Your Ultimate Guide to Sales Navigator - Part One

Which version is right for you and best practices you need to know.

Whether you signed up for LinkedIn to grow your network, pivot into a new career, or explore new opportunities, LinkedIn Basic (their free service) is a perfect jumping-off point to grow professionally. Still, like with anything, those free services are limited in their capabilities. For example, LinkedIn’s basic service has a limited number of searches you’re allowed each month, so if you’re using the search bar to find new leads, you may be stopped in your tracks, preventing you from reaching the goals you set for yourself.

Furthermore, once this occurs, you will be unable to contact people until the 1st of the following month. If you do not want to be bound by these limitations, you must update your LinkedIn membership. 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a natural next step if you want to go further with your outreach campaign. As LinkedIn continues to expand and roll out new valuable features for its users, professionals can always stay current, maximizing their LinkedIn experience.

If you find yourself asking if Sales Navigator is worth the investment, we are here to say absolutely (in many cases)! This article will touch on the benefits of subscribing to Sales Navigator and how to use the many resources that come with the membership.   

To begin, let’s examine this premium service that LinkedIn offers. 

Sales Navigator is a paid subscription that LinkedIn provides for individuals, teams, and enterprises. By subscribing to Sales Navigator, professionals receive advanced search capabilities, extended contact networks, personalized algorithms that reach a targeted audience, personal recommendations, alerts, etc.

Additionally, Sales Navigator can integrate with several preferred CRM programs such as HubSpot, Outreach, and Salesforce, making it easier for companies to manage their pipeline and track their sales data. Essentially, Sales Navigator is a streamlining tool that professionals can use to improve how they generate new leads, make connections, and drive conversions.

When should you consider switching to Sales Navigator?

✅ You frequently run into roadblocks set up by LinkedIn’s commercial use limits.

✅ You want to leverage your network and accomplish more in less time.

✅ You would prefer a more direct, tailored experience to weed through prospects, producing targeted leads. 

✅ Improving your visibility is one of your goals.

✅ You want to get a leg up on your competition. 

LinkedIn sales leaders report seeing 42% better deals, 17% more sales closed, and 15% more leads when using Sales Navigator. 

You already use LinkedIn to showcase your best professional attributes; why not maximize the value LinkedIn provides you, your business, and your team using Sales Navigator? 

Once you have decided to subscribe to LinkedIn’s premium service, you must further determine what tier will best suit your needs. Below we list the 3 Sales Navigator tiers and a brief description. 

Core: This tier is geared towards professionals working independently. The top features that the core plan offers include: 

Advanced: If your goal to increase productivity includes a team, this may be your tier. The top features that the Advanced plan offers include: 

• Everything from Core

Advanced Plus: This is the best Sales Navigator level that LinkedIn offers. By connecting a company’s CRM, this tier permits enterprises to strengthen the efficacy of their data. When you enroll in the Advanced Plus plan, you get: 

• Everything from the Core and Advanced tiers

• Annual Cost: Varies-Must contact LinkedIn to discuss your requests

• Month-to-Month Cost: Varies-Must contact LinkedIn to discuss your requests

*It is important to note that LinkedIn offers a 1-month free trial for Core and Advanced, and you can request a demo for the Advanced Plus tier. 

Getting Started:

First and foremost, you will want to be sure that you know exactly who your target audience is and the location you want to target. You will need to consider (when applicable) individuals, companies, and geographical location. Otherwise, with more than 800 million users worldwide, you can get overwhelmed quickly.

Home Page: 

Once you have signed up for your subscription and have your target audience nailed down, you will want to set aside time to explore Sales Navigator and all it offers, beginning with the Home Page.

The Home Page is where you will find essential information related to suggestions and leads tailored to your wants and needs. 

About the Home Page

➡️ Focusing specifically on the highlighted blue alerts in the middle of the page, you will scroll through to view insights on new prospects. We consider this the main focus because, much like a LinkedIn feed, this area will keep you up to date on the happenings of the companies and individuals with which you have targeted. You will want to regularly interact with these postings to develop a strong network and get your name known to be on par with reaching your goals. 

* Note you can customize the alerts that you see by clicking on the All-Alerts button located in the right corner. 

➡️ On the lower right corner of your Sales Navigator homepage, you will see a section that reads, Your Sales Navigator Coach. This feature allows you to complete actions to measure your Sales Navigator mastery level. By giving you tips on how to best leverage Sales Navigator, the platform coaches you on how to meet your goals using Sales Navigator. The mastery levels include Beginner, Intermediate, Proficient, Advanced, and Expert. 

➡️ In the upper right corner click on your profile picture and scroll down to Who's Viewed Your Profile; you will be able to see the number of viewers you have received in the past 90 days. If you click on the number, you can see which profiles have noticed you. This is a remarkable feature for Sales Navigator users, as it allows you to see who your message is reaching. You can then take this information to tailor your advertising efforts further or personally reach out to those you’d like to target. 

➡️ Lists/Saved Searches is where you can find all the lists you created when saving people or companies. We will dive into this deeper later in the article. 

➡️ You will find the Jump back in feature on the right side of your homepage. Precisely what it sounds like, this is a fabulous feature that LinkedIn offers that allows you to pick up where you last left off. Sales Navigator is about improving how professionals use their time to meet their goals faster. It sounds like a win to me!

➡️ Sales Navigator Inbox is where you can find the Sales Navigator specific InMail that you sent out to your targeted audience. You can learn more about InMail below. 

➡️ Recommended Leads is an AI-generated feature based on your set sales preferences. Once again, LinkedIn puts the icing on the cake by engineering features that allow professionals to reach possibilities that were not previously on their radar.

KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR PART 2 FOR NEXT-LEVEL INFORMATION!

The Moving Forward Newsletter is a bi-weekly advice column by Kim Peterson Stone, the CEO of Linkability.us where we give you a peek behind the curtains into what it takes to put together campaigns that help you grow your business and career on LinkedIn and in Real Life. 

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