Marketing

LinkedIn Sales Navigator: 10 Ways for Your Sales Pipeline

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By Jennelle McGrath

3 min read

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the perfect tool for B2B social selling. You can use it to build relationships, get insights into your customers, and increase your opportunities exponentially.

If you haven’t been using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to grow your sales pipeline, you have been missing out! Most of the people we speak to have some version of a paid LinkedIn profile, but this particular platform is built specifically for those individuals wanting to focus on social selling.

So what is social selling and why does it matter?

Social selling is about leveraging your social network to find and connect with the right prospects, building increased trust for you and your brand, offering multiple types of touchpoint types, and closing sales faster. LinkedIn assigns a daily Social Selling Index number to your profile to keep you on track toward your social selling goals.

The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a ranking system for how effective you’re at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. As with any sales or marketing strategy, you need measurable metrics so you can quantify your progress and efforts.

The SSI is scored as a value from 0 to 100, 100 being the most complete and active. This number is based on the following four factors from LinkedIn. create a professional brand, focus on finding the right people, engage with insights, and build relationships.

Create a professional brand

Some interesting statistics from LinkedIn to motivate you are that 35% of sales reps who have a high SSI score get more page views than those that don’t. More page views may equate to more sales in the long run. LinkedIn says that 92% of B2B business leaders are more likely to engage with sales professionals sales marketing agency that are known industry thought leaders.

So what does it mean to create your professional brand? Make sure that your profile is as complete as possible so that business leaders can easily find and connect with you. It is a good LinkedIn practice to include examples of your work in multimedia to make sure they get a full scope of your brand.

Make sure to Increase your interactions and visibility by posting and interacting with others content. This can be through liking or sharing others content or posting of your own. Finally, generate endorsements and skills from colleagues and clients to build trust with your connections.

Find the right people

LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps identify and connect with more qualified prospects and helps you be more efficient with better search and research tools. Use the sales tools to narrow in on key decision makers, unlimited profile searches, and advanced search filters. Leverage warm leads to expand your network by using 2nd, 3rd and group connections.

Use the tools to research your prospects and get a full scope of their business to turn cold leads into warm prospects.

Engage with insights

Ready to get conversation worthy? So are your prospects! Create new leads and nurture saved leads by sharing noteworthy content through groups, messaging, posts, and updates. LinkedIn says that nearly 62% of B2B business owners report that they appreciate salespeople who have researched or have knowledge of their business.

LinkedIn also states that you are 70% more likely to get appointments with decision makers or a sale if you are a member of LinkedIn Groups. By posting relevant content it can help you set yourself apart as an industry expert and trusted resource. Make sure to also include newsworthy content that is relevant to current events, including articles, blog posts, and news updates.

Build relationships

Strengthen your network! LinkedIn says that 73% of B2B buyers prefer to buy from a sales professional who is referred by someone they know. They also state that 87% of B2B buyers said they would have a favorable impression of a salesperson who was a referral from someone in their professional network. The larger your network of connections the greater the reach of your 2nd and 3rd connections opening the door with additional decision makers.

You can focus on targeting senior level individuals who help with key decision making to help speed up your sales pipeline. Utilize TeamLink the LinkedIn Sales Navigator platform for teams that helps expand your reach to your team's network as well. Don’t forget that nurturing leads is just as important as making the first connection!

By having multiple touch points you can make sure you stay top of mind with your target market and keep your sales pipeline full.

So What Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

Still wondering why social selling matters?

In a LinkedIn internal study, they found a correlation between achieving sales goals and sales reps with high SSI:

45%

more sales opportunities

51%

more likely to hit quota

78%

of social sellers outsell peers who don't use social media

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LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a LinkedIn platform designed to help sales and marketing individuals connect with the right prospects. This powerful tool has a robust set of filters that can help you save countless hours with its unique algorithm that can:

Help you receive custom lead recommendations based on your LinkedIn preferences
In one click allows you to import your Salesforce data
Use advanced search parameters that offer more filters than standard LinkedIn
Track who has viewed your profile for the last 90 days and be able to proactively follow up and connect
Reach out to anyone with InMail
Offers a special edition known as Sales Navigator Team that allows you to connect with team members networks
Allows you to save leads in one place
Allows you to show all your saved leads updates in one place so you can easily stay connected and top of mind
Depending on which edition you have, it can unlock people’s profiles outside of your network connections. It allows you to save up to 3,000 leads

Here Are 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator For Growing Your Sales Pipeline

1. Complete your LinkedIn profile

Sure you have a LinkedIn profile but have you made sure it is complete? Here is a quick checklist to make sure you leave no t’s uncrossed or "i’s" undotted.

Title
Company
History
Background image
Headshot that only has you in it, refrain from using children, animals or multiple people in the image
Add your education
Fill out a full description of your current company
Add your Twitter link
Include your company website
Add your email
Add your phone number
When applicable complete the following: certifications, advice for contacting, interests, publications, projects, volunteering, patents, supported organizations, organizations, test scores, languages, honors and awards, skills/ endorsements and courses.
Join groups
Follow businesses

2. Complete your company profile

Make sure you have completed a full breakout of summary, descriptions, images, logos and help drive your team, colleagues, and clients there to follow your business.

3. Use Lead Builder for searching out prospects

With dozens of filtering options, you will have no limit to the number of new prospects you can funnel in! Be as specific as you want or cast a wider net by mixing and matching which filters you utilize. Here are some of the major filters to take full advantage of: Keywords, current companies, locations, title, function, industry, company size and company size.

For function you can select from none, all or multiples: entrepreneurship, accounting, administrative, arts and design, business development, community and social development, consulting, education, engineering, finance, healthcare services, human services, information technology, legal, marketing, media and communication, military and protective services, program and project management, purchasing, quality assurance, real estate, research, sales and support.

For seniority level, you can select none, all or multiples: owner, unpaid, training, entry, senior, manager, director, VP, CXO, and partner.

When choosing company size, you can select none, all or multiples: self-employed, 1-10, 11-50, 51-200, 201-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-5,000 and 5,001-10,000.

For industry, you can select none, all or multiples. Every industry is included, from accounting and aviation to sporting goods, wholesale, writing, and editing.

4. Save and filter leads

Leads are what the Sales Navigator deems as individual prospects.

Here is an outline of options for filtering your saved leads: current company name, relationship (1st, 2nd, groups, 3rd and everyone else), TeamLink, Location (by postal code, state, region), title, keyword, past companies, first name, last name, function, company size, company type, years in current position, years at current company, leads that follow your company, years of experience, groups, school, language, interested in, member since and headquarters.

Most of these filters also have drill downs within each that allow even more filtering options.

5. Save accounts

Accounts are companies that have company pages that can be saved as an “accounts list”. These accounts can then be broken down further to find additional decision makers within the company and allow you to stay up to date with content that the company publishes.

6. Filter your updates

Keep up with all your leads and account updates in one place. Real-time feed of posts, updates and company info. Save time by filtering only saved leads so you can make sure to like, share and read relevant content to build relationships.

7. Message through LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Stay aware of both LinkedIn Sales Navigator messages and LinkedIn messages all in one place. Keep track of all your contact with leads and be aware of when you need another touchpoint.

8. Save your searches from the Lead Builder

Don’t just perform the searches save them! When new leads come in the system will automatically update you through alerts so you can stay up to date with new opportunities. Save your searches from the lead builder and then review them at a later period to narrow them down. You can also review all recent searches and then save the best ones.

9. Join groups

Join groups that align with interests of your target markets. Also join groups that are for industry professionals to help find share worthy fresh content and stay up to date with what is new.

10. Post daily

Post updates daily. Share, like, and promote content that is relevant to your connections. The more information you share, the greater you will set yourself apart as an industry expert.

FAQs

How Does LinkedIn Sales Navigator Work?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a premium add on that essentially turns the social networking site into a deep sales platform. The networking platform currently offers three available plans to choose from, including: Sales Navigator Core, Advanced, and Advanced Plus.

Each comes with tools designed to help B2B professionals pinpoint the right decision-makers, prioritize the highest quality leads, and connect with prospects on a deeper level. But is it worth paying more to enjoy premium sales features?

Sales Navigator case studies suggest that it just might be. Forrester Consulting recently determined that Sales Navigator paid for itself in under six months and pulled in a hefty 312% ROI over the course of three years.

If you’re just interested in an individual subscription, you may find everything you need in a basic Core account. But if you’re interested in teamwide features, then an Advanced or Advanced Plus plan is likely the best choice for you.

You can take any plan for a spin by signing up for either a free trial or a demo, in the case of Advanced Plus. Once your trial ends, you’ll be automatically billed by the month, though you’re free to cancel at any time.

Why Get LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

What does LinkedIn Sales Navigator do that a free LinkedIn account doesn’t? Once you master the ins and outs of how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to generate leads, you’ll be able to enjoy several next-level features.

Let’s say you’ve signed up for a Core account and want to use it to keep your sales funnel flush with high-quality leads. Here are some of the tools you might use to help achieve your goals:

Advanced Search Features can help you cut through the noise and find the right leads with more targeted filters.
Lead and Account Recommendations can tip you off to great prospects based on anything from your activity and mutual connections to buyer interests.
Looking for the right “in” with a promising prospect? Relationship Explorer and Relationship Maps offer all the tools you need to plot a seamless path through your network connections.
Whether a key decision maker releases a new post or changes jobs, Linkedin Sales Navigator tips you off with real-time alerts designed to keep you in the loop.
Use Account Prioritization to monitor key accounts and enjoy the ability to reach out with private messaging when the time is right.

When to Get LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Ultimately, whether it’s worth making the leap to LinkedIn Sales Navigator will depend on your situation and sales cycle. But here are several telltale signs that it may be worth investigating further.

You’re in a lead generation slump. If you’re having problems finding the right leads for your offerings, then Sale’s Navigator’s game-changing features may be just the ticket.

You’re not so great with personalization. If those generic messages you’ve been sending out just aren’t cutting it, then the Sales Navigator can help with real-time alerts and insights into a prospect and their needs.

You want to streamline your sales process. Sick of wasting time on subpar leads that never seem to pan out? One of the biggest perks of Sales Navigator is its ability to help you identify the most promising leads for your efforts.

You need help keeping track of who’s who. Some sales cycles are more complex than others. This is where the Sales Navigator Teamlink feature really shines by helping you figure out the right leads to target within a company.

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