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Marc Ankerman has been in HR training, organizational development and education field for over 20 years. Marc is a former Director of Training at Williams-Sonoma, (specialty retailer which also encompasses Pottery Barn, Hold Everything, Pottery Barn Kids, and Chambers catalog.) Express (part of Limited Brands Inc., Victorias Secret, Limited Stores, Lerner NYC, Bath and Body Works) Michigan National Bank (over 200 branch offices in the USA) and Galileo International (the computer reservations service for United Airlines/ Apollo). He has specialized in the multi-unit, multi divisional retail world as well as a variety of other clients. Other specialty retail clients include Lane Bryant and dELiA*s Inc. as well as Columbus Childrens Hospital and Foundation, Century National Bank Corp., Capital University and Law School, and MedCost Recovery Systems. With a flair for the creative his background in Mass Communication, Radio, TV and Film coupled with his degrees in Instructional Design and Development makes his ideas and solutions come to life.

He is currently President of Ankerman Training Solutions and specializes in creating customized training solutions for his clients.

Marc is known for his Solutions. At Express, which is a specialty retailer for young womens fashions he worked with over 1200 stores as well as the world headquarters population. Selling to a young customer who has to understand fashion is often a difficult task. By incorporating instructional design methods Marc re-designed the orientation and onboarding process as well as updating the selling skills attributes model by working with leadership in presenting FASHION to the customer. In this case, it had to be more about the fashion (what went with what rather than just an add on sale). When you build a relationship, we realized that a big change in even our approach to the selling proposition had to change. No longer even called sales associates, the name was changed to fashion representative or expert . The concept and context of the conversation all had to be trained. Building a Step-by-Step process, and knowing what to do, and what not to do (keeping fashion at the front of mind) lent to huge success in comparable sales and a building of a fashion brand .

Recently, with Lane Bryant (larger sized fashion) a similar change has occurred. The concept that larger sized women would settle for clothes needed be removed from the mindset of sales associates. The fact that the size was larger, did not mean that fashion was not a part of the story. Training in product knowledge and the ability to focus the conversation on key principles and competencies was seen as a defining factor in changing the way customers and associates were perceived in the stores. Building learning plans, succession plans, learning hierarchies, new, focused job descriptions were all part of the work ATS did to bring a new fashion sense to the floor and to the customer. ATS was also involved in presenting sessions during leadership conferences. As a presenter at the Regional Conference, Marc lead all the DSMs in time management, job enrichment and keyholder training sessions for improved productivity.

dELiA*s is a fashion brand for the young lady aged 10 - 28. Quite youthful in its appeal, fashion sense cannot be hidden or pretended with this customer. Often times, the sales representative is a customer, but has to be on the lookout for new, fast, fashion at every turn. In designing sales training and customer service training, the transition from order taker (especially on the catalog and call center side) to fashion expert was again a chance to evolve the process of relationship selling. ATS designed scenarios and a tiered customer ideal for the sales representatives to practice with to enable them to evolve their methods before the real customer made their way to the store. By having a sense of who the customer is, and what drives their fashion, the sale can move from just a transaction to an event . In this case the end customer was not always the person who was purchasing the product. (It might be a parent, who had no idea why the item was truly fashion .) By building the relationships in the sale, the potential for add on was achieved, the potential for increasing loyalty was achieved, and the RELATIONSHIP with the purchaser and the real customer was enhanced. This Relationship helped build repeat business.

Although Williams-Sonoma is not a soft goods product line, it certainly is specialty retail. Known for their quite expensive kitchen products and unique gifts, Williams-Sonoma had a difficult task in re-building relationships with its customers. Marc assisted the district sales managers, store managers and sales associates during a holiday season with training that was relationship based in nature. During the previous Christmas season a number of items sold to customers were returned. Unusual for this retailer, as impeccable quality is a hallmark expectation of a customer spending $350 on a toaster. But truly there were a number of product faults in the line. Nevertheless, this was a season with many customer complaints and a lessening of the impeccable relationship. The key was to not only service the returning customer but to re-build on the reputation that had brought them to the company in the first place. The key attribute built into the sales model was a story technique. Rather than just have the item returned, a training module was conducted in assisting the associates to hear better, listen better, and articulate the story of difficulty back to the customer. The synergy of making a customer feel their pain assisted in future sales, as well as the sales relationship. Although, we may not think that a scorched part of the skin of a chicken would ruin a dinner party, to these customers IT DID. It was training; both in the store and call centers, which helped, prepare and assimilate the sales associate into the relationship with the customer. Having the perfect next new item to sell them, and assure a problem never happens again; built sales and customer loyalty to new levels.

Capital University and Law School is a highly regarded educational institution located in downtown Columbus Ohio. ATS designed, developed and implemented a series of Supervisory sessions for administrative and managerial (teachers, faculty) members of both colleges. The design had to be unique and creative while maintaining the objectives of the session. Enhanced Managerial Competencies (EMC) was designed specifically to address all of the needs of this client.

Sussan Corporation (womens specialty retail Australia). Key to every good trainer is the ability to build relationships. In this case, in partnership with Training Express Ltd. (an Australian training and change management company) ATS developed a 4 step relationship based selling model which is currently being implemented throughout Australia and New Zealands 250 Sussan stores. The custom designed program was begun in late 2002 to fantastic results and impacts on the bottom line selling of the company. Full implementation, which couples the strategies, values and culture of Sussan with a selling model fit for the customer and its marketing programs. How Sussan is that , as a marketing tool and theme was incorporated into the new relationship based EK-QV model. Future programs hope to drive the process into the two other brands (and additional 550 stores in the UK).

MedCost Recovery Systems is a company, which deals with Claims and Medical records in a variety of situation s for their medical professional clients. ATS has been engaged in a number of projects with MedCost ranging from recruiting, retention, onboarding, executive team building and most recently assisting in the design of the Chart Audit Process. Working with technical experts, ATS has been able to re-create and assist in the design of a variety of technical systems and sessions to enhance the productivity of MedCost employees.

Marc Ankerman continues to travel across the country to speak on a variety of topics, presenting at Training Director Forums, ASTD, IQPC conferences and other keynote presentations at sessions and conferences. Over the years, Marc has designed, developed, and implemented a variety of educational sessions including: sales training, customer service, reward and recognition programs, motivation seminars, time management, supervisory and leadership skills seminars, call center programs, selection and interviewing, MBTI, inclusion & diversity solutions, change and innovation, total quality management, creative problem solving, performance management, organizational development programs, orientation and onboarding programs.