Everyone should try selling something once. Not because you’ll get rich, but because you’ll find out exactly how you handle rejection, math, and human nature—all in the same week.
As many people know, my first foray into sales was selling Cutco knives back in 2002. I was pretty horrible at selling knives. I remember having huge expectations of the amount of money I was going to make. At the end of the summer, I was told that the company would not be sending me a 1099 form because I had made less than $600.
I have to tell you, though, the experience was more than worth it just for the Toastmasters speeches! So lately I’ve been thinking I could probably milk this story for a little bit more value. There’s one thing I’ve never really properly given credit to Cutco for. The experience made me realize that it was possible to activate Extravert Mode in my brain. I didn’t think my brain had an extravert mode at all.
Just like any other muscle, extravert mode tends to atrophy when not used. I’ve had ups and downs with my consistency. It seems like some people don’t have to make as much of an effort to turn on extravert mode. Some people seem to just stay in that mode all of the time. I’m not sure whether I should envy those people or feel sorry for them. My suspicion is it’s probably a little of both.
To make a long story short, I think every college student should sell Cutco knives for a summer, or do something like it. That said, I think a student who sells Cutco should ignore a lot of their training and take a different approach instead. (I recognize that other sales offices may train recruits differently; my experience is specific to one office only and I don’t know how typical it is.)
I went into the job absolutely terrified of selling. I came to learn that selling is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And a lot of the fear I had was based on going about things the wrong way.
The Product Really Was Good
Cutco really has a damn good product. I have had my Cutco knives for 23 years as of the time of this writing. I still use them every day and they are still sharp. I have never sent them to the factory for re-sharpening but I probably should get around to that one of these days. I did have somebody sharpen a couple of them in the field at a local event back in 2023. The product really does perform as advertised. I can recommend the knives without hesitation. The product wasn’t the problem; the sales training model was.
Where the System Falls Short
The Cutco sales plan is similar to many other companies, where the basic idea is to write down a list of everyone you know and then try to get them all to buy your stuff. Kind of like selling Girl Scout cookies except I wasn’t a cute girl and the stuff I was selling had a bigger price tag. I felt like I was taking advantage of people‘s goodwill to get them to buy things they ordinarily would not have bought.
If you work the numbers the way Vector says, it really does work. I’m not at all saying that from personal experience, because I didn’t work the numbers. I’m going based on what I saw and heard from successful people in the Cutcoverse. The math doesn’t lie. Caveat: some research I did seems to indicate that the company averages cited by Vector are based on old data and that they may have only included successful sales reps. At any rate, here were the numbers they told us:
- ~60% close rate
- ~$250 average order value
- ~20 calls to book 5 appointments
What I can say for certain: close rates improve over time with skill and repetition. It is not reasonable to expect that your ratios will match those of an experienced rep right out of the gate.
The Realities Behind the Numbers
On paper, it looked great. They said we would need to make 20 calls to set 5 appointments. In the beginning, I could barely get myself to make 3 calls, and 2 of them were busy signals. I found that most of the sales I made were token purchases people made just to support me. Others told me to get a real job (or didn’t answer the door when I showed up for the demo).
“Working the numbers” is a lot harder than it sounds during recruiting and training. I found, as did many others I spoke to, that it’s easy to feel optimistic and excited when first presented with the amounts of money that can be made. The amounts are real and the prospect is real, but you still have to learn to “lift the 800 pound gorilla” by picking up the phone. It is going to be a lot harder than it sounds. People are not going to respond as enthusiastically as you think they will, especially if you have no prior sales experience.
I think you should plan to not make a single sale for your first 100 demos, and not book a single appointment on your first 100 phone calls, and to steel yourself for a lot of rejection and skepticism. I think a lot of people would not sign up to sell Cutco if they knew what it would really be like. In my case, I think I could have succeeded if I’d started on a foundation of more realistic expectations. If I’d had the stomach to keep going, I believe I’d eventually have hit ratios similar to the cited company averages.
What I’d Do Differently Today
I would go in with no expectation of making money at all. I think I would have been a much more likely to succeed in this job if I had gone in without expecting to make money, but going in with the goal of learning instead. Here’s the process I would now encourage my younger self to follow:
- Call people I know just for practice demos
- Apply zero pressure to buy
- Discourage pity purchases
- Focus on entertainment and learning
- Don’t directly ask for referrals, but let people know that referrals are welcome (and give them a way to do it later)
- For the love of all that’s holy, DO NOT ask people to call their referrals right there on the spot.
There are several components to the standard sales script taught by Vector Marketing that I would completely ignore and will also encourage anyone else to ignore. First of all, we were instructed to call people we knew and give vague evasive answers about what product we were selling. If we were asked, the standard reply was to say something to the effect of “it’s better if I just show it to you.” We were told to only reveal the name of the company if it was the only way to secure the appointment. Personally, I find this to be a slimy tactic. There is no way it would get me to agree to meet with someone.
I didn’t ask everyone for referrals like we were supposed to. I don’t regret having not done that. The people I did ask for referrals generally were not enthusiastic about the idea. People would say “I don’t know anybody!” I think I might’ve been able to improve the response to this by focusing on making the demos entertaining and doing a better job building rapport. I think if I’ve made people enjoy having me in their houses, they might have been more inclined to introduce me to their friends.
Sometimes you just need to push through the fear, but sometimes the fear is giving you a valuable signal. Sometimes it is just in bad taste or inappropriate to ask for the sale. Discernment is necessary; you should not always do the uncomfortable thing. Sometimes the feeling is uncomfortable because you know that what you are thinking of doing is wrong. Sometimes discomfort is your ego or fear holding you back. Sometimes it is your conscience.
The Value of a Disinterested Mentor
The biggest thing I would’ve done differently: I would have found a disinterested mentor. Vector provided a decent coaching program, but I hadn’t yet learned to recognize a fundamental reality of getting coaching from any employer. My employer’s motives were not the same as mine. On the surface, our interests seemed aligned enough. The more I sold, the more money I made and the more money my bosses made. But the misalignment was in some less obvious areas.
There were the phone calls and presentations I made that didn’t result in a sale. Those calls and appointments cost me time and gas money, but they cost my employer nothing. Also, there was the social cost of damaging relationships by pressuring people to buy. That pressure cost my employer nothing and came at an immeasurable cost to me. My sales coach was paid to look out for the company’s bottom line. It’s the same problem as talking to HR about your supervisor. The short version: never take career advice from someone who profits off your decisions.
If you don’t know where to find a disinterested mentor, my go-to recommendation is to join a 12-step program and find a sponsor. 12 step programs are not just for alcoholics and addicts. They provide a framework for living a fellowship of people looking to better themselves. They provide a rich pool of disinterested people who are available for outreach calls with no strings attached. Underearners Anonymous is a 12-step group that’s been around since 2005. There are other places to find disinterested people. If you go to a church or religious community, you might be able to find someone there. If you belong to a business networking group, that’s another option.
I strongly recommend that you not ask a family member for advice. Family members are generally too emotionally attached and they have their own opinions about what they want you to do. The key characteristic of a disinterested mentor: they have no involvement in the situation. They will not be impacted by what you decide to do, so they have nothing to personally gain or lose by steering you one way or the other.
The Real Prize: Learning to Switch Modes
My first few experiences with activating extravert mode felt like a dormant set of circuitry in my body was activated for the first time. It also felt like I found a cheat code or a feature that I didn’t know I had. All of a sudden I started to see a whole realm of possibility appear. I was not stuck being the person I thought I was. I had the capability to become somebody different. That was fundamentally the lesson I needed to learn.
All in all, I think a sales job selling something like Cutco is just what the doctor ordered for a socially awkward introvert like me. I was a lot more socially awkward 20 years ago, and I believe that the three months I spent selling Cutco knives was instrumental as a catalyst that sparked something internally inside of me. Had it not been for this experience, I’m not sure I ever would have attempted to start my own business. I might still believe that introversion is inherent to my wiring and DNA.
Extravert mode does not stay on all the time for me. I still drop back into my default mode if I don’t make a deliberate exercise of connecting with people. There is a benefit to putting yourself into an arena where you will be faced with a mandate to do things outside of your default operating modes. And that perhaps is what makes a summer sales job such a valuable thing for every college student. I don’t believe there is any such thing as a natural born salesperson. Regardless of your level of natural proclivity to selling, the skill of learning and sharpening the techniques of prospecting and closing are critical for success in any career.
If colleges were designed the way I think they should be, three months of full-time selling would be a prerequisite for starting the freshman year. Maybe I’ll have to create that school myself.
