She is generous with her fans. Swift has mastered the art of generosity, knowing what her fans want, and then simply giving it to them. All of it.
You probably know Taylor Swift has been on tour for a bit. You’ve heard about the sellout crowds and the massively overpriced secondhand tickets. You probably heard about the earthquake caused by her shows in Seattle.
The Eras Tour has even single-handedly lifted the hotel industry in the cities where Swift performs to pre-pandemic levels. Even the Federal Reserve Bank has noted its economic impact.
Speaking of economic impact, Swift’s tour is on track to be the first $1 billion concert tour. That beats a record set by Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, which finished earlier this year after 330 shows that generated $939 million.
Of all the stories from the Eras Tour, the one that stood out the most is not the fact that Swift is expected to easily pass that amount, making hers the most successful tour ever. The story that got the most attention was how she gave away $55 million as bonuses, including $100,000 to each of her 50 truck drivers.
Plenty of people have written about Swift’s generosity, including several of my colleagues. I mention it again because I think it’s a great example of one of the most important rules for successful leaders: Be as generous as possible, to as many people as possible. That includes your fans, customers, team members, colleagues, and whoever else you have the opportunity to impact.
Look, I get that most people don’t measure success by how generous you are to other people. I should also be clear that I don’t think you should be generous because it will make you successful. You should be generous just because you can.
There is a reason enough people want to see Taylor Swift in concert that her tour will bring in more money than anyone else’s in history. There’s a reason she is setting attendance records in stadiums around the world.
That reason is simple: She is generous with her fans. Swift has mastered the art of knowing what her fans want, and then simply giving it to them. All of it.
Here’s what I mean: Swift is performing a three-hour-plus concert on an almost non-stop schedule. She is giving her fans everything they could want from her in a concert. She’s playing every song. She is being generous with her talent and her time.
She could have made more money than anyone could count by doing far less, but that’s not how she cultivated such a loyal fan base in the first place. She became such a success–to the point where she is about to become the first artist with a tour that brings in more than $1 billion–because of her generosity.
