On May 31, 2009 there was a special on CNBC called the “The Oprah Effect”. It was a very interesting special that highlighted several companies and the effect of having one of their products endorsed on Oprah’s Favorite Things Show. During the special they briefly stepped you through their story of getting the call from Harpo Productions ( Oprah’s media company, and yes it is Oprah spelled backwards ) and how it impacted their business.

    This was interesting for several reasons. One it talked about the vast reach of the Oprah show and the staggering size of her audience. Oprah has been in the talk show business for over 20 years. Oprah’s net worth is estimated to be over 2.7 billion dollars. The Oprah Show has over 44 billion viewers per week. With statistics like these it is no wonder that she has the ability to completely change your life or your business. Now obviously it takes a great amount of work to get an endorsement by Oprah but as you will see in the stories to follow it is possible.

    The first example of the power of Oprah is when in October of 2008 she said that “she loves” the Kindle. Amazon sold out before Christmas. Another example is a business called “We take the Cake”. The current owner baught this business because it was going bankrupt for the sum of $72,000 . Using her marketing background she was able to update the image of the business but it was not enough. Then one of Harpo’s producers received a keylime bunt cake from the “We Take the Cake” bakery and got one for Oprah because she thought it was so good. Oprah decided to select it for her Favorite Things in 2004.  The impact following that episode caused “We Take the Cake” to get so many phone orders that their voicemail would fill up every 45 seconds. It crashed their web server and helped to double their sales. But the true benefit was the residual partnerships. The bakery was soon selling their cakes through the Neiman Marcus catelog, their batter to Whole Foods and the biggest benefit which is they are now baking wedding cakes for high-end resorts for the tune of $5,000 to $20,000. We Take the Cake is now estimated to gross over one million dollars a year.

   Several other business were highlighted through the special with similiar results. There were also examples of people who have benefited from Oprah by associating themselves with her instead of by having a tangible product to be endorsed. Robyn owner of the blog livingoprah.com now gets an estimated 10,000 readers per week and has a book deal under development because she blogs about doing everything Oprah. Basically anything Oprah recommends on her show she does. Whether it is buying her favorite things or doing a certain amount of meditation, she does it. Then she blogs about the experience. There is also a woman who has a very successful coaching business structured around preparing people to be on the Oprah Winfrey show and how to handle being interviewed. Let us just say her rates are not cheap.

   You are probably wondering how this relates to the theme of my blog or why you just spent five or ten minutes reading this article. I feel that there were several important things to be learned. This special was relevant because if you read my blog you know how important I think it is to have your own hustle. I feel that this show highlighted some created people and their process.

    Things that I learned are you can have a great product, if nobody knows about it then you will find yourself slowly going bankrupt. Getting your business in front a massive audience of the wrong people is much less effective than getting it in from of one right person. If you do have a product that seems to align itself with products usually chosen by Oprah’s favorite things, having her endorse your product is guranteed to change your life. As an entrepenuer it is important to keep an open mind, develop a good quality product or service and provide excellent customer service. So even if you do not get in front of Oprah you can still suceed.

Thank you,

Matt

*For a full listing of the products highlighted please click the following link – The Oprah Effect