AMERICA’S most trusted lifestyle expert, award-winning television host, entrepreneur, and best-selling author came to Manila last August 20, Tuesday, for the latest leg of the ANC’s (the ABS-CBN News Channel) Leadership Series at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza.
Stewart, an 18-time Emmy Award winner and successful businesswoman, and one of Forbes’s “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” in 2017, shared her story of success and business philosophy with the country’s business executives, entrepreneurs, media, PR and marketing professionals, and students in a forum moderated by multi-awarded ANC anchor Karen Davila.
Before becoming the “how-to” guru on all things home and living, Martha developed her early business training as a stockbroker. She entered into a successful catering business, which showcased her elegant presentation and recipes, and went on to publish best-selling books like “Entertaining, Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook, and Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook. She later published the magazine Martha Stewart Living, which became the basis for her hit TV series of the same name.
Martha went on to build Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which offers consumers thousands of retail products, television and video programming, award-winning magazines, best-selling books, innovative web sites and apps. The brand features an extensive range of product categories available in various retailers, including Amazon, Macy’s, Staples, Michael’s, QVC and more. Martha also founded the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Medical Center in 2007 and recently opened a second location at Mount Sinai-Union Square.
She has continued to expand her brand and appear in numerous TV shows, including Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party with rapper Snoop Dog, and Food Network cooking competition Chopped as a guest judge.
A number of lessons on life, success, branding and communication can be learned from Stewart and her lifetime roles as a mother, grandmother, writer, entrepreneur, media mogul and domestic goddess. Here are some of those wonderful and highly adaptable lessons:
1 Open to change. Never stop making sure that what you say is the best of what could be said about a particular thing. It’s a constant evolution.
2 Learn something new everyday. If you learn something new every day, you can teach something new every day.
3 Don’t do anything unless you think it’s going to be good. Be really picky about that. Set a standard, and stick to it.
4 Keep an open mind. If you don’t, you can never be a great success. You should be really intensely serious about your work, but not so serious that you can’t see the lightness that may also involve your life. You must have that lightness, too. You don’t have to be so heavy-handed and so ostentatious.
5 Take time to find yourself. Our ultimate goal is to be an interesting, useful, wholesome person. And if you’re successful on top of that, then you’re way ahead of everybody.
6 There is no single recipe for success. But there is one essential ingredient: “Passion”
7 Stay curious. Constantly search for new ideas. Use your curiosity and research to create beautiful imagery and informative narratives, set trends, or watch the horizon to jump on new trends
8 Innovate, innovate, innovate. Whether you’re a programmer or a seamstress, it’s all about new techniques, simplifying old techniques, and consolidating steps. Making things go faster—but not worse.
9 Look out for and surround yourself with people who just percolate fresh, original and creative ideas.
10 When experiencing a setback, the best way to respond is to be frank, open, honest, calm and forthright. Change course as quickly as possible.
11 Be a maniacal perfectionist. Martha was one, and she has proven that being one perfectionist can be profitable and admirable when creating content across the board: in television, books, newspapers, radio and videos. She was in fact tagged as a “neat freak,” unmistakably for her penchant for perfection.
Martha undoubtedly took the Philippines by storm with her wit, intelligence, experience, charm and beauty. She was looked at with so much awe and respect. As I was finishing this piece, I have heard and read that she has, likewise, fallen in love with her host country. She has visited San Agustin Church in Intramuros (she was raised a Catholic by Polish parents), came face to face with retail giants to see and feel interesting Philippine-crafted fineries, sampled Filipino cuisine and hospitality with a quick visit to the province of Pampanga and had the chance to appreciate local arts and culture, and home management as she toured the house of a prominent Filipino personality.
Mabuhay ka Martha. Come visit again. There are a lot more things to discover in our neck of the woods.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom- based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Bong R. Osorio is a communications consultant of ABS-CBN Corp., SkyCable, Dentsu-Aegis Network, government projects, among others, after retiring as vice president and head of the Corporate Communications Division of ABS-CBN.
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