From First Job to Full-Time Career Success and Financial Recovery After Injury

Stacie Barton (00:00) What made me turn this into a career truthfully was a life-changing accident where I finally just decided to bite the bullet and was like this is the universe telling me stop what you're doing and just listen to your gut. So I think when I first started it like first came up with the idea I just knew that I liked the people so much and then I kind of still like dabbled in and out, was toying with school and all these different things. And then I had an accident where I broke my back and my wrist and my foot. And the people that were there literally to catch me were people with cacao and with vector. I was able to... bounce back very quickly, pay for all of my medical bills through Vector or like using Vector as my vehicle to do so. And then I realized at that moment, like what am I, not that I'm promoting that anybody should drop out of school, but I will say I was like, I have built up this business. At that point, I had been in with Cutco for six years and I just felt like I was like, one foot in and then the other foot out and I'm like what would happen if I just dove all in and so I left school and just focused on my business full-time and grew so much in the coming years increases just kept happening and happening and happening I'm Stacey Barton and I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When I started with Vector, I actually had never had an official job before outside of babysitting or anything like that. And I had just graduated high school and I was bored in the summer and my college roommate who I had met up with ahead of time was selling cuckoo. And at first I kind of just knocked it off and then partway through the summer I was like, okay, what is it that you're doing? yeah, absolutely. My dad didn't want to buy anything. He did not support me. He looked at it as like you're going into strangers homes with knives and he bought a like a pair of pruners for me when I started just because that was all he was willing to do. Didn't even buy a knife and I just, I didn't let it bother me. It took about six months until I brought him to our year end banquet and he got to see like my friend Lindsay get her, I believe it was her Court of Honor at the time and same with my friend Alicia and he was like, wow, okay, you can really do something here. This is cool. So yeah, face a lot of negativity and same thing with friends and stuff, but here we are. What made me think, okay, let's give this a try, was I just wanted something to do. I wanted to provide value to other people and I was tired of being bored at home. And honestly, I think the naysayers or like the negativity that I faced propelled me even more. It made me want to prove myself and be like, okay, yeah, I got this. I can do it. It doesn't matter what everybody else says. ⁓ I met with a couple a couple of weeks ago who they told me that they, so they had been married, ⁓ was it 60 years? I believe they've been married 60 years. ⁓ they were into their, it might've been longer. They were into their nineties, I believe. And, ⁓ so it might've been like 65, 70, but Either way, she told me that she purchased the knives when he was a Marine and he was away and she actually wrote him a letter, being like, hey, just wanted to let you know I spent this money to buy these knives and now here they are, 65, however many plus years later and they've sent them in, they've had them refurbished, they've had things replaced and they could not say enough good things and they've given it to... all of their family members and or like other people in their family have cut go now. It just was really cool to see like the test of time. What surprised me the most about Vector was the people. I didn't have too much experience in terms of, well, I had zero experience really coming into this. And so I didn't know what to expect. And I know that so many people that I work with, I genuinely consider family. And it's not just my coworkers, it's also customers who I've stayed at their houses when I've traveled out of town to go work an event or I had people reaching out to me when I had a loved one pass away or things like that. it's just, I just had no idea the community that could be created when I started here. you Yeah. I mean, the best part about working for myself is the flexibility that I get. I can work however hard I want to, or there are times where I can hold back a little bit. Right now is like a big, big work time for me where I'm just going hard, but... then I can kind of take my foot off the gas a little bit next month. And that's something that I enjoy is being able to go through those waves and plan my schedule around that. So I would say like with what's most relative to what I've been experiencing now is just so many like skills related to being innovative and constantly. learning about how society and the world is changing and how to adapt myself and my business to still be relevant and to add value to others and to continue to show up and be a name in the space. And I think that's been one of the biggest things most recently. In addition to just the communication skills, I feel like I can present things with no issue. I often take on leadership roles, which I never would have done. prior to having worked here just wasn't in my nature. I wasn't very outgoing. And so this is something where I feel very natural falling into now. if you're the type of person that will like that values being able to put into something, what you're going to get out of it, then this is definitely the place for you. ⁓ this is not for the people who are just looking to collect some easy cash, but I mean, to be honest with you, it is easy in a lot of ways because the product sells itself. ⁓ customers are diehard fans and they become diehard fans of not just cutco, but also of you. And it's something that you can really just stretch your limits and push yourself and create an opportunity that you can't do anywhere else with people that you wouldn't meet anywhere else.