My view on this is not because I work for LinkedIn, but because I have personally seen so many companies as well as my own teams benefit tremendously from using it for social selling (finding and engaging with prospects digitally to get sales cycles started) and building pipeline more quickly. Cold outreach is essentially dead. How many people do you know that ever actually pick up their phone for a blind call in this day and age, let alone respond to a mass mailing? Most sales teams are already using LinkedIn in some way to address this change in the buying process. Sales Navigator takes it to the next level. It is so impactful, that in many organizations, sales representatives will spend their own money to buy individual licenses until their company buys a corporate version. There is no issue with adoption because sales people want to use it-they see and experience the benefits directly. There are many unique capabilities, but what stands out to me as a sales leader are: 1.The ability to save the accounts and target prospects in those accounts without being connected to them. Ongoing, anything the prospect shares on LinkedIn or does in terms of a job or company change will allow me to be notified automatically. 2. The ability to see who else in my company knows a target we are trying to reach. This is called TeamLink and provides a view into who can give a warm introduction to a target prospect.

Bottom-line, CRM’s benefit management for forecasting and running the business are required as the system of record. Sales Navigator benefits sales professionals for prospecting, engaging with prospects and filling the pipline and is required as the system of engagement.