Product and feature updates

Real-Time Sales Updates: How LinkedIn’s Team Seizes Sales Opportunities

Think there’s no connection between the fine craft of blacksmithing and modern sales? Think again. In both cases, success is a matter of striking while the iron is hot.

For blacksmiths, timing is essential for forging metal into the desired form. For sales reps, it’s about acting on sales opportunities and forging connections when conditions are most favorable.

Simply put, reaching out and connecting with existing customers or prospective buyers at just the right moment is vital to beating out the competition. This is something the LinkedIn sales team knows well, and capitalizes on with real-time updates delivered by Sales Navigator.

Why Timing is Everything

In sales, we often refer to leads as “hot” or “cold” depending on their likelihood of converting. This dichotomy holds direct parallels to blacksmithing: When metal is hot, a blacksmith can flatten it in three strikes; when metal is cool, hammering does nothing. In other words, working with cool metal is a waste of time.

Applying this same thinking to sales, we can achieve far better results from the same level of prospecting and relationship-building effort when conditions are right. Now let’s explore how Sales Navigator helps you add precision to your timing.

Staying Up-to-Date on Sales Opportunities

Even in a fragmented digital world, there are ways for sales pros to stay on top of what’s happening with the people and companies they care about. In fact, Sales Navigator serves up five types of alerts on your LinkedIn homepage and via email that notify you about what’s happening with your prospects and customers, giving you a reason to reach out:

  • Lead Updates: Be one of the first to know when your contacts change roles, celebrates a work anniversary or connects with someone in your network.

  • Shares: Understand what your contacts care about by seeing their professional shares on LinkedIn.

  • Company Updates: Learn key information about your accounts as they post to their LinkedIn Page.

  • In the News: Find out when people or companies are mentioned in the news, sourced from sites across the web.

  • Potential Leads: Identify potential contacts or decision makers when accounts make new hires.

These alerts can save you hours of laborious manual tracking. Even better, they deliver instant insights you can put into action right away. Here’s how LinkedIn sales reps use them in their daily activities.  

Keep Up With Account Changes

Real-time sales updates allow you to keep your finger on the pulse of movement within your accounts. Staying aware of relevant company news and job changes allows you to be strategic in your outreach while showing you understand your contact’s business.

The LinkedIn team finds these alerts especially important when working with accounts that experience a lot of turnover. In those cases, Sales Navigator shows who took over a role and helps you understand how you can get introduced to a new point of contact.

Steer Conversations With Confidence

Connecting with relevance is how you position yourself as a valuable resource, build lasting relationships, and give buyers a reason to welcome your outreach. Chelsea Rawlins, Senior CSM for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, describes the value of this feature in our guide, Get Closer to Your Customers: “By staying on top of what my accounts are doing and sharing, I know how to steer my conversations with them.”

Uncover Clues to Unlock Sales Opportunities

Seeing what types of updates are shared by the senior leadership in your accounts often reveals what is top of mind for them, and where their business is headed. This information can create a jumping-off point for discussions with your contacts. One LinkedIn rep upsold $100,000 because of a share he saw from an account’s CMO.

As John Hopkins, Renewal Specialist for LinkedIn Sales Solutions, explains: “Real-time sales updates is my favorite feature within Sales Navigator. It’s incredibly powerful to approach a client and be able to use a data point like increase in headcount to talk about the account’s growth and use that as a way to position the need for additional seats.”

Enjoy First-Mover Advantage At All Times

You know all too well that sales opportunities can knock at any time. With Sales Navigator, you won’t miss any of them.

Using the Sales Navigator mobile app allows you to keep track of all updates and intent signals no matter where you are. Whether you’re standing in line at the coffee shop, preparing to board a flight, checking into your hotel, or waiting for a meeting to start, you’ll see the most pressing alerts at the top of your feed. Perhaps you see a spike in hires, a strategic initiative announced, or news about fresh funding. With these alerts delivered to your phone, you can immediately jump on these trigger events. Moreover, you can reach out through InMail the Sales Navigator app, giving you a way to quickly act.

The Time is Now!

They say timing is everything when it comes to success. By taking advantage of real-time sales updates in Sales Navigator, you can be sure to strike while the iron is hot.

To learn all the additional ways Sales Navigator makes a difference for LinkedIn’s sales team, download our Get Closer to Your Customers Guide.

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