Mastering Sales Navigator: The 3 Essential Features for Sales Success

LinkedIn's Sales Navigator is a powerful tool designed for generating new business. There are many features on Sales Navigator, which once you have learned the fundamentals of the platform are extremely useful, however, when you first start on the platform they can be more of a distraction. There are three key features of Sales Navigator that if you understand and utilise effectively will provide you with the foundations for your sales success.

In this article, I will offer an in-depth look at these three fundamental features and provide practical tips for leveraging them to their fullest potential.

1. Advanced Search: Precision Targeting

One of the main strengths of Sales Navigator lies in its advanced search capabilities. Sales Navigator, unlike the search on LinkedIn.com, has 2 searches - account (companies) and lead (people) filters. This combination enables those responsible for sales to zero in on the best prospects to target. So, whether you target accounts or individuals in specific jobs, you can find exactly who you need to engage with.

Account Search Filters

The ‘Accounts filters’ search is used for finding companies. Use the filters to help you find the best companies to target. Think about which filters are best to almost pre-qualify them as an opportunity.

You can find companies based on their size through either their ‘Annual revenue’ or ‘Company headcount’. This can be very useful for those that work with large companies, or have an ideal size of company they work with.

If you work with particular industries, there are now 434 different industries to choose from, so add the industry sectors you want to target.

'Department headcount' and 'Department headcount growth' may be useful as knowing what size a department is and whether it's growing or shrinking can present opportunities. For example, your service may fill a gap in a small or shrinking department.

All in all, there are 15-17 account search filters (depending on which account you have), so finding the specific accounts you want to target is covered.

Once you have the accounts you want to target, adding them to lists is a great way to organise them. Once in lists they can be included or excluded from the 'Account filters' and 'Lead filters' searches.

Lead Search Filters

Finding the 'best' people to focus on within your existing network (1st connections) and finding your 'best' future network (2nd and 3rd+ connections) is critical. The more time and effort you put into this will pay dividends over time. Increasing the % of the 'best' people in your search to get super targeted and niche right down will increase your relevancy and the likely returns you will gain from your time and efforts.

Within the Lead filters search, there are 34-38 filters you can use, depending on which account you have.

The number 1 filter that everyone should use is the ‘Current Job Title’. Identifying the job titles of the key stakeholders is critical to your success on LinkedIn and Sales Navigator. Think about who is the person that is emotionally invested in the success your product or services bring. These are the 'best' people to reach out to as they have the most to gain (or lose). Unlike the LinkedIn.com search, you can add or exclude many job titles, and add long Boolean searches to help you get super specific.

The second most popularly used filter is ‘Geography’. Which locations you target can be crucial. Generally, the people most likely to work with you are local to you. Within the 'Geography' filter, there’s the ability to add locations, add regions or be very specific via a postal code (zip code) and within an area radius of that postal code, which enables you to find very local people to target.

Other filters included are categorised under ‘Company’, ‘Role’, ‘Personal’, ‘Buyer intent’, ‘Best path in’, ‘Recent updates’ and ‘Workflow’. Select the filters that help you zero in on the best people. It should be noted that if you have added Industry and Company Headcount in your account search, you shouldn’t add it in the lead one as well. You will lose some of your ideal target prospects. ?

As mentioned in the Account Search Filters, you can include or exclude account and leads lists in your search to help you focus on which companies and which people you want to focus your efforts on and whom you want to ensure you exclude.

Leveraging both account and lead filters effectively can save an immense amount of time and effort, ensuring your search results align closely with your ideal target prospects.

Saved Searches and Alerts

Another crucial aspect of the search feature on Sales Navigator is the ability to save searches and set up alerts. Once you have set up your searches, you can save this search to avoid re-entering the criteria every time. Additionally, you can set up alerts to receive notifications when new prospects enter the search, keeping you alerted of new potential clients.?

2. Lists: Organise and Prioritise Your Prospects

Lists within Sales Navigator are a feature that are used to segment, organise and manage your accounts and leads effectively. Companies or people are put in groups based on specific criteria. Lists are versatile and can be used for pretty much anything you want. The possibilities are endless.

Use in Search

As we have seen in the Advanced Search section above, adding accounts or leads to lists is a great way to organise them and once in the lists they can be included or excluded from the 'Account filters' and 'Lead filters' searches. This enables you to include companies in a search (along with your chosen filters), or filter them out completely too (exclude) so you don't accidentally target them.

Sales Navigator Generated Lists

Within Lead lists there are a number that are generated by Sales Navigator called the System Generated Lists. There are 3 lists that every account gets: 'Recently accepted connections and InMails', 'Recommended Leads' and 'New Executives at Saved Accounts'. The Advanced Plus account has an additional 3 called: 'Contacts Who Have Left Open Opportunities', My CRM Leads and Contacts, and 'Past Customers at New Companies'.

In addition to these 3/6 lists, there is also a list that gets automatically added to your lead lists called Saved on LinkedIn.com: This is a lead list that contains those whom you visit on LinkedIn.com and click the button 'Save in Sales Navigator' get saved to. It is a default Sales Navigator lead list, but not classed as a System Generated list. This list is one I don't use because I would rather put my leads into custom lists. To avoid adding your contacts to this list, when on LinkedIn.com, click on the button 'More' and then 'View in Sales Navigator' and add them to whatever custom list you want.

Custom Lists

Custom Lists are the lists created by you. They can help you to segment accounts and leads in whichever list and anyway you want. Popular lists include:

Target Accounts - add the companies you are targeting each quarter or on an ongoing basis into lists. The Head of Sales can allocate lists of companies to the sales team and share these lists (only available in Advanced and Advanced Plus).

Clients - these can be further segmented by what services they have taken.

Excluded - Not all companies will need your services e.g. some do it in-house.

When we work with our clients, we create a whole structure of lead lists to help them to be able to fully segment their audience so they have focus, sales intelligence and are relevant in their outreach.

Leveraging Notes

As well as using lists in a structured way, using notes is extremely important. Adding notes helps you keep track of interactions, preferences, and other critical information about each prospect. This enables personalized follow-ups and a more tailored sales approach.

3. Alerts: Keep Informed with Timely Insights

Sales Navigator alerts are one of the most powerful opportunities we have available to us to identify direct activity and content that our accounts are creating that helps us to engage with them in ways that are relevant to them.

Staying informed about your prospects is crucial for timely and relevant engagement. Sales Navigator's alert feature ensures you never miss important updates about your leads and accounts.

Types of Alerts

Account and Lead alerts are accessed on the home page and show you the alerts for your saved accounts and leads. Alerts are insights that provide you with opportunities to gather intelligence, build relationships, and can be an effective way of starting sales conversations.

• Account alerts

Account alerts include: 'Account growth', 'Account Updates', 'Suggested Leads' and 'Account Risk', which are useful. However, the two I find most useful are 'Buyer Intent' and 'New Decision Makers'.

Buyer Intent: this alert identifies leads from a saved account that is showing interest in your company. These are triggers to reach out with a relevant message and to start a conversation.

New Decision Makers: this alert identifies saved accounts that have hired a new employee into a director-level position or above. Depending on who it is, this may indicate a change in direction and a new set of initiatives that are coming. Check out who it is and whether this is an opportunity for you.

• Lead Alerts

Account alerts include: 'Career Changes', Lead News and Lead Shares. The two I find most useful are Career Changes and Lead News.

Career Changes: is a lead alert that identifies saved leads that have moved to a new company or have changed roles within a company (a promotion). When someone moves company, this provides 2 opportunities. The first is a new opportunity at the new company the person has moved to, but also with who has taken their position at the old company. In both situations (and in a promotion), the person in the new role is more likely to be open to a conversation than if they were settled in the role for many years. The opportunity is to become a resource for them as they settle into their new position.

Lead News: is a lead alert that identifies saved leads that have been mentioned in the news. When leads are mentioned in the news, this presents an opportunity for you to reach out and engage with their accomplishments. Be very personable, congratulate them and provide a bit of value where you can.?

Lead shares: this is useful too but there is a delay from filtering content from LinkedIn.com to Sales Navigator which means that some content creators may not see my engagement, so I use another real-time methodology. More of that another time.

Customising Alerts and Lists

You can customise which alerts you receive based on what is most beneficial for your sales strategy. Setting up customised alerts ensures you stay informed about the most relevant developments, allowing you to respond swiftly and appropriately.

In addition to filtering what alerts you see, you can also filter by lead lists. This can be particularly useful to focus on a specific group of companies or people.

Conclusion

Mastering Sales Navigator's search, lists, and alerts features is fundamental to understanding how to use Sales Navigator effectively. They create a powerful synergy that can significantly enhance your sales efficiency and effectiveness.

The advanced search ensures you identify the most relevant prospects; custom lists keep your pipeline structured, personalised and provide that sales intelligence; and real-time alerts provide timely insights for engagement leading to warm conversations.

By fully learning and understanding how to use these three key features effectively, those responsible for generating sales can not only streamline their workflow but also build stronger, more informed, and ultimately more successful sales relationships.

Sales Navigator is a sales tool, but when used effectively, it becomes a strategic advantage. Master these three features to build a strong foundation for sales success.

Feel free to reach out to me for a personalised consultation or further insights on maximising your use of Sales Navigator. The opportunities with Sales Navigator are endless.

I help sales teams to hit their quotas with Sales Navigator-driven campaigns.

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