Challenge

  • Startup Grind is a business that focuses on helping other businesses grow, through events and community-building for startups and entrepreneurs.
  • Hosting more than 30 million companies, LinkedIn is a key platform for identifying and engaging with potential clients and partners. With a prospecting approach driven by insight and data, Startup Grind wanted to level-up its targeting and research.

Solution

  • About six months ago, the team at Startup Grind upgraded from LinkedIn Premium to Sales Navigator. The platform opens up a new world of business details to help spark and direct conversations.
  • “It’s just the most accurate, up-to-date data that you can be using as you’re looking to prospect,” opines Lindsay Markel, Startup Grind’s Senior Partnerships Manager.

Results

  • Startup Grind’s model is supported by continual expansion of its client and partner ecosystem. Sales Navigator has lent a major assist on this front. Across 10 licenses, the team has saved more than 2,300 leads since implementing the platform.
  • The biggest difference-maker, according to Markel, is the relative rate of response (16%) with LinkedIn’s messaging tool, which healthily outpaces the company’s emailing efforts. “There are responses we are able to get there that we’re not able to get on email. That’s one metric that we’re constantly looking at.”

Doing more with less

  • Beyond the improved results with Sales Navigator, Markel is impressed with how efficiently her team is able to achieve them.
  • “It increases productivity,” she says. “It’s time-saving to have access to the right information. From what I know, no one’s had a hard time learning the platform and making it a part of their day-to-day.”

Scoring big wins

Alex Gordon-Furse, Director of the Global Startup Program for Startup Grind, shares this story of a successful experience with Sales Navigator: “For each new campaign I spend a long time working out which combination of search criteria will get me the best search result because I know that once I have it, I have a very high chance that there are some future partners in there. Having done that for the consumer goods market, within minutes I found the right contact for my campaign and was able to connect with him directly and set up a meeting, which eventually led to a great partner deal.”

Powering up the sales toolkit

  • Even though they’ve seen superior results with LinkedIn InMail compared to email, Startup Grind isn’t abandoning this tried-and-true mainstay tactic. In fact, they’ve improved the efficacy of email as a selling tool by combining it with Sales Navigator, via the Gmail and Outreach integrations.
  • “That definitely helps make it even more efficient, to have all of our data compiled in the other platforms that we’re using,” says Markel.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting more than 2,000,000 entrepreneurs in over 600 chapters. We nurture startup ecosystems in 125+ countries through events, media, and partnerships.

The cornerstone of our global community are monthly events featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Founded in Silicon Valley, Startup Grind has helped millions of entrepreneurs build their businesses, connect with strategic partners, and secure funding.

INDUSTRY: Events Services
NO. OF EMPLOYEES: 11-50 employees
HQ LOCATION: Palo Alto, California
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Lindsay Markel
Lindsay Markel
Senior Partnerships Manager
Startup Grind