When I started The Sales Creator Collective, I was accepting most creators with a decent audience and engagement, but my model has changed and I’m now focusing on growing the career of a select group of creators.

But it doesn’t mean I’m completely giving up on helping new creators monetize their audiences. I’m actually working on something to help all the creators I can’t represent.

The concept

In Q1 2027 (tentative date), I’m planning to host the first Creator Summit in Mexico City. I want to gather 20 of the best creators I know and have them share concrete, tactical tips on what they did to grow their audience and monetize it.

The event will happen on 2 days, with the first day only open for selected partners that will create content with the creators. The second day will be dedicated to intimate workshops and masterclasses from experienced creators.

We’ll then finish the day with an afterparty in Mexico City. I’m planning to take you on a crazy night out. I’m thinking sunset rooftop, speakeasy jazz/latino club, and after hours tacos.

We’ll give recommendations for places to go for recovering the morning after 😂

Who is it for

The second day of this event is built for creators who are actively working on growing their audiences with the goal of monetizing it. You’re a good fit it:

• you’re already posting multiple times a week on LinkedIn

• you didn’t land a brand deal yet (or did, but couldn’t systematize it)

• you’re looking for inspirations from creators who have been in your shoes

If you’re interested, you can already join the waitlist.

What you’ll get

I’m building this event as an intimate experience for creators. I’m planning to have 100 attendees maximum so we can understand how this first edition works and see what opportunities come out of it for the attendees.

I’m in conversations with big names in the B2B creator world and it will be an opportunity to meet them in person and spend some quality time you couldn’t get otherwise.

In terms of program, I want this day to be filled with workshops/masterclasses on the following (non-exhaustive) topics:

• How to grow your audience and get noticed by brands

• How to land your first brands deals

• What mistakes to avoid when building your audience

• How to build a newsletter and get paid for it

• How to master video for LinkedIn

• How to use AI in your creator journey (while keeping your authentic voice)

These are just some topics I’m thinking of and I’m open to suggestions (just sign up to the waitlist and I’ll send you a survey to know more about what you need).

I’m really excited for this event. I’ve done something similar at a smaller scale in Berlin in 2025, and it’s the starting point of The Sales Creator Collective. Without meeting creators in person, I would have never thought of becoming an agent and make 7 figures in our first year in business.

Join the waitlist if you’re interested in learning more.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

Most brands want to work with creators by paying them a fixed fee for sponsoring one of their LinkedIn posts. It’s what we do in 90% of the cases. But both the brand and the creator are missing out on a crazy opportunity to increase their influence.

Here’s how they can fix that:

Step 1: Plan a webinar/masterclass

In marketing, there are two types of content we see all the time: short-form content and long-form content. Short-form are all the small 30 seconds or less videos, entertainment LinkedIn posts, and most viral posts. It’s what most creators focus on, with the goal to capture the attention of their prospects.

Long-form can be a webinar/masterclass, a blog post, a playbook, etc. It’s typically used to convert attention into leads (what we call the middle-of-the funnel). And right now, most creators don’t do any long-form content.

A good way to get started with long-form content is to plan a webinar/masterclass that will be sponsored by a brand. The brand and the creator co-host a webinar and promote it to their channels.

Step 2: Create assets from the webinar

When the webinar/masterclass is done, you can create additional assets from the recording. You can cut short vertical videos from the best moments of the webinar, take the transcript and build a playbook or a checklist.

For example, we did exactly this from this masterclass we did with Alan Ruchtein. We got short form videos, a blog post, and a lead magnet.

With AI, this can be done really quickly, but I’m also helping creators who don’t have the time to do it by creating an integrated offer for the brands that include the fees related to creating this content.

Step 3: Distribute the assets on LinkedIn

Finally, when you have all your assets ready, you can start distributing. Instead of creating a post that looks like every other sponsored post, you have:

• Multiple angles you can develop from the long-form content

• Snippets you can use as videos/images for your posts

• Lead magnets you can promote that will convert attention into leads

For example, with the example of Alan, we did 4 posts (2 from Alan, 2 from me), and we promoted the sponsor and were able to do brand awareness and send them leads.

These bundles are typically way more valuable to brands than simple LinkedIn posts as the brands gets original content creation + distribution. The creator gets more stability, and it creates a real partnership between both parties.

If you’re a brand trying to take your influence to the next level, book a strategy call with me and we’ll get this sorted out.

Hope this was an interesting read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ [NEW] I’m looking for partners for The Sales Creator Summit. More info here.​

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

And this isn’t about creativity or being the most unique creator in a niche. Here a 3 attributes I’ve seen in creators that get renewed for long-term collaborations:

They know their audiences and what format works for them

The creators that land long term contracts are the ones who have a strong understanding of the audience they have been building over years. They know when to push back on concepts that will not land with their audience.

For example, they are not afraid of going back to brands to tell them that the type of content they are trying to promote will not work. The best creators work with their agent to communicate what to do instead.

In most cases, brand marketing managers really appreciate creators that can come up with creative ideas, show they know their audiences, and have a solution-oriented approach to the collaboration.

They accept feedback and leave their ego aside

This is a big problem I face when working with creators who are not used to monetizing their content. They have built significant followings but they have a hard time accepting any feedback from brands. They want to keep full control of their editorial freedom, but working with brands means they need to do compromises.

Creators who get renewed are excellent at receiving feedback and including it in their content. This is where working with an agent can be particularly helpful. When brands communicate feedback to us, I use my experience as a creator and manager to brainstorm ideas with my creators so they can put out a sponsored post that will work well with their audiences, and perform for the brand.

They communicate a clear plan and stick to it

Finally, expectation management is the most important part of a collaboration with a brand. A brand marketing manager typically spend their day sourcing creators, giving feedback on drafts, and managing payments.

It’s not uncommon for a creator to go radio silence after they got paid, and brands have to chase them to even get an answer. These creators do not get renewed, even if their posts perform well.

In the contrary, creators who create and share a plan with the brand, and stick to it, are often renewed because they are seen as real partners by the brands. That’s another major part of what we do at The Sales Creator Collective. Most creators we represent have a full-time job or activity and they are monetizing their audiences as a side income. This means they don’t have time to manage the logistics related to working with brands, and we take care of it for them.

And these are 3 attributes of creators who get renewed with brands. They know what works for their audiences, they leave their ego aside when receiving feedback, and they manage expectactions clearly.

Hope this was an interesting read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ [NEW] I’m looking for partners for The Sales Creator Summit. More info here.​

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

A good chunk of these creators have reached impressive numbers, sometimes making $10,000+ per month in brand deals. But after a few months of abundance, the brand deals sometimes dry out, budgets disappear, and a lot of creators end up making less than $1,000 per month in brand deals.

I call this the Hype Cycle of Sales Creators. And I’ve lived this cycle many times over. Here’s a breakdown:

The 4 phases of the Hype Cycle

As a creator, your content goes through cycles. You typically start with no one knowing about you (and this can last for ages), until things start taking off, if you’re consistent enough. At that point, your content follows these 4 phases:

Phase 1: Growth

This is the most exciting phase. Every post you put out in the world performs, and your impressions keep getting better and better. You get engagement and reactions from a lot of new people, new followers, and a ton of profile visits. This is a phase where your creativity flows, and you’re rewarded for all your hard work.

Phase 2: Monetization

If you’re consistent enough, brands start noticing you. They contact you with offers to sponsor your content, and you’re getting more and more opportunities. At the beginning of this phase, the workload related to working with brands is easy to manage, but it can get challenging if you get too many offers (which means you’re not charging enough).

Phase 3: Plateau

After a few months, your content starts stalling. People engage less, and the recipes that used to work don’t produce the same results anymore. Brands start chasing other people, and it gets harder to renew potential long-term deals. You get less inbound requests, and you start asking yourself if you didn’t pass your prime.

Phase 4: Decline

This is a terribly complicated phase. Every brand that used to work with you is not renewing, your content performance drops, and you start feeling irrelevant. This phase is where most creators give up and stop monetizing.

What it means for sales creators

This Hype Cycle is incredibly common for sales creators. It’s very similar to what artists experience in their careers, and it’s a normal part of life. Even the biggest creators go through these cycles, and those who survive are the creators who have real influence.

I’ve been going through this cycle about 4 to 5 times since I started posting content on LinkedIn. It took me about 3 years to get my first brand deals, and I’ve been going through prolific periods and incredibly challenging ones.

As a creator, your job is to accept that these cycles are part of your career, and working with an agent will help you distribute your earnings by having them negotiate long-term deals when things are doing good, so you can manage your cash flow in plateau/decline phases.

What to do about it

There are a few strategies you can use to reduce the impact of the Hype Cycle on your career and your income. The first strategy is to negotiate long-term contracts when things are going well. This helps secure your income, and it reduces the risk of brands dropping you because a post flopped.

Another strategy is to use dynamic pricing. This means that you adapt your pricing based on the demand. For example, when a creator is getting a ton of requests, I typically price higher because I have more leverage.

When demand slows down, I reduce pricing and I work on lower, longer terms contracts so I can help the brand get a good deal in exchange of creating stability for the creators.

This is why working with an agent makes so much sense for creators who want to maximize their earnings in the long run. By working with someone who is negotiating deals every day, you don’t need to get all the market knowledge to know if you’re getting a good deal or not.

The Hype Cycle of Sales Creators is something I have to deal with every day. Most of my creators go through this, and my job is to help them accept this cycle, and to deploy the strategies I shared above. If you’ve been going through this cycle, drop a comment, I’d love to hear about it.

Hope this was an interesting read!

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ [NEW] I'm looking for partners for The Sales Creator Summit. More info here.​

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

Since early 2026, this dynamic has been broken. My impressions would barely pick up in the first 24 hours, and for months, I felt like something was broken. Then something changed. I started noticing that my posts were being distributed over a longer window (typically 7 to 10 days) and a post that would get 2,000 impressions in the first 24 hours would end up at 5X this amount after 10 days.

Here’s my explanation:

LinkedIn is cracking down on engagement pods

LinkedIn has been plagued by engagement pods for years. If you’ve seen really average content go viral in your feed, it’s mostly because LinkedIn wasn’t policing these engagement pods. This meant AI slop and crap content would take over the feed, making the user experience on LinkedIn a lot less engaging.

With their new algorithm, LinkedIn has been testing out ways to surface posts that actually bring value over cheap engagement. And one way of doing this is to completely kill early virality. I’ve seen this as a consistent trend in the first half of 2026. Posts typically have the same reactions and comments numbers, but the impressions seem throttled. This is a great way to make engagement pods completely useless, and remove the incentive for AI slop.

LinkedIn is recirculating content to new audiences over multiple days

Another explanation for lower impressions in the first 24 hours is that LinkedIn now recirculates posts over a longer time period. I remember when people started freaking out about seeing posts that were 3 weeks old. I regularly see posts that are relevant, but that were posted a few weeks ago.

This means impressions are distributed over a longer time period, effectively killing early virality. I also assume that the algorithm is pushing relevant content over viral content.

LinkedIn is gearing up for creators and brands

Finally, and this is a hot take, I think LinkedIn is revamping its social network to help brands and creators extract more value. They have recently released their creator matching tool (in Beta for now), signaling that they want to help brands find creators that fit with them.

If the content on the platform is only AI slop, brands will spend less money with creators, making LinkedIn less relevant for their audiences, and less profitable for everyone.

And these are my 3 explanations for the apparent reduction in impressions on LinkedIn. I think virality is still possible, but the exec team at LinkedIn is finally acting to make sure they don’t turn their social network into another piece of dead internet.

Hope this was an interesting read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

As I was driving back to South of France this morning, I brainstormed how I could see creators more often, and turn these events into opportunities to spend some time sharing our war stories as creators. I’ve been jamming with Claude all day, and here’s a first draft concept I’m thinking of:

Concept: Creator Summit in Mexico City

The concept that makes the most sense to me is to organize a creator summit in Mexico City. I’m planning this event to happen over 2 days + optional weekend trip in Mexico for those interested. The idea would be to gather around 20 creators, and 80 guests, with the following program:

Day 1: Brand Content

The first day will be dedicated to creating content for brands with creators we have matched for them. We’ve done something similar in Berlin in 2025, and the outcome was incredibly valuable for brands. They were able to create long-form assets, with usage rights and distribution on the creators channels.

Open to: Creators and brands

Evening 1: Invite-only creator dinner

After a busy day of recording, we’ll head to a private location to relax and discover what Mexican hospitality is all about. I’m thinking of an intimate setting with around 30 people max. The goal is to create a moment of intimate conversations so creators and selected brands can spend some time building stronger relationships.

Open to: Creators and premium brand sponsors

Day 2: Masterclasses

Day 2 will be all about sharing knowledge in a structured setup. I’m thinking of inviting creators who are incredibly successful in their niche so they can share their experience in a structured masterclass format or a fireside chat setup.

The goal is to help established creators share their knowledge with Emerging Creators who will have purchased a ticket to join the event.

Open to: Creators (established and emerging) + brands

Evening 2: Mexico City Night Out

After the masterclass event is over, we’ll throw a networking mixer and take the crowd for a crazy night out in Mexico City. I’m thinking sunset rooftop, speakeasy jazz/latino club, and after hours tacos.

We’ll give recommendations for places to go for recovering the morning after 😂

Open to: Creators (established and emerging) + brands

For Brands

I want to design this event so brands can establish deep relationships with the creators they have selected, and have creators build content that will catch the attention of their audiences in a way that LinkedIn posts simply can’t do.

The summit won’t be another tradeshow with vendors booths, but a moment of collaboration and communion between brands and creators. If you’re a brand marketing manager, this will be a great opportunity to run a different campaign, meet the people who represent your brand, and have fun in CDMX!

For Established Creators

Established creators are creators who already monetize their audiences. They have long-term contracts with brands and are working closely with them to promote them to their audiences.

This summit will be the perfect opportunity to create video and photo content without breaking the bank. We’ll have a production team helping us before, after, and during the summit.

It will also be an opportunity to meet fellow creators and spend privileged moments with people who get it. I want to break the loneliness pattern that I’ve heard of so often and create a space where friendship and collaboration can develop.

For Emerging Creators

If you’re not monetizing your audience yet, this summit will be your opportunity to fast-track your creator journey. You’ll be able to spend time with people who have done what you’re trying to do, and you’ll get all the tips and tactics they have used to be where they are now.

The masterclasses will be in an intimate format, and designed to be the most actionable possible.

The Creator Summit is the best answer I found to all the ideas and conversations I had in the past 2 weeks. I met with creators who need to have spaces to grow with people on the same journey, and I think Mexico City is an incredible place to do this.

Are you in?

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

All of these campaigns helped me gain a detailed understanding of what creators need to do to become irresistible for brands. And it is a lot less about impressions and comments than you’d think.

Here are 3 ways you can become a creator brands want to work with:

Have influence over the audience brands sell to

Not all creators have the same type of influence. Some creators have massive audiences of followers that will never spend a dollar on the brands they are working with. Some creators have much smaller audiences, but these audiences are way more qualified.

I’ll take my wife, Ara as an example (I know I’m biased). Ara started posting regularly a few months ago, and she has seen an almost immediate spike in her impressions, comments, and DMs. She gets contacted daily by people like her (full-time working moms) that want to know how she does what she does.

For a brand that is trying to sell to female execs (a lot of them are working moms), Ara is a great fit. She has a relatively small audience (a bit more than 4,000 followers), but this audience is incredibly invested in her story, and they trust her judgement. She has influence over a group of incredibly valuable people.

Brands love working with people like Ara (hit me up if you want to work with her).

Treat your creator career like a business

Most sales creators become creators by accident. They post regularly on LinkedIn about their job, and after enough time, they get contacted by brands. This is where things get complicated.

Brands expect creators to act professionally. Concretely, this means knowing how to negotiate your deals, how to send an invoice, how to deliver drafts and posts in a timely manner, and share opportunities coming from your paid posts proactively.

Most creators don’t do that. They are super proactive when it comes to getting paid, and they disappear as soon as the money hits their account. This is where working with an agent (like The Sales Creator Collective) makes a lot of sense. When creators are busy working full time, having someone who focuses on their relationship with brands makes all the difference.

Be flexible and easy to work with

Finally, creators need to be incredibly flexible and easy to work with. B2B influence is a relatively new industry, and brands and creators are figuring things out. This means we are all in startup mode. Marketing teams often receive budget and campaign approvals a few days before a launch, which means they need to do a ton of work in a short amount of time.

If you’re not comfortable with changing deadlines, working under pressure, and producing quality content on short notice, brands will have a hard time working with you. I had to hire a full time Head of Creator Partnerships to keep things running for that exact reason. Nothing seems really complicated in influencer marketing, until you realize that your job is mostly making humans do stuff when you have zero control over them.

And these are 3 ways you can become a creator brands want to work with. Have influence over a specific niche, treat your creator career like a business, and be easy to work with.

Hope this was an interesting read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

This space is so new that the playbook is literally being written as we speak. There’s no best practice, or years of industry knowledge to guide creators. This article will help you get a better idea of to look for if you’re a creator or a brand.

Here’s what makes a brand renew with a creator:

Before we dive in, I’d like to invite you to my free in-person workshop at The Social Hub in Berlin. As part of the Revenue Royale event, I’ll share everything you need to know if you’re launching an influence campaign with sales creators.

If you’re around, I’d love for you to join, and have a chat after the workshop.

Performance

This one is obvious, and the most important factor to determine if a brand renews with a creator. Brands typically evaluate the following metrics when working with creators:

• Impressions

• Engagement

• Clicks

• Opportunities generated

Brands generally use impressions to evaluate how much a creator should get paid (around $100 CPM). If the performance is way down and the CPM shoots over $200, brands typically won’t renew with a creator. In some cases, they may renew if the CPM is high, but the bottom of funnel performance (opportunities) is good.

This is why pricing a deal well is so important if you want to work with a brand long term. And this is something a talent agent can help with.

Engagement and proactivity

A good creator posts and generates interest in the brand. A great creator takes this interest and does everything they can to turn it into a lead.

Look at this conversation from one of my MVPs, Tosin Togbe:

This is what I call engagement and proactivity. Instead of posting, cashing out, and forgetting about it, Tosin worked hard in the comment section to turn a comment into a demo. This is the kind of effort that gets you noticed by brands, and turns a first deal into a long-term collaboration.

Communication and good attitude

This one is so important and often forgotten by creators. You can be the most influential creator in your niche, if you don’t communicate properly and have a bad attitude, you won’t be renewed.

I’ve seen great collaborations go sour because creators were promising the moon to brands and then disappeared when they got paid. This is the kind of attitude that isn’t acceptable, and brands notice.

On the other hand, if a creator communicates for the whole duration of the collaboration, and takes feedback and includes it in their content, they’ll boost their chances of working long term with the brand.

And these are 3 main ways to get renewed as a creator. Deliver what you’re selling, be proactive and engaged, and communicate with the right attitude.

Hope this was helpful.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

As a sales creator agent, I don’t really care, but if most of my revenues was coming from brand deals, I’d be seriously freaking out now. I’ve been digging a bit deeper and I have developed a few theories around this massive cut in impressions. But one theory seems to make a lot more sense than all the others.

LinkedIn wants a piece of the cake

The B2B creator economy is absolutely booming in 2026. We sold $722,033 in brand partnerships since September 2025 (and we sell north of $100,000 every month) and the numbers are only accelerating. I’m expecting to make $1,200,000 in brand deals closed in 2026 alone, and 90% of this revenue comes from sponsored posts on LinkedIn.

Right now LinkedIn makes their money through Sales Nav licenses, recruiter licenses, pro subscriptions and ad revenues. I don’t know about you, but if I was an executive at LinkedIn, I’d be spending most of my time thinking how I can make money from creators posting on my platform.

The observation

I have developed this theory because I’ve observed that most creators who had massive engagement and impressions have seen a 50% to 60% drop in their performance. Out of the 65+ creators I work with, a good 80% of them have observed this drop.

On the other hand, some of my creators have been going through a reduction in impressions, but number are increasing back up. It’s still unclear how the algorithm works, but it’s harder than ever to capture significant impressions.

The solution LinkedIn found

One solution LinkedIn has been slowly pushing has been the option to boost a post (put some ad money so more people can see it). When you post, you have the option to define a daily budget with different goals.

For example, my creator below typically gets 1,000 to 2,000 impressions, and he doubled that by boosting his post with $10 per day for 3 days.

This looks like a deliberate action from LinkedIn to force creators to pay to get their posts seen by their audience. And it’s a great way for LinkedIn to extract revenues from creators who get paid by brands directly.

I personally think it’s not really fair, but that wouldn’t be the first time a social network does this.

And this is my theory for the reduction in impressions. It obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, some creators are absolutely crushing it without having to pay, but a big chunk of us now have to pay a toll for making money on LinkedIn.

Hope this was an interesting read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

This works well in a lot of cases, but there’s another proactive tactic brands can use when they have a sales team. I’ll break down everything here, step-by-step:

Step 1: Sponsor a creator post

The first thing to do as a brand is to find a creator (or a few creators) to work with. We can help with that btw. Typically, when brands works with creators, they set a budget, create a shortlist, and negotiate contracts with creators.

The creators will then publish their posts according to the brief and the schedule, let the post gain momentum, and they’ll end up with something like that:

This post generated really good traction, which is often enough as it is for a brand, but the next step is where things become incredibly powerful.

Step 2: Extract the people who commented/reacted on the post

In the example above, 598 people reacted to the post, 197 commented, and 13 reposted. Most brands completely ignore this signal and lose massive opportunities.

What I suggest to do instead is to go through the list of people who commented, reacted, and reshared, and export that list. Amplemarket and LaGrowthMachine are two tools that help you do that (and solve a ton of other problems too).

When you’re done, you’ve just created a lead list of people who may be trying to solve one of the problems the brand is supposed to solve.

Step 3: Filter out and reach out to ICP fits

Finally, apply your filters to the list to make sure you only have people who fit with your ICP and you have you prospecting list with prospects who:

• are exactly the right type of people you want to reach out

• have interacted with the post → this is a great intent signal

• will likely be familiar with the brand and more likely to reply

For example, I have received this email from a sales rep of the brand sponsoring the post:

The message could be better, but it was highly relevant, the timing was great (a few days after I engaged on the post), and it’s a great way to turn influence into real conversations.

This tactic is a prime example of sales and marketing collaborating on a shared goal. Marketing identifies and surfaces leads, and sales follows-up to turn the lead into a meeting, and a potential opportunity.

Hope this was a good read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

What was true in September 2025 is completely different today, and some major trends are shaping the market. Here’s a list of 3 major trends I’m seeing:

Trend 1: Impressions matter less than before

Impressions are almost always used as the only metric to evaluate how much to pay a creator for a specific campaign. But in the past few weeks, I’ve seen brands scrutinize this number way more than before. For example, a recent contract one of my creators signed mentioned that they wouldn’t be paid if they were caught using an engagement pod or boosting impressions numbers artificially.

This reflects an interested trend. Brands that used to only care for impressions and distribution now pay attention to the actual engagement (comments, reactions, etc.) and the conversions (how many people click on the link and become leads or customers). A creator who generates a ton of impressions but no conversion will not be renewed because the brand cannot measure the impact of their investment.

Trend 2: Brands want to work with less creators

I’ve been working with brands trying to work with the most creators possible. Some of them have 200 creators in contract, but they are slowly getting away from this model. Working with a lot of creators can create administrative complexity, and brands realize that 20% of creators generate 80% of the results.

This means that brands are now trying to reassign budget from the bottom 80% to the top 20%. The creators who are in the top 20% get renewed more often, and their contracts are longer, bigger, and more predictable.

Trend 3: Brands are looking for new type of inventory

Finally, a major trend I’m seeing is the increasing appetite of brands for new types of inventory. By inventory, I mean opportunities to sponsor.

I’ve seen a massive increase in the newsletter sponsors and Substack sponsors for my creators, and brands are now heavily investing in YouTube, in-person events, and they are even paying creators to appear on webinars and podcasts.

Brands want to double-down on creators they trust, which means having more than just a LinkedIn audience to monetize is incredibly rewarding for creators. I’m closing multiple 5-figures contracts every month, and the creators who have a multi-channel strategy are winning big.

And these are the 3 major trends I’m seeing after selling $650,000+ in sponsored content in 8 months. Impressions aren’t as relevant as they used to, brands want to work with less creators, and they want more opportunities to sponsor these creators.

Hope this was an interesting read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

PS… Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

→ Are you a brand trying to launch an influence campaign? Tell me more about it here.​​

→ Want to work with one the creators I represent? More info here.

As a creator, you’ll find that some content types perform better than other for your style. Some creators built a huge following based on humor, while others did it by sharing only tactical content.

Here are 3 types of content I recommend using when working with LinkedIn:

Content type 1: Education

This is by far my favorite type of content. Educational content helps readers do their job better, and I have personally built most of my early audience with this type of content. Think about tactical content, with detailed steps to help you achieve a specific goal.

For example, this post from Andrei Zinkevich is the perfect example of educational content. It is super tactical, it’s actionable, and it helps B2B marketers do their job. This type of content helps create authority, and it typically generates less engagement and reactions than other posts.

I personally prefer this type of post as it generates more DMs and more opportunities than any other type of post.

Content type 2: Entertainment

This type of post has been blowing up on LinkedIn recently. And it’s typically rewarded with massive engagement and virality. These are the posts that get hundreds of thousands of impressions, and boost your profile views.

That’s why you see so many memes these days. They get a disproportionate amount of impressions, people engage massively with them, and they boost almost all metrics.

For example, this post from John Attar has been incredibly successful, and it’s only 11 words.

But be careful with this type of posts. They make a lot of sense to get a boost of virality, but they typically only impact vanity metrics. You get more reactions, more comments, more impressions, but less DMs and opportunities.

Content type 3: Emotion

Content that creates a strong emotion with your audience is also really interesting for creators. It makes people relate to you in a way that other types of content don’t. For example, this post Ara (my wife) did, worked extremely well because it helped people relate to her situation. It created a proximity that other types of post don’t typically create.

These types of post help humanize the creator in the eyes of their followers, and they are really interesting to stand out in the age of AI. But only using this type of content won’t create that many opportunities.

Bonus Content Type: Controversy

Finally, another type of content has been emerging these past few months: controversy.

Controversial content typically involves sharing a highly controversial take on a topic, or trashing someone in public with the goal of creating disproportionate engagement. I won’t give any specific example because I hate this type of content.

I personally think that attacking people in public, no matter how wrong or ignorant they are is exactly why people are so divided in our society. It creates a mob mentality and people indulge in cyber-bullying, which is one of the biggest issues we have online these days. I strongly recommend not to try to create controversy or engaging in cyberbullying because it can have real consequences on people’s mental health.

And these are the 3 types of content I recommend using when you’re a sales creator. If you can master and mix these 3 content types, you’ll get more visibility, more engagement, and more opportunities coming your way.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. If you’re a brand and you’re tryig to work with creators your buyers already trust, go check The Sales Creator Collective and fill-in the form to learn how we can help your brand connect with trusted voices.

I’m writing this newsletter on Substack and I have experience working with ActiveCampaign, Kit, and Mailchimp. Out of all the newsletter systems I’ve used, Substack is the easiest to launch, the easiest to grow, and overall the best option for busy sales creators.

Here are 3 concrete reasons I strongly recommend using Substack for your newsletter:

Reason 1: It’s part newsletter, part social network

Most newsletter providers are just newsletter providers. You can create and manage an email list, segment it with tags, and you have forms and landing pages to get new subscribers and collect their consent. You can then send mass emails, drip campaigns, etc.

Substack is a bit lighter on this part, but it has a unique positioning, meaning it has newsletter system features and social network features. You can write an article, but you also have a featured called Notes, which is similar as a tweet. When you post a note, everyone in your network (your followers) and other people can see it.

And it can get crazy results:

With Substack, you’re not only building a mailing list, you’re also activating it through native social network features.

Reason 2: It’s filled with growth loops

I’ve been writing a newsletter for a bit less than 5 years. And the hardest part of any newsletter isn’t writing it, but growing it. No one really cares about what you’re writing if you’re not promoting it.

With Substack, you can actively promote your newsletter directly inside the system. You can recommend other newsletters, and get recommended in exchange. This has personally brought me 187 subscribers out of the 293 subscribers I have:

You have a ton of other growth loops around monetization, and it makes it really simple to get started.

Reason 3: It can get monetized really quickly

Finally, and this is the most important part, you can monetize your newsletter really quickly. Historically, you had to spend years growing your newsletter to make it remotely interesting for brands to sponsor it, but this is not the case with Substack.

One of my creators has around 700 subscribers on Substack, and I closed a $1,000 deal for a sponsored post on his newsletter. He’s been working on this newsletter for a bit more than 6 months, and it’s another monetization channel that has the potential to bring him 30% - 50% more revenue.

You can also create a paid tier for your newsletter. Another one of my creators is making $40,000 ARR just with his paid newsletter.

If you’re a creator and you’re serious about monetizing your content, you can’t skip having a newsletter. A solid LinkedIn presence is great, but you will leave a ton of money on the table if you don’t have another channel. And Subtack is a great additional channel if you’re a good writer.

Hope this was helpful.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

This week, I had a conversation with a brand manager and she shared something I’ve been overlooking: the new LinkedIn algorithm is strongly punishing anything that looks to be:

• AI written

• automation

• Engagement groups/pods

That’s when it hit me. I’ve created a WhatsApp group for the creators of The Sales Creator Collective where we share our posts to get some early traction, and my impressions have been all over the place since then.

Here’s what it means for creators, and 2 tactics you can follow to get your impressions back on track:

What it means for creators

There was a time when LinkedIn was rewarding early engagement and dwell time. A lot of creators started realizing this and created engagement groups (on WhatsApp or Slack) and that’s when we saw an explosion of automated AI comments.

But recently, LinkedIn revamped their algorithm to improve the experience and they completely killed the reach of any post that seems to be boosted by an engagement group.

Concretely, this means that if the same group of people always comment on your posts, LinkedIn interprets this as an engagement group. It took me some time to realize, but this makes a ton of sense.

Tactic 1: Stop sharing your links in groups

The first thing you can do is to stop sharing your links in your internal Slack channels and engagement groups. If you’re using automated engagement pods, immediately stop (you should never use these pods imo), and stop worrying about early engagement.

If you want to boost natural engagement, invite people to create a notification on your profile (by hitting the bell icon). This will naturally boost your engagement by using a feature that LinkedIn is actively promoting.

Tactic 2: Build a discovery list and focus on commenting

Second tactic, and the most important in my opinion: find new creators and engage with them regularly. I’ve tested this for a few months, and I almost always get more impressions on my comments than on my posts.

This also helps expand your network, and when people you’re actively engaging with start engaging with you, it signals that you’re doing something good to the algo, which turns into more impressions.

LinkedIn is a really strange place these days. I’m not sure the LinkedIn team has any idea what they are doing (they keep telling people to do videos, but they obliterate your reach on videos), so don’t listen to what the marketing team says, and focus on how the algorithm treats you.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In all of this movement, I’m focusing on identifying patterns to understand which strategic bets I need to make to grow the Sales Creator Collective. There are so many directions to take that listening to every signal on the market is extremely risky.

Here are 3 traits I use to understand if a creator is worth working with in the age of AI:

Trait 1: They have a strong POV

In the age of AI, anyone can become a viral creator almost instantly. Most creators now focus on reverse-engineering platforms to create viral content, and new names pop every day.

From what I see, the creators that are really standing out are the ones with a strong point-of-view. And strong POVs don’t come from trying to crack an algorithm. A strong POV comes from having actually experienced what you’re talking about. It comes from being able to intellectualize your area of focus, and being able to turn a complex idea into something easy to understand for your audience.

There aren’t shortcuts to creating a strong POV. You have to take some time to think, and write down your thoughts until they become so clear that anyone who can read understands them.

Darren Mckee is a great example of a creator with a strong POV. No one is quite like him on LinkedIn, and his engagement numbers really show.

Trait 2: They have a ton of inventory

Great creators are not only great thinkers. They also know how to create content at scale, on multiple platforms. Most creators I know only focus on one platform. They invest heavily on it, but they don’t have a strategy to recycle content on other platforms.

When you create content on multiple platforms, you create additional space with slightly different audiences and brands love working with creators who can offer more than one type of engagement.

A great example is Giulio Segantini. He’s present on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. And he doesn’t only create new content for each platform. He also recycles content between each channel, which creates additional space for brands to work with him.

Trait 3: They have been creating for years

Finally, a creator who has been creating for years will often naturally have a strong POV and a lot of inventory. Jan Mundorf is a great example. We met when he was starting as a BDR and he had no audience. He’s been posting for years, consistently, even when no one cared.

The resilience he has built is what turned him into a well-known creator in the space of B2B sales. You can’t fake this kind of influence. It comes from years of consistently posting content, and staying resilient when the algorithm seems to be working against you.

And these are 3 traits of great creators in the age of AI. They have a strong POV, they have a ton of inventory, and they’ve been creating for years.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

But there’s almost always a gap between what brands are looking for and what creators can offer. And I’ll show you how to close that gap.

What’s happening now

The market of B2B influence is incredibly hot these days. I spoke with the CEO of an AI chatbot earlier this week, and he has been working with around 60 creators in the past few months. He told me that all the campaigns he had been running were incredibly successful because the ROI of working with creators is much higher than with paid ads.

This is another example of what’s happening in the market. There is not enough inventory (available creators) for the demand we’re seeing. This week only, I have received over 10 requests to work with creators.

What it means for sales creators

When I studied business at HEC Montreal, I learned about the law of supply and demand. In short, when there’s not enough supply (creators) to cover the demand, the prices go up.

And this is exactly what’s happening in the Sales Creator space. Brand are desperate to find new channels (LinkedIn, YouTube, X, newsletter, in-person, etc.) and new creators.

This means that, as a creator, you can wait for new creators to pop, and leave money on the table, or you can be proactive and build new channels (create more inventory) and capture a bigger piece of the cake.

How to position yourself (and how I can help)

The next big thing for sales creators is to address their audiences with more ways for them to engage. This means going from being on one channel (in most cases LinkedIn) to being present everywhere. I’m talking about having a newsletter, Instagram, TikTok, X, have a podcast, a webinar series, an online course, a cohort, etc.

The options are endless, but there’s one BIG problem: it takes a lot of time and resources.

That’s why I’m working on launching production offerings with The Sales Creator Collective. I want to help creators who are already successful create more inventory so I can sell more for them.

Concretely, this means working with experts who can take a single channel creator and turn them into a whole production company. One of my MVPs, Tom Slocum has done exactly that. He has a coherent offering over the following channels:

• LinkedIn

• X

• Newsletter

• Online community

• In-person event series

If you’re a sales creator and you’re already successful on one channel, I want to hear about you. Drop me a DM on LinkedIn and I’ll do a quick audit to show you what other channels you could be monetizing.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

Excuse the edits to anonymize it, but if you read through it, you see that my creator’s post directly turned into a new lead and a new customer for the brand.

And these are things brands don’t really measure, so I’m going to share some important signals to keep track of as you work with creators.

Signal 1: Profile views

When you work with creators, they are able to see who are the people who visit their profiles. The quality of the profile viewers is a great signal of influence for brands. If the profile viewers fit with their ICP, chances are that their brand will be in front of the right audience.

And this can be seen before making a decision to work with a creator. Ask for a sample of their profile viewers, as well as their demographics analytics to get an idea of the audience they have.

Signal 2: Engagement

Brand managers often focus on CPM (cost for every thousand impressions). This metric is what they use to measure the impact of their campaigns across multiple channels. However, it’s a really imperfect way to measure influence.

Reactions and comment sections are much better places to go to find out about the influence of a creator. If you’re a brand, go check the comment section of recent posts to get an idea of who’s engaging with the creator.

This gives a good early indication of the potential of a campaign.

Signal 3: DMs

Finally, the direct message section (or LinkedIn inbox) is where real influence is measured. The screen capture I shared above is exactly what brand managers are expecting when they spend money with a creator.

And as a creator, your job is to relay these conversations to brands so they can identify you as someone to keep working with.

In my opinion, DMs is what you should optimize for if you’re a brand. Creators can spark conversation with their audiences, and these conversations are much easier to turn into revenues if you compare with outbound prospecting.

Hope this was a useful read.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In fact, I’m pretty chill about it because all the other metrics that are important to measure my influence are not going down. Reactions, comments, and reshares are high, I’m getting the same amount of new followers every week as in the past, and my DMs are lighting up as much as before.

And I’m not the only one to live that. A big chunk of my 60+ creators are facing the same reality. So what’s going on with impressions? Here are 3 theories I have about this phase we’re in:

Theory 1) The algo is feeding impressions to people who need it the most

I’ve been posting every weekday since December 2019. In these almost 7 years of posting, I’ve had all types of impressions. Some phases were incredibly successful, some were incredibly hard, but the overall results were great.

Right now, LinkedIn is very hard to understand. One day your post gets 20,000+ impressions, the day after it gets 200. On top of that instability, it seems like people who post without consistency get rewarded with more impressions per post.

In my opinion, LinkedIn is sending impressions to creators who are inconsistent because it wants to incentivize them to post more. Think about it. If you’ve been posting every day, for years, the chances that you will stop posting because of a bad stretch are slim.

On the contrary, if you’ve recently started posting, LinkedIn will reward you to keep you posting. It’s actually pretty smart (if it’s intentional).

Theory 2) The space is getting too crowded

When I started posting, LinkedIn wasn’t what it is right now. There wasn’t any brand deals going on, and being a creator on LinkedIn wasn’t even a career that existed. Fast forward to 2026 and the platform is flooded with content creators trying to get a piece of the cake.

This means more people are fighting for the attention of our followers. On top of that, any 19 years old with ChatGPT can start posting content and get viral in matters of days. This type of profile has been plaguing LinkedIn for over a year, and it has had a strong impact on impressions.

Theory 3) LinkedIn wants a cut

Finally, the execs at LinkedIn have realized that brands were paying millions to creators, and they were completely left out of the transactions. That couldn’t last forever. Right now, the team at LinkedIn has hinted at a creator program they are working on, meaning they are recognizing the importance of creators on their platform.

But this means the algorithm is potentially throttling impressions for organic posts so they can get more impressions on their paid post. That’s the only way they make ad money, so it would make sense for them to do that. We’ve seen it in all other social networks, so why not LinkedIn?

What does it mean for creators?

All these changes can be really scary for creators who are making substantial amounts of money through brand partnerships. But in my opinion, it’s a blessing in disguise.

LinkedIn is a distribution channel. This means people discover content, ideas, and products, but it’s only the top of the funnel. If brands want to turn attention into dollars, they have to work with creators who are capable of creating long-form content and distribute them on their channels.

For example, you can create a long-form video, turn it into a blog post, turn this blog post into a lead magnet, and then use LinkedIn and a newsletter as your distribution channels. I call this a content bundle, and it’s one of the best way to reduce the impact of low impressions on your revenues as creators.

I believe we’re only at the beginning of a golden age for Sales Creators. But creators who only develop their LinkedIn presence are destined to disappear. The ones who diversify their channels and work with the right partner to monetize will not only survive but eat all the others and make fortunes.

And I’ll be there to help them!

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

If you know me, you know I’m really bad at turning an idea into something visually pleasing, so I hired Ada Beltran to help me build a brand kit and a logo for the collective. She helped redo my LinkedIn banner last year, and the result was amazing.

We worked on a moodboard, the values we wanted to convey with the logo and the brand identity, and a few weeks after, everything was ready.

Here are 3 key elements of the brand identity of The Sales Creator Collective:

Our Logo

Here is the logo of the Sales Creator Collective:

We came up with a Llama as the main element of the logo because it’s an animal that is quite distinctive, and it represents a few key elements of our collective:

• resilience

• community

• adaptability

In terms of colors, we picked mint green and mustard yellow because these colors convey a feeling of proximity, they are visually pleasing, and they stand out in the world of B2B sales.

Our Mascot

You’ve seen it, the Llama is the main element of our identity. We explored a few versions for our logo, but the one with the Llama was chosen by a large majority of creators in the collective.

The great thing with having an animal in your logo is that you can give it a name. I threw a few ideas in Claude AI and submitted the options to the collective:

Our mascot is named Llamador! It’s a fun play with the term “llamar” in Spanish, which means “to call” and a llama. We felt like it was a great touch for a collective of salespeople who spend a lot of time on the phone.

Our Collection (coming soon)

Finally, we’re working on building a clothing collection with our brand identity. We’ll work on a few items like a hoodie, a polo, a cap, a tote bag, and a notebook.

But unlike most corporate swag, we are working on a collection people will want to wear, not just a logo on a black t-shirt. Here are some example applications (not the final designs) that we’re working on:

Unlike most company swag, we will sell this collection. My plan is to make a drop and launch the production as soon as the drop date ends. We’re still in the planning phase, but reply to this email if you’re interested in seeing the designs when they are ready.

And this is the brand identity of The Sales Creator Collective. What do you think? Would you wear a polo or a cap with Llamador on it?

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

To be completely transparent, I had been struggling since 2024. The sales training market became completely saturated, and I was lacking a clear vision of where I wanted to go. I was accepting brand deals here and there, selling coaching sessions when I needed cash quickly, and my results were very average.

This all changed in summer 2025.

The backstory

Every summer, my little family goes to spend 2 months in Europe. We go visit our family and friends between Switzerland, South of France, and Berlin. In 2025, we had planned to spend 2 weeks in Berlin in the second half of July.

I wanted to organize a party with my friends, but I didn’t want to pay. So I thought about organizing a shooting day with a few creators I know in Berlin, so I could find some sponsors, and get them to pay for the afterparty.

I turned this idea into reality, and we organized the first sales creator content party in Berlin. We created a ton of content for our sponsors, we had a ton of fun, and we even made a small profit.

The idea

During the afterparty, I sat down and had intimate conversations with the creators who were present that day. One of them was Jan Mundorf. We knew each other for years because he joined a community I had built back in 2020, and I’d been following him from the sidelines for years.

Jan shared how time-consuming the few brand collaborations he had were, and how having someone to help manage this would help. I immediately replied, without even thinking: “I can be your agent if you’re down” and he accepted.

I had no clue what being a creator agent involved, but I had been closing and managing brand deals for myself for over 3 years, so I figured I could do it for other people too.

The execution

After the party was over, we started working with Jan. We had 1:1 sessions every week, and after a few weeks, we closed our first deal together. Then another one, another one, and so on, until we closed 5X more than what Jan had done since he started monetizing his audience.

The early traction with Jan was the validation I was looking for. Jan then recommend me to other creators, and we keep getting similar results with a big chunk of our creators:

It’s been a bit more than 6 months since I became the Sales Creator Agent and we represent 60+ sales creators, we have closed $500,000, and we have worked with brands like Lovable, Zapier, FullEnrich, and many more.

If you want the full story, I recommend joining the Full-Funnel Summit, I’ll be speaking on the 26th of March.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris