Taylor Swift Is Really A Beautiful Bezos

So what do I mean by this?

Well, while we tend to be captured by her beauty and her talent. And in isolation, that makes sense.

But behind the stage curtain, there is so much more going on with this supremely gifted and tough-minded business woman.

And that "more" is spelled "disruption."

We tend to think of Jeff Bezos as The Disrupter In Chief. And he is. But Swift gets zero credit for what she does over and over again. Disrupt. Disrupt.Disrupt.

She disrupted country to pop music. She disrupted Apple itself when they tried to give her the shaft. And now she's in the midst of her most compelling disruption, going head to head with ticket scalpers and beating them.

Let's put this in perspective. Scalping is really a form of arbitrage. As soon as Swift concert tickets go on sale, the scalpers swoop in to scoop them all up at retail prices and then resell them a crazy multiples.

Multiples that artists believe reflect cash "stolen" from them. All moan about it. None do anything to fight back with brains.

Until The Blond Disrupter stepped into the fray. On her 1989 tour, Taylor grossed a reported $285 million but "lost" more than $80 million to scalpers. Disgusted by small time talentless manipulators, she crafted a creative deal with the ticket vendor:

*Proven Swift fans on the database as frequent buyers of music, concerts and merchandise could buy the tickets for her new tour at standard retail prices. They would be rewarded for their loyalty.

*All others will have to pay double or triple standard prices, thus building a wall around the scalpers, who cannot afford to buy mass volumes of tickets at these prices (and sell them for a hefty profit down the line).

Yes, Swift's upcoming concert tour is selling at a slower pace than the norm, but that's because she's disrupted the scalpers and the appearance they provide of an instant sellout by fans.

Taylor Swift's chess move (she's made many in the course of her career) is really a metaphor for all business managers. When most are faced with what appears to be a galling but unmovable wall, they accept what is as inevitable and simply lick their wounds.

Swift provides a compass for taking a far different approach. You may love her as a singer, as a brand, but she can teach you more about tackling challenges and winning than 99 percent of professors posing as business advisers.