B2B creators should adopt a mindset of collaboration.
Rather than hoarding knowledge, sharing and learning from one another benefits each creator but can also bring fresh perspectives and approaches to content creation.
But, should you steal other B2B creators’ strategies?
It’s said that great artists steal, so why shouldn’t B2B content creators?
If this were a problem then I wouldn’t be writing this right now.
Sharing and adopting strategies from fellow creators is not only acceptable but also essential for personal and collective growth.
B2B creators should have a collaborative spirit helping each other and helping new creators build their personal brand.
If you don’t believe me, just look at Sahil Bloom, Justin Welsh, and Hunter Hammonds meeting for dinner and discussing the creator economy, tools, content, and the imposter syndrome (which apparently they also have).
Or take a look at Kate Bourgoin and Phill Agnew who recently joined forces and created The Wallet Opening Words.
Remember that B2B creators don’t just share their knowledge to be lost in the void.
I remember when I talked to Zoë Hartsfield who said that she had a couple of meetings with people wanting to build their brand but did absolutely nothing from what she advised them.
Her meetings were free, proving all she wanted was to help people to grow and felt disappointed when others didn’t move a needle.
Someone who actually took advice and learned from other creators is Alex Lull.
He not only observed and tested creators’ methods seeing great results for himself, but he also curated them for others.
He continues this cycle of collaboration with his posts and The Steal Club newsletter.
Who is Alex Llull?
Alex is a Growth Marketer at Taplio leading user acquisition with creator partnerships, content and launches, but he does much more than that.
He is also a B2B creator on LinkedIn and on X/Twitter and he says on his LinkedIn bio that creating content online transformed his whole career.
On X/Twitter he built an audience of 45.000 subscribers which I believe had a huge impact on helping him sell over $20,000 worth of digital products.
On LinkedIn, just like many creators, he had his ups and downs with the platform, trying to be constant on it three times.
He often takes his time to talk about the hard moments that creators need to pass through such as low engagement, content creation struggles, or the importance of being consistent.
On LinkedIn he has a following of 2.000 followers and he set it as a resolution this year to grow to 10.000.
He even wrote down his strategy on LinkedIn for anyone who wants to steal it and try it for themselves.
Alex is also the creator behind The Steal Club newsletter which has more than 6.000 subscribers (there were 7.500, but he recently cleaned his list).
He created this newsletter to help more creators and founders grow their online businesses.
How? By sharing the tactics and playbooks top creators use to grow their audience and monetize their content.
Alex doesn’t only share these tactics, he observes them, tests them, and he also leverages Taplio in his LinkedIn journey.
How does he get inspired from others and why is he a B2B creator?
- Building The Steal Club
- Connecting his audience with Taplio
- Openly talks about his strategies
- Creating his personal brand
Building The Steal Club
In one of his LinkedIn posts Alex wrote that in 2020 he got fired from his job along with all his other colleagues from the regional office because the international agency closed its doors there.
He found himself with a lot of free time at hand and spent it scrolling on social media.
He soon realized that people started to share things they knew about particular topics, so that’s why he decided to write on X/Twitter and see where this will go.
It went nowhere.
He did not have the same engagement as others who started the same time as he did.
Being influenced by a book he was reading, “Steal like an artist”, he decided to test other creators’ strategies and see if they would work on his content creation.
Well, what do you know, he started to see some traction.
And that’s when he came out with the idea of stealing and decided to share it with his followers.
By using all types of strategies learned from other creators combined with his own, he grew an audience of 33.000 followers on Twitter.
Eventually he decided to share his ideas on The Steal Club newsletter for those who wanted to get in the depth of strategies.
He reached 7.500 subscribers on his newsletter, but he did something that some content creators don’t do.
He took his time to clean his newsletter subscribers as 1.500 of these subscribers were not even opening his emails.
Alex wants to make an impact on creators’ journeys, and not feed his ego with thousands of subscribers who are not interested in what he’s offering.
Besides sharing the stolen strategies on his newsletter, he also shares them on his X/Twitter and LinkedIn.
He creates short carousels using his branding colors and adding a sketch of a thief.
In these carousels he talks about content structures and different systems creators have and use.
In one of his posts he wrote about other creators’ content structures, Julian Shapiro’s and Wes Kao’s, showing that they tend to repeat the same structure in their posts.
What makes his carousels engaging is that before the explanation part he writes a quote from the books he read that matches the idea he wants to talk about.
Afterwards, he even creates analogies to make his content easier to digest.
In this post about content structures he creates the analogy with cooking, saying that when you cook you follow a recipe and the same happens with creating content – you build a structure that you can use over and over.
Besides sharing others strategies, Alex is not afraid to share his own.
He talks about his Headline Framework where he says he starts to write the headline first before writing anything, describes the process of finding the right headline, and offers examples.
After spending his time researching other creators’ strategies, Alex created a digital product called “The Tactics” where he shares more than 60 tactics.
He advertises his product on posts where he talks about big names in the industry such as Justin Welsh.
He constantly engages with his audience.
Recently he asked them about whose strategies he could steal and apply on his content creation.
His followers started leaving different creators’ names tagging them on Alex’s post.
We can see this trick as an advantage as creators can see his post and get a hint of what he’s doing.
This can lead to building up new relationships with other fellow creators interested to see how he’ll figure out their strategies and tactics.
For the same purpose of engaging his audience, Alex also created a series of sharing one audience growth or monetization tactic a day for seven days – all stolen from other creators.
Connecting his audience with Taplio
Alex shared how he got his job at Taplio saying that he didn’t need a CV nor did he have to go through a formal job interview.
Tom Jacquesson, Taplio’s Co-founder, subscribed to Alex’s newsletter and after receiving his first newsletter issue connected with him.
They started to discuss different ideas and collaborated together on content creation on a freelancing basis.
After a while, Alex saw Taplio was looking to hire someone full time on the growth team so he talked to Tom.
He got the job in less than 48 hours.
This is the significant impact content creation can have building connections, showcasing skills, and ultimately opening up opportunities, even job opportunities, in a way that traditional methods like sending a CV or a cold direct message might not achieve.
Alex encourages the idea that putting oneself out there through content creation can have broader benefits beyond just building an audience.
Alex constantly connects his audience with Taplio talking about how the company helps him with his content creation.
He talks about how he uses Taplio’s analytics feature to find his LinkedIn top performer posts to repurpose them to obtain more impressions.
He encouraged people to repurpose their content because the new audience doesn’t know the post, and always all your previous audience would remember your previous one especially if you twerk it a bit.
Alex even wrote about The LinkedIn Growth Challenge Taplio implemented.
Since his audience is formed by people who would like to become creators, this challenge fits both audiences – Alex and Taplio’s.
In this challenge, Taplio is willing to pay the creators who take part in this challenge and manage to grow their audience after posting on LinkedIn.
The winner will receive an award of $2,500, but there are more prizes.
Openly talks about his strategies
I’ve already mentioned he does this, but I wanted to tell you more about them.
Alex realized the impact content creation had on his career and knows that applying and curating other creators’ ideas are beneficial for his growth.
Same as he doesn’t see other creators as his competition, but as his inspiration he wants others to be inspired by him and his strategies.
He’s not afraid someone will apply them.
On the contrary, he wants to help others build their personal brand and create an audience.
Alex shares his LinkedIn strategy that seamlessly mixes engagement and content creation.
By leaving (Step 1) thoughtful comments on posts on key players in their niche, Alex creates (Step 2) meaningful interactions but at the same time increases his exposure to a broader audience.
If his replies get attention and interaction, Alex ingeniously (Step 3) repurposes them into standalone posts by copying them into Taplio and (Step 4) scheduling them as future posts.
This dual-purpose approach streamlines Alex’s content creation and efficiently integrates his engagement efforts with a broader content strategy.
It’s a strategic and efficient method which helps him build relationships, increase visibility, and at the same time helps him create valuable content almost effortlessly.
He is also not afraid to share the monetary part of being a creator.
Over the last three months, they made $2,466 by repurposing and selling his knowledge.
His newsletter compiles tactics from various creators on building and monetizing audiences, but subscribers only receive tactics from the moment they subscribe.
So Alex realized the potential value in repackaging and selling all past tactics.
He organized and packaged these tactics into a Notion database and then offered access to it for $29 to the first few buyers.
Over 75 creators purchased access, demonstrating the profitability of repurposing and selling accumulated content.
Alex encourages other creators to recognize the potential of their content, turning past efforts into a new source of income.
Building his personal brand
He didn’t have everything figured out from the beginning and built along the way.
Alex is proof that starting something helps you shape what you want to be known for, what are the topics you can talk for hours about, and find your niche.
Now he continues to build his personal brand by constantly creating, curating others’ ideas, and even creating a visual presence for himself.
Alex’s personal brand journey, the choice of a specific brand color, orange in this case, offers consistency and recognition across different platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters.
This visual uniformity helps establish a cohesive and easily identifiable presence, allowing audiences to quickly associate content and messages with Alex’s personal brand.
You can find the same orange on his newsletter and carousel posts related to The Steal Club.
This use of orange enhances the aesthetic appeal and aids in standing out and being memorable to his audience.
Plus, his thief sketch makes you think of comic books creating the idea that the content is going to be easy to digest and apply.
He also has some visual sketches that use the same brand color.
What can B2B creators learn from Alex?
Embrace a collaborative mindset
Alex used to struggle with this when he first started creating content.
He saw everyone as his competitor and felt envy on others when they were more successful than he was.
It’s normal if you think about it. We all want to be successful and have things figured out from the start.
When he shifted his perspective and thought he could learn from others instead of seeing them as competition everything changed.
So you should shift from a competitive mindset and see others as inspiration and opportunities for collaboration.
Steal strategies for growth
Instead of viewing the act of ‘stealing’ as something negative, Alex has embraced it as a powerful method for learning and evolving.
Alex’s success story is built on the foundation of testing and adopting strategies from other creators to achieve substantial growth.
By actively observing and implementing tactics borrowed from other creators, Alex has cultivated his unique approach.
He may have ‘stolen’ the structures or strategies but he tailored them to his unique style and topics.
So be open to explore, test, and innovate to form your personal brand.
Share knowledge with purpose
Alex learned from others and feels he should pass on his lessons as well.
However, sharing knowledge should be purposeful, and individuals should actively apply the advice they receive, as demonstrated by Alex’s own journey of learning and implementing strategies.
Final Thoughts
Stealing ideas, methods is fine as long as you don’t replicate, but adapt.
Infuse them with your brand’s identity, catering to your niche, and enriching it with your unique perspectives.
One response to “Steal the strategy to share the knowledge as a B2B Creator like Alex Llull”
[…] they’re useful, you can do an Alex Llull move and steal their strategy and adapt it to grow your brand as […]