Lead generation

Lead Builder: The Secret Sauce in Sales Navigator

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If you’re in sales you understand the wrath of keeping up with company developments and prospect’s job changes in your territory.  If you’re like me, it can often be cumbersome researching the same companies and wondering if prospects have recently moved to a company in your territory. For me, it was a lot of “Google Alerts” and hours upon hours of researching, and hoping everything I could find on the web was accurate.

Sales Navigator’s Lead Builder is probably the most underutilized tool, yet one of the most effective. To be honest, I was a little late to the Lead Builder party, but when I started using it – hours upon hours of my time have been saved. That’s something to celebrate.

Lead Builder has changed the way my team and I prospect. My team is territory-based and each of them saves multiple searches based on their regions and target audience. We have daily email notifications triggered for when updates to their searches happen, allowing them to focus on crafting personalized InMails, not just hunting for the right person. Again, freeing up more time for any salesperson is a thumbs up in my book!

Once we receive the email notification of a job change or location change in our territories, personalized InMails are crafted. It’s a great way to open an introduction to a prospect by congratulating them on their new position! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned what would be a cold InMail into a warm one just by congratulating someone on their new job. It’s a great sales tactic that my team has been super successful using.

Earlier this year I was prospecting a retailer that I’ve actually been calling on since 2012 – true story. Because I have saved that lead in Sales Navigator and they show up in a territory-based search, I got an email alert notifying me that the prospect had connected with a 1st connection of mine. I immediately reached out to that connection and inquired what prompted them to connect. Through utilizing the ‘introduction’ feature in LinkedIn, I had a meeting set with the prospect I’ve been prospecting for years within 24 hours. Had I have not gotten that email alert or been able to save and follow leads in LinkedIn, I would probably still be prospecting them right now.

Another (and favorite!) success my team has had involves territory visits. Our sales reps often do field marketing events where they travel to a city and meet with a bunch of prospects at once. My team is tasked with getting prospects interesting in taking a meeting and Lead Builder is our secret sauce for setting up the meetings. Each member of my team has saved searches based on their individual territory and profile, and they prospect literally going down the list that Lead Builder shows. Before, we had a ton of Salesforce reports that we always had to cross-reference with LinkedIn. Now, we can just be in one system and get through dozens of names to prospect and send InMails without leaving that tab. Through Lead Builder we were able to set up over 50 1:1 meetings at a trade show earlier this year! That’s a 100% increase from the year prior without Lead Builder.

If you’re just starting out using Lead Builder I recommend you start saving specific searches in your region. From there, add accounts and leads that are shown from that search and in no time you will build up your prospecting list. Saving accounts and leads will allow you to visit your main page and skim through your prospects’ social shares and updates. There’s no better way to send an InMail to a prospect than mentioning an article they’re in, or something they’re passionate about based on their shares on LinkedIn. Lead Builder allows this to happen easily.

If the idea of daily email notifications frightens you, start with weekly. Then, once a week go through the hot notifications and begin prospecting through using my best practices for a successful InMail article. In no time you’ll start to trim back your processes and save more time in your day to actually prospect the right person.

Go ahead and get started – setting up your searches only takes a couple minutes, and Lead Builder does all the heavy lifting for you. You won’t be disappointed and guarantee you’ll start seeing more hours in your day thanks to the efficiency of Lead Builder. Happy Selling!

To learn more about how to leverage Sales Navigator, download our eBook "How to Maximize LinkedIn's Value with Sales Navigator."728x90-Leaderboard_How-to-Maximize-LinkedIn’s-Value-with-Sales-Navigator

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