Sharpening Digital Marketing Skills with Cutco Cutlery Sales Tales [LNIM255]

Ever wondered how a set of knives could teach you the fundamentals of sales and digital marketing? Strap in as I take you through a blast from my past, sharpening our skills with the insights I gained from slinging Cutco cutlery across Texas during my college years. You'll hear tales from the trenches of Vector Marketing, where I learned to identify the perfect audience and polish a sales pitch that could slice through the thickest skepticism. It's not just about the gleam of those blades; it's how their direct selling approach carved out a space in my heart and mind, influencing how I tackle the digital marketing landscape today.

This episode isn't just about nostalgia; it's a toolbox for your current marketing challenges. I'll dissect the art of the assumed close and the finesse required to turn objections into opportunities, skills as crucial now as they were then. We'll connect the dots from handling rejections at doorsteps to securing clicks in cyberspace, and I'll reveal how these principles power success in sectors as diverse as tech at IBM and the intricate world of semiconductors. Before you go, I extend an open invitation: reach out with your stories, seek advice, or just join our nocturnal tribe of marketeers. Remember, the spirit of late-night internet marketing lives on, one referral, one sale, one success story at a time.

Chapters

• 0:00 Marketing Lessons From Selling Cutco Cutlery
• 16:25 Sales Techniques and Lessons Learned
• 29:06 Feedback and Assistance in Internet Marketing

Transcript

Mark Mason: 0:00

Episode two five five late night internet marketing. This week on the late night internet marketing podcast, we're going to go back in time almost 45 years and talk about the lessons that I learned selling cut co cutlery as a young college student in Texas. There are marketing and sales lessons aplenty jammed in this episode. You're not going to want to miss it. All this and more on the late night internet marketing podcast.

Jingle: 0:41

The late night internet marketing podcast You've been working for somebody else, but you want a business to run yourself. You want to know how to start, where to begin. Can you get out your comfort zone, my friend? Yes, you can do it right when it's late at night. At the end of the day, your dreams burn inside.

Mark Mason: 1:10

So keep it up and you will find that you're building your business one night at a time and now broadcasting late at night from a little studio in the big state of Texas, your host, your host, Mark Mason.

Mark Mason: 1:30

Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing? I am your host, mark Mason, coming to you from the little studio in Dallas, texas. Baseball season's alive and well. I spent a lot of time this week watching baseball scrimmages and we're having a lot of fun here in Texas enjoying the small respites that we're getting between rain and what is, for us, cold weather, and I've been spending time getting caught up on all things marketing and I was just kind of taking a trip down memory lane the other day thinking about what was really my first sales experience, the first time in my life that I got any kind of sales training or really learned anything about sales and marketing. Now, some of you know that when I was a young man in high school, I just fell deeply in love with this girl and her dad owned his own company and he put his sales guys through Zig Ziglar's secrets of closing the sale training and I borrowed those tapes from her dad and I listened to him over and over again and that's how I really got my first sales experience was listening to Zig Ziglar's secrets of closing the sale tape.

Mark Mason: 2:56

This would have been back in the 1980s. Zig Ziglar was just really becoming a big thing, at least from my perspective, and these were actual physical cassette tapes. I had a pioneer auto reverse cassette tape player in my 1979 Firebird that I was driving at the time. It was red and it had a big 350 four bolt main engine in it with a Holley dual line double pump carburetor and it was pretty fast car. My dad and I built that together Elbrock manifold. I used to drive around in this car squealing the tires from light to light, listening to Zig Ziglar. What a weird combination. When I got to school I knew a little bit about sales and you know Zig Ziglar would go on to really significantly impact me in my life throughout the rest of my life. When I got to college I saw this flyer In college they put these flyers with the little tear off tags on bulletin boards. At least back then they did, and I tore off the tag because they were offering significant amount of money that you could make in our selling Cutco cutlery.

Mark Mason: 4:13

Now, for those of you that don't know, cutco is a high quality line of kitchen cutlery. They've got kitchen accessories and sporting knives and other stuff like that, but they're mostly known for their kitchen cutlery. They've been making this stuff in New York since right after World War II and they're the only high quality cutlery line that's still made right here in the United States. And there's tens of millions I think 15 million people in America have Cutco in their kitchen, including me, because I sold the stuff and the knives are awesome, they're guaranteed forever and it's kind of a $200 million a year business. What makes these knives interesting is that they're sold door to door. In the tradition of the encyclopedia or the vacuum cleaner, just like in the movies. You sell these things door to door.

Mark Mason: 5:13

And there's one company that has exclusive rights to do direct sales of Cutco knives and that is a company called Vector Marketing and I worked for Vector Marketing as a college student and that's pretty much, at least to my understanding, what they do. They go out and they recruit college students to go sell their products and it's a little bit like multi-level marketing in that sense. There's no multi-level to it. The managers get overrides on the students that sell the cutlery, but it's a kind of thing where it's a turn and burn kind of sales thing. You bring people in and they sell to all the people they know and most of them go on to do other things and that's kind of a marketing strategy that Vector uses College students who need money, who have access to the adults in their lives and can be trusted to go in their homes and sell the product. When you go to work for Vector Marketing, you go through training and they teach you how to give this amazing pitch. They teach you how to prospect for clients. You go and you sell to these clients and you try to add on to the sale, just like we do in marketing. It occurred to me that a lot of the things that I'm still doing today in my marketing business are actually things that I learned selling Cutco for Vector Marketing, and I thought it would be fun to go back through and relate those things, because there's some valuable marketing lessons that people need to keep in mind today for their sales pages and all the digital marketing work that they're doing. So here we go.

Mark Mason: 6:58

The first thing I think is very clear from Vector Marketing is that you need to understand your audience and get in front of the right people. This is a relatively expensive product. Anyone can go to Walmart and buy a $13 set of kitchen knives in a butcher block. That's not what these Cutco knives are. These Cutco knives are very high quality products that are made from a very high quality of steel. The handles are made from a polymer that basically lasts forever. At the time that I was selling the knives, it was the same material that's used to make bowling balls, which is kind of an epoxy type resin material that I learned later is used in semiconductors and a lot of other things. It's a super high quality knife, and the Cutco knives that I have that were part of my sales kit. I'm still using them in my kitchen 40 years later.

Mark Mason: 7:54

I mean this is really an amazing product, but it's not inexpensive, and so you've got to understand who your audience is. Now. Vector Marketing never said this to me, but by selecting college students and primarily relying on college students on average, you are working with people whose network comes from the kind of socioeconomic group that educated people come from. Most college students certainly not all everybody has to have the first kid in the first generation of college students, but most kids in college are there because their parents went to college and most people who went to college on average, the income of those people is going to be higher than people who didn't go to college, and so, therefore, these kids that you're recruiting. The first people they're going to call to get in front of to try and sell these knives are people in their social demographic, and that's going to be an upscale market, and so this is really important. You cannot sell a $600 or $500 or whatever it is now set of knives to people who aren't able to pay their light bill. You've got to get in front of people with disposable income that can afford that, just like that.

Mark Mason: 9:18

Today in digital marketing, we need to make sure that we're in front of the right market, and we do that now with sophisticated tools that allow us to target audiences. We go where our audience is hanging out. Back then, with vector marketing, we were doing the same thing. It just wasn't digital. We were making sure that we were in front of people, in front of homeowners generally, and we were in front of people in the right socioeconomic demographic that would normally have money available to spend on this. Of course, today, if we need to do that, we use advanced targeting tools and we look at their purchasing behavior and we pick people that look like the people that have already bought from us, and so on and so forth, and targeting remains a critical part of marketing.

Mark Mason: 10:10

The second thing that I learned from vector marketing and this is even more true today than it was back then, I think is you need a really good sales pitch. Now, today, in digital marketing, we think of this sales pitch as either a video sales letter or a direct marketing sales page that we're writing. But in the vector marketing time, we had a sales pitch that we practiced, that went through. What we didn't really understand was the copywriting process. We talked about how painful it was to have knives that really weren't very good, how it was hard to cut things and you were even in danger of cutting yourself when you use these dull knives and how great the knives that we had were to offer and how you never needed to replace them. And how there was a return policy and risk reduction. All of these copywriting techniques that we take for granted today as digital marketers and copywriters. We were using those as teenagers selling knives for vector marketing. I didn't even realize that at the time, but now, when I look back, it's completely obvious to me that that was the case, and one of the major things that I can remember being taught and not really understanding is we were really trying to sell the benefits of the knives, not the features.

Mark Mason: 11:42

The knives had lots of features. They stayed sharp, they had special patented I still remember the special patented double D diamond edge or something like that from the serrated knives that was held a patent. Those were the features. The handle was ergonomically designed and made out of this indestructible material that is also used for bowling balls. And we had all this imagery about the features, but what we talked about was what it was going to be like, how the knives were going to make you feel, how proud you were going to be to own them, how few hassles you'd have, how much better your life would seem if you owned this amazing product and never had the worry of knives weighing down on you in the future. We future paced the ownership of these knives and that was really awesome, and I remember being really excited about how people were going to feel once they own these knives, and that's the same kind of thing we do when we sell today.

Mark Mason: 12:48

There was a trust, credibility and risk management thing. That's the other thing that I remember. We talked about how the Cutco product had been around since the end of World War II. We talked about the social proof of people that had bought this product and we're still using it in the kitchen today. And I can remember going into people's homes to sell them Cutco and they had a piece or two that they had bought years ago and remember hearing how great it was. And then there was this idea of authenticity and transparency in the brand, that I was a college student and making people understand that I was really there to help them buy the knives and it was helping me through college and just this transparent credibility that I had as a college student who was just working this job. We had testimonials in our sales material, so a lot of trust and credibility. You know.

Mark Mason: 13:44

The other thing about this way that they did the sales was that the next prospect usually came as a referral from the previous one. At the end of every sales pitch you would ask whether it was successful or whether you were not able to close the sale. You would ask the prospect hey, do you know two other people that might be interested in these knives? And you would be persistent about getting at least two more names. Then you could start your next sales pitch off. Or when you contacted that person, you could say, hey, I was just at Susie's house showing her these knives and she said she thought that you might be interested. That was incredibly powerful from a trust and credibility standpoint because those referrals were happening and that's something that's still true today. The power of testimonials and referrals on sales pages is just something that's very hard to overestimate.

Mark Mason: 14:45

And then the thing that I remember most vividly was around closing, and one of the things that we worked on the most, I think, was overcoming people's objections. And when I look back at this now and I laugh about it because it makes me think of the car buying process, because we had a list of all the possible objections that could come up and we had prescribed answers for those objections. I don't have the money and the answer was well, we've got financing options and so on and so forth. We can take a credit card, we had upsells and downsells and all kinds of things that we could use to manage objections. I've got to talk to my husband and we would talk, we would work through that. You know there's all of these kinds of objections we knew how to handle because we were trained with prescribed ways to handle these objections. And I know Ziegler when he talks about managing objections and secrets of closing the sale. He talks about customer objections as it's as if they have a number on their forehead. They have four objections or seven objections and if you can truly answer their objections, if you can get the number on their forehead down to zero, then you will close the sale, they will be out of reasons not to buy and they will buy the product. And I remember having that training and what I particularly remember. This was so fun. It was fun for me because I was successful at it.

Mark Mason: 16:25

In sales meetings we would play a version of King of the Hill and we would get up in front of a classroom full of other college students that were selling knives for vector marketing. We were selling these cutco knives and one of the managers would throw out an objection and you'd have to answer the objection to his satisfaction or sit down. And I can remember standing up in front of the room and being King of the Hill for a while, answering these objections in front of a classroom full of my peers. This is a very memorable time for me. But these objections that you answer, you're also answering these in your sales pages today. You're anticipating objections and answering them in your sales copy. You're reducing risk. You're answering objections in follow-up emails and so forth. You're talking to people knowing that they're going to have reasons they don't want to buy your product and you're overcoming those objections. That's still just as important today as it was four decades ago when I was selling these knives, just like today.

Mark Mason: 17:35

Another thing was closing and of course, we had strong calls to action that we were trained to give, and one of them was just simple was how many knives will you be buying today? How many can I put you down for? How would you like your knives delivered? How would you like to pay? You know these assumed closes. It says I know you've already decided to buy. How would you like to pay for this? These closes were taught to us and it's just as important as your call to action in your emails. When you're inside the course you will find click the button to start now. Those sort of future pacing assumed close calls to action are very powerful because it puts the prospect inside of the course, inside of the software. It puts them with the knives in their kitchen and it it gets them that much closer to closing the transaction. Closing is still a big deal and I think secrets of closing the sale which is Zig's product from 40, 50 years ago. That, I think, is still fantastic today. I still listen to that periodically, not just because the information is so great, which it is, I just love the sound of Zig Ziglar's voice. It's really good stuff.

Mark Mason: 19:01

We talked about the power over furls a little bit, and I still use this technique that was taught to me in vector marketing today and I teach it to people that I coach when they're trying to overcome something like they're looking for a job. That's my favorite example. So when people are looking for a job, I challenge them to go talk to people about what kind of work they might be wanting to do. So if you're wanting an engineering job, I challenge you to go talk to engineers about their job and ask them for advice on the best way to get a job. And if they have a job for you and if they don't, then I ask them for two people that they think you should talk to in your search for a job. And it's like that old prel commercial. You know they'll tell two friends and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. If you get two or sometimes even three people every time you have a meeting that you can go talk to. Pretty soon you're going to have a spreadsheet of people that you need to go talk to, and that was the case with vector marketing and that works today and I think it's really great, especially for you coaches out there.

Mark Mason: 20:11

When you're talking to prospects or you've got actual coaching clients ask them very specifically hey, who are a couple of other people that you think might benefit from my coaching? And go talk to those people. It puts you, like I mentioned earlier, in the position of saying, hey, I was talking to Bob. Bob said that you might really be interested in what I've got to talk about. That gives you instant credibility, instant trust. That sort of referral is incredibly powerful and, of course, with Cutco, it was a killer product and killer products generate referrals, and so I recommend you create killer products. When you're building products, make sure they're really good, make sure you're really delivering on the promises that you created in that sales letter. Don't mail it in, don't cash the check and just not worry about it. Create really great products. Those really great products will generate referrals when you're coaching, deliver Really change people's lives. The referrals will come to you.

Mark Mason: 21:17

So that was my experience with vector marketing. I really love that. Of course, I got often did other things. I stopped working for vector marketing when I got my first job with IBM as a co-op, and that was interesting in a whole different way. It turns out as an engineer both at IBM and now at a very large semiconductor electronics company here in Dallas, texas. I'm still closing sales, I'm still using referrals, because as engineers we're always not just solving problems but marketing our solutions to those problems to other engineers that may be skeptical of our approach, to managers who have to fund the projects. So these marketing techniques are still super critical in the work that I do today, and so I encourage you.

Mark Mason: 22:11

A lot of people don't want to try things because they're afraid they're going to fail, and I mean, I've certainly been there. What if this doesn't work? What if people don't like it? What if I ask a prospect to buy some knives? Or what if I ask a prospect to come tell them about the knives and they say no? What if I ask a client to let me coach them and they say no? How will that make me feel? What will that say about my value? These are the things that go on in people's heads and that's human nature.

Mark Mason: 22:52

One of the things that I learned at Vector Marketing is no is part of the journey. Just like in baseball, you will not reach first base seven out of ten times. Three hundred thirty percent is a great batting average in the game of baseball. You can make millions, tens of millions of dollars if you can hit three hundred in Major League Baseball. Same things true in sales, same thing is true in coaching. If you can get a small percentage of people to say yes, you're going to be wildly successful. But guess what that means? If a small percentage of people are saying yes, then a large percentage of people are saying no. You know, my buddy, cliff, and I were talking the other day about this very topic and he was explaining to me. He was talking to Rich Litvin, the guy who wrote the coaching habit, which is one of my very favorite books around the topic of coaching. He challenges people to get as many noses as possible. Just go out there and accumulate the nose, because with those people that are answering no comes a percentage of people that are saying yes. So I learned that this no is really just the other side of the coin of a yes, and so it's a way to unpack that fear of rejection that we all have is to understand that the other side of that rejection coin is acceptance. So I think that's a really important lesson.

Mark Mason: 24:28

So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you get a smile on your face thinking about 18-year-old Mark Mason almost 40 years ago wandering around in the heat in the summer with a suit and tie on selling knives door to door, because that's what I was doing. And I will tell you something I sold a lot of knives. I tried to find some records of this. I have nothing left but the knives. I couldn't find any information about how many knives that I sold, but I sold thousands and thousands of dollars of knives. But what I got from that experience was much more valuable. It's really shaped the rest of my life. It was the marketing skills that I needed to get things done in the world, whether it was on a sales page in my day job, when I'm talking to people and coaching them. These sales and marketing strategies are just such a fundamental part of the life that we all live. They're just simply invaluable. I hope you've enjoyed this episode.

Mark Mason: 25:30

I will be back next week. You know, just in a very few days. Next week, we'll be here before you know it and I'll be back with another episode of the late night internet marketing podcast. There's two things I want you to do for me between now and next week, and in fact, I want you to do one of them right now. Whatever you're using to listen to this podcast, I want you to find the button that says subscribe, and I want you to mash that button. It doesn't cost you anything. It's not like a subscription to a newspaper where you've got to write me a check. That just means that your podcast software will let you know when my episode comes out next week. So I want you to do that for me, too.

Mark Mason: 26:13

The other thing that I would love for you to do for me, if you can, is, if you're listening to me on Spotify, find a way to leave me a review, especially if you love the show. I have so many Spotify listeners but not very many Spotify reviews. A lot of people say that's because it's a little bit tricky to figure out hundreds of reviews five star reviews on iTunes and just a handful of reviews on Spotify. I'd love to even the score. If you're listening to this on Spotify and you can leave me a review. I would sincerely appreciate it. Until next week, I am Mark Mason and I will see you and I will hope for you that everything in your life is amazing until we talk again.

Mark Mason: 27:01

Ciao, wow, super, crazy, awesome trip down memory lane there. I man, that was crazy, and I remember that feeling of picking up the phone and saying, hey, this is Mark, I'd like to come to your home and sell you something that you didn't know you needed. I remember that weird feeling. It wasn't a very good feeling. A lot of times it was that fear of rejection. I can feel it in my stomach, but I did it anyway. It was really fun.

Mark Mason: 28:08

It was the first time I got to go to Vegas. I did well enough selling these knives that I was invited to the sales meeting in Vegas. It was my first time in Vegas. As an 18 year old kid I flew out to Vegas. Maybe I was 19 by that time. I do remember I wasn't even old enough to go to the casino.

Mark Mason: 28:30

But at that time fake IDs were easy. You know, there wasn't so much computer technology and I had a fake ID and I in kids if you're listening to this, don't do this. Okay, this is bad, bad stuff, but I had a fake ID and I was able to go in the casinos and gamble a little bit. Of course, I'm sure if I'd won any significant amount of money they'd have kept it because they'd have realized that the ID was fake and they would have disqualified my winnings.

Mark Mason: 28:57

But I had fun and it was just a really cool experience super fun to go down that trek with you guys. So thank you very much for that. As always, if there's something I can help you with, if you've got a question about your marketing business or there's something you'd like to talk about, hit me up at feedback at latenightimcom. I'd love to hear from you and hear what you're doing. I've heard from several of you recently and a lot of people are doing a lot of interesting stuff out there, and if there's a way I can help you, I want to know about it. Until next week, ciao.

Jingle: 29:30

Late night. Internet marketing.