As a business owner, your mind may be on how to generate leads online for free. After all, your sales funnel only works if you are constantly loading the top with new leads. There is a great piece of tech that has helped us to generate leads that are exactly like our favorite clients – LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This article will teach you how to use LinkedIn to get sales leads that you are excited to work with.
How to Use LinkedIn to Get Sales Leads
One of the best things about LinkedIn is it is the only search engine that allows you to sort people by company, job title, and industry. This allows you to fill your sales funnel with quality leads – leads exactly like your current clients instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. It also allows you to find and contact the decision-makers rather than having to pass through multiple gatekeepers.
While you can conduct the search using the filters on LinkedIn, there is a tool that will allow you to conduct advanced searches and sync your list of leads with your CRM. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is powered by LinkedIn, and it allows you to create custom lists and even alerts you to changes on saved leads.
How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator Effectively
The most effective way to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator is to use it to clone your favorite clients. Instead of wondering how to get free leads for my business, reframe that as how can I get more clients just like the ones I love working with?
Start by comparing your top 5 or 10 favorite clients (they can be former clients) and finding the commonalities. What industry do they work in? What is their role? To use my business as an example, I work with startup founders, so that is the type of person I am looking for when I search for leads on LinkedIn Sales Navigator. In your business, you may notice that your point of contact for your favorite clients is the Head of Marketing or the Sales Director. Find that commonality so you can generate a list of high-value leads for your business.
You can also use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to see people who are connected to your favorite clients. This allows you to namedrop your client when you contact the new lead, which automatically builds more trust. By using LinkedIn Sales Navigator in this way, you are no longer cold emailing leads because the relationships are already warm.
Watch this video for a LinkedIn Sales Navigator tutorial so you can start generating new leads for your business immediately.
How to Generate Valuable Leads Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Start by using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to generate a list of valuable leads for your business. Do this through one of two searches:
- Search using position and industry filters to find your decision-makers
- Search the network of your current clients
You can use further filters to narrow down the list to focus on your ideal client type. For example, you could omit results for people or businesses outside of the United States.
Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you could send these prospects connection requests or even In-Mail to establish that first contact. Read this article to learn how to nurture leads.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator will allow you to export the list of leads to your CRM so you and your team can track your lead nurturing efforts. It makes it easy for your team to spend time every day nurturing these leads through booking calls or sending emails. You can even set up alerts for high-value leads so you can stay on top of who is the best point of contact.
How to Get Free Leads for My Business
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a paid product, so you may be wondering why an article about how to get sales leads for free would recommend a product that isn’t free. There is a 1-month free trial available through LinkedIn Sales Navigator to allow you to try it out and start generating free sales leads online. With the right lead nurturing process, the leads you generate during that month will more than pay for your subscription.
If you join my Slack group, you can get my code for a 2-month free trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, plus access to tips and tutorials on how to use LinkedIn to get sales leads. Access the Slack group for founders here.
