Update Your LinkedIn Sales Navigator Best Practices

LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be a great tool. But you may be sabotaging the chance to start conversations with prospects. And it's not your fault. Misconceptions about best practices are causing many sellers to sabotage their diligent efforts — resulting in fewer conversations started with prospects. A "best practice" depends on many factors. Mainly this one: By time it's considered "best" it is no longer best. Because everyone is doing it results are weaker! How are sellers using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to set more and better meetings? Here are a few emerging best practices you need to know about. Building a Target List The most effective sellers use Sales Navigator as: their only research tool to target & identify companies & target contacts … to develop a list from scratch a primary tool — adding profile data from various other sources (e.g., purchased lists with email and direct-dial phone information) a secondary research tool — using purchased data or proprietary "house" lists as primary… supplementing with LinkedIn profile data (to qualify leads) Beware: The days of using LinkedIn for sales prospecting, at no cost, are gone. You no longer have choice. Since acquiring LinkedIn, Microsoft has clamped-down on free users … hard. I’m not a fanboy, so here’s why purchasing LinkedIn Sales Navigator is required: Search filters. You need them. Sure you’ll get a few using the free version of LinkedIn. But you’ll be hard-pressed to make LinkedIn’s database search filters spit back quality leads for you. For example, need to search for companies based on their size? Yup. You’ll need to invest. Access. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is required if you need unfettered access to LinkedIn's database of prospects. Truth is, if you want to search for prospects and view profiles, for more than a few hours, you must pay to play. LinkedIn restricts free users ability to search for and view profiles. It’s called a “commercial search limit” and believe me you’ll hit it … quickly. You’ll be stopped and asked to invest. In pre-Microsoft years it took a while to get cut-off from searching companies and viewing contacts’ profiles. Today, LinkedIn demands you slap down a charge card in short time. Want to search the database? Want to view profiles of your targets? Do so using the free LinkedIn. But believe me … take your credit card out of your wallet. Set it on your desk. You’ll be reaching for it. Investing in Sales Navigator is no longer a decision-point for sellers using LinkedIn. It’s mandatory. Sorry! Of course, there are other very good data sources to consider investing in too. The Truth About InMail Decision makers are less-and-less receptive to receiving messages on LinkedIn. Still, most sellers use InMail and connection requests as a primary communications tool. However, this is no longer a best practice, not recommended in most B2B sales environments. InMail is best applied as part of a multi-pronged approach. (email, phone/voicemail, InMail, direct mail, etc.) Thus, InMail is not a big value-add, nor why sellers invest in LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Nor is it a secret weapon to get more and better conversations started with prospects. InMail can be used productively but it has serious disadvantages to consider. Overall, Linkedin is weakening as a communications platform — all while the company builds an image as the premier "social" sales tool. This weakening isn't my opinion — it's the accumulated experience of our customers. People like you. My sales team (and our clients' teams) report decision-makers becoming less-and-less responsive. In all B2B industry sectors? No. In most? Yes. Increasingly. Some blame the "Facebook-ization" of LinkedIn. Bottom line: Decision-makers are increasingly less receptive to receiving messages on LinkedIn. Quick analysis of LinkedIn's public discussions about user base stats and you'll see it too. Access to the LinkedIn database (and use of targeting filters) is the primary reason to invest. LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Your CRM Most organizations (large or small) use their CRM to track "Navigator sourced leads." This helps you understand how many deals flow from contacts leaning (fully or partially) on data found on LinkedIn and Company profiles. Beyond this simplistic level of tracking most organizations do not track a hard ROI on Sales Navigator; instead treating it as a cost of doing business. (a line item expense) Buying Navigator is like buying any other kind of list to call from. (except this is on a subscription basis) However, many organizations do wish to understand how many leads are being pulled from LinkedIn’s database — and how many of those leads actually close. This helps one understand quality of leads from LinkedIn overall … assuming a level of sales rep proficiency, of course. The most effective sellers also do not use Sales Navigator as a CRM itself beyond temporary storage of leads. Most sellers choose to move contact and company profile data sourced within LinkedIn into their CRM or sales automation tool of choice — then pursue the lead. Other Worthwhile Research Tools Research is truly LinkedIn's most valuable deliverable to you. That said, data on LinkedIn is supplied by users. Thus, it's accuracy is only as good as the user provides. Navigator's "Business Insights" feature is a popular way to monitor useful news & info about target contacts & companies. Thus, this best practice remains. While Google Alerts and other services offers similar monitoring LinkedIn’s Business Insights feature brings this into a centralized stream within Navigator. “Headcount growth by function” and “Total job openings by department” are two very useful Sales Navigator data sets. These allows sellers to see where within an organization current investment (budget growth) activity is taking place---and is planned to take place in immediate term---from a personnel perspective. Research is LinkedIn's strongest value to sellers. What do you see changing lately? What best practices do you experience as being ineffective these days? And which are emerging as a better practice?

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Update Your LinkedIn Sales Navigator Best Practices

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Jeff Molander

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