Oh, Sales Navigator. It’s a love/hate relationship. Between myself (Sydney) and my colleagues, Charlotte and Liza, we spend roughly 90 hours a week in Sales Navigator. We’ve used Sales Navigator since it’s early days, so we’ve seen each iteration to what is now the current Sales Navigator. It has definitely come a long way, however, I’d say there are still some features and functionality changes I’d like to see in order for it to be the tool we have a love/love relationship with.
This week, Charlotte, Liza, and I are teaming up to share 2 of our favorite features of Sales Navigator.
Sydney
I have a feeling Charlotte, Liza and I will have similar favorite features, so I’m going to share my #3 and #4 favorites. If you’re wondering, my #1 and #2 are “exclude saved leads” and “excluded viewed leads.”
- Coming in at #3 for me is the “apply your sales preferences” option when creating a new search. When you set up Sales Navigator, it will prompt you to fill in your sales preferences. The reason being is so that the algorithm will serve you the best leads and store your preferences in your Sales Navigator settings. Now, while it doesn’t directly correlate with each field I use when creating a saved search, it does save me a TON of time. Instead of having to fill out all eight filters, once I click “apply sales preferences,” I only have to fill out four filters, and they are pretty quick. If you don’t have your sales preferences filled out, I recommend doing so!
- Still, within the top 5, my fourth favorite feature of Sales Navigator is not one that is frequently used but some of my clients do find it convenient. The customized homepage on Sales Navigator is tailored to keep you in the loop as to what your saved leads and accounts are sharing. We suggest engaging with these insights or using them as a conversation starter. You can filter your homepage by sales alerts, job changes, suggested leads, lead news, lead shares, among other choices. This differs from your LinkedIn.com homepage as your Sales Navigator homepage is comprised of insights and updates from ONLY your saved leads and/or saved accounts. It makes it much easier to keep track of your saved leads or prospects.
Charlotte
Sales Navigator simplifies the search process.
- Applying search filters is one of my favorite features about Sales Navigator. Though not 100% accurate, the search filters greatly help sift through the lead generation process. You can plug in geographical locations (by zip code or city), title, company size, what level connections you want to view (1st, 2nd, 3rd), and the best one, excluding saved and viewed leads. As Sydney mentioned above, applying your sales preferences to your search saves a great deal of time in the process, but gives you a solid base to begin your search.
- The layout of Sales Navigator profiles is very condensed, making it simpler to analyze a lead. The important details are at the top of the profile, eliminating the need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. Without scrolling, you can see how many connections the person has, their photo, headline, current and past companies and roles, as well as education.
Liza
Sales Navigator does have some pros, especially the way that they let you search for people and companies and provide vital information about each company.
- One of my favorite things about Sales Navigator is the option to search by “accounts” rather than just leads. We tend to see the criteria reflected more accurately when searching by accounts. For example, when searching by accounts, you know the company is within that location and will be within the company size you select, as opposed to when searching by leads where the algorithm pulls a lead within the location, but that does not mean the company is in that location. The search results of an accounts search show you the location, size, industry and the company description making it rather efficient. It also tells you if you already have a tagged lead with that company, so it saves you a page view.
- A new feature is the ability to hover over a company to see a brief summary, the location, the company size, and if you have already saved that company. This is helpful as it eliminates the step of having to go to the company page to see location or company size as well as decreases your chance of hitting the “page limit” in Sales Navigator. You can tell right off the bat if it is a company that will fit your criteria.
If you have other favorite features, please share them with us! We’d love to hear your opinions and see if your favorites are on our top 10 list.
Just in time for Halloween, the three of us are teaming up again to share the scariest things we’ve seen on Sales Navigator. Stay tuned!
