Martha Stewart’s Inspiration Mixes Sweet, Entrepreneurial Lemonade

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

Lifestyle guru and media mogul Martha Stewart embraces inspiration where she finds it, emerging with sweet lemonade despite her share of sour lemons.

Stewart’s revelation for her 2005 book, The Martha Rules came while serving five months in a federal prison camp for lying to federal investigators about a stock sale.

“What became all too apparent during my confinement was how many, many women are not in control of their lives or what happens to them. They endure extraordinarily difficult situations, yet remain very strong, nonetheless, both physically and emotionally,” Stewart writes. Stewart was gratified to share ideas and consult with these women, who had big dreams and entrepreneurial passion.

The Martha Rules conveys the essence of Stewart’s talks with inmates and details the ten essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business.

Rule #1 – Something You Love

Passions overflow and mingle for Stewart, whose life and business are “inextricably intertwined.” Search and experiment until you find your passion, then work will fulfill and empower you to create, build, devise, initiate, lead and serve.

Rule #2 – What’s the Big Idea?

Walk in your customers’ shoes and ask the right questions before jumping in to a Big Idea. Does she have use for your Big Idea in her life? Are better alternatives available? Is it simple to understand and deliver? Does it make sense where you live? Is it affordable, too big or too limited? Does it make the world better?

Rule #3 – Zoom In and Out

It takes a telescope, a wide-angle lens, a microscope and the ability to use each appropriately to succeed as a business owner. Clear vision, a good accountant and lawyer, a pragmatic look at risk, and a frugal culture are key.

Rule #4 – Share and Connect, Build and Manage

“Does caring for your customer come naturally to you? If making money is more important than your customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, then you may have not yet found the right business to build,” Stewart writes. Entrepreneurs profit by giving information away and by painting a happy, optimistic and long-term picture for their customers.

Rule #5 – Arrest the Eye, Tug the Heart, Convey the Unique

Promotional creativity without common sense is costly, but common sense alone is boring. Clever, unexpected and creative advertising paired with publicity that captures media interest puts products in your customers’ hands.

Rule #6 – Quality: Every Decision, Every Day

Escape today’s status quo of dispensable, inferior, and even useless products. Corporate cultures should embrace and produce quality at every level because that equates to happy customers.

Rule #7 –Talent, Energy, Integrity, Optimism and Generosity

Seek and hire only the best employees, who collaborate toward common goals and fully understand and respect your Big Idea. Take emotion out of hiring decisions, check references, introduce candidates to involved employees and hire what you need.

Rule #8 – Gather the Good, Abandon the Bad, Clear Your Mind, and Move On

Resist panic. Stay in control no matter the business challenge. “With common sense and determination, we can turn what looks like a disaster into a triumph,” Stewart writes. Detours are part of the journey, so prepare for “occasional dark nights and remain steadfast.” Good things often masquerade as trouble.

Rule #9 – Calculated Risks, Careless Chances

Long-shot chances, especially financial ones, tend to wake you out of sound sleep. So when opportunity presents itself, realize it’s not the last time it will knock. Take a deep breath, assess risk and step out with a well-calculated way to manage it.

Rule #10 – Make It Beautiful

Listen, learn, innovate and become an authority for your customers and remember to always “make it beautiful.”

Read the January 2013 SUCCESS Cover Story on Martha Stewart on SUCCESS.com.

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Martha Stewart could have chosen to be bitter and resentful regarding her time in prison and she refused to do so. GOOD FOR HER! Now she has these 10 "commandments" we should live by enrich our lives/businesses. Thank you, Martha.

Marginalised women especially those who have ended up in jail after a mistake are the best candidates to success. Success is the one thing that can truly get one's life back onto happy tracks. I am working on a start-up project to motivate marginalised women and I will pass on your rules, Martha, if I may, so they can find the end to their tunnel, take it to their hearts that anything is possible with the right mentoring and mindset. Women's lives - even more in today's world - can be so challenging, it is easy to derail or get ill advised by peers and medias. We all wish for sweet lemonade, most of us get more than our share of bitter sour lemons, and sometimes it seems from down in our darkest places that it is all we'll ever get, but there is always one skill, one talent, one opportunity awaiting each one of us. And a set of rules to follow that are essential to know. Thank you!

All you need is love talent and action! Thanks for this listing. I was skeptical that her advice would say anything to me as I am not a huge fan, but instead I am delighted to see her words and passion inspire me this way. She is an American legend.