One of the universal rules for owning your own business is "build your business around your passion". Well for many people, myself included, their passion is food. For many people they are passionate about eating the food but many it’s the prepartion of the food that gets them exicted. There are a number of ways to turn this passion into profit. Chefs and resturant owners are two from off the top of my head but there are plenty more. The subject of latest review, Pampered Chef, offers you the opportunity to build a great business centered around helping people to make good food.
WHAT THEY SAY
The Pitch
As the premier direct seller of essential kitchen tools and part of the Berkshire Hathaway family of businesses, The Pampered Chef® and its sales force of Independent Pampered Chef® Consultants have been helping families prepare quick, delicious meals since 1980.
What do they offer
Pampered Chefs offers a full line of kitchen and cooking related products. The business opportunity that they offer is for you to join their company’s sale force and to sell their products primarily through cooking shows which are in home demonstration parties. These shows are similar to ones that are employed by Shure Pets pet consultants.
Compensation and Rewards:
- A percentage of total sales generated at cooking shows. According Pampered Chef’s website you can earn between $850 and $1,800 per month
- Dream vacations
- Jewerly
- Free Products
Training and Support
- 24-7 Web courses
- Tele-classes
- local and national sales meetings
- Professional catalogs and brochures
- Monthly magazines
- Weekly sales updates
- Toll free phone support
Cost
To get started with Pampered Chefs you will need to purchase a starter kit. Starter kits come in two varieties, a min kit for $65 and a full kit for $155. Based on the pictures of the kits on the website you get about three times as much stuff with the full ($570 value) than you do with the mini ($200 value).
Franchise or Independent?
This is an independent business opportunity. When joining Pampered Chefs you become an Independent Consultant. It’s the same as with Avon or Amway.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
I invested 15 years in the Pampered Chef and now the sales organization I built belongs to my Director because I was unable to meet monthly sales quotas. All my years with Pampered Chef mean nothing on a resume because no corporation will look at that experience and take it seriously. I had to go back to school so I could find a job. Don’t let anyone tell you this is a great opportunity. If you are looking for reliable income, get a real job.
You are paid a percentage of the Pampered Chef sales that are created at each party. You are also paid a percentage of what the people you are able to recruit into the business sell. The difference here is that the higher you move up in the company, the less money you make off the people you have placed under you. So really the best way to make the most money is to sell, sell, sell!
Pampered Chef could be a great opportunity for those who love sales, talking, meeting new people and cooking. However, this type of direct sales opportunity may not suit someone looking to build a business beneath them and make residual income from their downline or from leveraging the internet.
My wife wanted to earn a little extra money, so she got talked into purchasing $300 worth of Pampered Chef product in order to become a consultant. She then got talked into signing up for their personal websites. She tried selling the product and using the website for a few months, but couldn’t make enough contacts, so she chauked it up as a loss and at least she got a lot of Pampered Chef products to walk away with. A few months later, they auto recharged her bank account for renewing the website (which she did not authorize and which she hadn’t used in months). She called them and they told her that they were authorized to recharge her bank account because that was their standard business practice. She told them that they had agreed when she first set it up that they wouldn’t do that and wanted it cancelled and refunded. They told her that she didn’t have it in writing and that they would cancel the website but only give her back a few dollars (nowhere close to what they charged her). We filed a unauthorized charge claim with her bank and have been now fighting this for nearly 3 months. Pampered Chef is a rip off and couldn’t treat people fairly if they tried!
YouTube
Only the first half of this video is relevant to Pampered Chef. You can stop the video after the 3:56 mark.
BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU
Pampered Chefs have an A+ rating with the BBB. The BBB has 51 complaints filed against them in the last 36 months. All complaints have been resolved according to the report. You can read the full report here.
MY TWO CENTS
- This business did not get my Scammy Senses tingling. This appears to be a legitmate business opportunity
- I would’ve liked their website to be a little more informative. Particularly when it comes to the compensation plan I felt that site was light on details. A video explaining the comp plan would be great
- Not being a big shopper i can’t say this with certainity but the prices for some of their products looked high to me. I wonder if consultants can give price breaks at the cooking shows.
- Speaking of the cooking shows, I have this feeling that these types of businesses that rely on home parties do better in suburban and rural areas as opposed to inner cities. I could be wrong but I just don’t see this as being an urban thing.
- I’ll use myself as an example, I’ve lived in New York City all my life and I’ve never heard of Pampered Chef before doing this review.
- One of the sites I quoted stated that this is a great opportunity for those for love sales, meeting new people, and cooking. That sounds like a SOCIAL or an ENTERPRISING personality type. Click here to discover why personality types matter in selecting a business.
- I thought the lady in first video I featured made some real good points about the hidden costs of these types of businesses. And her point about only making 20% commission is worthy of great consideration.
WANT MORE…
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My name is Dakim, I am the creator of the Home Business Private-Eye.com. I want to help you discover your true passion and then, help you to turn that passion into profit! 
