.
Got some clay in the garden, almost tempting to form it into a tile and use that as a sharpening stone. But stone probably lasts longer.
Henk’s few part pdf series on grinding and honing might be worth a peek if you have an interest in the old ways, dude was a rich seam of dense info on the matter
https://www.scribd.com/document/520966974/Grinding-and-Honing-Part-1
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After stumbling across a blog post about how big brand kitchen products and appliances are mostly just hollow shells with little to no integrity, I found that same blogger/journalist has a robust list of brands that haven’t gone the way of capital sell-outs that goes way beyond kitchen utensils.
It’s worth taking a look at the list as well as the articles. The articles are conversational, but with lots of links to the source material.
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How do you sharpen serrated knife?
Rat tail file set. Won’t do a great job, but it does work.
