Introduction
The paper focuses on the entrepreneurial profile of Oprah Winfrey, who was born in rural Mississippi. Despite their humble background, her parent was determined to educate her. She learnt to read at age three and started to show her exceptional oratory skills. She worked extremely hard toward shaping her future and won many laurels via her education. She was part of a speech team and received formal training for her communication skills. Similarly, joining the drama club helped her in developing her oratory skills. Oprah won a $1000 college scholarship, which enabled her to secure a full scholarship for higher education at the Tennessee State University, where she studied Speech communications and performing arts (Diane 120).
Oprah goal is to empower her followers where she prefers private initiatives and individual self-improvement to collective responsibility for community needs and public funding. She manages to deflect attention from predominant issues of social inequality and distributional politics based on gender and class (Janice 8). Oprah was recruited by WLS-TV to host their ailing morning talk show A.M Chicago that was later named TOWS. She has worked with America Online, which created Oprah.com, which joined the Oxygen group of websites, and she became the cofounder. Oprah and Hearst Corporation launched a monthly magazine by the name O, which deals with all aspects of a woman’s lifestyle (Debahuti and Srikanth 62). She also ventured into satellite radio which was later named Oprah radio. Therefore, besides being a popular talk show host, she has varied business ventures to her credit. She is currently the most influential American television host.
Motivation and support
She is the founder of Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation, which focuses on empowering downtrodden girls and women, who have the zeal and enthusiasm to achieve their dreams (Clare 59). She is well known for her philanthropic supports and charitable work. She has donated generously for offering better education to impoverished students. She also offers scholarships to students via the Oprah Winfrey scholars program. Owing to her charm and oratory skills, the show became very popular. Her personality also has contributed to her success. She employed intimating interviewing style and have an open-heart, which enables her to empathize with the guests. Honesty is the hallmark of Oprah. Being open about her own life has endeared her to missions of Americans.
Using the combination of her charm and personality, she has turned ailing shows into top rated programs, picked up books, and made them bestsellers. Spreading the message of philanthropy is what motivates Oprah. She is determined to encourage her viewers to help in making lives better for the underprivileged. Her core competency is to challenge millions of viewers to live their best lives. This strategy has been a resounding success for Oprah.
Oprah is an entrepreneur because she develops ideas and feasible project. Therefore, her brand popularity was attributed to next to Google, which is the search engine giant.
Conduct, Dilemma and Legacy
In the business situations and negotiations, she shows her entrepreneurial skills. For instance, when she negotiated a lucrative deal with king world, she proved that content is king. This made her get the right to produce and host the Oprah Winfrey show. She has managed to build equity in the Oprah brand because her accomplishments are based on focusing to her core competency (Katherine 24). This strategy has enabled her Oprah Winfrey show to be a number one talk show and to capture every domestic market. She argues that it is humility that speaks to people.
Although her school has been subjected to sexual abuse scandals she has contributed a lot in women empowerment and gender equality. She expects anyone who works for her to be absolutely professional and excellent. Although she says she has never thought of herself as a businessperson, she has a business-oriented mind, which proves her a successful entrepreneur. Her entrepreneur skills have motivated a lot of women who want to be empowered and independent, and success of corporate leaders.
Connection
I choose Oprah Winfrey because she demonstrates personality and qualities that are essential for any entrepreneur. She has a mass appeal and the ability to capitalize that appeal to a multi-million dollar business. I choose her because we are both goals achiever. For instance, we both use every business idea we come across and maximize it for the benefit of the society. However, we are different because I do not have the oratory skills, which are vital for an entrepreneur. Therefore, would like to improve my communication skills, which are very vital. I could advise her to accept who she really is; an entrepreneur and her service or product should be neutral. This is so because what she talks about and how people react to it could affect the consumer who is purchasing, selling since she focuses on women. I would try to create a product or service, which targets a different market segment. I have learnt that in order to succeed, one should have a strong personality and skills, which enables one to create a good network and brand.
Works Cited
Clare, O'Connor. "The Education Of Oprah Winfrey." Forbes. 190.6 (2012): 58-68.
Debahuti, Kashyap, and Srikanth, Deepti. "Oprah Winfrey's 'Celebrity Brand': Will it Work Wonders for 'The Oprah Winfrey Network'?" IUP Journal of Brand Management8.1 (2011): 60-79.
Diane, Sawyer. "Oprah Winfrey." Time 173.18 (2009): 120-121.
Janice, Peck. "The Secret of Her Success: Oprah Winfrey and the Seductions of Self- Transformation." Journal of Communication Inquiry 34.1 (2010): 7-14.
Katherine, Miller. "Oprah Winfrey." Harvard Business School Cases 12.2 (2009): 1-49.
