Go Martha!

By TAD BARTIMUS

Until recently, I had never bought a corporate stock. The closest I ever came to investing outside of a mutual fund or an IRA was a chance to own half a greyhound racing dog named "GO NORMA!" I passed up the deal when my father asked, "Which half?"

Then I heard several months ago that Martha Stewart was going to sell shares in her company. According to her catalog, Martha's chickens "lay eggs in wonderful muted tones of green, blue and ivory." My chickens lay eggs in brown, brown and brown. I knew -- because my patient stockbroker friend told me so in the voice he uses to speak to an unbalanced person -- that this was not a logical reason to buy anyone's stock. I didn't care. I bought Martha anyway.

Two new box office hits this fall take a close-up look at why hard work, disillusionment, compromise and plain old boredom can cripple unions in their second decade.

Anybody who can get a consumer to part with $24 for 15 little oval soaps tinted in six "soothing shades" of her own Araucana chicken eggs has got to be a merchandising genius. I wanted to hitch my credit card to her station wagon.

I had a lot of company helping America's lifestyle maven become an overnight billionaire Oct. 18 when her Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., went public. As Martha herself was serving up brioche and orange juice to bemused brokers outside the New York Stock Exchange, 7.2 million shares of her Class 'A' stock was being snapped up at $18 apiece. By day's end the stock's value had doubled (though not mine -- I came late to the party and paid top dollar).

I can just hear my mother now: "I told you you'd better learn how to shape butter into rosebuds! Aren't you sorry you can't decoupage a wastebasket? All that education wasted on biology and Southeast Asian history when you could have been learning the difference between linen and muslin."

Martha Stewart obviously paid attention to her mother. She started out by writing a cookbook in 1982. Years of single-minded hard work -- "I still have my hand in every pie," she told NBC's Matt Lauer on her big day-- have resulted in a multi-faceted company. Martha publishes books and two magazines; distributes a syndicated newspaper column and has a popular web site. Every week she also makes TV guests appearances and hosts her own how-to show.

Martha may be the wealthiest self-made female owner in America, but millions of women who undoubtedly cheered her IPO profits get up every day to lead 9.1 million businesses. The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) says that since 1987, the number of women-owned U.S. firms has doubled, to 38 percent of all American companies.

These businesses employ 27 million people and account for $2.28 trillion to the national economy, according to NAWBO, and are in all sectors. The greatest growth of female-owned businesses in the past two decades has been in construction (171%), wholesale trade (157%) and transportation/communications (140%).

NAWBO and its nonprofit sister, the National Foundation for Women Business Owners, say research indicates that women-owned businesses are more likely to offer flex-time, job-sharing or tuition reimbursement. As Martha would say, "It's a good thing."

I suspected Martha was going to be a hit when I saw my fast-track workaholic friends subscribing to a magazine based on the craft-making, gardening and cooking skills we should have learned from our mothers and grandmothers, but didn't. I became convinced of her long-term success when my friend Ellen began stalking flea markets and antique malls for old Fire King dinnerware. "You mean the green kind we used to eat off of at the local diner?" I asked her. "The ones we got at Woolworth's when we set up our first apartment? Those cheap things that sold for 50 cents a mug?"

Not any more. Anything Martha singles out for attention becomes an overnight collecting sensation; those dime store pressed-glass dishes now sell upwards of $10 apiece, if you can find them. And in case you can't, Martha has commissioned new look-alikes for her catalog -- one dinner plate costs $48.

I have just two words for this phenomena: "GO MARTHA!"

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