Until now, I have never considered getting Sales Navigator on LinkedIn, but I have changed my mind. Here’s why.

This year I am expanding the business offerings of my company. I will continue to help small business owners and entrepreneurs be more productive with LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

My new offering is providing LinkedIn training for teams of sales professionals. Many sales professionals can benefit from LinkedIn features not available to those with a free account. If I am to help them use those features, I will need to get them myself.

If you’re considering moving to a paid account yourself, you should know that there are four different types: Career, Business, Sales, and Hiring. Once you choose the one that’s best for you, you can pay for it annually or month by month. Or you can pay annually. Just pick what is best for you.

This post covers type of paid account called Sales, or otherwise known as Sales Navigator. Currently, the annual cost is $779.88, which saves you $180 per year over the monthly cost. If you choose to pay monthly, the fee is $79.99.

 

Benefits of Paying for the Sales Navigator Account

• See who has viewed your profile over the past 90 days. Users with free accounts can only see the last few people who viewed their profile. With a free account, potential clients as well as potential referral partners could be looking at my profile, and I have no way of knowing.
• 20 InMail messages per month. These are messages to people with whom I am not connected. For example, I could use some of these to send messages to some of the people who viewed my profile. With a free account, you have no access to InMail.
• Unlimited people browsing. This means I can look at as many profiles as a given search brings up. I am not limited in the number of searches or the number of people found in a search. With the likelihood that the advanced search will no longer be available to free accounts, this is especially important.
• Use Leader Builder to do advanced searches. This feature makes it possible to create custom leads lists with advanced search filters.
• Sales Insights. This feature keeps me updated on changes happening within my contacts. Examples include job changes and company growth.

 

You can learn more about Sales Navigator in Viveka Von Rosen’s information-packed article in Social Media Examiner, “How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Better Prospecting”

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-linkedin-sales-navigator-for-better-prospecting/?awt_l=HwaCg&awt_m=3lIBGrAlsQr.ILT&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=NewsletterIssue&utm_campaign=New&omhide=true

 

How About You?

Do you have a paid account on LinkedIn? Which one? Why did you choose that one? What are your favorite features? How has your business benefited from you having a paid account? Conversely, did you obtain a paid account and then find there wasn’t enough value for you to continue it?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those ages 45 and up, to become more comfortable using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, business development professionals, leaders of nonprofit organizations, job seekers, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.