For PR people, seeing their client on Oprah is like reaching the holy grail of publicity.

The reason an invitation to appear on Oprah is valued so highly is because of how influential Oprah Winfrey is among an audience of seven-million loyal viewers. She has used her program as a bully pulpit to endorse Barack Obama when he was a presidential candidate, and more recently the passage of U.S. Senate Bill 1738, the Protect Our Children Act targeting child predators.

Wordsworth recently had an opportunity to sit down with one of Oprah’s guests who, while not a client of the agency at the time, offered a unique glimpse backstage. The guest was author, activist and former Haitian child slave Jean-Robert Cadet. And what he learned during his trip to Chicago for the Oprah taping will be fascinating to PR types of every stripe.

Like nearly everyone, Jean-Robert was already familiar with the program. But what he was not previously aware of was how exhaustively Oprah’s staff researches potential guests and issues; how Oprah’s pursuit of perfection impacts her show; and what life is like for guests after appearing on Oprah.

Excellence In Action

Cadet was contacted by the Oprah show a few months after making a speech at The Freedom Center in Cincinnati and delivering remarks at the United Nations. Oprah’s staff (and Oprah herself) reviewed videotapes of the presentations and became more aware of Jean-Robert Cadet and the charity he founded to bring relief and advocacy to enslaved children around the world.

After that, an assistant producer from the show contacted Cadet and asked for photos of him and his family. He responded with a few snapshots of his wedding and his son from the family album. Next came several phone calls to people in the U.S. and Haiti who knew Cadet and spoke firsthand about who Cadet really was and what he has accomplished. Then Oprah show producers and assistant producers checked out Cadet’s Web site (http://www.restavecfreedom.org) and further fleshed out the story.

Last came a few phone interviews with Cadet and his wife, and even his former high school teachers!

Only after a vetting process that even the most stringent nominating committee could be proud of, Cadet was told to stand-by while staffers set a date and made hotel and limo arrangements for a trip to Chicago to appear on the program.

Perfect Is as Perfect Does

On the morning of his appearance on the Oprah show, the limo driver walked Cadet to the stage door. After going through a thorough security checkpoint (it included use of a scanning wand) he was ushered into the ubiquitous Green Room. There Cadet was interviewed yet again by two separate producers before settling back to watch an internal broadcast of a show in the process of being taped.

When it was Cadet's turn to go on-stage, someone came to inspect him before going on air, and before leading him to the studio. This member of Oprah's team spotted a few wrinkles on the guest's shirt so Cadet was returned to the Green Room briefly while his shirt was ironed. "Oprah wants everything to be perfect," the aide said.

After putting on the newly ironed (and hot) shirt, Cadet’s tie was adjusted and he was escorted into the studio, walking stiffly as he went to avoid wrinkling.

After being miked and escorted on stage, he sat on the couch alone and waited until Oprah joined him.

"She sat next to me and I kept thinking 'You have to convey your message'," Cadet recalls. "But the questions she asked me were different than what I wanted to say; it screwed me up. I spoke and that was it."

However, before the taping ended Cadet did express some of the messages he planned to deliver, imploring people who provide financial support to Haiti to pressure the government to use a portion of those funds to stop child slavery. Unfortunately these comments were some of the 33 minutes of conversation that were edited out of the final version that aired, which was only a little over six minutes long.

"It was almost surreal for me to have come from being a slave child where I was not even a person, to sitting next to Oprah" Cadet recalls. His emotions were difficult to control when she began the segment by saying "My next guest spent his childhood in slavery and for 15 years never spoke until spoken to."

Life After Oprah

Following his appearance on Oprah hits to Jean-Robert Cadet’s Web site increased dramatically, and sales of his book Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American increased.

Cadet summed up the impact in two sentences. "As a result of being on the show we have made invaluable contacts from around the world. Being on Oprah made ourselves and our mission known."

Which, in a nutshell, is how Oprah became the holy grail.