The strategic genius of Taylor Swift

Hi,

I recently finished “The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift” by Kevin Evers and thought it was a fascinating read.

The book chronicles how Taylor Swift’s marketing genius, business acumen, and artistry led to her meteoric rise to success. It has learnings and takeaways that can be applied to artists and creators everywhere.

Let’s dive in ⬇️

While I wouldn’t consider myself a Swiftie, I definitely have a lot of respect and admiration for how Taylor Swift has built her career.

She’s become one of the biggest artists in the world, has the highest grossing tour of all time, and has continued to set unprecedented records in music.

Her relevance, longevity, and popularity is pretty insane when you think about it - it’s on the level of The Beatles. When I think about her fandom and how invested her fans are, I can’t think of many other artists (or even brands) as accomplished.

Her net worth is estimated to be over $1 billion and I understand why. While the book as a whole is a great read and a look into the inner workings of a brilliant mind, there were a few things that stuck out to me that can be relevant to anyone in the music and creator space.

1) Being prepared

While navigating the Nashville music scene as a teenager, Taylor Swift developed a reputation for her hard work and preparation. The book recalls how Taylor would show up to studio sessions with established songwriters as a 13 year old with 10-15 songs done and impress everyone she was with.

Being taken seriously was of the utmost importance to her and she did everything she could to establish her reputation and make the most of those early sessions.

It’s impressive when you think about it - how many 13 year old artists are showing up to studio sessions with that much preparation? It’s a lesson in seizing every single opportunity and making sure you’re prepared - whether it’s meeting another artist, a studio session, a brand collaboration, etc - Taylor Swift set the example of impressing everyone she worked with.

2) Meeting as many people as possible

Even as a teenager Taylor Swift’s work ethic was next level. The book explains how Swift would go on rigorous promo runs with radio stations and made a goal to “meet as many people as possible”. Despite it being early in the internet era and Taylor being great at building an audience online, she made an effort to connect with people offline and meet as many as possible.

300 people waiting for her for a meet and greet outside of a show? No problem.

She took pictures and signed autographs for every single person even if it meant staying a few hours.

There’s a few takeaways here:

a) That 1 on 1 connection and grassroots mentality is so important. Establishing those personal connections and making time to meet fans, network, and greet people helped build the foundation for long lasting relationships.

b) Work ethic! Even at a young age Taylor was clearly determined and focused.

This section of the book reminds me of a story of an artist I was working with a few years ago - they were doing a promo run in Los Angeles for a new project and each day they had probably 4-5 interviews, all of them being a 30-45 minute drive apart.

At the end of the first day, they were running late because 1-2 of the interviews had started late which pushed back their entire schedule. They had one more interview scheduled for 6:30PM PST but were running behind. Instead of cancelling, they did the interview at like 8PM that night. After being on the go since 10AM that day and dealing with the west coast time difference, they were still down to make the interview happen.

I remember thinking to myself how impressed I was that they still wanted to do the interview that night after such a long day, especially for an outlet that truthfully wasn’t that big. Those are the moments that help define longevity and build those long lasting connections.