LinkedIn^® Sales Navigator For Dummies^®

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949882

ISBN 978-1-119-42768-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-42775-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-42776-6 (ebk)

LinkedIn® Sales Navigator For Dummies®

To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “LinkedIn Sales Navigator For Dummies” in the Search box.

Introduction

Salespeople need leads. That’s nothing new. What has changed though, is the way in which salespeople get new leads. In 1995, cold-calling was hot, no pun intended. You just bought yourself a list of leads and started calling everyone on that list. Or you ripped a few pages out of the telephone directory in your hotel room and started knocking on doors. That’s something I used to do — successfully, too!

Would that still work today? Of course not! For starters, there are no telephone directories in hotel rooms anymore. I suppose you could go online to find and print a list of leads and then start knocking on doors. But if you can go online, so can your buyers. And they do!

Your buyers are not just relying on Google to find what they are looking for, either. In fact, a 2014 study by IBM revealed that 75 percent of customers use social media as part of their buying process (www.nancypekala.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ibm-social-selling.pdf). An even bigger challenge for salespeople is that according to a study by HubSpot, only 29 percent of people want to talk to a salesperson to learn more about a product or service, while 62 percent will consult a search engine (www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics).

This is why many salespeople rank prospecting as one of the most difficult parts of the sales process.

LinkedIn recognized this rapid change in the world of sales and introduced Sales Navigator in 2012 to help salespeople with their social-selling efforts. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a premium subscription service designed to help salespeople identify, follow, and connect with decision-makers. At the time, it was still part of the main LinkedIn professional networking site. In 2014, around the time LinkedIn attained 300 million users, LinkedIn Sales Navigator was introduced as a stand-alone tool.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into the following five parts:

Part 1: Getting Ready to Generate Leads

In this part of the book I show you how to plan your roadmap for social-selling success and identify your ideal buying personas. I start our journey by taking a deeper look at the definition of social selling and how social selling can help you increase your sales results.

Part 2: Building a Database of Leads

In the previous part, you identified your ideal buying personas. Now that you know who to look for, in this part 1 show you how to find them with Sales Navigator. I also show you how to save your searches, leads, and accounts.

Part 3: Engaging with Leads

You’ve now added a bunch of leads and accounts. Now what? Well, these people you are now following may not even know that you exist. In this part, we look at how you can get on their radar in a non-pushy manner. In this part 1 also show you how to reach out to your leads using connection requests and InMail messages.

Part 4: Turning Leads into Valuable Relationships

Fifty percent of identified sales leads are still not ready to buy. One of the first sales lessons I learned was that when a potential client says “no,” he or she usually means “not now.” Therefore, it’s important that when potential clients say no, you don’t just forget about them and move on to the next. In this part 1 show you how to encourage the people you’re following to think of you first when they’re ready to buy.

Part 5: The Part of Tens

This is one of my favorite parts, as I get to share some advanced strategies here. For starters, I share ten tips for advanced lead generation within Sales Navigator. These tips will work best for you if you’ve already read the first four parts of this book and you’re comfortable using Sales Navigator. I also include ten tips on how to make the most out of managing your accounts.

There are many people who inspire me in the LinkedIn and social-selling world. So, in this part, I include a list of ten people who I believe you should also follow, as their content is highly valuable. And for the readers who just cannot get enough, I also include ten additional resources you may want to consult to up your social-selling game. Some are free, some are not, but all are excellent!

Where to Go from Here

If you don’t know where you’re going, Chapter 1 is a good place to start. However, if you see a particular topic that piques your interest, feel free to jump ahead to that chapter. Each chapter is written to stand on its own, so you can start reading anywhere in the book and skip around as you see fit.

This book also comes with a free Social Selling Strategy Cheat Sheet that gives you seven quick strategies on how to quickly and efficiently optimize your social-selling game plan. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for LinkedIn Sales Navigator For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.

Now, go get you social-selling game on! I wish you the very best.