Some noteworthy intros

Because introductions are rarely published, it's not easy to find real introductions to use for illustrations. However, I have a few that you might find interesting. The first is an introduction of John H. Johnson, the founder of the publishing company that bears his name. This is the same speaker to whom I referred in the discussion of anecdotes in Chapter Eleven. He was speaking to the Economic Club of Detroit, January 30, 1989. The introducer is Gerald Greenwald, vice chairman of the Chrysler Corporation:

Our guest speaker today has a history every bit as dramatic as any Horatio Alger story.

John Johnson was born in Arkansas, raised in Chicago, and spent his childhood years in poverty. When he was a senior in high school, his mother, a domestic, lost her job and the family went on welfare. Three months later, John got a great big job—$25 a month—as an office boy for the Supreme Life Insurance Company, which then was the largest black business in the North.

There he got inspiration and he got an idea. He saw for the first time that blacks actually could be successful business people. And reading the papers for the company president and giving him a digest of the events in the black community persuaded John to start his own business—a monthly magazine condensing black-oriented articles that would be called Negro Digest.

His friends thought he was crazy and cited the failure of a number of previously tried black-oriented magazines. John didn't listen. He persevered. He persuaded his mother— can you believe this?—he persuaded his mother to hock the family furniture for $500. He used the money to pay for direct mailings to potential subscribers, offering a charter subscription for $2.00. Three thousand people responded, and with the $6,000 he was now ready to publish the first issue of Negro Digest.

He asked a leading Chicago distributor to handle newsstand distribution, but the company said no, saying the magazine had no chance of selling. Well, when there isn't natural demand, an entrepreneur like Johnny creates it. John got his friends to go around Chicago asking for the magazine. This convinced the distributor that there must be a demand out there.

His success with Negro Digest was an example of how one black man could succeed after witnessing the success of other blacks. This became John's publishing credo. He felt black Americans needed positive role models to help them fulfill their own potentials—stories about successful black men and women in commerce, in the arts, government and a host of other fields.

This was a startling concept for the time; the idea came to John more than a decade before Martin Luther King carried a similar message.

Time and time again, John has defied conventional wisdom. The experts didn't think Ebony, his second magazine, would last. When advertisers wouldn't buy space in it, he started a group of mail order companies and ran their ads in Ebony. The magazine survived Life and it survived Look.

After Ebony came other magazines; and then a nationally syndicated television show and three radio stations; the Supreme Life Insurance Company, of which he is now chairman; Supreme Beauty Products Company, a hair care company; and Fashion Fair Cosmetics, which was started when the large cosmetic companies refused to make shades dark enough for black women. And which today, I might add, is one of the top ten brands sold in department stores in the United States, the U.K. and France.

Add all that together and you get the biggest blackowned company in the United States. John says his life is a story of turning disadvantages into advantages. It also happens to be the story of Chrysler in the '80s. Because we thought we had something in common, we reached out and asked John to join our Board of Directors four years ago. It's appropriate to note that John's appearance today comes a week after Chrysler and the NAACP agreed to discuss a fair share agreement to expand economic opportunities for minorities who are involved with our company.

John's topic today is ''The Future of Minorities in America.'' Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to present an authentic American entrepreneur, John H. Johnson, publisher, chairman and chief executive officer of the Johnson Publishing Company.

Do you think the introduction is too long? What was your feeling as you read it? Did you think, ''Get on with it, man, I want to hear Mr. Johnson, not you?''

Did the introduction make you eager to hear what Mr. Johnson had to say? Did the anecdotes make you feel warm toward the speaker?

Did the introduction include enough details about Mr. Johnson's business career, as opposed to anecdotes?

Do you feel it was overdone? That is, was it flattering or patronizing?

I think it was a pretty good introduction, but I believe it could have been shortened without doing violence to the content. The anecdote about Mrs. Johnson's selling the family furniture is wonderful, but Mr. Johnson, as you may recall from our previous discussion, used it in his speech. I wonder whether the fact that the introduction mentioned the story forced Mr. Johnson to modify his speech. Probably not. Most likely, Mr. Johnson's office furnished the information to Mr. Greenwald. Still, it would have been better if the introducer had not used the anecdote, since it was an important part of the speech.

Such are questions that you ought to answer about any introduction that you might write or deliver, and I suggest you read the Johnson introduction again and think about the questions as you read.

Mr. Johnson has a long and impressive list of accomplishments, and introducing someone like him is a real challenge. Mentioning all of the speaker's accomplishments, along with some basic biographical information, can make the introduction long and boring. At the same time, you want to do justice to the distinguished speaker. I was in a similar situation several years ago. An executive of the Philip Morris Company asked me to write an introduction of then Senator Mack Mattingly, who was to speak at a meeting of the company's management team at corporate headquarters in North Carolina. The executive had asked the senator's office for information for use in the introduction. Here is what he received and sent to me as my raw material from which to write the introduction:

Senator Mattingly is from St. Simons Island, Georgia. For twenty years, Mr. Mattingly worked for International Business Machines and for five years he owned his own small business. He graduated from Indiana University in 1957 with a degree in marketing. He served four years in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Hunter Air Field in Savannah.

He is married to the former Carolyn Longcamp and they have two daughters, both attending the University of Georgia. He is a member of the Christ Episcopal Church of St. Simons Island, the American Legion, and the BrunswickGolden Isles Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Mattingly is nationally known for his work involving economic and domestic policies. He has served on national economic tax policy committees. As the tax policy co-chairman, Mattingly co-authored the tax policy plank of the 1980 Republican Party Platform.

Since his election, Mr. Mattingly has been named to the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, where he is chairman of the Legislative Branch Subcommittee. He was also named to the Governmental Affairs Committee and is chairman of the Congressional Operations and Oversight Subcommittee. He also serves on the Select Committee on Ethics and the Joint Economic Committee.

Some speakers would have used that information with few if any changes. But the executive hired me to write his introduction because he wanted something better. He asked me to come up with an introduction that would be unique. Here is what I wrote:

Along about midnight last November 4, most Georgians, except the most confirmed election-return addicts, were turning off their television sets and getting ready for bed. The most interesting race was no longer in doubt: According to media projections, Senator Herman Talmadge had been reelected, thus continuing one of the nation's most enduring political dynasties, one that began in 1932 with the election of Senator Talmadge's father as governor of Georgia.

Few people had reason to doubt those projections. They might have been made by any reasonably astute eighth grader. But . . . astute eighth graders and sophisticated computer programs can be wrong. As the night wore on, Talmadge's lead began to dissipate and, by dawn's early light, Georgia had a new senator-elect. His name was Mack Mattingly. He is our speaker today.

Mack Mattingly may remain in the U.S. Senate for fifty years. He may become a great and powerful national figure. He may even be elected president. But . . . regardless of what he may or may not accomplish in the future, those of us who have followed Georgia politics closely will always remember him as the man who defied the odds and the experts to defeat a powerful, popular, and able senator.

Consider

He defeated a Democrat in a state that, as an old saying goes, would ''elect a yellow dog if it ran on the Democratic ticket.'' He is an outspoken Republican in a state that hasn't been known to ''cotton'' to Republicans since Lincoln freed the slaves. He is a businessman in a state where the farm vote has often been the dominant force in statewide elections. And, most significantly, he is—or was—an amateur in a game played by seasoned professionals.

Senator Mattingly comes from St. Simon's Island, one of Georgia's fabled ''Golden Isles'' off the Southern coast. Before entering the political arena, he was a small-business man—a fact in which he takes considerable pride. Before opening his own business, he worked for twenty years for IBM. He was active for many years in Republican affairs and, as co-chairman of the national tax policy committee, he helped draft the tax policy plank of the 1980 Republican platform. Senator Mattingly graduated in 1957 from Indiana University with a degree in marketing—and I might point out that he has been known to do a little ''marketing'' of President Reagan's economic philosophy. As a senator, he's in a pretty good position to do so: He is a member of the Joint Economic Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Select Committee on Ethics, and the Governmental Affairs Committee. He is chairman of the Congressional Operations and Oversight Subcommittee.

It's particularly appropriate, I think, for us to have this Georgia senator as our guest speaker. As you know, our company has many interests in the state. We buy a lot of Georgia-grown tobacco in Georgia markets. We have a large sales force in the state; and, of course, there's the Miller Brewery in the town of Albany—or, as they pronounce it down there, ALL-BENNY.

Senator, we're honored by your presence. We look forward to your message.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure for me to present the junior senator from Georgia, the Honorable Mack Mattingly.

That introduction, I think, shows what can be done with a little imagination and a little special knowledge. I was able to write a more imaginative and interesting introduction because, as a Georgian, I knew more about the Georgia political scene than did the North Carolina executive. That is probably the reason the executive gave me the assignment rather than rely on one of his company's excellent speech writers.

Now, I want to share two other imaginative approaches. In these, I won't give you the full treatment, just the openings. The first is the introduction of the chief executive officer of a large company. The CEO is the keynote speaker at a convention. He is being introduced by an employee of his own company:

Good evening, everyone

In thinking about what I might say to introduce our keynote speaker, it occurred to me that the most flattering introduction is the one that is often used for the President, which is, simply, ''Ladies and gentlemen: the President of the United States.'' So I was tempted to introduce our speaker by saying, ''Ladies and gentlemen: the president and chief executive officer of Wonder Widget, Inc.''

However . . .

However, since we don't have the U.S. Marine Band to play ''Hail to the Chief,'' I decided that I had better go a little further. I also considered the fact that this is my boss I'm talking about.

After that beginning, the introducer goes into a fairly conventional introduction.

The next example is the beginning of an introduction of a speaker who had an exceptionally long list of accomplishments:

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thomas Edison once said that if we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves. Looking at the résumé of our speaker makes me wonder if I am about to introduce a very astonished fellow. I don't know what he's capable of doing, of course; I can only judge by what he has done—and what he continues to do. If I tried to mention all of his accomplishments and activities, I'd be the speaker instead of the introducer. And you would miss out on a lot of wisdom and experience. I would, however, be derelict in my duty if I failed to mention a few highlights of his illustrious career.

The opening was followed by some carefully selected highlights from the speaker's résumé.

I can summarize my advice about introductions very simply: Take them seriously.

''The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth''

Lou Gehrig bade farewell to baseball at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. Suffering and dying from a crippling illness, Gehrig might have been expected to make and even been forgiven for making selfpitying remarks in his brief farewell address to his fans. He didn't. In fact, he hardly spoke of himself. He mentioned none of his many accomplishments. He spoke instead of others and what they had meant to him:

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?

Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert; also the builder of baseball' s greatest empire, Ed Barow; to have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow Miller Huggins; then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy!

Sure, I'm lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift, that's something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something.

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter, that's something. When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it's a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break; but I have an awful lot to live for.