Sales Navigator: what it finds, and what it never will
Its filters are excellent at describing a company. They are silent on the only thing that matters: whether this person has the problem you solve.
The question comes up every time prospecting does: is Sales Navigator worth its price. The answer depends entirely on what you expect from it, and most disappointment comes from an expectation it never promised to meet.
What it does very well
There is no argument here. For carving out a set of companies and people by declared attributes, nothing else compares: size, industry, tenure, headcount growth, geography, recent changes.
If your problem is I do not know where to look, it solves that in an afternoon. You go from a vague market to a list of two thousand real people, which is an enormous step.
A filter describes what someone is. It will never tell you what that person is going through.
The limit, and it is structural
Every filter rests on declared fields, filled in by the person to present themselves. What decides that they buy is almost never in those fields.
| What the filter knows | What it will never know |
|---|---|
| Sales director, fifty people, software | Whether he lost two deals this quarter to poor follow-up |
| In role for four months | Whether she inherited a team with no process or a well-oiled machine |
| The company hired ten people | Whether it is hiring to grow or to replace |
| Uses a given tool, per the profile | Whether they are happy with it, or trying to get out |
The right-hand column is what closes deals. No subscription hands it to you, because that information is not declared: it is inferred by reading a whole profile, or heard on a call.
What it looks like in practice
The scenario is almost always the same. You build a clean search, you get two thousand profiles, and you face a problem you did not have before: which ones to contact first.
Two possible answers, at very different costs. Contact everyone with the same message, which wrecks your acceptance rate and your account with it. Or read profiles one by one, three minutes each, a hundred hours for the list.
A filtered list, not sorted
- Two thousand profiles that look alike
- No reason to start with one rather than another
- A message that has to work for everyone
- A reply rate that decides for you
The same list, sorted
- Forty profiles kept on a precise criterion
- A justified order, from closest to furthest
- One message per person, built on what kept them
- A reply rate that makes the list pay
So the subscription is not at fault. It delivers exactly what it promises, a list. It is the next step that is missing, and nobody sells it alongside.
What sits between the filter and the message
Between the two there is a sort, and that sort needs two things Sales Navigator cannot supply.
- Written criteria that come from your customers. Not company attributes, but sentences you can settle while reading a profile, describing the situation people are in when they buy.
- A profile-by-profile read. A filter ticks a box. A sort reads a career, a description, a recent change, and draws a reason from it.
That reason has a second life almost nobody uses: it is your first message. A profile kept for no stated reason teaches you nothing to write; a profile kept because they started four months ago in a team that just doubled hands you the opening line.
Should you buy it?
If you cannot yet carve out your market, yes, and it pays for itself quickly. If you already know where to look and your problem is choosing whom to contact in a list you already have, it will fix nothing, and a second licence even less.
The test is simple: open your last search. If you can say, profile by profile, why this one and not the one beside it, you are getting everything there is. If not, more filters are not what you need.
Where Meidly helps
We start from your customer calls to write the criteria of the people who actually buy, then the extension reads the profiles in front of you and tells you which ones fit, with a reason for each. It does not replace a LinkedIn search, it picks up where that search stops.
See how prospect search works→In short
Sales Navigator carves out a market, and does it better than anything else. It does not sort, because what you sort on is written in no field. The list it produces is therefore worth exactly what the next step is worth, and that is the step to equip.
Frequently asked questions
Is Sales Navigator worth the price?
Yes if your problem is carving out a market: nothing else compares. No if your problem is choosing whom to contact in a list you already have, because its filters rest on declared fields that do not say whether the person has your problem.
Why does a Sales Navigator list not convert?
Because a filtered list is not a sorted list. Two thousand profiles matching the same attributes give no reason to start with one rather than another, so the same message goes to everyone, and that is what fails to convert.
Which criteria should you use to sort a prospect list?
Criteria drawn from your current customers that can be settled while reading a profile: a situation, a recent change, a visible consequence. Not company attributes, which the filter already applied and which no longer distinguish anything at this stage.
Do you have to read every profile before reaching out?
Yes, and that is exactly what is expensive: three minutes a profile is a hundred hours for two thousand. That read is what needs equipping, not the search, because it also produces the reason that becomes the opening line of your message.