Merrill Dubrow: My name is Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research and a 35-plus-year veteran of the Insights community and the host of our podcast On the M/A/R/C. Welcome to another Merrill-ISM segment. Today's segment is Business Lessons We Can Learn From - Wait For It - Taylor Swift. Up until six months ago, I knew very little about Taylor Swift or her music. My daughter went to her concert and spent weeks on her wardrobe designing her own pants. Wow. Well, I get lots of articles sent to me and recently I got one from a contact and the subject was Four Lessons From Taylor Swift's $700 Million Success. The article was a very short read, perhaps three minutes, and it was about her recent world tour. And I loved the points she made. Her first point is sell relentless. Every business leader sells. They sell to customers, employees, investors, partners, and others. Taylor Swift has been relentlessly selling since an early age. Taylor actually went door to door asking Nashville record labels to listen to her CDs of karaoke songs. She never, ever gave up. When she kept getting a no as an answer, Taylor, what did she do? She picked up a 12-string guitar, practicing for hours and hours every day. She also started writing songs. Two years later, her songs got her a deal with RCA Records. Taylor's Second point is remember personal details. We all know to succeed in business leaders must build relationships. Business leaders who excel and sustain relationships, they remember the personal details each time they interact with associates. And I gotta tell you something, Taylor Swift is best at that. Her third point that we can learn from business from Taylor is create new products. One of the most fundamental truths about business is that every successful product has a shelf life. Part of the reason is that the market for the product becomes, I don't know, saturated. Another is that a new product comes along that is better or has lots of marketing dollars behind it, and the old product might not. To keep your business growing, you must be developing new products. The fourth lesson we can learn is build on the power of happy customers. Happy customers is everything. It leads to repeat business. It can also lead to a happier staff. It definitely leads to referrals and opportunities to co-write articles or to co-present at conferences. From what I know, Taylor Swift is a master at this. How she promotes her concerts, how she sells and some extent controls the distribution of tickets. Certainly how she sells her hats and shirts and memorabilia and everything else. And her stage show and the wristbands that are handed out with lights on them are controlled by her team, and amazing, and get that, the entire 90,000 people in the stadium because of that are immersed in her concert. And all of this leads to- which I didn't know what this term meant, but now I do- Swifties. Which as I understand it is what Taylor calls her fans. To review Four Lessons From Taylor Swift's 700 Million Success, sell relentless, remember personal details, create new products, and build on the power of happy customers. My name is Merrill Dubrow. Thanks for listening to today's podcast. Today's podcast is Business Lessons We Can Learn From - Wait For It - Taylor Swift. I know I learned something today and hope you did as well. Stay well, stay safe, and please, please stay in touch.