Member-only story
What I Learned from Selling Knives Door to Door
It was borderline pyramid scheme, but with some major life lessons.
I nervously sat in a run-down office fidgeting with my resume. I dressed my best — black slacks, blue dress shirt, and a checkered tie. It was my first somewhat legit job interview in college. Prior to this, I worked as a server in the college cafeteria and then as a janitor.
My friend had supposedly gotten me this job interview. Week after week in class, he would show me his paychecks. They ranged between $500-$1000… per week. Back in 2004, that was serious money for a part-time college student job.
I would ask what he did for work, but he was always super vague about it (I later knew why). After about 2 months, he said he could get me an interview and would put in a good word for me. I was beyond thrilled. I thought this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance at making it in the business world.
The manager called me into his office. He skimmed briefly through my resume and asked me 1–2 questions about my major. Then he said I seemed like a hardworking person and he liked me. Plus since my friend had recommended me, I was hired.
I tried to contain my excitement as I smiled politely, shook his hand, and walked out of the office. The interview lasted less than 5 minutes, and I had already landed the job. There was only one problem… I still didn’t really know what that job was.
Some of you already know where this is headed. You could see it coming a mile away. It was one of those pyramid schemes. Kind of. There was a little bit of pyramid in there, but it was pretty much sales.
Later that week, I went to an orientation at the office to learn more about the job. Sitting there in a group of other college students, we learned what we were actually doing. We were selling knives.
They were expensive kitchen knives, ranging from $400-$2000 a set. We worked off of commission and got 20% of each sale, eventually working our way up to 50% of each sale.
How did we make sales? Well, that was all up to us. We had to call up our friends and family to do presentations for them and pitch them. Then we asked for a list of their friends and family, made…
