What's better: income, or job stability?

Published: Wed, 05/20/26

Updated: Fri, 05/22/26

May 20, 2026

TOGETHER WITH

Good morning, Quota readers. How’s your week going? Good, we hope, and hope that the prospect you’ve been waiting on comes through today, while the one that’s ignoring you stubs their toe on a piece of furniture. In this week’s issue, we’ll look at the history of Cutco knives. Then, the usual goodies. Enjoy!

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

8 & 10

8 out of 10 prospects prefer email to other forms of communication.

Source: Zendesk

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

Three former sales reps for a massive Ponzi scheme that raised over US$1.2 billion appear to have gotten off easy, having been banned for just a year in settlements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2020, the SEC filed charges against three former sales reps for Woodbridge Group of Companies LLC, alleging they violated securities law by selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unregistered securities to retail investors. Specifically, the SEC alleged that, between June 2014 to December 2017, the trio were among the scheme’s top-producing sales agents in pitching unregistered securities to elderly investors, generating significant compensation for themselves. You can read more about it here.
An ongoing investigation into a Japanese medical company has yielded two videos that show their sales representatives breaking protocol and participating in a surgery despite not being authorized or medically qualified. The development follows The Asahi Shimbun discovering in April 2025 that four sales representatives of the Tokyo-based company operated X-ray machines during surgeries. One case occurred at Kansai Medical University’s Medical Center in Moriguchi, Osaka. During the course of that investigation, police came across a video taken during surgery that showed a NuVasive employee supporting a patient's leg on the operating table while standing next to a plastic surgeon. You can read more about it here.

FEATURE

The Strange History of Cutco Knife Sales

If you grew up in the 1990s or 2000s, there’s a good chance that you, or someone you knew, sold Cutco knives.

Maybe it was a cousin home from college for the summer. Maybe it was a friend who suddenly wanted to “practice a presentation” in your parents’ kitchen. Maybe you remember the scissors cutting through a penny or the salesman slicing a tomato paper-thin while explaining the forever guarantee.

For decades, Cutco and its direct-sales arm, Vector Marketing, became one of the most recognizable entry-level sales jobs in America.

The company itself goes back much further. Cutco was founded in 1949 in Olean, New York, originally as a kitchen knife manufacturer tied to Alcoa. The knives were expensive, American-made, and built around the idea that they would last forever. Many actually did. One of the company’s biggest selling points became its “Forever Guarantee,” which allowed customers to send knives back for sharpening or replacement at almost any time.

But the real story—and controversy—started with how the knives were sold.

In the early 1980s, Vector Marketing began recruiting college students aggressively. The pitch was appealing: flexible schedules, good money, and no prior experience required. Students attended group interviews in office parks and hotel conference rooms, then learned a tightly structured in-home sales presentation built around demonstrations, objection handling, referrals, and relationship selling.

For many people, it was their first exposure to sales.

The company became famous for recruiting through handwritten flyers, newspaper classifieds, postcard mailers, and eventually online job boards. In some towns, nearly every college student seemed to know someone who had gone to a Vector interview.

The experience could vary wildly depending on the office and manager. Some students quit after a week. Others became top reps making surprisingly large commissions selling knife sets to family friends, teachers, dentists, and neighbors.

The job also became polarizing.

Over the years, Vector faced lawsuits and criticism over its recruiting practices and compensation structure. One recurring controversy involved advertisements emphasizing “base pay,” which many recruits interpreted as hourly wages when the pay was often tied to completed appointments. In 1990, Vector paid roughly $13 million in a settlement related to misleading job advertising claims in several states while denying wrongdoing.

The company remained a frequent topic of debate online long before social media existed. Message boards in the early 2000s were filled with stories from former reps—some calling it exploitative, others defending it passionately.

And despite the criticism, many successful salespeople still point to Cutco as the place where they first learned how to sell.

The training focused heavily on fundamentals: maintaining eye contact, asking for referrals, staying organized, following scripts, handling rejection, and learning how to sit in uncomfortable conversations without panicking. A surprising number of former reps later ended up in medical sales, software sales, real estate, financial services, and entrepreneurship.

The knives themselves also developed a strange cultural durability. Families passed them down. Parents who bought them in the 1980s still use them today. Even people who hated the sales process often admitted the products held up.

Today, Cutco still operates out of Olean and continues to use a version of the direct-sales model that made it famous, though recruiting now happens largely through social media, online ads, and college networking instead of bulletin boards and newspaper classifieds. The company has also expanded into online ordering, corporate gifting, and partnerships with professional kitchens and outdoor brands. While the culture around sales jobs has changed dramatically since the 1990s, Cutco remains one of the few old-school direct-sales organizations that never fully disappeared.

That combination—high-pressure recruiting, legitimate sales training, and genuinely durable products—is part of why Cutco stayed around while so many other direct-sales organizations faded away.

For thousands of young people, it became a strange rite of passage: a summer job that was equal parts awkward, educational, stressful, and weirdly memorable.

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MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- crushing_quota

QUIZ

Which of the following movie characters didn’t work in sales?

A. Tommy Callahan (Tommy Boy)
B. Richard Kimble (The Fugitive)
C. Chris Gardner (The Pursuit of Happyness)
D. Jerry Maguire (Jerry Maguire)

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

I sold cars for many years. One day, this middle-aged guy came in with a woman about his age to look at SUVs. He was doing most of the talking, but the car was going to be in her name. He kept calling her “baby,” had his arm around her, etc.

They ended up picking out a white Acura MDX. They were sitting in my office going through numbers when the front desk receptionist walked over and quietly said, “Uh... I think someone here is asking for him.”

Five seconds later, a woman stormed into the showroom.

Turns out it was his wife.

Apparently, she tracked his location because he told her he was “at Lowes.” Instead, she found him at the dealership buying another woman a car.

What followed was probably the worst screaming match I’ve ever seen in public. The girlfriend started crying, the wife threw his coffee across the showroom, and the guy just kept saying, “Can we not do this here, please?”

Eventually my manager called the cops because customers were literally backing out of the showroom.

Nobody bought the car. The girlfriend left in a taxi. Still the craziest sales floor experience I’ve ever had.

Anonymous Location Withheld

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- May 2026

WORTH A PEEK

What do reps who make over $200k a year actually sell? This question was recently posted to Reddit, with almost 600 responses. If you’re looking for well-paying industries, check out the discussion here.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I’m 31 and work outside sales for a commercial sign company. It’s honestly a pretty good job. The company’s stable, my boss treats me well, and I make around $80k-$95k depending on the year.

But I have a wife and baby and keep looking around and seeing people my age in tech or medical sales making double that or more. Part of me feels like I’m wasting my prime earning years by staying somewhere comfortable.

At the same time, I know a lot of those jobs come with layoffs, nonstop pressure, and way less stability. My job is boring sometimes, but I rarely wake up worried I’m going to get fired.

Am I being smart by staying put or is it a mistake not to take a bigger swing?

Conflicted in Location Withheld

Dear Conflicted,

The tricky part is that both instincts are probably correct.

You could make more somewhere else. A lot more, potentially. But higher ceilings usually come with more volatility, more stress, and less control over your life than people will admit online.

You currently have something many salespeople never attain: predictability. A decent income, a boss you like, and job security are not minor things.

That doesn’t mean you should never leave. But if you do, make sure you’re running toward something specific, not just reacting to other people’s LinkedIn posts or compensation screenshots.

There’s nothing wrong with ambition. There’s also nothing wrong with realizing that peace of mind has economic value too. But only you can decide.

Quiz Answer: B. Dr. Richard Kimble (The Fugitive) did not work in sales.

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik and Steve Rado.

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