Our appreciation and kudos (FWIW) to pop superstar and (Kansas City Chiefs fan) Taylor Swift, for winning a record fourth album of the year Grammy award
So what’s that gotta do with entrepreneurs and business owners?
The case study begins with Swift’s well-known implementation of a plan to re-record several of her older albums and re-release the “(Taylor’s Version)” under her own label, so that she earns the full financial benefit of those albums (rather than the controversial purchaser of the prior recordings, with whom she is never, ever, getting back together.)
Brilliantly entrepreneurial and extremely lucrative.
But as the music industry press has reported (see article), Swift’s gambit has led record labels to insert new terms into their standard contracts, forbidding artists from re-recording their own compositions and works.
And THAT is a department in which tortured business owners frequently find themselves: you’re handed a contract by a larger entity, and told that no changes to that agreement will be accepted. In other words, “It’s got a blank space, baby, just sign your name.”
Princeton Business Law has built a good part of our practice helping business owners play this duet without disharmony. We can help you understand the traps awaiting you in that allegedly unchangeable business contract, and almost all the time, we can successfully negotiate changes to the most important provisions, getting you out of the woods without creating bad blood.
Because the big award for the business owner, of course, is not to be an anti-hero, but to win a lucrative commercial relationship for evermore.
An Example to Entrepreneurs Everywhere
Doing research in the august and authoritative legal publications “Billboard” and “US Weekly,” we noticed a discussion from Swift of her approach to innovation in her work. It turns out the pop superstar cannot only write an infectious hook, she can also wonderfully crystallize the entrepreneurial mindset:
“The piece of advice I would give to the other executives … is that the best ideas are usually ones without industry precedent. The biggest crossroads moments of my career came down to sticking to my instincts when my ideas were looked at with skepticism.”
“When someone says to me, ‘But that has never been done successfully before,’ it fires me up. Every once in a while, you have to really trust your gut and take a flying leap. My rerecordings are my favorite example of this, and I’m extremely grateful to my team and fans for taking that leap with me because it absolutely changed my life.”
Here’s hoping you can be like Taylor Swift (or Steve Jobs, or for that matter many of our clients) and take that flying leap. Entrepreneurs never go out of style. We’d be proud to help you make sparks fly.
