LinkedIn sales navigator is one of my favorite tools, and I use it almost hourly to gather information and prospect for new leads. It is a wealth of information, and it’s almost impossible to find someone who is not listed within its database. If you don’t have a subscription, you should see if you can expense it through your company or bite the bullet and pay for it out of pocket. The cost may seem steep, but it’s well worth the yearly subscription. Here are some ways I use it to gain a sales advantage.
1. For meeting preparation and research on prospects. I believe in sales, it’s all about preparation and having knowledge before the game begins. I leverage sales navigator before every meeting to create a pre-brief. If there are multiple people involved in my in-person meeting or Zoom call, I look at their backgrounds to prepare my talk track. Are there any alumni in the meeting? Anyone with similar backgrounds or that have worked at a company I have worked at? What are their titles rolls and work history? If they worked on projects with similar Products in the past? Are they in technology or from the business side? All of this helps to build your frame of mind for the meeting and discussion, and provide context and the ability to shift your conversation depending on role and background.
2. As an impromptu prospecting tool. In sales, we have so many small blocks of time that end up within our workday schedule. Finish meeting early, 20 minutes of open time. Many sales reps let these moments go to waste, but I focus on sales navigator during these Open time blocks. I’ll do a lead search, and send out 10 InMails, or connection requests. Building my network, and prospecting, and not letting those precious minutes go to waste.
3. For account mapping and chain of command. This is another meeting prep item and can help you research the layout of your account, as well as find the decision maker. The account view in sales navigator includes the ability to show org structure. Although it’s not perfect, you can enter your main point of contact and in most cases it will figure out his or her boss, and the reporting structure all of the line. This is not available in regular LinkedIn but can be very helpful to understand your sequence of events and who the true buyer and signer is, to bypass the gate keeper.
4. To perform fine grain lead searches. Sales navigator lead search in her face has fantastic filters and search capabilities. One of my favorite tools or filter features, is the ability to include your network as a criterion. I have about 6000 connections, and in most cases I am just one or two hops in my network structure from just about anyone I want to sell to. I can use people that I previously worked with for introductions, and even find customers that know somebody, and can refer me in. This cannot be underestimated for its power in selling, especially in enterprise accounts.
Just a quick set of tips on how you can use sales navigator to up your game, create new leads, new opportunities and leverage the wealth of information that exists in their system. Did I miss anything? Anything you use that would help the tribe? Happy selling.