24 Tips on What LinkedIn Sales Navigator is & How to Use it

I remember when I was a kid I used to go to a nearby store with my parents to get some snacks. I once saw a man carrying a bunch of product samples, mostly chocolates, and come to the shop. He asked the shop owner if he could give the samples for a very small price to see if they would sell.

They were delicious so they sold fast. Naturally, the shopkeeper phoned the man for more products and he placed an order for more.

Such was the B2B sales landscape a few years back. Sales pitches were more in-person and finding leads was extremely tiresome and hard. 

But the times have changed, with the internet and mobile phones we have switched to a digital landscape.

Although this has technically made it easy for sales reps to contact businesses it gave rise to new problems. New problems like finding qualified leads, converting those leads, and staying ahead of the competition in the digital world.

All problems have solutions, right? The solution to these problems is in the form of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, an amazing tool that can elevate your sales game.

What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a deep sales platform offered by LinkedIn that is specifically designed for sales reps. It allows them to improve their sales process by providing advanced features that let them easily contact the millions of users available on the LinkedIn network for increasing sales in the B2B sector.

Benefits of LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn sales navigator is a game changer in the sales world so it is obvious that the benefits are numerous. I’ll try and list down some of the most popular ways it can be beneficial to your sales process starting with how it can help you generate quality leads.

Easily generate quality leads through advanced search

LinkedIn has millions of users, making it a rich source of quality leads. LinkedIn sales navigator has unlimited search features that let you scour the networks for the perfect leads for your business.

LinkedIn sales navigator also has advanced searching capabilities that let you use the 30-plus filters it has to search for leads that fit the requirements of your ideal prospect.

Easy organization of leads

After finding those leads LinkedIn lets you save those leads. These saved leads can be arranged and organized as you please. If you need to share your lead lists with your team or keep a record, you can easily export to CSV from Sales Navigator. This can also be integrated with a CRM to make it easy to manage the leads.

Activity tracking for enhanced conversion

Finding leads is just the first step; converting them is the hard part. LinkedIn sales navigator also helps you increase your conversion rates. It tracks the activities of all your saved leads and informs you about them. 

If your lead completes a certificate or wins an award you get a notification and you can message them to congratulate them thus providing an opportunity to build a great relationship.

The constant monitoring and alerts inform you of the perfect time to reach out to increase the chances of conversion.

Easy contacting features

LinkedIn is a professional networking platform so it also means that you get to contact your leads easily within the platform itself. Be it through their Inmail feature or the direct messaging feature contacting your leads is extremely easy with LinkedIn.

To sweeten the deal you can integrate LinkedIn with a CRM like Zixflow. This would ensure that when the lead comes into your CRM pipeline you can still take advantage of the quick contact ability. Zixflow makes sure of this by giving you all the contact channels for your leads in one place which you can access with a single click.

Mobile app

Mobile apps are the trend when it comes to any software be it the top WhatsApp marketing tools or the best B2B sales CRMs, all software has a mobile app. The same goes for the LinkedIn sales navigator as well, with the mobile app you can find, contact, engage, and convert leads on the go.

How to make the most of the LinkedIn sales navigator for sales- 24 tips!

Now that you know what the LinkedIn sales navigator is and how it can be beneficial to you let me tell you how to make the most of this tool to boost your sales.

Search your heart out

LinkedIn sales navigator understands that you can’t find your perfect leads with a single search. It provides unlimited searches that let you generate different types of sales leads that can convert into paying customers.

So don’t stop searching, always be on the lookout for new potential leads to ensure a boost in your revenue.

Make use of advanced search

Let’s say you are a marketing agency startup in New York looking to get in touch with small local companies that might need your services. With LinkedIn sales navigator’s advanced filters, you can filter your search based on company size, location, and average revenue to find the leads that best fit your requirements.

With the advanced filters, you can ensure that you find the right leads for your business that convert. This eliminates the time you might spend searching through the thousands of leads who probably won’t respond.

Use sales preference

Setting your preference every time you search can be hard and time-consuming so to save time use the sales preference feature.

Using the sales preference feature you can create a template for your search filters. You can choose from the filters like keywords, industry, company, company type, past company, geography, and more. You can then save this to use in your future search.

Save your leads

Even when you search for leads using the advanced filters you might receive plenty of contacts. In that case, it will be hard for you to click each contact and mail or message them. So a great way to get back to those leads is to save them. Quickly glance through the leads on the results page and click on save.

This would save all your leads in one place where you can further filter and message them whenever you want.

Connect with your CRM

Let’s say you now have plenty of leads saved it gets hard to manage them. LinkedIn sales navigator allows you to organize them but linking your leads with a CRM can be just the change that can elevate your conversion game. 

LinkedIn allows you to automatically upload your leads to a CRM from where you can track all your sales processes and engage effectively with your leads to enhance the chances of conversions.

Remember to choose a CRM like Zixflow that offers complete customizability to store, organize, and manage all the leads in the way you prefer.

Uploading your book of business

A book of business is the list of clients or accounts your business manages on LinkedIn. Uploading this can help you identify which accounts have the most buyer intent, determine the next best action, and make personalized outreach messages.

You can do this by heading to the homepage then to the book of business section selecting your current accounts then click upload.

Personalize your message with the shared experience filter

Personalizing your message can be the key difference in converting your leads. You can get information about your leads from their LinkedIn account and using the shared experience filter. This filter highlights the leads with similar interests as you which can be a great conversation starter.

You can also click on the profiles to gain valuable information that you can use to personalize your messages. If you integrate with CRMs like Zixflow you use the Zixflow AI to automatically generate personalized engaging messages in the tone you like with a single click.

Connect with the decision-makers

Imagine you run a baking company, and you run into someone who works at a cafe. You might deliver the best sales pitch to sell your bread to him but it would be of no use. He has no say in deciding the bread supplier of the cafe as he is just an employee there.

To avoid such a situation you can use the advanced people filters when you search to see only the people who have the decision-making power of the company. Through this, you can ensure that you are talking with someone who has the power to buy from you.

Go beyond your network

LinkedIn sales navigator has an unlock feature that lets you view and connect with profiles out of your network. This is a great way to further expand your network with a click.

You are provided with 25 unlocks per month that is 25 new connections out of your network which is key to building a great presence on LinkedIn. 

Timely interaction with the posted feature

The posted filter on LinkedIn shows the people who have recently posted. Using this filter you can quickly connect with the person or company who posted through comments. This builds engagement and familiarity which can be vital in converting your prospects.

When time is money in sales this can be a great way to build relationships with leads to facilitate relationship selling.

Look for “Posted Content Keywords”

This filter allows you to look for people who have posted about a specific keyword that fits your niche. This means that they are a perfect match for your business and personalization just got a whole lot easier.

Imagine you are a wildlife photo editor who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit photos. If you filter your search with keywords like ‘wildlife photography’, and ‘adobe photo editor’ you would get all the people who fit into your niche.

Narrow down to the maximum extent with boolean operators

Sales Navigator lets you narrow down your results to the maximum extent with the boolean operators. With these, you can find exactly the people you are looking for.

There are four main operators that you can use.

Quotes

With this you put a word, a job title for example in quotes and the results will only show people with that exact word on their profile. For example, writing “Marketing head” will only show people with marketing head on their profile.

AND

With the AND search, you can get a profile that matches two words, for example, “associate director AND sales head”. This would give you a list of profiles who are both associate directors and sales heads at the same time.

NOT

Using the not operator would mean you exclude the profiles with that specific word. For example, if you search “Founder NOT Co-Founder” you will get all the profiles with Founder on them which excludes Co-Founder.

OR

You can use OR to search for profiles with one or more terms in the profile. For example, searching “Executive OR Director” would give profiles with terms like Executive or Director in them.

You can also use something called a parenthetical search which is basically a complex version of these operators combined together. For example, searching CEO and (Founder NOT Co-Founder) would give you profiles that have the terms CEO and Founder in them but no Co-Founder.

Build valuable content

Yes there are different types of emails that you can send to build sales engagement. However, an easy way to build engagement with a large number of people is through LinkedIn posts.

Let your profile show that you are an expert in your industry. One of the best ways to do this is by writing and sharing LinkedIn articles and blog posts. If you regularly post content that is valuable to your prospects, they are more likely to accept your request and continue the conversation.

If you want to get the maximum out of posting content you must post quality content regularly, to make your management process easier you can assign tasks for content creation to your teammates with Zixflow and track them to be updated at all times.

The built-in mechanism for saving the prospects

You may not realize it, but Sales Navigator has a built-in mechanism for saving the prospects you find in your searches. Start by choosing the button labeled “LeadBuilder” located right next to the search bar. From there, use all the search tips mentioned above. Save prospects and you will see them in your newsfeed in the future. This makes it easier to track updates. 

Make more friends with view similar

You can get an entirely new set of prospective leads with the view similar feature. This feature when clicked will display a list of leads with similar job titles and roles who can also fit your ideal lead profile.

To take advantage of this feature simply click the drop-down button on the lead and click view similar to view similar lead to that specific lead.

Save time with outreach email templates

When you use the view similar feature you end up with leads that are similar. So creating a new custom personalized message is time-consuming and unnecessary. You can use the available email template on Zixflow, or use the Zixflow AI to create a custom personalized email template with just a click.

This way you can save plenty of time and ensure that you are consistently following the best techniques for sales engagement.

Be familiar with LinkedIn InMails

InMail is similar to direct messages or emails. LinkedIn lets you send emails directly to your leads from the platform itself. With this, you don’t need to search for the lead’s email ID and then which software to mail them saving you valuable time.

Remember your subject is key to getting a high open rate so having a creative subject and personalized content is key to enhancing conversion rates.

Remember InMail is a premium feature that lets you connect with people beyond your connections so put it to good use. 

InMails and Groups

Once you have a Sales Navigator account, put your higher LinkedIn InMail limits to good use by making the most of groups. Groups give you an excellent conversation starter and an excuse to connect with people. Just look for a group that your prospects are likely to be in and then get started.

Keep the basics in check

Yes, these amazing tips can elevate your outreach efforts but always remember to manage your inbound leads. Look for new connection requests accept and connect with them. Make regular high-quality posts to engage effectively. Just keep the basics in check.

Improve your profile

Be sure to set up your profile before you start reaching out to prospects manually or with LinkedIn outreach automation. Remember that prospects will likely look at your profile before they accept or respond to your connection request. Follow all the best practices to make your profile professional, informative, and interesting. The most basic things to include are: 

• A professional headshot.
• A concise headline that shows your value proposition.
• Simple to find contact information.
• A clear job title.
• A summary including keywords. 
• Detailed experience and work history.
  

Art strong subject lines

Your subject line is one of the first things your prospects see so keeping it inviting and personalized is key to get those open rates up. You can grab their attention with emojis, mentioning their name, asking them a question or even telling them to do a simple task for example “answer with a simple Yes or no”.

Keep your message short and sweet

There are plenty of rules for sales engagement that you need to follow to build great customer relationships, one such rule is to keep your message short and personalized. 

When you write a message, keep it short and sweet. This applies when you automate LinkedIn connections, send text messages, send emails, or reach out in any other way. Your messages should be free from fluff, and straight to the point, personalized, and interesting.

Warm up your profile

Imagine this, Jake a sales executive just got a sales navigator account, he created a new profile and jumped straight in by sending 100 outreach messages requests, and InMails every day. A few days later Jake’s account got flagged. 

This is a common mistake most do, to avoid this warm up your profile first. Build healthy connections, and start slow at the beginning. This will avoid flags due to approaching or going over the LinkedIn message limit. 

One of the best ways to get the maximum out of the LinkedIn sales navigator is through the mobile app. The the busy modern day world it is not possible for you to sit in front of your PCs the whole day searching and engaging with leads.

Using the mobile app would mean you can do all this on the go, and when you get an alert for your lead’s activity you can quickly send a message as you would have your phone with you almost always.

Generate your leads with LinkedIn Sales Navigator 

If you’re searching for the best methods to grow sales, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a true goldmine for that. You won’t find a more powerful channel to connect with the right people than on LinkedIn.

You have just seen the major benefits and tips of Sales Navigator and the best ways of using it. Now it’s time to make the most of it for sales on LinkedIn.

On this road, integrating with a CRM like Zixflow can help you elevate your sales game to the next level. So why wait? Sign up with Zixflow and get going on your path to success with LinkedIn sales navigator.