If you knew Suze…

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Robert Frick

Herrmann recruited Orman as an on-air fundraiser. In a whirlwind tour of 21 PBS stations in less than a month last spring, Orman shocked many in the public-broadcasting establishment by raising more than $2.3 million, surpassing even Jonathan Pond, a more conventional personal finance author who also raises money for PBS stations. While Pond plays the upscale audience, Orman appeals to a broader range of viewers, especially women ages 18 to 49. For PBS, she toned clown her aggressive delivery not a bit, and even urged producers to give her more expensive donation packages to push during her time on the air.

Ironically, she credits writing a $300 check during a PBS pledge drive with helping her break out of a funk about her own success. She holds to the Hindu religious tenet that charitable giving creates a "righteous action," which opens up the gates for more money to come the giver's way. The act of giving makes us feel "rich, lucky, grateful, expansive, vital," says Orman.

She certainly got lucky when she met Oprah Winfrey. Orman appeared on Winfrey's show last January with Lorna Wendt, the former wife of General Electric executive Gary Wendt, who rejected an $11-million divorce settlement because she felt she deserved half of her husband's $40-million net worth. Lorna Wendt stayed mum, while Orman opined that money can't buy happiness: "The time has come for each and every one of us when our self-worth has to mean more than our net worth."

Amen, Winfrey responded: "As We move into the millennium, that's the biggest gift you can give yourself."

Having found a soul mate, Winfrey invited Orman back four months later to do a show on young adults mired in credit card debt. Orman held the microphone for most of the show, and her shtick was pure Suze. She told the kid debtors that they were spending money on their friends, hoping to buy affection. She also linked credit card debt to guilt: "It's not that you're a bad person because you don't have money--it's that maybe you're a person who has managed money badly." And she stuck to a favorite theme, encouraging her audience to feel powerful about money management: "If you don't have money in your life, I really have to ask you from my heart, what are you doing that's repelling it?"

It was a tour de force that worked as a kind of backdoor endorsement for 9 Steps from Oprah's book club. Although the book had been out more than a year, it shot to the top of the New York Times list, and to date has sold more than one million copies. Orman parlayed the gig into a series of Oprah appearances as part of what Winfrey calls "change your life" TV. In the first segment, Orman brought guests to tears as they recalled childhood memories supposedly at the root of current debt woes.

Orman's book falls somewhere between a comprehensive, worksheet crammed tome and scratch-the-surface handbook. Her advice tends to be simple and absolute: Use only no-fee credit cards; buy term life insurance. The section on investments gives only general descriptions and is light on specifics. "It's a two-layer air cake with lots of frosting," contends Kevin Condon, a financial planner in Maryland. "Her shtick is deeply superficial."