Taylor Swift earns a professional living in the entertainment industry thanks to her unique strategies in personnel management, marketing, customer engagement, and continuous innovation.

At the age of 33, pop music star Taylor Swift is one of the most influential entertainment entrepreneurs in the world, according to the WSJ.

She controls the copyrights of her songs instead of music labels, ready to confront giants, as seen in her battle with Spotify, and has sold record-breaking album numbers. She maintains fan loyalty by engaging in online conversations with them.

Taylor Swift’s tours are so attractive that the online ticketing system Ticketmaster gets overloaded and crashes. Currently, her “Eras Tour” is predicted to be the largest tour of all time, with the potential to generate over a billion dollars.

While other stars like Rihanna actively earn money in various fields, Taylor Swift focuses on the entertainment industry. Below are some management lessons gleaned from Swift’s failures and successes, as summarized by the WSJ.

Taylor Swift attended the 65th Annual Grammy Awards on February 5th in Los Angeles.

Lean Team

While many artists in the music industry delegate business activities to others, Swift prefers to be hands-on. Her company, 13 Management, has a lean team of employees. Business affairs are supported by close associates, ranging from family members to some trusted friends.

She often avoids hiring external managers, agents, and lawyers to save operational costs. Meanwhile, the office space is compact, housed within her private jet in Nashville, Tennessee.

From Simple to Sophisticated

At the age of 11, while her mother and brother waited in the car, Swift went door-to-door at Nashville recording labels to invite them to listen to CD recordings of her karaoke songs. When that failed to attract attention, Swift bought a 12-string guitar and practiced for hours every day.

Alongside this, she began songwriting. Two years later, her original songs helped her secure a development deal with RCA Records.

Seizing Opportunities

Before releasing an album, country music artists would perform at around 200 radio stations across the US as these stations’ ratings contributed to chart placements. If their songs received support, they would continue to be aired frequently and climb the charts, prompting record labels to release the rest of the album.

Rick Barker, who took Swift on the first leg of her radio tour in 2006 and later became her manager, said this arduous journey could be demoralizing and affect many artists.

During a visit to K-FROG radio station in Riverside, California, Barker was cautioned not to bother busy program directors about getting Swift on air.

However, while playing “Tim McGraw” in the station’s studio, when the lyrics came to “someday you’ll turn your radio on,” Swift glanced at Barker and changed the lyrics to “someday you’ll turn on K-FROG.” This quick wit paid off, as the station immediately wanted to introduce Swift to its listeners.

Taylor Swift performs “Tim McGraw” at the 2007 Academy of Country Music Awards

Building and Mobilizing Audience

Swift early on built her online fan base, first on Myspace, then on Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. These platforms allowed her to reach her fans faster than radio stations. “When she saw people on Myspace, she saw it as a venue. She would play music for thousands of fans every night,” Barker said.

During the downtime waiting for advertising at K-FROG, Swift notified her fans on Myspace that she would be on the station. The station’s phone lines were then flooded with calls thanking them for playing Swift’s songs.

Swift’s pioneering use of social media is now seen as key to an artist’s relationship with consumers. “The way she uses technology to create real connections with fans has shaped the modern music industry in many ways,” commented Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group, Swift’s recording and publishing company.

Partnering with Care

CEOs, radio program directors, and other business partners describe Swift’s keen memory for details about their spouses and children. They say they still keep handwritten thank-you notes from her.

Some close to Swift say she or a team member will keep important information about partners for Swift and others to review before they meet again.

Tom Poleman, head of broadcasting at iHeartMedia, describes Swift as knowing where everyone she meets left off in their previous conversation. “Doing that at such a young age is commendable – to engage in relationship building not only with listeners but also with business partners,” he said.

Keeping Herself Fresh

An important part of Taylor Swift’s lasting power is her self-reinvention, according to music executives. Rod Essig, Swift’s early representative, said no two recordings were alike, and no two performances were ever the same. “People are always fascinated,” he said.

When Swift decided to release her first true pop album, she invited them to participate in “Secret Sessions,” held at her various homes, where she played unreleased songs from the “1989” album. This album propelled Swift to new heights in sales and fame.

Leveraging for Herself

When sales skyrocketed a few weeks after the release of “1989” in 2014, Swift pulled all of her songs from the Spotify music platform. She fought with this giant, demanding that Spotify only provide “1989” to paying subscribers.

“Things of value should be paid for,” she wrote in an op-ed for WSJ. “In my opinion, music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their brands will one day decide the price of an album,” she argued.

To mend the relationship, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek flew to Nashville several times to speak with Swift. But it wasn’t until three years later, just before releasing the “Reputation” album, that she agreed to re-release the songs on Spotify. By that time, “1989” had sold 10 million copies worldwide. Avoiding free releases helped boost these sales.

“I don’t think Spotify did anything to convince Taylor. She is very independent and makes many decisions herself,” Ek commented. Recognizing that there was a large audience on Spotify, but Swift didn’t release the “Reputation” album on online services for three weeks after its debut to maximize sales. This album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, outselling 41% more than the combined sales of the other 199 albums.

Breaking the Mold

In 2018, Swift signed a deal with Universal allowing her to own any recordings she makes. But her first six albums are still owned by the independent label Big Machine. Despite multiple attempts, she couldn’t buy back the rights to them. So, she decided to re-release new versions to own the copyright herself.

And the result is no artist has ever succeeded like her with this approach. Swift added unreleased songs to the albums and encouraged fans to buy the new versions.

She mobilized fans to participate, explaining the importance of ownership. Online streaming services and radio stations also supported and replaced old album versions owned by Big Machine with new versions owned by Swift. According to a WSJ analysis, new versions of albums like “Fearless” and “Red” even outsold the old versions with a ratio of 3 to 1.