Terry O'Reilly

speaker

4,296 appearances 19 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 5d ago

Terry O'Reilly’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 19 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.

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Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly · When You're This Big, They Call You Mister · 18 Jul 2026 podcast

When your feet hurt, you hurt all over.

Dr. Scholl was an incredible marketer.

On sales calls to shoe stores, he would pull out a skeleton of a human foot and plunk it on the counter.

That got everybody's attention.

But then Dr. Scholl would use the foot to explain its complicated design, with 26 bones, 33 joints, and 100 different muscles and tendons, and how those tiny bones take so much abuse over the course of a day and a lifetime.

Then, he would demonstrate how his various inventions lessened foot pain.

He also took out advertisements in trade journals.

By 1909, he set up a correspondence course to train teams of salespeople, whom he called foot soldiers, to teach them the science behind his innovations.

He purchased a large factory and began manufacturing a variety of foot products.

He had a profitable consulting service.

Dr. Scholl organized huge sales conventions, created motivational films, and even composed morale-boosting songs for his salespeople to sing.

Shoe retailers proudly promoted the fact they carried a complete line of Dr. Scholl's products and alerted customers when Scholl-trained experts would be on hand for personal consultations.

Scholl staged a nationwide Foot Comfort Week.

He staged contests looking for the prettiest feet.

He created his now-famous yellow branding, complete with eye-catching store displays.

In his lifetime, Dr. Scholl would invent more than 1,000 patented ointments, sprays, cushions, pads, shields, and springs for tender tootsies.

And from that, he created an empire in North America and Europe that included over 400 stores and 6,000 employees.

He also started a podiatry college and wrote a textbook.

All this time, he never married, lived in a single rented room, and used a common bathroom down the hall, consumed only by his passionate study of feet and toes.

And one more interesting thing.

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