Martha Rules

Book reviewed: The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Build, or Manage a Business

When I heard Martha Stewart wrote a book on starting a business while serving a stretch in the federal pen, I bought a copy. Her bunkmates inspired the book. Martha noted they all commonly spoke about what business they would start when they were released from incarceration.. How often do you get a world class success writing for the least among us (as is usual, a disproportionate number of her prison mates were poor black women) As I am writing a another business book as well, I wanted to see what Martha had to say. I believe if business advice is not true for everyone, then it is not true at all. Martha wrote a book for everyone.

I was delighted by what Martha has to say about passion, design, never take on debt and other points which are similar to mine. Indeed, sometimes I thought she must have read my book, but then, since everything I wrote I learned from others, it is more likely the points are simply universal, not original.

I’ve never paid much attention to Martha Stewart, only to admire her as yet another example of someone who experienced a problem and solved it for herself, and then turned it into a business. When I am pointing out the range of possibilities for success in business, I often refer to Martha Stewart as a counterexample to Bill Gates. The former became a billionaire making the kitchen table presentation better, the latter making routine calculations more accurate and cheaper (a definition of computing I once heard.) The idea is the realm of possibilities for new businesses are wide open.

One aspect of her presentation that struck me was her self-description of making house decorating and entertaining easier. I’ve always thought of what she does as making the home and entertaining better. There is a profound difference there, and an excellent illustration of passion versus non passion.

For Martha to say she makes decorating and entertaining easier is to assume what she offers is standard. Growing up with nine people gathering around a plank on sawhorses for dinner, decorating was certainly not standard. To Martha, decorated is standard, and she makes is easier.

This reminds me of another impassioned group, the La Leche League, promoters of breast-feeding. I made the mistake of trying to be agreeable and stating “I too believe breast-feeding is best for children.” That was a mistake. To the La Leche League, breast-feeding is standard, the normal and anything else is the result of some sort of problem that ought to be addressed. “Best” is something people are willing to compromise on, willing to settle for a little less if necessary. Hence the La Leche Leagues rejection of the appellation “best” for breast-feeding.

Is it so with all impassioned people? Do they see their offerings not as best, or better, but standard? And anything less is wrong? Something to observe.

Martha credits “comparison” as the key to developing one’s unique style. By constantly studying what is out there now and masking comparisons your own style emerges. I’ve referred to this in Hegelian dialectical terms, that is the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, but her reflection is more accessible. Surprisingly, Martha did not put comparison in the index, that section alone is worth the price of admission.

Martha starts with passion, goes on to problem to solve (she calls it “what’s the big idea”) and then she works through developing the business. She cautions her readers to avoid the debt trap, and to learn to start with what resources you have.

Here she beat me to the punch. As I teach I come across so many people that believe you must borrow money to start a business. The truth is wealth is based on saviings, not debt, a point so lost today that I intend to make the contra-argument a centerpiece in my next book.

There are a few miscast points in the book. On page 86 Martha says “When you have determined the time is right to introduce your business, you need to spread the word.” Well, that is exactly backwards. Martha just got through explaining how you carefully test your idea every way to Sunday, and talk it over with very many people, to the point of lining up orders in advance, and she even mentions sales reps! So what is with “spread the word next?” She has sufficiently spread the word to execute. No matter, just a fuzzy note in an otherwise pitch perfect song.

Now the reason perhaps martha is a billionaire and I am not is she is more conventional than I can ever be. She offers an example of a good mission statement. “We intend to create a chain of premier eldercare residential facilities, situated within the most modern and attractive surroundings, and offering the most innovative health care services in the midwest.”

Where is the customer in that mission statement? Where is the hypothesis and the test of the hypothesis? Most of the wealth in the United States is held by women on any given time. Since women outlive their husbands, and husbands leave it all to their wives, women control the vast majority of wealth at any given time. Knowing this, here is a better mission statement; “Bide-a-wee Eldercare will so pamper your mom, you’ll be glad she just leaves it all to us!”

A company I have on the back burner has for its mission statement. “Our mission is to lower the cost and widen the access to education while ever more improving student and instructor satisfaction.” Of course we’d have to benchmark the satisfaction level, but once benchmarked, we either do or do not take care of the customer.,

I of course was appalled at her prosecution and conviction for lying to investigators (stock fraud charges were thrown out), which struck me as another example of law enforcement gone amuck. One of the prosecution witnesses, a secret service agent, was charged with perjury for lying on the witness stand in her case, but naturally, he was cleared of any wrongdoing. She has bounced back admirably. It is disconcerting to realize one cannot know if someone convicted of a federal charge in USA is actually guilty.

Although being in gift and house wares I’ve long known the name Martha Stewart. My first notice of her came by way of a young women who denigrated her, which mystified me. The young woman seemed to model her life on a Martha Stewart sensibility, yet she had nothing good to say. Martha reaches millions such women each week (and in her book, she lets you know.) Martha is a billionaire for showing women what moms used to teach daughters.

I think Martha Stewart tapped into the conflict between housewife and working mom, resolved it, and encourages women to favor home over office. Having mastered the business world, she chooses family, without ever having given it up. It is a remarkable accomplishment. The key is lifestyle, of course, where a business is not about money but life. This of course is a key point in my arguments as well.

Martha is another one of those people who moves from specialty to mass market. Certainly she could have styled well-to-do at the small business level, but like Steve Jobs and Howard Shultz has elected to move into the mass markets through the initial public offering process.

In so doing, she is able to get her designs in the hands of the masses through such outlets as Target. As she tells it, she lost awards and speaking engagements for this, which mystified her, since to her mind she is merely bringing the quality mentioned above to the masses. Of course, Martha has it exactly right, and the pleased custoemrs to prove it.

Martha also gets into excellence and quality service, which I argue in my lectures is a standard, not a competitive item. I think if I got a chance to argue this with Martha, she’d agree the key is to compete on design.

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