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Staff Training
in Spring and Autumn for the retail trade, and also for private organisations,
throughout Europe, all year.
SGB: How does a small shop engage with the Academy?
AB: Anatom Academy is open to our customers who currently buy product
from us, but it is also open to potential customers. We use part of the
training on product knowledge and how to sell the product for our existing
customers. If someone else wants to come on a course, they either need to
check out our website or contact our office for details of all the courses for
the year. We also run private training courses where companies hire us for a
day or two days’ training and we look after their staff and our customers
that way.
SGB: What's the cost for a company wanting to take part?
AB: A one-day course costs £50 per delegate. That covers all their
refreshments, lunch and so on and everyone is fitted up with a pair of
Superfeet and a pair of socks to test and try. The two-day course costs
£275 and that covers all refreshments, a meal at the end of the first day and
also includes some free equipment. On the two-day courses we bring in a
lot of outside help to help run the sessions – it’s not just me or a member of
our staff running it on our own.
Those are pretty full days – the first day consists of an eight- to ten-hour
day, we generally start about 8am on the second day and finish about 5pm.
We have trade partners to add value, like Grangers who come along and
give a talk on footwear care as well.
We also arrange in-shop training, usually consisting of 30 minutes to an
hour, hour and a half. We feel the next step is to attend a one-day course,
and then hopefully a two-day course.
product in and give examples and demonstrate how the product enhances
SGB: What is someone going to be equipped to do, by the training course? the footwear, the biomechanics etc. It’s a complete story, and the product
AB: I am ex-retail myself. I have had 15 years experience in Aviemore in a has to be part of that.
retail environment, managing and partly owning a shop. In general the
service we receive throughout the UK within all sectors of the market is poor
to very poor. There are just a few shops that shine through. Because I am SGB: Do you teach about product positioning, up sells, that kind of thing
involved in the training programme and I have also been involved pretty as well?
much all my adult life serving and looking after people in one guise or AB: On the two-day course there is a section on how to talk to the
another, I am just totally fixated on service. At the end of the day, service customer, how to sell and recommend products to the customer. When
will bring customers back to your store, and hopefully they will spend more we’re training we’re selling, but we’re doing it subliminally as well. We try
money. and make it quite broad, so we are not ramming the product we sell down
They will also tell their friends that they have had great service and good people’s throats. On the two-day course there is a whole section where we
advice, so they will come back to the store, and hopefully spend money. It’s go through introduction to the customer, ascertaining their needs and then
all about putting pounds in the till at the end of the day. The better you are going through a fitting system. If you sell other insoles in your store, you
at offering a service, with good product knowledge, the easier it is to extract may recommend those anyway. The products we sell are part of the tools
money from people – and they walk away happy, assuming they have been that make the fit and the biomechanics work better. If someone has
sold the correct products that are suitable for them. another product, and especially if they feel it is better, then they are free to
In order to fit footwear better we believe that you have got to know more use that product.
about the foot, the structure of the foot, the bones within the foot and how
it all interconnects with your legs and ultimately the spine. What we do is
bring a much higher level of biomechanical knowledge and that helps
people understand how the products work in conjunction with footwear.
People who have been on our courses report back that they have served a
physiotherapist or a doctor with footwear, or even a podiatrist, a foot
doctor, and they have commented on how knowledgeable the person was
who sold the product to them. They didn’t try to oversell, but made a lot of
sense in selling it to them. That’s great for the shop.
I have been doing this for nearly ten years now, and as I learn more I
bring more to the training table. My presentation skills, and how I put it in a
certain order has also improved over the years. Basic Anatomic Academy
now is backed by product – unless we put the prices up, we couldn’t do
generic footwear training – so the product does help subsidise the courses.
But what we don’t do, or try not to do in an open course, is shove product
down people’s throats. The product generally is not mentioned until well in
to the day. It is more about a generic footwear fitting course, but we tie the
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