Posted on 10/18/2017 6:39:03 AM PDT by C19fan
Just after graduating from high school, Nicholas LeBerth got an ambiguous letter inviting him to an job interview. The firm was called Vector Marketing and it promised generous compensation and flexible work schedules. The job was selling kitchen knives, first to his parents. “I started mostly trying to sell to my family and ran out of them to sell to in like two weeks,” LeBerth told The Daily Beast.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
They sell $20 knives for $150.
Cutco knives are expensive but the big set I bought FORTY years ago is still dangerously sharp. They are really good knives.
I sold Fuller Brush door to door back in the early 70’s. I did pretty well.
Imagine trying to do that today. you’d be arrested, if you could even find anyone at home...
Great knives.
I was working for Sara Lee when they bought Fuller Brush. We sold the products in our company outlet store. I still use a pants press I bought over 25 years ago.
FB had some nice stuff.
I bought two of them from a kid I played golf with in the early ‘90’s who was trying to turn pro. I paid about $20 each and they are better than some of the $150 knives I’ve used since.
The mfg. plant is 3 miles down the road from my home and while they may be expensive the company is meticulous regarding the quality of the product they sell.
Tried selling Wonder Ware cook sets for about two weeks in the summer of 1973, failed. There are still some sets on eBay, as far as I can see.
FB had some nice stuff.
I did learn some things about people, though, and it caused me to coin a phrase: The difference between rich people and poor people is that rich people understand that you spend your money a dollar at a time.
The more upscale neighborhoods were a hard sell, but the low income neighborhoods were an easy sell. The trick was to hit the neighborhood just after they get their welfare checks and make sure everything is prepaid. Maybe it was that they wanted something nice, but people who could ill-afford it would buy a lot of my stuff as long as they had money in their hands. Then they would run out of money before they ran out of month. Which is why we required payment in advance.
(If you suspect I work for Cutco...I promise I do not! Seventeen years ago, some desperate kid pitched them to me. I eat out EVERY meal, so I bought just the scissors and spatula to be supportive. Turned out to be great investments!
Decent quality knives sold with wild BS to justify the extremely inflated prices.
I remember the Fuller Brush man who would come to our house about once a year. He drove an unusual blue car. Maybe a Nash rambler.
Really small old guy impeccably dressed in a suit.
While she was in college, my wife spent a summer selling books for Southwestern books. She actually enjoyed it and was reasonably successful.
One day she was telling our kids about it and they didn’t believe that there was any such thing as door to door booksellers.
A couple hours later came three sharp raps on the door. It was a young man selling books for Southwestern.
Cool story. Made me smile.
HAHAHA! That’s pretty funny.
It’s kinda funny how what used to be normal no longer is, and vice versa.
I think it’s interesting that in the 1950’s you would NEVER use course language at the table, but thought nothing of lighting up a cigarette right there at the table after dinner.
Now the opposite is true.
Why do you think it’s a scam?
Ditto. Total scam. They are still out scamming college and high school kids.
I recently bought a Cutco knife at Goodwill for 25 cents. I have another somewhere with a leather case that I got cheap years ago.
Sounded like one of those pyramid marketing schemes.
They scam ghetto dwellers too. There’s a Cutco telemarketing office near my office. Pretty scary employees there.
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