Should You Become a Pampered Chef Consultant?

According to a recent study, only 10% of people profess a love for cooking. But Pampered Chef’s success seems to be holding in light of that fact. In fact, with so many success stories from multiple consultants, you’ve probably considered signing up to sell their high-priced items yourself.

But should you become a Pampered Chef consultant?

To help you decide, this article will take you through the ins and outs of the company, how the process works, and how much you can (reasonably) expect to earn.

Pampered Chef Overview

Pampered Chef is an international direct-selling company that was founded in 1980 by Doris Christopher. They specialize in selling kitchen tools designed to help people cook faster and more efficiently.

The idea is that many people, especially in today’s world, don’t have the time to prepare full meals to sit down with their family and enjoy.

And while that is true – millennials cook at home less than any other generation – that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s helping the company. While yes, a wide variety of helpful tools might make cooking more easy, the difficulty is far from the only factor affecting the decline of home cooking.

But what does that mean for the company?

Well, seeing as they’re a part of Berkshire Hathaway, it’s doubtful that they’ll go out of business any time soon. Especially with the fact that they have an estimated $740 million in annual revenue. 

What Do They Sell

Pampered Chef offers a wide variety of kitchen tools, cookbooks, food, and even gardening tools. More specifically, they sell things like:

• Bakeware and Cookware
• Cooking Tools
• Cutlery
• Food
• Stoneware
• Storage and Cleaning
• Electronics

Pampered chef products are expensive – and some do consider them overpriced – but overall, most customers and consultants agree that they are good quality products.

I guess it’s somewhat similar to MLM companies like Tupperware, which sells quality kitchen storage products at home parties, often at a higher than average price.

How To Become a Consultant

The process for becoming a Pampered Chef consultant follows the traditional three-step method:

1. Sign up
2. Purchase a starter kit 
3. Start selling products

1. Sign Up

Becoming a consultant for Pampered Chef is pretty easy. You just need to go on their website and click “Be a consultant.”

Then you’ll have to fill out an application, which includes information like:

• Name
• Email
• Phone number
• Address
• Social Security number (for tax purposes)

You’ll also need to create a password for your Pampered Chef account. Then you’ll have to choose a starter kit.

2. Purchase a starter kit 

There are three standard starter kits available that you can choose from:

• Starter Kit: $99
• Deluxe Kit: $159
• Ultimate Kit: $259

Occasionally, there will be special starter kits, such as the Limited-Edition New Years Kit, which costs $129. These Limited-Edition kits will vary, and sometimes there won’t even be that option.

Every kit will include:

• New Consultant Rewards Flyer
• Consultant Apron
• Party Planner
• Mini-catalogs
• Season’s Best
• Brochures
• Sales Receipts
• Party Cards
• Product Info Cards
• Recipe Cards
• Thank You Cards
• Business Kit
• Drawing Slips

The main difference between the different kits is that the more expensive the kit, the more products you’ll get.  

Then, after you pick out the kit you want, you’ll be asked to fill out information about your consultant (if you already have one). If you don’t, you can enter in your ZIP Code and they’ll find one for you.

Either way, you’ll be under a consultant when you start. They’ll be there to help you through the process and get set up.

After you get your consultant information set up, you’ll be asked to customize a web address for your free trial of what’s called eBizTools. It’s basically a free trial of what Pampered Chef uses for their replicated website. 

After the trial is over, if you want to keep your website, you’ll have to pay for it. You can, however, skip that step if you would like. Although this is what enables you to sell online through the website.

Then, once you have finalized the checkout and checked your information, you’re done. Now, you just wait to receive your kit!

3. Start selling products

Now that you have signed up and received your starter kit, it’s time to start selling and making money.  There are a few different ways to go about this:

• Individual Sales
• Cooking Parties
• Virtual Parties
• Catalog Parties  
• Fundraiser Parties 

As with most MLM companies, the first and easiest way to score a few sales is by going to your close friends and family individually. 

You could also try something like going door-to-door and selling your products (like companies such as CutCo do) as another way to earn individual sales. There are many ways to get creative in this aspect.

Cooking parties are unique to Pampered Chef. This is where you host a party that gives a cooking demonstration to show how easy and efficient their products are. 

Plus, you can show off hors d’oeuvres that you’ve made from their cookbooks as another way to demonstrate their products. 

And if you don’t think you can pull off hosting one on your own, you can always find a friend who will host one for you. They’ll get host benefits (like discounted products), and you’ll still earn money from it.

Another option is to host virtual parties. This is for people who don’t want the hassle of having people over (or for those who don’t have the capacity to). 

Basically, what you do is invite your friends through social media to an event (generally done through Facebook Live). Then you can show off the products and recipes, and customers can order straight from there.

A fourth option is to host a catalog “party.” This just means that you get catalogs and hand them out to friends, family and coworkers. They can order products directly through you as the consultant.

You can also have a host help with this, although they might not be eligible for the host benefits.

The fifth option for selling is also unique to Pampered Chef. This is for people who want to host a party, but don’t get the host incentives. That’s because you forgo your host incentives in order to have a percentage of the party sales donated to a charity instead.

Oh, and when it comes to getting paid, you’ll get a direct deposit into your bank account twice a month.

How Much Can You Make?

Before we delve into how much you can earn, you do have a minimum requirement you must make in order to maintain your consultant benefits. You must earn at least $150 a month.

While that may seem like a burden – and indeed it might be to some – honestly it has a positive side to it as well. 

If you aren’t earning any money, and you’re doing this as a side gig, then it’s a waste of time for you. This pushes you to break out of your comfort zone and motivates you to earn as much as you can.

But is that a difficult number to achieve, even if you’re trying your best?

Well, consultants start at a base commission rate of 20%, which is lower than other MLM companies. You do have the opportunity to earn up to 27% commission, but again, that’s a  lower cap than other companies.

You do get other consultant benefits on top of that, though, like free products, discounts, and rewards that you can earn. Plus, if you decide to recruit and build a team, you can earn 3% on your team sales on top of your personal sales. But even with all of that, many consultants complain that they need to host a lot of parties in order to turn a profit.

Why? Well, the reasons vary, but most commonly they state that it’s difficult to sell the products because of their high price tag, especially when compared to similar cooking products.

So, to stay active, it depends on what you sell because there’s a large price range. You would only need to sell one Basic Kitchen Tool Set ($152) per month to stay active. Or, you would need to sell seven muffin pans ($22 apiece).

So honestly, it wouldn’t be extremely difficult if you were hosting multiple parties a month. But staying active and earning money are two different things.

If you wanted to do this to make full-time income – say $2,000 a month – you would need to sell $10,000 of product a month if you were at the base commission rate. 

To be completely fair, the amount Pampered Chef consultants claim to make is a lot higher than other direct-selling companies. 

Many people claim to earn around $1,000 or more per month, and people do see a direct correlation between the amount of shows they have and the amount of money they make.

So, if you were serious and wanted to put in a lot of work, there seems to be the potential to earn a decent amount with this company.

Conclusion

Overall, you can make money with Pampered Chef as a consultant. But it is just like any other MLM company where you may have to do a lot of work and put much more time than you are willing to get it to be full-time income. 

And even then, some people have success and some people don’t just due to their network and how often they can host and try to sell. 

But with it only costing the price of the starter kit to become a consultant, if you wanted to try it out, it’s a less expensive chance with higher success rates than most other MLM companies.