Is Vector Marketing A Scam?
This has been one of the most asked questions about this company in the past years due to some tactics and policy issues they have or had in the past, which led to many complaints online and offline about this company.
And since you have asked this question, I believe that you have been invited to join them and promote their Cutco Cutlery products.
And now you are looking for honest Vector Marketing reviews before you join it.
And you are probably confused if this company works as a pyramid scheme, MLM, network marketing company or affiliate marketing company.
You are in the right place!
I will show explain to you in this review of Vector Marketing what this company is all about and how it works, and if you should join it or not waste you time with it.
Also, I will guide you in the last section of this review into how I personally make money online from home WITHOUT having to call anyone and without inviting my family and friends to buy stuff.
Vector Marketing Review Summary
- Name: Vector Marketing – The Marketing Arm Of Cutco Cutlery & Kitchen Knives
- Website: www.VectorMarketing.com
- Founders: Cutco.
- Price: Used to require you to buy for yourself first before you start selling, but currently you don’t have to. However, you may need to PAY in order to get interviewed before you join.
- Legit/Scam: Legit, but not my recommended way for making money from home.
Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 60 of 100 (Check my #1 recommended program to make money from home 97 of 100)
Summary: Vector Marketing is the marketing company that sells knives and cutlery items from the Cutco brand.
Vector Marketing hires marketers on a performance based model and not on salary basis, asking them to do phone calls to promote their stuff to others, including their family and relatives, and hence, the many complaints about it.
You can make money with Vector Marketing, but there’s a more sustainable and long-term alternative I will explain in the last section of this review.
What Is Vector Marketing?
Vector Marketing is a marketing company that is responsible for exclusively promoting and selling knives and cutlery products that are produced by its parent company; Cutco.
And now you might be asking yourself, since there’s a company that produces and sells something (Cutco), then why would they create another company that markets their products? Why wouldn’t they hire their own marketing team and let them promote the products.
Which takes us to the next question:
What Does Vector Marketing Do?
Vector Marketing is responsible for hiring sales people who would work on performance basis in order to market and sell their products through phone calls, either to strangers, or to their relatives and family.
Therefore, what Cutco and Vector Marketing do is not to hire a team of permanent employees with fixed salaries, but rather, is to hire as many people as possible, who would market and sell to their family, friends and strangers through phone calls.
And I say as many as possible because they don’t pay salaries, but rather, fixed commissions on each sale they bring.
Which takes us to some important and frequently asked questions about Vector Marketing company that I will be answering now, such as:
Is Cutco or Vector Marketing a Pyramid Scheme?
No, Vector marketing is not a pyramid scheme as it doesn’t require you to recruit others in order to work as sales people for the company. In addition, you supposedly make a commission on each sale/new customer you bring and on a minimum number of customers.
Is Vector Marketing an MLM?
No, Vector Marketing is not an MLM scheme as it doesn’t pay its marketers commissions on second tier customers (customers who came through the customers you brought).
Vector Marketing only pays you for the new customers you brought yourself. And like in the answer on the previous question, with Vector Marketing, you only look for customers to buy cutlery stuff, and you don’t look for people to hire them to do the same as you do in promoting and selling the same items.
Is Vector Marketing A Network Marketing Scheme?
Partially. In general, Vector Marketing takes one of the network marketing tactics as it asks you to sell to your family and friends.
On the other hand, and as in my two previous answers above, you only promote products for purchase, and you don’t recruit others to do the same as you do.
Is Vector Marketing Affiliate Marketing?
To some extent, yes, as affiliate marketing is a performance based model that allows you to promote others’ products to people who might need them and make commissions on every sale you bring.
However, Vector Marketing might be a little bit different from affiliate marketing in some areas.
For example, if you promote cutlery stuff to your relatives, then they might buy them even if they don’t need them, just because they want to help you make some money, especially that I read that they focus on hiring young people in college who would sell to their relatives.
After all, who would say no to their son or niece who is trying to make money in order to pay for the college?
And this is one thing that I don’t like about how Vector Marketing works.
Another thing; Cutco products are a bit expensive and it is not that easy to sell them and get a commission.
While if you learn affiliate marketing the right way in order to build a sustainable career and business with this method, then you need to learn how to research the market and promote different products from different companies and not be tight to one company only.
And this is something you can learn at places that are designed to teach you affiliate marketing the right way such as the Wealthy Affiliate platform and Blog Profit Network for example.
And most important, if you learn affiliate marketing from one of the two above mentioned programs, then you don’t have to make any phone calls as you promote through the internet in a more passive ways.
In addition, the right method of affiliate marketing you learn from these programs allows you really to work from home or from anywhere as long as you have your laptop and an internet connection.
How Much Does Vector Marketing Cost to Join?
It used to be a mandatory that you buy one of the Cutco cutlery sets in order to join Vector Marketing and starting promoting Cutco products.
But since these are very expensive, it seems that Vector Marketing no longer requires you to buy something by yourself.
However, it seems that you need to conduct more than one interview in order to become eligible to work for Vector Marketing.
But remember that you might also need to make visits to potential customers and I have seen some complaints that you need to pay for your transportation.
Also, you may need to use your own phone in order to conduct the calls.
Can You Make Money with Vector Marketing?
You can make money with Vector Marketing promoting Cutco products.
However, like many performance-based models, making money with Vector Marketing depends on many factors such as your experience, the time you dedicate, your connections, the support from the company and the products you are trying to sell.
It is important to notice that you don’t only make money on the sales you bring, but sometimes, even if you don’t make sales you might still get some money for bringing qualified leads (people with specific conditions), as in the next section.
How Much Does Vector Marketing Pay?
There are multi-tier commission rates that you can get paid by Vector Marketing based on how much your leads have paid every month buying Cutco products. This is not mentioned clearly on their website, but after some investigation, it seems to be as follows:
- 10% if you bring sales in the amount of $0-$1000
- 15% if you bring sales in the amount of $1000-$3000
- 20% if you bring sales in the amount of $3000-$6000
- 25% if you bring sales in the amount of `00-$10,000
- 30% if you bring sales in the amount of $10,000+
And if you don’t make any sales, then you can still get paid around $17.5 for the qualified leads you generated.
A qualified lead should be at least 30 years old, have a steady job and should own a house.
However, if you think that you can make lots of money selling Cutco products, then this might require you lots of time, like a full-time job or more because the products are a bit pricey and it is not easy to sell them.
And remember that you still have to pay for the phone calls and for the travel expenses from your own pocket.
While if you learn affiliate marketing as in the last section below, then you can promote any products in different price ranges and some of them pay higher commissions than Vector Marketing Commissions.
What I Like About Vector Marketing
- It is a legitimate making money opportunity build on a performance-based model that is similar to affiliate marketing. Also, you might get paid for generated leads if they meet the conditions.
- The company have been around since the 1990s and there are many positive reviews from customers and employees.
What I Don’t Like About Vector Marketing
- The products they sell are a bit expensive and are not easy to sell.
- You might need to visit many prospects and spend lots of money from your own pocket on phone calls and transportation before making any commission.
- There are many negative Vector Marketing reviews from both: customers and former employees. I wouldn’t like to recommend something to my relatives and get them through such an experience.
- It is sometimes promoted as a work from home opportunity, but you need to do trips in order to meet possible clients.
- It seems that you need to pay for the phone calls and transportation by yourself, which might eat up the commissions you make, and it doesn’t make it completely free to start.
- One of the main categories they hire are students who want to cover their expenses. However, due to the nature of not completely being work-from-home opportunity, this might cost them lots of time while traveling. It is not a passive way of making money from home.
- Although it is based on the affiliate marketing model, which is my favorite way of making money, but it lacks many of the major characteristics of this method such as learning how to research the market and the ability to promote any product in any niche.
- You are tight to one company and its products, which would limit your ability to make money and would make it an unsustainable money making opportunity.
- You need to keep putting the time and effort in order to keep making money. Once you stop working, you stop making money, unlike the method described in the conclusion section at the end of this Vector Marketing review below.
Who Is Vector Marketing For?
Vector Marketing might help some people to make some money on the side, but it is important to remember the following:
- You need some money to pay for transportation and phone calls.
- You need not fear to make cold calls and meet in person with potential clients.
- You might need to promote to your relatives and friends.
- You need not to fear rejections.
- You need to keep putting the time and effort in order to keep making money. Once you stop working, you stop making money.
Vector Marketing might work for some people, but I wouldn’t consider it my first recommendation for working from home as you still need to travel and you need to talk on phone to people, which is not that comfortable for everyone.
Also, you are limited to what you can promote.
Vector Marketing Support
As a marketer who makes them money, you are expected to get proper support from the company itself.
However, due to the nature of the hiring procedure where they don’t necessarily hire experienced professionals, then expect your manager to be a young person who is also trying to cover their expenses like you do.
This might mean that your direct manager might not be highly skilled and knowledgeable in the marketing place and in the work field in general.
Is Vector Marketing a Scam or Legit?
No, Vector Marketing is not a scam. It doesn’t require you to buy the products by yourself and you don’t need to hire others to join the company and do what you do.
Yes, it is a legitimate opportunity to make money, but a limited one due to the fact that you only can promote Cutco products and you need to make phone calls and visits.
A 100% Legitimate & Long-Term Alternative to Vector Marketing That I Make Money with?
Yes.
As I mentioned earlier, the model followed at Vector Marketing in promoting Cutco cutlery products is a performance-based one that is similar to affiliate marketing, which is my favorite way of making money from home.
However, there are many downfalls to how you do this with Vector Marketing such as:
- You need to make phone calls and visits, which is not suitable for everyone.
- You are limited to promoting products from one company, Cutco, and in one niche only.
- It is not a passive method at all, you need to keep making calls and in-person meetings.
However, there are many other methods of affiliate marketing that overcome the above mentioned downfalls.
And the method that I personally follow is the one that allows me to promote to people without talking to someone on phone, face-to-face or even in a chat. Instead, it works as follows:
- I create a blog in a certain niche such as a hobby, passion, profession, problem, skill, …etc. (You don’t need technical knowledge to do that)
- I research what problems and questions people in that niche have and I write blog posts about how to solve these problems and questions.
- Inside these articles, I recommend the products that solves these problems through a unique link (called affiliate link).
- I make my articles ready to get the web traffic from search engines like Google and others.
- Whenever someone reads my articles and learn about what I promote, they might click on my link to get what I promote and the sale will be tracked and I will get a commission.
And this method solves all the problems mentioned above, as you don’t have to call or visit anyone, you are not limited to promoting one company’s products, and more important, you don’t have to keep working the same exact hours everyday.
Don’t get me wrong, you still need to work consistently for not a short period of time, but any piece of content that you properly create on your blog stays there for a long time and keeps getting visitors and probably sales. The more quality content you create the higher potential income you make on the long run.
And the moment you stop creating content, what you have already built will keep working for months or even years and might keep making you money.
This is how I like to make money online with affiliate marketing.
And you can learn this at many places, but my favorite one is a platform that is called Wealthy Affiliate, as this platform provides you not only with the best training in this field, but with all the necessary tools and technical support so that you don’t need to worry about these stuff if you don’t have technical knowledge.
Instead, your role is to focus on creating quality content that helps people and makes you money.
And the best part is that they offer a Free Starter membership.
Click here to learn more about this platform through my Wealthy Affiliate review!
And if someone you know needs to learn about Vector Marketing, then please, feel free to share this review with them.
And if you have any question regarding my Vector Marketing review, or if you don’t agree with my conclusion that Vector Marketing is not a scam, or if you have any experience, positive or negative with this company or with Cutco At Home business opportunity, then feel free to leave it in the comments section below and I will be happy to answer you back.