Work For Students Reviews
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Vector Marketing/WorkForStudents.com
In most door to door sales positions you would need to buy your own kit, find your own leads, follow up, be proactive and work, work, work. Vector, however, requires something more. Initially you are required to buy your own set of kitchen knives to sell and attend training. Not too bad.
Then you are encouraged to ask each of your professors (most employees are college students), friends and family to set up an appointment. Finally you are required to make follow-up calls each morning and report on your progress.
Again, this sounds fairly reasonable and for this you are guaranteed $15 per visit even if there are no sales and a commission on all sales.
There are, however, some unexpected pitfalls they don't tell you about.
The use of cell phones is encouraged. Unless you want a huge bill you better have and unlimited calling plan.
The use of personal vehicle is encouraged. Depending on where you are selling this could be a very expensive proposition. New York City? Not too bad. Helena Montana? You will be driving a lot.
The product is a set of knives and other things for the kitchen. Some of these are dangerous in my opinion. I have personally cut off small pieces of my fingers many times. There are some knives I will not use any more because they are too dangerous. Can you say ER visits?
The commission on a sale is paid in installments just like the buyer. This means that if you are due $200 but it is split among five payments you will only see $40 in the first month.
Commissions only increase after sales. While I don't have their current numbers I calculated at the time that you would have to sell a large amount of product before your commissions would become reasonable.
Commissions can be less than the guaranteed $15. Suppose you sell two knives for $45 and your commission is 15%. That totals only $6.75 in commissions. You would have been better off not making a sale in the first place.
Vector proscribes an exact marketing strategy. Beware of this. If you follow it to the letter and you are unsuccessful you may be simply stuck with the expenses plus your $15 fees, but if you continue to make no sales they will withhold your fees on the basis that "of course" you are doing something wrong or you would be making sales.
Also, although parts of their strategy are good, there are improvements which the better sales people make. Again, this is deviation and if you fail to make sales you will not be paid even the fees.
As a final word, Vector is not a bad company or a scam. It is possible to make money with this company, but it is far more likely that you will lose money through one of these pitfalls. I do not recommend it.
My brother recently got hired at Vector and it gave me fond memories of my "knife days" in college. The position in question is marketing Cutco Cutlery. Neither my brother or I were ever required to buy the knives, I am unsure where this claim stems from. I can say I was always treated with respect by the staff and I learned a lot that summer.
I am naturally introverted and it turned my fear of public speaking (eve though you only meet with one customer at a time) into something I actually enjoyed. I wasn't the top sales person in my office, I was taking summer courses that summer and I really enjoyed the flexibility of the job. I sold just over 16k worth of the product during my 15 week summer vacation from college at NC State University and earned $3,800 in income.
I didn't break the bank but it sure beat my lifeguarding job the previous summer where I only earned $2,000. It isn't a position for everyone but it was very fun getting to meet with the customers during the preset appointments.
The position isn't door-to-door like some people have claimed although you do meet with customers in their homes, they are expecting you. I met a lot of really nice people. If you have an interview with Vector I would urge you to check it out rather than reading bias Internet reviews.