LAUNCH GENIUS: Taylor Swift, Marketing Blueprints, Referrals (Ep. 007)

✅ Subscribe to our companion Substack:
 Get each week’s summary in your inbox — plus on-demand alerts when something big breaks 👉 https://clickteasepodcast.substack.com/

Spark curiosity with the juiciest takeaway, drama, or trend
Taylor Swift just sold out an album you can’t see, hear, or fully know about yet—and it’s a masterclass in hype every personal brand can steal.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to borrow “surprise and delight” tactics from pop stars to keep your audience hooked
• Why referrals and word of mouth might be your most underused revenue stream
• The mindset shift that frees you from doing everything in your business
  
  

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
03:58 – Bootstrapping vs. big-budget business growth
06:41 – The real cost of running digital vs. physical businesses
17:02 – Taylor Swift’s mystery album drop and genius drip-feed marketing
30:59 – Turning declining sales into demand with creative repositioning
38:00 – Why only 7% of word-of-mouth happens on social (and how to leverage the rest)
44:00 – 10x thinking: leveraging bigger opportunities for exponential growth

References & Resources:

• Taylor Swift
• Travis Kelce / New Heights Podcast
• Contagious by Jonah Berger
• 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• StrengthsFinder
• Olivia Rodrigo
• Sabrina Carpenter

Join the list, get the tea, tips & tools that convert: https://clickteasepodcast.substack.com/subscribe

📱 Social: @themichellepualani | @joanna_atwork
📩 Michelle: hello@michellepualani.com
🌐 Joanna: millennialmktr.com

📅 10-Day Course Creation Challenge (Joanna)
💻 Build a Successful Online Business Using Kajabi
🎙️ Get Descript for Podcasting
✅ Try Out Monday.com

Transcript

ClickTease 007

[00:00:00]

Joanna N: Welcome back to another episode of the Click Tease podcast where we talk all about branding, marketing, and content that converts. This week we are diving into Taylor Swift's recent album launch, talking more about business systems and how to grow in a systematic, sustainable way, as well as some things that you can do to generate revenue from your referrals. Hi, my name is Joanna. I'm the co-founder of Millennial Marketer and Agency that helps people create their own digital businesses.

Michelle Pualani: And I'm Michelle Pulani, founder of To Be Honest Beverage Company. It's a non-alcoholic functional spirit brand as well as business and consultant to personal brands and marketing strategy. Let's dive in. 

Joanna N: today for my beverage. I still have my boring Oh, milk, brown sugar. Uh, iced latte thing that I make, I actually bought like a, I bought a drink for today. It was, well, I'm not gonna say, oh, I'll give you a slight hint. It's like a canned boba beverage [00:01:00] that I saw that looked really tasty that I wanted, and then I realized I don't have like, the boba straws that like will like get the boba. And that just doesn't sound fun to me. So I need to go get some boba straws and get myself some ice. But I will be drinking my normal coffee today. It is half calf, so I can sleep this evening, but it's half calf and I am excited to sip and chat with you today.

Michelle Pualani: Not having a boba straw is a really big deal actually. I got boba for Jeremy and I the other day, forgot the straws and it is a bit challenging so.

Joanna N: the same without the straws.

Michelle P: Yeah, it makes it very different. I had to, I had to dump out the liquid and then have the boba in another cup, and I needed to take a drink of liquid and then take some, try to get some boba in my mouth.

Yeah, pretty ridiculous today. It has been a rough couple of weeks for me. If you're listening, I understand how challenging things can be emotionally, mentally, especially with what's going on in the world. [00:02:00] But I've been dealing with some health stuff. I'm back on medication for some things, and so that has just been like throwing me wee outta whack.

So today I went for, even though it's early here, we film at 11:00 AM my time what? 2:00 PM your time.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, it's like

Michelle P: Okay,

Joanna Newton: two. Yeah.

Michelle P: and so I went for A TBH beverage, so this is using my non-alcoholic functional spirit, which has C, B, D and no THC. So I have that. I have some blackberry concentrate, agave syrup and soda water. So I'm having myself a morning cocktail on a Tuesday, and I'm okay with it.

Joanna Newton: Is this our first product placement? Michelle?

Michelle P: This is technically yes. I didn't bottle, so unfortunately I did not leverage that well enough. But yes, sponsored by

Joanna Newton: sponsored

Michelle P: Honest Beverage Company.

Joanna Newton: We should really do that more often. If you're listening, Michelle and I like have whole businesses and whole lives. It would be super fun if all we did with this pod [00:03:00] was this podcast. Maybe someday

Michelle P: I know.

Joanna Newton: be like full-time content creators. Um, but we both have full-time businesses that we spend our lives in, um, which is a lot of fun.

Michelle P: Yeah, one day. Eventually it'll just be like that easy. I tell Jeremy all the time about my visions for the future, my delusional visions of what I'm creating in our lives, even though sometimes my efforting does not match that, it's all in my head. But someday it'll be reality in terms of just the ease of being the vision person, being the strategy person, being the face, being the content creator, and not necessarily worrying about a lot of the backend stuff, which is still, you know, part of that starting in founding a business.

And so we're still in the very small stages of our brand, which is a non-alcoholic, functional spirit. It replaces a liquor in your cocktail. And so I onboarded a social media person recently we work with an ad agency. And I have consultants like right, I have a graphic designer for a label design and my husband does [00:04:00] product manufacturing and everything else.

Um. And eventually, and hopefully soon we'll be able to bring on sales and a digital team and all of that. But when you're starting small, you're bootstrapping and you're com. My company is self-funded in that the money that we make funds the business, right? But it's not like we have a ton of capital being invested in a CPG brand, which is when you're in physical products, it's totally different.

Digital space, overhead and cost of goods and expenses is so much more upfront unless you are the type of brand that does like big drops. And I know that there are e-commerce brands and businesses who work that model, which would be awesome, but we're still really working on building the following around it.

So. In any case, I digress. But that is eventually where we will be at some point, instead of being these full-time, fully present, always on type business owners. But sometimes it's a process like I know some people maybe come into it more easily and watching the digital space is tough. I think [00:05:00] sometimes because there's so much comparison in what feels like, oh, they're doing this, they had this, they were this successful with this.

They don't work as much as me. And uh. I've just found that everyone's on a different path and journey with it, and mine looks different, and I know that I probably put in more time, more energy than other people and don't make as much money as other people. But this is apparently my dharma and my situation to learn and to grow.

So here we are.

Joanna Newton: One of the things that always gets me, Michelle, you mentioned like the expense of running a physical product business. One of the things people complain a lot about in the digital space is the cost of software subscriptions. So I run a lot of things on a cool call. A tool called Kajabi. And Kajabi is your website.

Kajabi can host your digital products. You can send emails, you can build funnels, like there's so much you can do on the platform. [00:06:00] I pay just under $2,000 a year. I'm on a yearly subscription for it 'cause I save a little bit and I am not gonna get rid of it anytime soon. But I spend just under like.

$2,000 a year. There are plans from, like, this is not an ad for Kajabi, but there are plans from like $80 a month to, know, $200 a month. And then if you're a really large business and you have certain contacts, you might be spending something like $400 a month to get what you need. And a lot of people complain about that cost and $200 a month for something to. Host your entire business is nothing. If you thought about that as like your rent for a physical location, like would be spending way more than $200 a month on that. So I think sometimes there's just weird perspective shift with digital products is. It costs in some ways, so little to to, and this happens to me too with like, I'll be building someone's whole product and I'll send them a proposal and [00:07:00] they'll be like, that's too much money. And I'm like, this is your whole like, like what if someone was creating, like you think about what it went to create your formula, your bottle, your label, like the product. You spend a lot of money on that. Either your ti like your time for what you could do or if you outsourced it, money. But people think it's digital, it's nothing.

Right. It's an interesting like mindset shift. I think digital creators need to have, because I think sometimes they just don't wanna spend the money.

Michelle P: I completely agreed. I think people totally misinterpret the starting of a business in the digital space and what that takes and unwillingness to pay or they wanna spend money, like I will say. In my experience, I wish that I had spent less money on like coaches and courses and programs, and I had spent more money on people like you agencies and supportive team members who can actually help me build the systems because I spent so much time.

[00:08:00] Learning landing pages and software and video editing and email marketing and like all of the stuff. And I'm, I'm grateful I have that skillset now, but I wish that I had spent way more time on the content creation side, building the community, building the audience, driving the traffic, and putting my skillset into that, being present, speaking on stages, starting a podcast sooner, like all of those things.

Over like buying a course to learn how to do something technical that I didn't enjoy and that I didn't like, and that's something that's really been developing for me as I learn in business, is really leaning into those zones of excellence and genius, and your strengths, your talents, your interests, and what you're expressly good at versus trying to harness.

Encourage, make better weaknesses or things that you don't know, don't care about in order to quote [00:09:00] unquote do the thing that you wanna do. And I wish that I had found you and millennial way sooner in my process because I've spent, I don't know, I've never added it up completely, but let's just say over $40,000 for sure.

And likely more, probably closer to 60, on coaches, programs, courses like trial and error. All of these things, I, I, I have paid people to build funnels, but not, not good ones. And just like. Just shitty experiences when it came to hiring, and I can understand the trepidation that people have with hiring agencies.

I've spent $10,000 on like a funnel build everything from ad creation to opt-in page. I've done the videos, I've done the email marketing with them and just had like literal zero come out of it. And. You're learning lessons like that is part of the process, right? Like we all have to go through that experience.

I keep seeing it recently, but it's like you can only [00:10:00] warn someone so much they have to experience it, or like a dose of warning is worth. Nothing, or like a lot of warning compared to like a dose of experience is not comparable. And so sometimes we have to go through that on our own. But having a digital business, like the barrier to entry is so low.

And even now you don't even have to have a software program. You could literally run completely for free on Google Drive. You could run an entire business. Like all you need is something to take money. And theoretically you could charge people via Venmo because people are so comfortable with it now.

Like when I was getting started in the digital space, people still weren't as used to spending money online and didn't trust necessarily the business that you were creating. But after COVID, everything is completely changed. People buy everything online, literally everything. And after running a physical product business, which minimum probably was about $30,000 for us.

All in from the start just to get the product launched and off the ground. So [00:11:00] yes, don't take it for granted that you're in the digital space and creating content and can sell people digital products that cost you, quote unquote nothing. Right.

Joanna Newton: Totally. Like, there's just so, so many options and so many ways you can go about running your business and spending your money and spending your time as a business owner. You really have to think about that. Like one of the things that I do, um, you know, I. I did not grow up any money. don't really have a lot of money, but I really didn't grow up with any money and the idea of paying someone to mow my lawn or paying, paying someone to fix something in my home, like we did everything ourselves and there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I became a business owner and I was, I was actually a business owner and working full-time at the same time and getting our yard work done [00:12:00] was this like major stressor in our lives because my child was really young at that point. So. me or my husband would have to do the yard work while the other one watched the child and it felt like our whole weekend and we live on like just under an acre.

So there's a a lot of space to take care of. We felt like we were just constantly doing yard work and then I was working all week and then either I was watching the child all week weekend, or my hus, my husband was doing the yard work or I was doing the yard work and my, and it was a lot. And one day I was just like, was like happenstance.

We were going on a vacation. And we didn't have time to like mow the lawn before the vacation. It was gonna get too long and it was gonna cause problems. So I was like, let's just get someone to do it this one time. And I paid for it and I was like, oh, it was less than a hundred dollars. And I was like. Do you know what I in that and, and he has all the equipment, so it's much faster.

But in that four hours that I was spending on the weekend, I [00:13:00] could pay a hundred dollars and I could do something way better with those four hours. And for me on the weekend, it was recharging and spending time with my family that got me ready to work for the week and it just. Made sense and if you didn't grow up with, with money, it's like a different mindset to money that like spending that is gonna let me do this, which I will get a return on. Um, but like I don't do most things. If something's broken, I call someone to fix it. I don't try to figure it out myself unless it's super, super easy because it would take me a whole day and, and brainpower to figure out how to fix my toilet. Or I can spend and someone can do it. And for me, that makes, at this stage in my life, it just makes more sense.

Michelle P: I think it makes sense in our businesses and not in our businesses. Like really truthfully. And if you were making. Enough money to be able to justify like, oh, how long is it gonna take me to do this? How much money [00:14:00] theoretically do I make per hour doing these other things? Or like you said, how can I leverage that time to better support my health, my wellbeing, my state of mind, so that I'm even better when I get back into my business, when I go back into my work, when I create content, and especially in our businesses as solo quote unquote solopreneurs, which.

As I'm more in business like I, I don't, I don't like that term a lot because I think it puts too much pressure on the individual to perform in all of these different roles. And I think we see that and see these people running their businesses and think like, oh, I have to do it all myself too. And I will say, and this is something that I wish someone had pointed out to me early on in my digital business, is that.

Some people are equipped with very different strengths than you, and when you look at something like StrengthsFinder, which we've talked about on this podcast, plenty. Go back and listen to those episodes. 'cause if you haven't done your assessment to figure out your core strengths, it's super [00:15:00] power, powerful and very helpful to see, oh, why am I hitting my head against a wall to try to try to do this thing that I don't even enjoy or that I feel like I have to do?

And there are some people who are more broad in their categories, right? So they have strategic thinking and they have execution, and they have relationship building and they have um, whatever the last one is. Which is influence. And so they're more broad in the actual actions and ways that they can show up in their business.

And if we ourselves are more narrow, say I predominate in strategic thinking, four of my top five strengths are strategic thinking. And guess what? Execution isn't really anywhere on the board. And so when it comes to those executive tasks within my business, it's really, really hard for me to execute on it.

I'm gonna push through and I'm gonna try to do it if it has to get done. But at the same time, I need to start trying to find support and find the people who can do those things. And I know that not like trying to find the person can always be really [00:16:00] tough from a hiring perspective. I've spent a lot of time either interviewing or looking at consultants work or like trying to find the right fit.

I brought on people before who aren't the right fit, and so I know that can be daunting as well. But I'm trying to put out into the world right now, like I want my COO, like I want my right hand person. I want someone who's going to get in, take charge, just like execute. Do the things, keep the momentum moving forward so that I can be much more free flowing in my vision and presence and strategy and.

Keep the bigger picture in mind of where we're headed, but let someone else focus on the details. 'cause it's just like, it's just, it's, I think it's just hurting me and it's hurting my business in the long run.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, it's so important to like. As you can, and you might not be there, you might not be a hundred percent there on day one, and you probably won't be. But as much time as you can spend operating in your strengths, in your zone of genius and let other people [00:17:00] take care of the other things, that's something that I think is so important so you can be strong. on a complete change of topic, I wanna ask you, Michelle, so you are not as chronically online as I am. And keep up with all of the things. You're very good and you don't scroll social media, but I have to know if you've heard yet about Taylor Swift's announcement that she made yesterday

Michelle P: You know.

Joanna Newton: morning, I guess.

Michelle P: I actually, I saw something very briefly. You'll have to fill me in because you're right. I have been trying to really, like, part of my work and productivity and content creation has been centered around output, right? And so I was finding that I was consuming more content that I would like, like if you actually looked, I, I kind of did this recently.

If you actually looked at my average weekly time spent on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, et cetera. It wasn't actually as much as I thought. So that was actually a positive thing because I thought I was literally doom scrolling [00:18:00] for hours. So thankfully that wasn't the case. It was just more in my head.

But the impact of social media in terms of consumption was really affecting the. Uh, my comparison, how I wanted to be compared to other people. And so I'm like, okay, I need to tap back into myself. I need to get back into my true, authentic voice. What do I wanna bring to the world? And how am I gonna do that?

And so in order to do that, I have to limit my consumption. So I will say that my feet is very specifically, like more so if anything, this summer I turned pretty content. And so.

Joanna Newton: I really.

Michelle P: I can't help it. I'm so grateful. I told Jeremy one episode, one show at a time, once a week, and that is it. That's all I get on a weekly basis because I am like a black and white person. I am. I have a slightly addictive personality. It's one of the reasons I don't drink or do other drugs because I am like, I'm kind of black or white, like I'm all in or I'm a no-go.

And so with almost everything, I have to have some [00:19:00] boundaries or limitations or like hard lines that I put on myself. So these are the hard lines. So I'm consuming less and trying to be better about that. But I did see something about an era.

Joanna Newton: Yes. So she, she announced yesterday, we do not know all of the details. I keep saying yesterday it was at like 12:12 PM Eastern Time, um, that she's launching a new album. So the new album is available for presale, says it will ship around October 19th. But we actually don't know the release date of the album. But the reason that I'm bringing it up for us today is because. Taylor Swift whether you like her music or not, if you're interested in her or not. She is a fantastic marketer. She just is such a great marketer and I wanna talk through a little bit so far of what her, her launch for this album has looked like because it's so brilliant and it's ongoing and it just gets people talking. So [00:20:00] yesterday, Taylor Nation, which is. The account, like her fan accounts, it's like her official fan accounts. Um, they posted a scrolling image of orange outfits that Taylor Swift wore on tour, on the Aris tour and said, we can't forget some. The caption was something like, uh, we can't forget about when she said, see you in the next era. So they posted this, this one little post, and the internet went wild. like, she's gonna announce something. She's gonna announce something. Something's happening. Guys, the next album is coming. It's August 12th, it's the 12th album, and then people are looking at all of her posts and her things, and old everyone's talking about the internet. her website a countdown up. entire website's gone. All you have is a countdown with this like orange glitter imagery and there's a countdown [00:21:00] to August 12th at 12. was 12. 12, yeah, 12:12 AM Eastern Time countdown, more people talking. People live streaming the count, like it was nuts and I was up.

I normally am not up that late. But, but Mondays, my husband plays volleyball and me and my daughter do like a little sleepover thing and like I let her stay up too late and I let her stay up till like fif, it was like 15 minutes. My husband was gonna be home. There was no point in going to bed. So we were just like all up anyway, so I just kind of like watched this unfold. the countdown goes up and everybody's posting online and everybody's guessing and it's this whole thing, right? And then. At that time, she announces the presale for her album, and then while all of that's happening, the New Heights podcast, which is her boyfriend, Travis Kelsey's. Podcast we have a surprise guest coming on [00:22:00] Wednesday and it's him and his brother and like the outline of a woman.

And everyone's like, that's Taylor Swift. And then they're like singing, look, it's this picture. Everyone's like analyzing. Right? And she actually announced the album from a clip from tomorrow's episode of the podcast and it was like a collab post between the podcast and her. it was just this. It watching what happened in about 12 hours. the buzz, the discussion, and we still don't know, like they have the, um, all of the marketing of it has, the cover of the album is blurred out. So this album is selling right now on pre-order. We don't know the cover art. We don't know the track list. We don't know a single song. Don't know what it's, we know Nothing and it is selling.

And then Wednesday, so now everyone's gonna be talking about this album till that podcast [00:23:00] episode comes out tomorrow. It's, we film on Tuesdays. When you listen to this podcast on Thursday, it will have been yesterday. That was really meta, but. That's what's happening. Um. People are gonna be talking from now until that podcast, that podcast is gonna happen. She's 100% gonna drip more information, right? Like, maybe we'll see the cover, maybe we'll know the, the track list, like she's gonna drip something. Maybe she'll tell us the, the launch date, we don't know. And then from now until knowing and watching other Taylor Swift's launches from now until that album comes out, there's a plan.

There's gonna be little pieces dripped, so it's in constant conversation. And then in typical Taylor Swift fashion, probably after it releases, maybe there'll be a surprise double album or triple album or something else coming after that album launch, because that's what she does. She creates these just like. Amazing cultural moments through [00:24:00] marketing, through banding and through interaction with her fans. And as a marketer, it's really fascinating to watch.

Michelle P: It's so fun. And how much can you learn from this experience? Like how cool is it to be able to watch this from the outside and say, Ooh, and looking at other people's launches in the digital space, if you're talking personal brand, digital products to your own content. These are Easter eggs. These are drip fed content.

These are surprise and li like delight. This is a part of the marketing process that engages your community, that draws people in and gets them excited for what you are selling without any information, right? Like you said, you don't know what the songs are, you don't know what the title's gonna be like.

You know, obviously that they are songs, but ultimately you have no idea. But people are so invested in her, in her brand, in her past that they don't need any of that information in order to be so excited about this next thing. How long are her launches typically? Do you know?

joanna_2_08-12-2025_134144: So [00:25:00] they really vary. Like, like I someone said, and this is the discourse that happens online, someone. Feels like she's gonna launch before August 30th, because August 30th, I guess, is the cutoff date. it is like the cutoff date. Before for Grammy nominations. So your album has to come out before August 30th to get nominated for the next year's Grammy awards.

Michelle P: Hmm.

Joanna Newton: she could, could be trying to launch before then. We really have no idea. So she's like, surpris dropped albums before. Um, she's. Waited like months. It really is all over the pace, which I think is part of the fun because everybody's gonna be kind of guessing like what happens next? What is now the conversation is who is she gonna have guests?

Let's look and find the Easter Eggs exit. Tell us the date of the launch. Is it a single album, double album, triple what's happening, right? Um, so we'll see. I'm, I'm really not sure [00:26:00] it could. it could be early. It has to be, it has to be before August. Sorry, it has to be before, now I'm doing it. I'm, I'm doing the Easter egging.

It has to be before October 13th because that's when the vinyls are gonna ship. So if the vinyls are shipping, like it has to already be on Spotify, but it could be much later because vinyls take a long time to produce. Um, they take like a long time to actually like. it's physical, um, like be created.

So it's sometime between, it could be tomorrow, do you know what I mean? At the podcast? But sometime between tomorrow and October 13th, I think we're looking at.

Michelle P: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Taylor Swift, as we've talked about on this podcast, she's a frigging genius and like love or hate her music, it doesn't matter. Like what she's been able to do in creating what I feel like is one of the most ultimate personal brands [00:27:00] is phenomenal and. She's smart and she's thoughtful and she cares.

She's compassionate with the people who are engaged with her music, and she demonstrates that through all of these little teasing incidences. Like I see things and I'm not, I like Taylor Swift's music, but I'm not like a huge fan. I'm not really honestly a fan of much, and so I don't get into like those kinds of details, but I see people online talk about like.

Well, this song said this and then this song, and they put all of these things together that intertwine and it's true, and it's kind of cool because it's a reflection of Taylor and her life, right? You have this human being who's going through this experience and she's expressing that through her lyrics and through her gift of song and music, and.

It's not gonna be one dimensional. It is gonna have a lot of different sides, and it is gonna have a lot of stories. And she uses storytelling in her music to connect with people and people relate to those [00:28:00] experiences and it's such a great example of how you can intertwine those things into what you do, right?

Like, I don't know everything about Taylor's life. I don't know all of the details. I don't know everything that she does on a daily basis. I don't know all of her relationships. I don't know her family. I don't know all these things. Granted. I know some of that is more public than probably she would like considering her fame and celebrity status, but I don't have to know everything about her in order to appreciate the interwoven and interlocking stories that she creates and the music that she creates, and therefore, the.

Products that she's able to sell and market, because why do people buy t-shirts? Why do people buy albums? Why do people buy other types of merch? Why do people go to her concerts? Why do people tune in and tap into what she's doing is because they're invested in her story, they're invested in her. Gift that she's kind of giving to the world.

And by, you know, domino effect things get purchased. And she's created this [00:29:00] over billion dollar empire at this point of what it is that she brings to the world. And if you looked at it at the base nature of what she does, you're looking at someone who's sitting on the streets singing and playing their guitar for free or trying to get change, right?

Like there's. A very base breakdown of what it is that she brings to the world. Could be simultaneously seen as not valued, not very good and doesn't matter, but she's been able to create all of these things around it. And so when you're thinking about your own products, your own programs, your own offers, and what you bring to the world at the base, they could be very simple.

They could be something that you feel like isn't worth. What you're charging for it or whatever the case is. But truthfully, the value and the perception is in the eye of the beholder and what you're able to create in that experience. And so when you're able [00:30:00] to demonstrate that, when you're able to market it, when you're able to understand it and engage your community by demonstrating it, there's so much power in that.

And that's where your business comes from, and that's where your success ultimately will follow.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. One of the, the really, I think, interesting things about what Taylor Swift did from a, has done with her career from a business perspective is there was this time, I don't know the exact time period, but there was this time in the music industry where. Artists were really struggling to make money. So streaming platforms took over.

People stopped buying albums, and they were literally not making money on their music because streaming platforms weren't paying them enough. And people weren't buying the physical copies, so the cost it took to produce that, like wasn't matching up and the only way to make money was to tour. And then tours are [00:31:00] extremely expensive.

And so it was actually really not to say like, boo hoo, you're famous and you can't make money. But making money as a mu music artist after streaming platforms took over was. Really a challenge like this was a problem. People were canceling tours because they couldn't sell enough tickets and they were, their business was going to go bankrupt.

And Taylor Swift's launch model created demand for things like merchandise, like albums, because it's a special cover with a special song like Vinyl Records. And I'm sure other people did this too, but when you look at her marketing strategy and then you look at some of like the, the. Her. Predecessors, is that, that might be the right word.

Like looking at like Chapon and Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo as examples. They're using a lot of her strategies in what she does, so she could have said, she made a lot of money. She could have [00:32:00] said, fuck it, like this isn't worth it anymore. People aren't buying albums, they're not streaming. I'm just gonna be done. Because, and, and I think this is what some business owners do, I'm just gonna be done. But instead she said, no, let me figure out how to make people buy the physical copies. Let me figure out how to make people buy a special edition. Vinyl, make me figure out how to get someone to buy five different versions of the same album.

And some people look at this and think, oh, it's like capitalist greed. But she went from a phase in music where artists were struggling to make money basically creating a blueprint. For other people to make money. And I think sometimes for us as business owners, we put an offer into the world and we're like, no one wants to buy it. Woe is me. I just like give up. But like it's our job to like use our creativity, create that demand. If I've created a product and it's not selling. How can I repackage it [00:33:00] or reposition it or do something to make that demand happen? And that's something like the, the people who come out on top and, and like end up being successful.

I think some of it's luck with Taylor Swift. I don't think it was luck, but with some of these people that are successful, it's luck. And with others it's like they were. were trailblazers. They came up with new strategies. When something wasn't working, they made something better, or they did something different or they made a change.

And I think she's kind of created like a marketing blueprint for some of these newer artists that you can tell, they're like, they're taking notes from what she's doing, um, and not copying her. Right. But like realizing, okay, this is a great model to follow.

Michelle P: And it's one of those things in the digital space you hear all the time from gurus and other people, the webinar is dead. Instagram isn't working this, don't do this. [00:34:00] This is fault. Like there's so much rhetoric in the online space, and I get it because that's what gets. Organic reach. Right. If you say something in exact terms, this is final.

This is the secret. This is the only thing. This is the number one thing. People pay attention and I get the reason that has become popular, but it's also really, really, I think, hurt a lot of people because they're looking at that and they're taking it in. And even if it's a subconscious thing is you're seeing it and saying like.

Oh, well, maybe I shouldn't do a webinar, or maybe I shouldn't do this because they know better, or they're telling me this, or it seems like they're really strong in what they're saying. But that is all to get attention. It is all just to get views and shares and people buying into their stuff truthfully.

Joanna Newton: Yeah.

Michelle P: But knowing that you can take something like vinyl, like albums, like records that we don't need anymore, and make them coveted and turn them into something that is usable and is workable. So it's not [00:35:00] necessarily the process, it's not necessarily the medium that. The issue. It's the way in which it's being marketed and sold, and that is such an important thing to distinguish.

Same thing about your products and programs. Usually it's not a product issue, it's not a program issue if you're not even getting people into it. If you get people into your products and programs and then they're having issues, or you're getting lots of refund requests, of course we have a different issue we need to solve.

But if you're not even selling, that's a marketing issue. That's a messaging issue. That's a positioning issue. It might be the core of your offer and how you're saying it. It might just be the content that you're creating. It might be the way that you're speaking to people. Like there's a lot of different things across the board.

But realizing it's typically the marketing, it's the positioning. It's not the actual product, program, service if you're not getting anyone into it enough to give you that feedback. And so, such a great example. I, I love looking at these things to better understand how we can do that. And you're right, it is about taking ownership.

It is about saying, I'm the one creating this business. It's, we're not in an era [00:36:00] of build it. And then they will come, we're in, in an era of finding. Niche problems and solving them, creating engaged, polarized communities that people want to be a part of or don't wanna be a part of, and that's okay. But we are in a world of so much globalization and population that we can tap into.

So just. Small, very small segment of the market and still be incredibly successful in the business. If we are meeting the needs and catering to our people the way that they want to be catered to and finding that thing that they want to invest in and is our responsibility, not just to say, oh, I made this offer.

It's so amazing. Like people have to buy it. It's like, no, you have to do the work to get people to buy it. No one's just gonna do your business a favor by buying your stuff.

Joanna Newton: So I'm reading this book right now. It's called Contagious. I can't,

Michelle P: Oh my God. I love Contagious.

joanna_2_08-12-2025_134144: Contagious.[00:37:00]

Michelle P: of my favorite books. I refer to it a.

Joanna Newton: I love it so far. Um, I am not done, so I'm not actually ready to talk about the con the, the principles of being contagious. But basically what this, what this video, what this book is about is really talking about like why something catch on and others don't, and looking at the science behind it.

So the author is a professor and has done a lot of like real research and real studies on like trying to figure out why something takes off. Why something doesn't it is going through these principles. So I think in a future episode, and I'm glad you've read it, once I finish the book in a future episode, we will talk about it.

So make sure you subscribe and like us and keep in touch because we'll be talking about this book in a future episode and kind of outlining like what it is that gets things, certain things to catch on while other things don't. But one of the really interesting things that was mentioned early in the book, 'cause I'm, I think I'm in like chapter two or three right now. One of the [00:38:00] things that really stuck with me that, that was early on in the book, um, was just talking about the importance of word of mouth and how important that was. And then talking about the fact that, and this statistic shocked me, was that only 7% of word of mouth like recommendations happen on social media. So we focus so much and, and I'm not saying you shouldn't focus on social media. Social media is important. We focus so much on social media and making content and doing that when word of mouth is a huge reason people make, make bang decisions. But we don't focus as much on, at least I don't, my current customer base, getting referrals and generating word of mouth from them.

I definitely focus more on social, on ads, on email than I do about how to get my people [00:39:00] talking. So if you think about this Taylor Swift thing, I, um, my business partner, his girlfriend's a Taylor Swift fan. Her and I were chatting about it all night. This morning in, in my conversation with Brandon, my business partner, he was like, so what do you think about the album, right?

Like we are having personal one-on-one conversations about the album. They created conversation that makes us talk. And so sometimes we're like, gotta get that content out. Gotta post that content. That's gonna be the thing that gets me sales when reality. You have a network, you have customers, you have people in your sphere.

What can you do to get them to talk about you another person one-on-one? And then also think about how you could scale that through social media content. Right? But that was something that really got, got me thinking because I think sometimes we spin our wheels 'cause we're not going viral [00:40:00] or we're not, you know, doing that. When really the bulk of that word of mouth is happening one-to-one. And then how can you bake? Like I'm, I'm working on building like a membership and things like that. How can I bake that word of mouth? Happening in my product, right? Like, how can I get people to talk about it naturally, right? So I'm thinking through those things because those conversations can be so powerful.

So if you are like so frustrated, if you, if you have a business and you have customers and you have clients and you're struggling to grow on social media, I'm using social media to get sales. I'm not saying to stop, keep, keep doing social media. But you might be able to scale more effectively, even faster by utilizing your network and utilizing your customers and figuring out how to get them to talk about you.

Michelle P: Yeah. There are a lot of ways that I feel like I've worked with clients in the past from [00:41:00] a brick and mortar perspective or from a digital perspective of how you try to get customers talking about you and sharing you. There are very direct ways, right, where you can ask people directly, do you know three or five, three to five people who would be interested in this type of thing?

Can you refer me? Um, you can be very specific about the type of person that you're looking for and what that looks like. I mean, I know businesses that work completely off of referral and actually the higher you get up, so there's a difference in business model, right? For high volume, lower cost, and then higher cost, lower volume.

Typically, you don't usually have both where both where it's high cost and super high volume because there's a certain level of quality that has to shift, but it's often found. I'm reading this and had. Maybe I finished it. I actually dunno. I, I'm the kind of person that has like six things going all at the same time.

So it's not, it's not healthy, let's just say that. So anyway, the, the 10, 10 20 rule or the, it's 10 x is easier than two [00:42:00] x. That's the, the book title I believe. But the idea is like the 80 20 concept. In principle is that 80% of your results are gonna be produced by 20% of your effort. So if you have a client service-based business, right, typically 80% of your profit and revenue will come from 20% of your client base.

So if you focus on getting more high quality clients, then you're not spread so thin because a lot of times your lower cost customers are gonna be your highest demanding customers. And I don't know why or how that works. There's gotta be science around it somewhere, but it's so true. It's totally true.

Joanna Newton: without giving you real data. From real people. My highest paying client is the least amount of work.

Michelle P: Yep. I think that they, yeah.

Joanna Newton: says, can you just fix this one little thing? It's gonna cost, it's, it won't take you any time. That will take you a lot of time. Like it's 100% true.

Michelle P: Yeah. And the people who [00:43:00] don't wanna spend as much money, they're more finicky, more nitpicky. They're looking at over all the details. A lot of times when you're operating at a higher level, when you have more of a budget, you're not micromanaging. You are trusting the people, right? People to do the right things.

Now, that doesn't mean there isn't oversight, but. In any case, back to the 10 x is easier than two X. So the concept behind that book, and the principle is that you're putting all this time and energy into like 1.5, into two x, into like, oh, how can we get marginally better? How can we do this a little bit better?

When it's like if you stopped and. Take a step back and said, okay, how can I leverage? So instead of two X, how can I do 10 x? So for example, in my physical product business, we have restaurant partners that we work with. Now, I sell to these restaurant partners as wholesale. They move through our products, they purchase from us, and we're at a very small town.

And so a lot of our businesses here are locally owned and operated, right? They have just small business owners. Cool. I can get [00:44:00] another small business to work with us, or if I was in this place, which I'm not yet, but, or I could go to something like a chain, or I could go to a Marriott or I could go to a hotel that has multiple locations or even a restaurant group.

So say a restaurant group has 15 locations instead of just one. Ultimately, if I'm selling to the client in the same way and secure that sale, it could mean 15 locations that bring on our product as opposed to just one location. So that idea and that concept. Can be put into places in so many different aspects of your business, right?

How can you leverage, how can you invest the same time, that same effort, the same energy that gets 10 x the results versus just that two x? I actually dunno why we started this conversation, but I think it's something I feel very strongly about what we talking, I totally got distracted.

Joanna Newton: We, I know, I know why? Because I mean, we were talking about leveraging what you have, right? Like, [00:45:00] and, and how the people in your network can be the key

Michelle P: Referrals.

Joanna Newton: And, and

Michelle P: Referrals.

Joanna Newton: referrals.

Michelle P: yes.

Joanna Newton: and what's so tough about that concept, Michelle, from, from like a business perspective is your exact situation, right?

You could go after another small business or you could go after Marriott. Right. The small business one is going to get you cash faster than the Marriott one. if you need cash, if you need sales, going after a hundred small businesses and getting 10. Is faster than going after Marriott and closing thousands, right? Because that's a longer sale. There are more people to approve. More people have to buy in. You're gonna have to have multiple meetings. You're probably gonna have to like, you know, do some like cost, like you're gonna have to do more work for that [00:46:00] sale. It's gonna be a longer process, um, before you get that deal. So what's what's tough about that from a business perspective? If you're bootstrapping, which both of us have bootstrapped our businesses and it bootstrapping means not taking like investment, right? We are taking the money we make from our business, investing it back into the business to make the business grow. Cashflow is important because. You wanna be able to like, pay your bills and pay your team and pay your people. So actually the, the scaling problem that I'm facing in my business is this balance between, we have these big ideas could make us a lot of money, but they're gonna take longer than, okay, I just need to get. Five more clients this month, but then those five more clients this month take up the work to do that thing. Right. So it's this really, and I don't have an answer to this problem because like I am sitting in it, like I am sitting in it right now of [00:47:00] like, to get the clients and get the client work two. Keep the cash flow going, but then I have these big ideas I wanna get done to do it and well, my answer right now and what I'm working on is really boiling down my big ideas to the MVP level. Of like what is the least amount of work I can do to get it to launch? Because I know once it's launched and people are there and it's making some money, that I'll be able to invest more time.

So for me, actually, that is the solution, right? Like how do I do the lowest level to get that big idea Now? The big idea might take three years to build out, but if I can get it started on a low scale, I can grow it that way. The other option would be to look for investment, right? And to say like, Hey, I've got this big idea, but I need, and now I have enough data that I could say I need this much money for six months so I can build this thing and actually have the data and could [00:48:00] prove it and could probably get that investment.

Like I could probably do that. I don't really want to, I don't wanna answer to investors, but. That is the problem, especially for digital, I think for both like small business owners, when you're in that stage, how do you get from small business owner to empire, how do you cross that bridge? And that's tough.

It's hard to figure out.

Michelle P: Yeah, that's kind of where we're sitting right now too, is I could easily go out myself and continue to make one-to-one sales, and I could easily do. These other like levers in our business, right? That would increase our sales and get us to a different point. But it is challenging to think about like, okay, what's the operational delivery aspect of that and how do we manage those kinds of things as we evolve and as we grow?

And if I wanna be a nationally distributed product, where do we start? And we can't grow too quickly, right? Because that would put you out of business just as quick as not growing fast enough. And there's all these other things to kind of [00:49:00] consider. So as we start to wrap up the conversation, I think that.

Ultimately what Taylor Swift has done as our like core example from this conversation is powerful because she gets people interested. If you haven't read the book yet, read Contagious, and if you haven't subscribed to the Substack, go ahead and do that in the show notes below. Because what we do after every episode is we send out very specific, detailed, more actionable takeaways.

From this conversation, whereas Joanne and I take this time to chat, catch up on weekly updates and what we're seeing in the industry in business and marketing. But that will really give you some tools and some tactics to say, okay, now I can apply this practice in my business. They're always simple, they're always digestible, and they give you something you can do right away as opposed to thinking, oh, I need six months to implement this, or This process is gonna take me this long, which is a lot of content out there.

So hit that. Subscribe. Join the Substack, but. I think from a marketing perspective, [00:50:00] takeaways really for me are to create more surprise and delight like we are in an age and an era of people have seen a lot of things. People are exposed to so much noise. So the more that you can intrigue people, the more that you can engage people, the more that you can have those direct conversations encourage word of mouth and.

Lean into the referral aspect of your business by creating something unique and interesting or by delivering such great customer service that people can't help but talk about it. Like there are so many ways that you can do this in a natural, organic way for your business. So start to think about that and start to think about the human experience that you're providing for your customers, because as we.

Move more heavily into ai. This is the time to like double down on human quality and on yourself and on how you are showing up in your business and in your marketing. So we'll see you next time on the Click Tease podcast.