How I got 100K leads with somebody else's content

Early in my career at PayPal, I tried something that worked like crazy.

I posted a piece of content that brought us 100,000 leads, and I didn't write a word of it. (I also didn't steal it!)

Why am I telling you this? With AI eating up SEO traffic, everyone’s scrambling for attention on social media, and most people think this means becoming a content creator, but you don't have to...

Good news: You don’t need to write like Alex Hormozi, you just need to be smart about finding content that already works. Here's how...

Here’s my shortcut to effective content, even in B2B

1. Map your prospects’ Information Diet – Ask your customers who they follow: Which newsletters, podcasts, YouTubers, and social accounts do they love? Even check what private WhatsApp and Slack groups they’re in. (No customers yet? Who do your prospects follow?)

2. Find the winning formulas – Study those creators’ most successful posts, and look for patterns: What do people engage with and why?

3. Source your own content – Use those insights to create, license, or partner to get the stuff your audience craves.

Here’s 4 clever B2B examples:

1. Unique data: Chartmogul turns their SaaS analytics data into irresistible benchmark reports which they share on LinkedIn and in their newsletter to attract warm leads. (Stripe, Unbounce, and Mixpanel do this too.)

2. Cool videos: Cloud NC sells SaaS to machine shops. Instead of boring product demos, they share hypnotic videos of CNC machines crafting intricate designs. They show these videos to prospects via targeted ads, and when their sales team calls, prospects already know and like the brand.

3. True stories: Rising Team founder Jen Dulski turns her Stanford teaching and decades of leadership experience into compelling stories. Result? 200K LinkedIn followers and a steady stream of warm leads.

4. Licensed content: Remember my PayPal story? Here’s what happened: We’d just hired a telesales team and they needed leads fast. Instead of spending months researching and writing content, I went to the bookstore, found the perfect book for our audience, and emailed the author for permission to share two chapters as a lead magnet. Win-Win: The author got massive exposure, and we got 100,000 sales leads. (Amazingly, it’s still up on PayPal’s site 20 years later!)

Bottom line? You don’t need to create everything from scratch, you just need to be smart about finding the content your audience already craves.