Terry O'Reilly
speaker
4,084 appearances
18 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 5 Sep
Terry O'Reilly’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 18 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.
Appearances
Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly · When You're This Big, They Call You Mister · 18 Jul 2026
podcast
His grandfather was a shoemaker, and young William would often borrow his tools to repair the shoes of his 12 siblings.
He left the family farm at the age of 16 to take a job with a shoemaker in Chicago.
Working there, he realized that people struggled with constant foot pain.
He became fascinated with foot ailments and how to treat them.
He took night classes and studied medicine.
While still at school, Scholl invented and patented his first arch support.
To market and sell his invention, he founded the Dr. Scholl's Company in 1906.
His motto?
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.
Showing 1761–1780 of 4,084 · page 89 of 205
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