John Johnson rose from poverty to become the first African American on the Forbes 400, building a $600 million empire through Ebony magazine and Fashion Fair Cosmetics. He secured his first $500 loan by focusing on the client's self-interest rather than his own pitch. Johnson turned racial discrimination into fuel, saying "don't get mad, get even" and spotting market gaps others ignored.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael and welcome to another edition of Modeling the Masters. Today we're going to look at how a man went from living on welfare to being the first African American to crack the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in the world. By the time he died, he was worth over $600 million. This is the story of publishing giant John Johnson and the top 3 lessons that you can learn from his success.
John Johnson was an American businessman and publisher. He was the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company and in 1982, the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in the world. From an early age, Johnson learned what it was to overcome obstacles in life. When he was just 8 years old, his father, Leroy Johnson, was killed in a sawmill accident. His mother moved them from Arkansas to Chicago in the middle of the Great Depression, and they were forced to rely on welfare for 2 years. They were determined not to stay on welfare and worked towards building a better life for themselves. At the age of 18, Johnson met Harry H. Pace, the president of Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, the largest black-owned business in the North at the time. When Pace heard about Johnson's desire to attend university but his inability to do so because of the high cost of tuition, Paste hired Johnson part-time. Working at Supreme gave Johnson the idea and the confidence to start his own business. In 1942, he went to the bank to ask for a $500 loan to start his business and was laughed out of the office after they told him that they don't make loans to colored people. So Johnson went to one of the few banks that did. Using his mother's new furniture as collateral for the loan, Citizens Loan Corporation agreed to give Johnson the $500 he needed to start his business. He created Johnson Publishing Company and set out to launch his first magazine. Today, with magazines like Ebony, Johnson Publishing Company is one of the world's largest minority-owned businesses as well as the largest Black-owned publishing firm. When he died in 2005, Johnson had a net worth of $600 million.
So the next question is, how can you model the success of John Johnson? Here are 3 action items that you can put to use into your business today.
Action Item #1: Don't get mad, get even. Until you prove yourself as an entrepreneur, you're gonna have a lot of people doubt your ability to succeed. They'll tell you to play it safe and get a job. They might also tell you that your product or service idea has been done before, or is too crazy to do well. Part of your entrepreneurial journey will be using criticism as a counselor but not as a jailer. Listen to what can help you and don't let harsh words prevent you from moving forward on your dreams. All his life Johnson had been told that he would not amount to much. He was a victim of the racism that was so prevalent in the US at the time. Time after time Johnson was discouraged from thinking he could one day be great and was blocked every time he tried. In addition to being denied bank loans because he was black, Johnson found it impossible to even purchase an office for his new company once he had obtained the money. When Johnson went to purchase a building in Chicago's downtown area to be his company's headquarters, he couldn't make the deal. He was refused the purchase because he was black. But like so many other times in his life, Johnson refused to give up. He wasn't going to let a racist property manager stand in the way of his success. His advice: "It's better to get smart than to get mad. Long shots do come in, and work hard, dedication, and perseverance will overcome almost any prejudice and open almost any door. Action Item #2: Master the art of the sale. No matter what type of business you run, you're gonna have to learn how to sell to achieve the success you're after. Selling is not only to customers, but you have to sell your partners, investors, employees, suppliers, media, and other stakeholders on why your company is going to be great. In his best-selling autobiography, "Succeeding Against the Odds," Johnson wrote a chapter entitled "How to Sell Anybody Anything in 5 Minutes or Less." Johnson's elementary rule to making a sale was that your pitch be based not on your self-interest, but on their self-interest. When I go in to see, I never say, "Help me because I'm black," or "Help me because I'm a minority." I always talk about what we can do for them. Johnson had 3 rules for successful selling. First, he would grab the client's attention in the first few seconds of a meeting with an emotional statement that hits him where he lives or does business. Second, Johnson would try to find his client's vulnerable spot. He felt that everybody has something that will make him or her move or say yes. Johnson's final step was to find the similarity with his client. According to Johnson, Successful selling is a matter of finding common ground, no matter how narrow it might be, on which you and your client can stand together. Whether I had 5 or 35 minutes, I always based my presentation on these 3 tried and tested rules. Action Item #3: Communicate success. If you're going to build a business beyond yourself, you're also going to have to work on your communication skills so your staff understand where you're trying to take the company and how they can help you get there. Johnson believed that if he couldn't communicate effectively with his staff, it didn't matter how good his product was, his company was not going to prosper. Developing this talent was something that Johnson took great pride in, and he ensured his senior staff was equally trained in the art. Here's Johnson's advice: I was born in poverty and spent 2 years on the welfare rolls, and I learned early that I had to communicate or die. And so I talked my way out of poverty. I communicated my way to the top. I'm a hands-on, hands-in, hands-wrapped-around manager, and I believe it's impossible to separate good management from good communication, for the best manager is the best communicator.
So remember, don't get mad, get even, master the art of the sale, and communicate success. I wanted to end the video today by sharing one of my favorite true stories about John Johnson.
When Johnson realized that the black models he hired for his photo shoots couldn't buy makeup that was tailored to their skin tones, he approached Estée Lauder and Revlon to launch a new line. They turned him down, so he created his own company, Fashion Fair Cosmetics. Today, Fashion Fair is a leader in the cosmetics industry with products in almost 1,000 stores around the world.
Thank you for joining me for another edition of Modeling the Masters. If you enjoyed, please give this video a thumbs up below and we'll continue to produce more. Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment below the video as well. I hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for the next episode.
