Get LinkedIn Sales Navigator Guidance that is below the radar right here. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the big daddy in the LinkedIn world and it’s for serious sales professionals. Individuals can use sales Navigator or sales teams can use it. It can connect to your Salesforce.com system (if you have one) and the company can even handle centralized billing with a purchase order.
Sales Navigator is a companion product to LinkedIn, not an upgrade. Users are either in Navigator I they are in LinkedIn. Many things that you already know need to be adjusted when you enter the new “toggle world” of Sales Navigator.
Moving between LinkedIn and Navigator often leads to additional windows opening up and this can be a bit troublesome. It’s just something you need to get used to. Most browsers have a capability to skip through the browser tabs and that really helps. In Chrome on a Mac, for example, it is done with Control-tab.
LinkedIn and Sales Navigator Components
Here is how the things you may know about LinkedIn match up to Sales Navigator.
LinkedIn Navigator
Your Profile N/A
Your Network Accounts, Leads
Advanced Search Lead Builder
Companies Accounts
Company Page Company View
LinkedIn Inbox Navigator Inbox
Sales Navigator and Leads
Navigator helps you find additional “leads” at companies you are already targeting. The traditional communication tools are all there in Navigator. It also lets you engage prospects in new ways. For example, you can Find a profile in LinkedIn, View it in Navigator and then Save it as a Lead.
It brings the updates of companies (Accounts) and people (Leads) direct them to your Navigator area so you can engage them. This is very useful and it simply is not practical any other way. To visit hundreds of profiles and company pages looking for updates is not a good use of sales reps time.
Sales Navigator doesn’t really help you find NEW targets any more than LinkedIn does. Perhaps that capability will come. It might be like the Amazon.com principle – “people that looked at this book also liked these books”. Just replace the idea of a book with a company.
Sales Navigator and Salesforce.com
LinkedIn Sales Navigator elements have some counterparts with Salesforce.com. There is even some basic integration, called synchronization in “LinkedIn speak”. It’s really more of a copy or download than a sync since it only one way from Salesforce.com to Sales Navigator. This is the match up:
Salesforce.com Sales Navigator
Leads (no equivalent)
Contact Syncs to Lead
Accounts Syncs to Accounts
Social Selling
This term has as many meanings as it does people that use it. Both words are equally responsible. Social can incorporate any one of 300+ social media platforms, at least in theory. Selling can incorporate business development, advertising, marketing, partnering and lots more.
The most effective social selling programs incorporate at leas the following:
- LinkedIn – particularly premium accounts and Sales Navigator
- CRM systems – most notably Salesforce.com, but including others
- Tools – those that aid in the selling process, often marketing-related
- Content – the “honeypot” designed to get their attention
- Twitter – a tool to get the word out, especially content
There a number of other aspects that can come into play and many depend on the industry you are in and your target accounts.
Getting help
If you would like some help improving your sales operations with or without LinkedIn Sales Navigator, reach out to Mike at Training@IntegratedAlliances.com