Is Vector Marketing A Scam? – Must-Read Facts!

Welcome to my Vector Marketing review and the question is Vector Marketing is a scam.

Chances are high that you are a college student looking to work to finance your studies and have seen an advertising from Vector Marketing offering students a well paid fun and exciting job opportunity.

When I started my research about Vector Marketing I was surprised to learn that this is not your usual direct selling marketing company that offers flexible hours and rewards to mainly woman who are looking to get back into the workforce.

Instead, Vector Marketing is recruiting young people to be their sales representative. 

Instead of a party plan business like the Pampered Chef  or PartyLite, I have found a company that does one-on-one presentations. The students are required to start off with friends, family, and acquaintances, and hopefully from there increase their network.

Let's dig deeper and find out if Vector Marketing is a scam with our eight facts you need to know before joining this direct selling company.

Is Vector Marketing A Scam - Some Facts You Need To Know 

#1 Vector Marketing - All About Knifes?

Originally, I started researching Cutco Cutlery which led me very quickly to Vector Marketing which is a subsidiary of Cutco.

So, no review would be complete without talking about Cutco first.

Cutco, formerly known as Alcas corporation, has been founded in 1949 and is an American company that is known for its quality knifes and a variety of kitchen and cookware.

In 1981, Vector Marketing was founded as sales division for Cutco Cutlery. It has its headquarter in Olean, New York.

The current CEO and President is James Stitt Jr.. Throughout the years, Vector Marketing made negative headlines for various reasons: a lawsuit had been filed for violation of " ...Fair Labor Standards Act in California, Florida, New York, Illinois and Michigan when workers sued for going unpaid for their trainings."

" In September 2017, Vector was sued in a class-action lawsuit initiated by a division manager who alleged that the company was engaging in unfair labor practices because, despite his position, he was still classified as an independent contractor, thus denying him access to overtime pay. According to the suit, division managers are the highest-ranking class of workers who are not officially classified as Vector employees." [source: Wikipedia]

When I did my research, I've noticed that the information on the companies website is pretty vague, especially when it comes to payment. They are talking about a base pay rate but nothing is revealed until you go for an interview and training.

But I will talk about it in more detail later on.

#2 The Cutco Products

As mentioned before, the main product one has to sell are knifes.

Even though the quality seems to be very good according to most customers, the products are pretty expensive. The wooden block with 18 knifes retails on Amazon for over $1300.

Unless the customer is a passionate home cook or is someone who really treasure a good knife, it is a lot of money to be spent on a knife set or on a single good quality knife.

I do appreciate the fact that Cutco offers a Forever Guarantee as well as a free replacement and sharpening service but I doubt that many people are willing to spent a lot of money on the products.

So, for a sales rep that can be quite a challenging task.

#3 Who Wants To Sell Knives or How To Join Vector Marketing

According to the companies website, if you want to become a sales rep for Vector Marketing, simply send them a brief application and they will invite you to a job interview.

From what I picked up by reading various comments from former sales representatives, it is usually a group interview situation.

Once you get the job, you will need to attend a two day or three day training seminar which is not paid by the way.

You'll learn everything about Cutco Cutlery and, of course, sales techniques.

So if selling products (knifes) is your thing then I can imagine that these sales techniques might be valuable for later job opportunities.

Vector Marketing also loans you a knife set for your presentations. 

Therefore it looks like that there are no start up costs involved.

But, you will need to have a car to get to your presentations.

#4 Getting Training

As outlined before, Vector Marketing offers a comprehensive training program before you get started.

In my eyes that is positive and will benefit you for other jobs later on in life.

But also be aware that you are expected to attend mandatory meetings on a regular basis which are not paid.

That can be annoying when you are busy with doing your sales job plus doing your studies at the same time.

It seems like Vector Marketing uses these meetings to keep the motivation up because it can be frustrating to have presentation after presentations with no or little sales.

And what, if you don't get any leads which means no presentations or people cancel their booking?

#5 Selling, Selling, Selling

You are required to book one-on-one presentations starting off with your friends and family, the so called warm market.

From there, you need to get referrals to book more presentations.

The video shows pretty well how one has to hustle to earn money with this opportunity.

If ringing potential customers on the phone is not your forte then this job is not for you.

#6 Show Me The Money

Vector Marketing prides itself to pay its sales reps a base  pay of $16 per appointment.

If you don't sell anything you get the base pay but if you sell products you'll get paid a commission, whatever is higher.

Now, I haven't found any details of what the percentage of the commission payments are. I have seen numbers ranging from 10% up to 50%.

My guess is that it is probably around the 20% mark and  most likely increases with the  sales volume to give people an incentive to sell as much as possible

There is no compensation plan available to the public and it doesn't look like you get paid for referring people into Vector Marketing.

That's why I don't think that Vector Marketing is an MLM company rather a direct selling company.

To my knowledge, there are no monthly purchases required to earn a commission nor do you get overrides on team sales.

#7 Can You Make Money With Vector Marketing?

The good news is that you get paid even if you don't sell anything.

However, if you don't get any referrals and therefore can't book any presentations/appointments, you don't earn anything.

Also, be aware that you work as an independent contractor not an employee.

That means you have to put money aside to pay for tax as well as paying  for your car and gas to get from presentation to presentation.

Having a background in direct selling myself, it takes a lot of self motivation and discipline to become a successful sales person.

It is essential to make follow-up phone calls and replace cancelled appointments with new ones.

#8 Rating With The BBB 

Vector Marketing is accredited with the Better Business Bureau and prides itself to have an A+ rating.

However, if you look closely, there have been over 54 complaints in the past three years.

But the fact that Vector Marketing has replied to every single one of them, has given them this positive rating.

You can read more here.

Conclusion - Is Vector Marketing A Scam?

Considering all the facts I have just outlined, I don't think that Vector Marketing is a scam. 

It is simply a direct selling division for Cutco Cutlery.

Instead of recruiting or targeting people into the sales opportunity who are looking for alternatives to the 9 to 5 job, they mainly hire college students as sales reps.

I am not too sure why that is. I don't understand either why the focus is on one-on-one presentations and not group presentations.

The information on the companies website is fairly vague especially regarding the commission payments.

Otherwise it really is a sales job.

Be prepared to 

• use your warm market (friends and family) to practice, sell to, and get referrals from
• ring potential customers and drive a lot to appointments (at your own cost)
• attend mandatory meetings
• deal with frustration and disappointment when appointments get cancelled: No Appointments - No Money!

A Better Way To Earn Money

If you do like selling and want to learn sales techniques, you could try Vector Marketing.

If it doesn't sound like you then here is my pitch.

As I said before I had been involved in direct selling for three years but one of the biggest hurdles for me was ringing customers and dealing with rejection.

So I changed direction a few years ago and started building my online business and now earn four figures a month in passive income with affiliate marketing.

There are different ways of doing affiliate marketing but my preferred (and most successful) option is to 

Build A Blog/Website.

The possibilities are limitless as well as the earnings potential.

In saying that, it is a long term process just as it takes some time do build a successful business offline.

Don't Know Anything About Websites?

Well, when I started back in 2016, I was exactly in the same position. 

Thankfully I had come across a training platform that not only offers full training but also other essential business tools to succeed in the vastness of the internet.

So if you are keen to learn how to build a blog/website, maybe a travel blog, a fashion blog, or lifestyle  blog, then I recommend to join my #1 training platform Wealthy Affiliate where you learn step-by-step how to build a website and drive targeted traffic and leads to your website.

Best of all, you can become a member of Wealthy Affiliate for free to see if you like it. No strings attached, no credit card required.

Create A FREE Account Now

To Your Success!

~Anke

Connect with me on Wealthy Affiliate.

Please note, this post contains affiliate links. Read more here.