Sales Nav - Is it Worth It?
Laura Hannan
CEO | LinkedIn Enthusiast & Strategist | Enjoys sales & marketing, dog walks & dancing
Sales Navigator is full of awesome features, a lot of them are shiny and new! So if you or your team use Sales Navigator, here’s how you can get your money's worth.
Full disclosure- I am not connected with LinkedIn and have no commission from them. I have been a daily Sales Navigator user for many years, and I simply value it as a tool.
Sales Navigator is like a Sat Nav.
Knowing what to do on LinkedIn is like having a map to where you’re going. Sales Navigator is like having a Sat Nav.
It makes you more efficient IF you use it fully.
Many sales people I train on Sales Navigator are missing the best features.
They typically use it as a directory and for Inmails.
However, this is where they are missing a trick. It's not just about finding decision-makers; it's about efficient networking, nurturing leads and being timely with your engagement
It’s not cheap, so make full use of it and get your money’s worth!
I think the best bit of Sales Navigator is;
👉The Homepage ‘All alerts’
This is the heart of Sales Navigator. Offering curated insights into your saved connections' activities, creating meaningful engagement opportunities.
A lot of the things I'll mention later, get pulled into the homepage.
Use the Homepage to keep track of people that you've saved - see their activity, have they accepted your connection request, viewed your proposal, started following your company page, moved jobs etc.
To make the most of the Homepage use Filters.
Change the view so it is only a group of similar leads saved into a leadlist and/or the same kinds of activities together.
This means if you are wanting to engage on your pipeline’s posts, filter=
lead list = Pipeline leads;
activity = leads shares
If you want to find new decision makers at target accounts filter =
Account list = targets
Activity = new decision makers
NOTE: If you haven't saved the leads, then their activities won't come up on the homepage. The same is true with accounts as well.
There can be a bit of confusion about what is a saved lead and what is a saved search.
A saved lead or account is an actual person or company that you have saved to your Sales Navigator and preferably into a list.
A saved search is where you're saving the filters in order to find a list of leads or a list of accounts. When you save a search, (which is a very useful thing to do), you're actually saving the filters and so the people and companies that drop into it willl be dynamic.
My First Top Tip with Sales Navigator...
...is get some really quite intricate searches, get exactly the right sorts of people coming up in the search, then, save those.
You can go back to them later and then save the people and companies into lists and they'll turn up on your homepage.
Remember, just because the people turned up when you did a saved search into that list, they won't turn up onto your homepage until you actually save them into lists.
Top Tip Number Two
Strategic Engagement: Instead of directly reaching decision-makers, engage with active LinkedIn users who work in the right companies and departments of your decision makers.
Sales Navigator has a handy filter which shows who has posted in the last 30 days. Aim to engage and connect with active users first, and then when you do go to connect with your decision makers, they're more likely to connect because you have connections in common.
Team Link has been around for a while- but it’s improved.
Team Link allows you to view your colleagues' connections within Sales Navigator.
There are two types: executive Team Link connections and regular Team Link connections.
To have executive connections, add colleagues to your Sales Navigator contract, enabling the ability to share lead and account lists.
Regular Team Link includes all non-paying LinkedIn users in your company, accessible by sending requests from Sales Navigator to colleagues.
NOTE: Verification as an employee is necessary, and it only works within your company.
Recommended by LinkedIn
How I would put this into practice is like this;
I leverage my colleagues’ first-degree connections at target accounts and also connect. My connection rate goes through the roof..
Then I start my own conversation with them.
Smart Links for Tracking
Use Smart Links for detailed insights into how your proposals are being viewed and tailor your follow-ups accordingly, with the added benefit of tracking via the LinkedIn profile so you see who exactly viewed what and when.
It's particularly good for videos because they can be quite big files, but on LinkedIn, the video will just play in the browser.
It can tell you if your proposal is doing the rounds and you can see which colleagues have looked at it.
Account Page IQ
Account page IQ is really great for insights and intelligent sales approaches. If a company has 500 employees or more, you can access information about their Strategic Goals and Challenges based on LinkedIn and 3rd party data.
This info is all conveniently accessible via LinkedIn, a real timesaver.
A new feature in Sales Navigator is Outreach
Providing insights into messages and activities between you and individuals in a specific organisation. Despite a minor tech glitch, this feature holds immense potential for account-specific tasks.
Additionally, the Personas feature allows you to create a comprehensive persona by selecting from predefined job titles, streamlining lead searches.
Buyer Intent
Buyer Intent is a cutting-edge feature, gauges interest in your company through profile views, website interactions, showing whether there is interest in your company, or in your product category. It is an ideal fit for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies
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Watch the Sales Navigator LinkedIn Live Video
- Best and Newest Features
LinkedIn Academy Course: Dive deeper into Sales Navigator with my comprehensive course.
There’s a two week trial period available on sign up BUT if you fancy a FULL MONTH of FREE FESTIVE ACCESS, then NOW is the time to get in touch and I will reply with a coupon code, no credit card required.
If all of this sounds like hard work to you, and you’d like it all ‘done for you’, drop me a DM and we can talk about that.
Happy to learn more? Attend my LinkedIn Lives!
Watch past LinkedIn Lives here;
Talking about dates- don't forget to check out my Academy Content Calendar, which is regularly updated.
#LinkedInWithLaura
Laura Hannan is Co Founder of Pitch121, a LinkedIn Profile Management Service making you the obvious choice for your clients, prospects and partners.
The Profile Based Marketing Academy from Laura Hannan is designed to help you stay on top of LinkedIn. Keeping you updated with everything you need to know to leverage LinkedIn for sales and marketing.
Here's wishing you all the best for what's left of 2023, and here's hoping for a successful 2024.
Best wishes,
Laura
So many use cases with sales navigator! Thank you so much. Extract search results is always so time consumming for sales people
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1yLaura Hannan signed up to the LinkedIn tips as I find your tips always hit the mark.
Dad- Husband - Watch Lunatic - Poor Conversationalist
1yIf I see Graham Pugh comment on something it generally worth it. or at least entertaining, this is defiantly something I'm glad ended up on my radar.
Sustainability and brand consultant -helping purpose-driven businesses impact faster I NED I Author of The Fashion Switch and ALIGN methodology I Public Speaker Universities V&A BBC I Artist
1yVery helpful as ever! Thanks
CEO of ADAMAPP | Trailblazing tech products. Without the hiccups
1yI am using Sales Navigator regularly, so thank you so much for the tips, Laura; it will make it more efficient.