It’s almost impossible to keep up with the various apps, SAAS, and platforms that run your business. They are always adding new features, changing their interface, upgrading their tiers or packages. They have to continue to serve their current customers and attract new ones, and I get that. Sometimes, though, it wears me out, and sometimes I opt not to turn the latest version/interface on. I’ve decided it’s okay to opt-out for the moment.
If you follow my posts, you may know I love a good app, and I especially love when my apps work together. So you can imagine I was pretty excited when I learned that Zoom, my favorite video conferencing tool, integrates with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It’s not new, the fall of 2018 based on Zoom’s blog post and yet, wow, I hadn’t heard about it until I checked out LinkedIn’s SNAP directory to update a post on CRMs.
If you don’t currently use Sales Navigator Team and you do a lot of video/audio conferencing, webinars, demos or meetings, you should check it out. Who isn’t running more meetings through video conferencing these days?
I lead LinkedIn training webinars where I don’t always receive or know the people who are joining. I’ve been known to jot down their names as they enter the session and quickly jump over to my second screen and pull up their LinkedIn profile. Clunky at best, no doubt. Now, I’ll have immediate access to their LinkedIn profiles.
For salespeople who already use Zoom or might be considering using it, this provides another level of insight and connection that enables you to streamline your activity and start better conversations faster.
Head over to LinkedIn’s SNAP directory or Zoom’s Marketplace to learn more and install the integration. Hey, you might even find some other integrations that will extend your sales superpowers. Here’s a quick video to give you an idea of how it all works.
Why am I a Zoom fan?
Some days I’m on all the major video conferencing platforms including WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype (much less than ever) and of all of them, Zoom is my favorite. It’s simpler, more streamlined and cleaner looking than the others. That, to me, is enough.
However, there are other advantages that Zoom offers that has made it our go-to, everyday tool.
Our clients can navigate it quickly and find it less clunky and challenging. Many of our clients are self-described “non-techies,” so making it easy for them only makes sense.
I can record either to the cloud or to my computer, so we use for interviews and our podcast. Zoom didn’t set out to be a tool for podcasters but realized it worked well for that purpose, check out all the articles/videos that pop-up related to this podcasting with Zoom. The interview with Zoom’s Derek Pando includes some great tips that we follow.
We can share the recorded video with our clients, so they have an on-demand version of the session for reference and reinforcement. The cloud recording lasts for 120 days, and if saved to your computer and then shared through other file sharing sites like Dropbox, Google Drive or Box, it’s there indefinitely.
Zoom now transcribes the audio which is a huge timesaver, especially for podcasting.
We connect Zoom and Otter.ai which I love. I use Otter.ai with Zoom and independently for interviews and more.
Why am I a Sales Navigator fan?
It’s the only way to organize your network, save the right people so you can easily follow them and their company, add tags to understand further where they are in your lead flow and reach out to more people beyond 2nd level to build a lead flow stream that enables better connections and potential conversations.
Sales Navigator Team includes one of my favorite features, PointDrive. All of my follow-up, including the recording, is now delivered through PointDrive. I can see in real-time who visits, reviews, and uses the resources I’ve provided along with which of the resources they viewed and for how long. This kind of information helps me create additional touches and conversations.
For more on whether Sales Navigator is something you should consider, revisit a previous post, LinkedIn.com Versus Sales Navigator – You Decide.
The most important consideration before signing up for Sales Navigator is developing your workflow or plan. Sales Navigator without a process is just another tool that won’t provide value. It’s not magical; it’s just a better version of LinkedIn, which also needs a plan.
I’ll be following up this article with more on Zoom and Sales Navigator as I test it, so stay tuned.