Research an account in Sales Navigator before a sales call

Last updated: 3 weeks ago

Preparing for a sales call starts with understanding your account’s business, priorities, and key stakeholders. Sales Navigator brings this information together so you can elevate every conversation. Learn how to use Sales Navigator to research an account effectively before a sales call - so every conversation starts informed, relevant, and ready to convert.

Confirm your target customer accounts using personas and saved searches

In Sales Navigator, build saved searches around your target persona. Define filters for company headcount, growth rate, and job function, then use Category Intent signals to identify accounts actively researching solutions related to your offering. Sales Navigator tracks buying activity to help you prioritize warm leads instead of cold lists.

Analyze Account IQ and Account Page insights

Once you’ve identified a priority account, get insight into the company with Account IQ and the Account Page. Account IQ gives you a centralized summary of key, up-to-date information directly on the company’s Account page. You can also get personalized insights about how the product you sell can help that company.

From an account’s page, you can get a deeper understanding of an account by leveraging real-time trends and insights, all in one place. Account pages include:

  • A company overview and employee count
  • Recent growth and hiring trends
  • Key people at the organization
  • Company‑level insights

Reviewing this information helps you personalize a conversation that aligns with both the company’s public strategy and its immediate priorities.

Explore Lead IQ and profile activity for personalization

Lead IQ in Sales Navigator gives you powerful lead information with a single click. Lead IQ provides an AI-generated summary of key information about a lead and their company to improve your first interaction with the lead. Learn about their interests, recent activities on LinkedIn, and key information on their company to have more productive, valuable conversations. Look for shared experiences, memberships, or mutual connections.

Map the buying committee with Relationship Explorer and TeamLink

Sales Navigator helps you explore decision‑makers and influencers connected to an account, so you can prepare for the right audience. Before a call, review people associated with the account to understand:

  • Who works at the company and in what roles
  • Seniority levels and functional areas
  • Which roles align to your sales conversation

Using the Relationship Explorer, sellers can uncover hidden allies and supporters, find warm paths in, and multi-thread to build relationships with multiple buyers. Relationship Explorer provides prospect suggestions at an account, leveraging insights from the network, interactions, trends, and more of LinkedIn’s professional network to provide sellers with optimal paths to connect with their target personas at their target accounts.

You can also use TeamLink to find colleagues who already have LinkedIn connections with those decision-makers - creating faster, warmer paths to introductions.

Use saved accounts and alerts to stay current

Saving an account allows Sales Navigator to notify you about relevant updates, such as:

  • Job changes
  • New hires
  • Company news surfaced through LinkedIn activity

These alerts help you stay informed ahead of a call, even if you saved the account well before your meeting was scheduled.

Bring relevant insights into the conversation

The goal of account research is to demonstrate understanding and prepare for a more meaningful conversation. Use what you learn during account research to:

  • Ask informed, business‑relevant questions
  • Reference company priorities or changes
  • Align your discussion to the account’s current state

Save and organize research for ongoing use

Save your searches, account lists, and insights within Sales Navigator so they update automatically as the company evolves. Integrating Sales Navigator with your CRM ensures context travels with every interaction, strengthening handoffs and follow-ups (only available with Advanced Plus).

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