Business Opportunities Weblog

A Duty to Sell Quality Products

By on September 2, 2005 in Ideas

Cutco knife Jared Cosulich:

When I was in high school, though, I sold knives door to door for a company called Vector Marketing Corporation that sold Cutco Knives. Despite my dislike for sales in general, I was proud of my position and accelled in it. Why? Well I was proud of what I was selling. I didn’t feel ashamed of selling it. In fact I felt a sort of obligation to sell it. This sense of obligation derived mostly from one encounter I had when I first started selling the knives.

The idea behind Cutco is to take people you know, try to sell them the knives and get referrals to their friends, contact the friends and try to sell them the knives and get more referrals. So one of my first customers was one of my best friends father.

I did the demonstration for him and he decided to buy a set of steak knives, but as he was buying them he noted that the only reason he was buying them was because I was a friend of the family. Well about a month after the purchase I saw him again and he began to thank me repeatedly for selling him the knives because he loved using them so much and wanted to buy some more knives.

I feek like this is a fantastic example about how salespeople and marketers have a duty to try and convince people that your product will make their lives better, unless of course if the product will not, in which case they should’nt be selling it.

entrepreneurial lifestyle sales

Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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  • Ervin

    Actually, I see it as an example of what not to do, ever, to your friends.

    I guess my definition for “friend” is different.

  • http://entreprexplorer.blogspot.com Jared

    Dane, glad you appreciated the post. This is a great blog you’ve got here.

    In response to Ervin I have to just say that I’m sorry you feel that way. You’re not going to experience much success in business if you’re ashamed to sell something to a friend. The fact of the matter is that I was doing him a great service and to this day he still thanks me as the knives are still treating him very well. Of course had I been able to offer him a discount or even give it to him for free I would have done so as he is a friend.

  • http://www.youngmiser.com YoungMiser

    I think it makes all the difference if you are selling a product you believe in. There is nothing worse than having to sell a bad product to someone because it is your job, even though you know the person could get a better deal elsewhere.

  • http://biggerincome.blogspot.com Matthew Rankin

    I have to agree with YoungMiser, there are too many people out there selling shoddy products. The number one rule in sales is to sell something you would buy yourself! You’ll get the sale more often because people can tell if your being genuine (body language etc.)

    Learn the secrets to running a home based business

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