Connecting the Dots…Between Selling Knives and a Career in Engineering

Cory Norman started with Vector the summer of 2007 as a University of Alberta engineering student. His CUTCO career sales are over $104,000. He now lives in Vancouver, BC and is a Field Engineer with Hilti. Here is his story.

Vector Marketing Canada played a huge role in how things turned out for me, because essentially I’m a Field Engineer, or I say Sales Engineer for one of the largest companies in the world, Hilti. I have a client base of engineers and architects and I go around and do “lunch and learns” and presentations for them. Essentially what I’m selling now are the specs of my products so we can sell to them on construction sites.

I would say these days my job is actually more sales-oriented than engineering. When I started at Vector Marketing I quickly learned an eye-opening lesson -- that staying behind a desk probably wasn’t the best fit for me. I wanted something a little different.

At the early stages of my Vector experience, I overcame my fear of public speaking. Getting up and talking in front of people and presenting the Cutco products gave me a really solid foundation. That continued throughout my education and now I’m presenting to clients on a regular basis.

I typically speak in front of groups of 10-20 people, but at some engineering firms it may be up to 30-40 people. I’ve found that the size of the group isn’t an issue to me anymore. I am dealing with designers who want me to come in and I present to them and teach the technical aspect of our products and services.

Ultimately, I feel your success in the world is how you interact with people and how you present yourself, so I think Vector cultivates skills that’s aren’t so scientific and calculating, but more relationship-based. My Vector experience heightened those skills very quickly and I started utilizing them immediately in life. It’s a nice balance.