30 Minutes to President's Club · 6 Oct 2026 · From the week of 5 October
#614: How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Lead Generation
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In brief
The 30MPC host interviews Sam McKenna, CEO of #SamSales, who he says has broken 13 national sales records, was recruited by LinkedIn for her Sales Navigator skills, and bootstrapped a multi-million dollar business. She walks through the Sales Navigator saved searches and lists she uses to flag warm leads automatically. These track first-degree connections moving into your territory, new connections made by your executives, new executives joining your company, departing executives, customer executives changing jobs, past buyers, lost-deal champions and super-fan users, and prospects who view your profile. She gives the exact filters for each and short outreach scripts for profile views. The central argument is that social selling is not posting content and waiting: your network and your network's network keep changing, and saved-search alerts let you act on those changes before competitors do. Working the alerts depends on a daily triage habit.
For founders
- Sam McKenna argues sellers should not hand prospecting to BDRs or wait for inbound: prospecting builds your own system of leads, closing a self-sourced deal is like no other feeling, and you shouldn't leave your ability to perform in someone else's hands.
- Set a Sales Navigator search for executives joining your own company (past company excludes your company, so internal promotions are filtered out), then connect with them and compare their network against your target accounts to get introductions.
- Track every stakeholder from closed deals, and champions from lost deals, in a Sales Navigator list so you see where they land when they change jobs.
- Sam McKenna says the value of these searches is in saving them as alerts so new results come to your inbox, not in the one-off list.
For revenue leaders
- Build saved Sales Navigator searches that alert reps when warm contacts enter their territory: first-degree connections, connections of senior leaders, departing executives (VP/CXO only), and customer executives who change jobs.
- Use a 'viewed your profile recently' filter against territory account lists, and use different scripts depending on whether you know the viewer and whether an opportunity is open.
- When a past buyer lands in an account owned by a peer, alert that peer; managers can track these movements for their whole team of AEs.
- Sam McKenna does a daily morning triage of alerts and blocks calendar time for it, warning that without this the alerts won't get worked.
- She swaps 'I'd love to talk' for 'I'd be grateful' or 'appreciative' to make outreach sound less salesy.
What was said 17, most useful first
Set an alert for net-new executives joining your own company, connect with them, then compare their network against your territory for introductions.
Sam McKenna's search is current company = her company, executive seniority, and past company excluding her company, so she sees net-new hires rather than internal promotions or divisional changes. You cannot see someone's connections until you are first-degree connected, so the first step is connecting with the new executive. Once they accept, she compares their network against her territory, saying it helps her build relationships with senior executives and reach people who would not otherwise give her time. She says almost nobody thinks to do this.
“The thing is, you need to be first degree connected with somebody to be able to see their connections first.”
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Alert on executives from your customer accounts who join a territory account, even if you never met them, because they may bring your product with them.
Sam McKenna's example: a teammate closes Jones Day, then Jones Day's CFO joins another law firm in her territory; she wants to know because that CFO has probably had a good experience with the product. She sets past company to an account list of her biggest customer logos (for example Fortune 50 customers, or verticals such as law firms or pharma when people tend to move within an industry), current company to her territory, and narrows by seniority and geography to control volume. She says speed matters so you reach them before competitors, and suggests a 'show me you know me' subject line.
“in past company, I've created an account list that shows our biggest logos. I may do this by Fortune 50 that work with us.”
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Save every stakeholder from each closed deal, including procurement and legal, into a 'customer job hopper' list so you see wherever they go when they leave.
Sam McKenna uses a Sales Navigator list rather than a saved search: any stakeholder multi-threaded into a closed deal is added to a list called existing customer job hopper. Unlike the territory searches, this tracks every departure, not only moves into your territory. For extra credit, when a past buyer lands in an account owned by a peer, she tells that peer, which she says builds morale and camaraderie.
“every single time somebody closes a deal with us, any of the stakeholders, the people that we're multi -threaded into, they get saved into a list.”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Retention & customer success Link to this
A profile view from an unknown person at an account with an open opportunity is a chance to multi-thread with a low-key connection request.
Sam McKenna's example: a deal is running with a company's engineering team and a senior engineering manager there views your profile. She sends a connection request saying you're working with the engineering team, you saw them stop by your profile, and you wanted to say hello and offer support if they're involved. She says not to call attention to whether they're tied to the deal, since they may be in another division or have heard about you in a leadership meeting, and that this can speed up the opportunity or lead to expansion.
“we're currently working with the engineering team, one of your organizations. I saw you swing by my profile and simply wanted to say hello.”
The host calls most social selling advice garbage and says social selling should mean tracking network changes, not posting content and waiting for leads.
The host argues cold outbound takes huge effort, has falling reply rates, and puts reps in the same pond as everyone else. In his view, the useful version of social selling is monitoring constant changes in your network and your network's network (job moves, shared conference panels, online engagement) through alerts. He says the alerts covered are the highest performing based on Sam McKenna's work with thousands of sales teams.
“Most social selling advice is garbage. We are not going to sit here and tell you to go post content and wait for the leads to roll in.”
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A saved search of first-degree connections at your territory accounts alerts you whenever someone you already know moves into one of them.
Sam McKenna sets the current company filter to all of her territory accounts and selects first-degree connections, which gives a list of everyone she knows inside her territory. She says the list is useful, but the real value is saving the search so she is alerted to new matches. The example given: a former AE colleague becomes a CSM at a target company, and you ask them to help you break into that organization.
“for current company is I've listed all of my accounts and I've selected first degree connections. This gives me a list of any first degree connection I have that's within my territory.”
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Use a 'connections of' search on senior executives who speak or travel often to be alerted when they connect with someone in your territory.
Sam McKenna sets 'connections of' to a senior leader and runs it against all her accounts, then saves it so she is notified of each new connection that leader makes in her territory. Because a company may have 1,400 executives, she prioritizes those whose networks keep expanding, such as frequent conference speakers or people attending events like the World Economic Forum. She then uses the fresh relationship (a shared panel, meeting at a conference) to ask for an introduction that peers likely aren't asking for.
“What you want to look at is your senior executives that speak often or travel often.”
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An alert for VP- and CXO-level executives who leave your company for a territory account lets you use their remaining goodwill toward your company.
Sam McKenna's filters: past company includes her company, current company excludes it (which also filters out internal promotions), current company is her territory, and seniority is VP/CXO. She keeps seniority high so she isn't flooded with alerts for every departure (she jokes about being notified of 1,600 people a day). Her reasoning is that departed executives often still want to support their former employer, which makes them a good route in.
“You'll also see I've kept the seniority level high VP CXO so that don't don't get notified of 1600 people a day that leave.”
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Also track champions from lost deals, since people who wanted to buy but were overruled may change jobs into your territory.
Sam McKenna describes a variant of the job-hopper list for people who wanted to purchase but couldn't make it happen, for example because the wider buying team went another way. They still know you and want to work with you, so you want to know if they move into your territory. She notes that a manager can track this across their direct reports' deals and help AEs prospect directly.
“you want to think about the people who wanted to purchase from you and couldn't make it happen.”
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30MPC tracks job changes among its power users, which it calls super fans, as another source of warm leads.
The host describes a third version of the job-change list: enthusiastic users of the product, not just buyers or deal stakeholders. When these super fans change jobs, 30MPC wants to contact them. The setup mirrors the other job-change searches.
“So these are people that are like power users at 30MPC. We call them super fans.”
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Filter 'viewed your profile recently' against your territory account lists and treat any viewer as a conversation starter, regardless of seniority.
Sam McKenna toggles 'viewed your profile recently' and sets current company to her account lists, which shows anyone in her territory who looked at her profile. She deliberately ignores seniority: a BDR, an AE or a marketing coordinator in the UK all count. She uses the view to ask what brought them by and whether their team is discussing using her product internally.
“If it's a BDR, great. If it's an AE, great. If it's a marketing coordinator in the UK, don't care.”
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When a known first-degree connection with no open opportunity views your profile, send a relevant article or nurture note and don't mention the view.
Sam McKenna's script is along the lines of 'I was just thinking of you and thought I'd pass this article along.' The content can relate to what you sell, how you can help, or a past conversation about something you both care about. She says the hope is they reply that they were just thinking of you too, and she warns explicitly against saying you saw them view your profile, because it comes across as creepy.
“hi, I was just thinking of you and thought I'd pass this article along.”
For an unknown profile viewer with no opportunity, send a short connection request that names the view, cites industry peers and asks softly for a chat.
Sam McKenna's script: say you saw them in your profile views, that you work with many of their industry peers on a specific challenge, and that you'd be grateful for a chat if useful. She stresses keeping it short because LinkedIn connection requests allow only 300 characters.
“Saw you pop up in my profile views and wanted to say hello. I work with a lot of your industry peers on solving this specific challenge”
Sam McKenna removes the word 'love' from outreach and uses 'grateful for' or 'appreciative of' to sound less salesy.
She points out that her script avoids 'I'd love to talk to you.' She swaps language like this as often as she can to make messages feel less like a sales pitch.
“love is one of those words I try to kill and use grateful for or appreciative of in its stead.”
Alerts only produce meetings if you block time for a daily triage; Sam McKenna prefers mornings.
Sam McKenna says that without time on the calendar the alerts won't get worked. She recommends a daily triage either at the start or end of the day. She does hers in the morning because it's quiet, fewer people are online and Slack isn't busy, so she can review the reports and act on them.
“I personally love to do it in the morning. It's quiet. Not everybody's online yet.”
Saved searches send weekly update emails and flag how many new results have appeared, so reps can review them in the inbox or in a blocked time slot.
Sam McKenna explains that all saved lead searches are listed in one place in Sales Navigator. Weekly updates on new matches go to your inbox. Each search also shows a count of new results since a given date; her example had 22 new results.
“on a weekly basis, you're going to get updates every single time there's an update to the save search that'll be delivered directly to your inbox.”
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Sellers should do their own prospecting rather than relying on BDRs or inbound leads.
She addresses reps who ask why they can't leave prospecting to a BDR or wait for inbound. Her first reason is that prospecting builds your own system of leads, and closing a deal you sourced yourself is like no other feeling. Her second is that in a high-pressure sales job you shouldn't leave your ability to hit target or reach President's Club in someone else's hands.
“Why would you ever leave your ability to perform or to get to President's Club in somebody else's hands?”
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