Beware the Oprah Effect

The Oprah Effect refers to the boost in sales that followed an endorsement on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired on TV for 25 years. A recommendation from Oprah, the queen of talk shows, turned many fashion and lifestyle products into multimillion-dollar companies. BUT, it can refer to anything that shoots sales into the stratosphere.

So, why do you need to be concerned about this? You will most likely never even meet Oprah Winfrey, much less be on her show.
You need to be concerned because any sudden spike in your sales from any kind of promotion can have the same effect on you and your business.

But, isn’t huge sales what everyone dreams about?

In general yes, but slowly and in a controlled manner. Here are a few things to be concerned about when the tidal wave hits you:

Major Television Coverage: Some of you may be offended by this one, but the reality is that if your business is you and one other person and your product is hand crafted and takes time to be built in your own home space, then you may be well under-capable of producing the kind of landslide of orders you may receive from being on a show like Oprah¹, Dr. Phil, the Today Show and so on.

Local coverage: Even local coverage may cause a huge glutton of orders which may cause serious issues with manufacturing and shipping. The local news story from the local station can be disastrous for small businesses.

“Social Media Influencers”: Another area which seems great and harmless but, as some of these influencers have millions of followers, this too can be dangerous to your small company.
Even if they only have 1 million followers and you garner 10% of that, can you handle 100,000 orders in say, a month or so?

Some general reference articles from other sites:
How to survive the Oprah Effect – Entrepreneur.com
Oprah Effect Definition – Investopedia.com

========================================

1: We know Oprah is off the air, but since the phenomenon is named after her, we added it.

So, do you know anyone who has had an issue with explosive growth? Are you concerned with this issue for your small business? Let us know in the comments.

Please follow, share and like us: