How EverString Wins Big Business with Sales Navigator [Case Study]

After wrapping up his collegiate career at San Francisco State University, where he was captain of the baseball team, Jack Veronin decided to pursue a career in sales.

An analytics company felt like a natural fit, given that he’d become proficient with using data to inform scouting reports and defensive shifts as a ballplayer. It’s all about playing the odds: how often do batters historically hit to this side of the field, when does this pitcher tend to use his slider, and so forth.

Jack joined up with EverString, a predictive marketing software startup in San Mateo. He caught on fast, rising two years from sales development rep to sales manager.

As he acclimated to the world of sales, Veronin began leaning on LinkedIn. It felt like a natural fit for much the same reasons as he gravitated to sales analytics: he could play the odds. With more than 500 million registered professionals on the business-oriented platform, incorporating it into his approach felt like a no-brainer.

Today, he credits LinkedIn and the Sales Navigator tool with helping spur rapid growth -- both for him personally, and for his company.

The Power of Social Selling

EverString has roughly doubled in size since Jack first came aboard in August of 2015. A breakthrough moment for the business came when they struck a deal with Computer Sciences Corporation (now DXC Technology), an enterprise-level IT corporation.

“I was reading the prospect’s thoughts for almost six months,” Veronin says of his pursuit. “I would comment on his shares on LinkedIn. Finally, I took one of his Pulse posts and broke it down in how EverString helps.”

“We won a deal with one of the largest tech companies because of a social selling effort.”

It’s not the only success that he correlates with using LinkedIn.

Navigating Unfamiliar Territory

EverString started using Sales Navigator Team edition around the time Jack started with the company. He says the service has been revelatory for finding potential customers and reaching them with pitches tailored to their distinct needs.

As another example, he booked a meeting with the marketing technologist at Deltek after commenting on her LinkedIn share with a pertinent message about his software’s predictive scoring capabilities. During the ensuing offline chat, she told him that up until their interaction, she wasn’t even thinking about evaluating solutions. It was an instant response and a meeting made possible by a saved lead and a thoughtful interaction.  

“I would have never known that she was sharing an article like that without Sales Navigator,” Jack explains. “I saved her as a lead. So, the save as lead button is huge. It’s literally the first thing I read every morning is what are my leads doing? What are they sharing? What are they saying?”

Engaging prospects on LinkedIn is vastly more effective than cold calling and other similar outreach, Veronin believes, because of the timeliness and relevance to their business needs.

“It’s so intuitive to me,” he says. “Your prospect is sharing stuff that’s directly related to your company and you’re not going to take advantage of it? That’s the biggest thing for us on LinkedIn is that ability to see what they care about and then strike at the right moment.”

Sales Navigator Team, offering the ability to view full profiles and connect via InMail with members outside one’s network, has fortified EverString’s sales approach. As manager, Veronin instills these habits in his SDRs. The results continue to support Sales Navigator’s value day in and day out.

Getting the Most Out of Sales Navigator

Now an experienced user of the tool, Jack has a few tips for maximizing the utility of Sales Navigator. Above all, there is one routine he recommends:

“Use the icebreakers, use the connection request as a way to put a name to your face,” he suggests. “If you approach someone and tell them who you are and why you want to connect with them, I think it creates that human element that a lot of sales teams are missing.”

It’s not just about closing sales, he adds.

“I want to be professionally connected to you regardless of what happens between us because I think I can learn from you. I want to see what you are sharing. I want to learn from industry leaders like yourself. So, not only is it going to help you find relevant ways to engage your prospects, but it’s going to expose you to a lot of new things that you haven’t learned just by following people that you look up to.”

More leads, more connections, more opportunities: it doesn’t take an analytics whiz to see the appeal. If you’re ready to step up to the plate, try Sales Navigator now with a free trial and dig into its deep feature suite yourself.