This LinkedIn Sales Navigator hack saved me 5+ hours every week

How’s that for a clickbait title?

If you wanna skip the “Online Recipe” style intro, I don’t blame you. You can scroll down to the bottom for a video of the workflow.

Now, I don’t like to toot my own horn, but...

When I was a child... I mean, back in my days as a prospector, I always did a damn good job when it came to finding the right people at the right accounts.

After using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for a while, I’ve found out a good Boolean search will narrow down your search results just enough, so you’re able to see all the best people at your target account, without having to scroll through too many pages.

Creating opportunities came a lot easier to me when I was confident about how well I knew the company and the person I was reaching out to. Research on the people from those Sales Nav searches was super important.

If there was any downside to performing that research, it was how long it took. Most sales reps need to find shortcuts to consistently hit goals. But you shouldn’t have to sacrifice quality in your quest for productivity. I’d spend a ton of time researching new accounts and prospects on a daily basis while simultaneously being distracted by the things going through my brain, I needed to figure something out.

One day as I was building out my prospecting list, typing in titles and keywords for the 30th account of the day, I thought to myself, “There has to be an easier way.”

Then I remembered a tool called Text Expander. I used it in my emails to help me speed up writing out those frequently written items: calendar/Zoom/signup links, certain value propositions, and quick answers to FAQs.

After checking their website out I saw that it cost something like $3 a month. This scared me into searching for a free version because I’m a cheapskate and I didn’t realize the potential value in it at the time.

In my search, I stumbled upon a Chrome Extention called Auto Text Expander, which is now called Magical. Magical works by prompting you to type a “Trigger”, which then expands into the “Content” associated with it. A Trigger can be anything that is three or more characters. I used a simple keystroke that I would never use in a normal situation.

Here are some examples of what I used for my shortcuts:

Now, I just have to type 3 semicolons (;;;) into either the “Keywords” or “Title” fields and those 21 different titles in my Boolean search are plugged in to help me narrow down my Sales Nav list. If I want to do a broader search, I’ll type ;ae and those titles will be added to my search.

It used to take me at least two minutes to write these out: an action I’d perform 30 or more times a day.

This technique saved me more than just time.

I was no longer missing out on the titles that are ever-so-slightly different but otherwise wouldn’t show up in my searches. Now I have a consistently complete list of quality people to reach out to - every time.

To summarize, here’s how incredibly easy that workflow is:

1. Search for an account on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
2. Input your Magical shortcut keys in Keyword and/or Title fields.
3. Capture a highly targeted list, along with contact data, into your tools with one click using LeadIQ’s prospecting tool that you can try out for free!
4. Create opportunities.

I made a video while using this workflow, occasionally chasing after a toddler that was attempting to burn our house down. See it in action!