LinkedIn announced the launch of a major refresh to its Sales Navigator tool in the middle of its Q2 earnings report on Thursday. It’s described as an “enterprise-focused SaaS product.

On the company’s earnings call, CEO Jeff Weiner had this to say about it: “This new SaaS product delivers a customized view into LinkedIn to better connect sales professionals with the right buyers by leveraging key insights and connections across the LinkedIn network. Our research shows that social selling transforms the sales process — buyers are over five times more likely to engage with sales professionals when introduced through a common connection versus a cold call. Just as the launch of our flagship Recruiter product transformed the way talent professionals recruit, we expect Sales Navigator will similarly transform the effectiveness of sales professionals.”

The company put a post up on its Sales Solutions Blog discussing the offering further. LinkedIn’s Mike Derezin explains:

Here’s what’s different. Users of the original Sales Navigator conducted their social selling efforts through their LinkedIn member experience. The updated version of Sales Navigator is a completely standalone experience — with a separate login — that brings comprehensive information directly to the salesperson. Many features like lead recommendation by account, news mentions, and account recommendation are being made available for the first time.

Additionally, finding other important insights in the original Sales Navigator required complex manual searches, which is hard to scale if a salesperson is managing more than a few accounts. Now all of this information is presented to the sales professional through the new Sales Navigator.

Features include lead and account recommendations, news mentions of key contacts through Newsle integration (LinkedIn acquired Newsle last month), notifications (job changes, common connections, etc.), CRM integration with Salesforce/Microsoft Dynamics, and advanced leads search, TeamLink, InMails, and Who’s Viewed Your Profile.

The new Sales Navigator is now available in English on Desktop and mobile (web). It will get its own mobile apps and additional language support later.

Image via LinkedIn