How I find ideal clients on LinkedIn in minutes

Finding your ideal customers on LinkedIn can be brutal.

LinkedIn has over 1.2 billion members, with approximately 310 million monthly active users as of January 2026.

That means finding your ideal customers is like finding a needle in a very large haystack.

Is it possible? Sure.

Will it be easy? Not really.

Unless you know where and how to look for them.

Now, some LinkedIn gurus will tell you to use:

LinkedIn search
Top creator's content
Engagement on your content
Profile Views list

All decent recommendations, but they all take time.

And, let's be honest, you run a business. You don't have 4 hours a day to spend on the platform trying to find an ideal customer to engage with or reach out to.

Using Sales Navigator to Find Your ICP

I tell my clients to invest in LinkedIn's Sales Navigator.

I've been using it for the last 4 years to find, engage with, and reach out to my ideal customers — in a fraction of the time it takes to find them on LinkedIn.

All you have to do is create a saved lead search.

Here's how:

Log into Sales Navigator
Click Lead Filters in the search bar
You'll see all of the filters you can use to find your ideal customers
Enter your information in as many filters as make sense for your ideal customers (see below)
Click the Save Search toggle to create a saved lead search

I recorded a video for my clients that is part of the Sales Navigator module in our new Brand Accelerator platform.

You'll now have a list of people on LinkedIn who fit your ideal customer profile.

These are the people to engage with, DM, and build relationships with on the platform.

Using Sales Navigator Filters

Creating a saved lead search gives you access to advanced filters you won't find on LinkedIn alone.

Here's a glimpse of the filters you can use:

You don't need to fill out every filter. Some aren't going to make sense for your company or for giving you a list of ideal customers.

Here are the filters I recommend for my clients:

Company Headcount: helps weed out companies that are too big or too small
Current job title: helps you find the decision makers you should talk to
Geography: helps you find people in the areas you serve
Industry: weeds out anyone in an industry you don't serve
Posted on LinkedIn: shows you people who have shared at least 1 post on LinkedIn in the last 30 days

Now, there are some advanced searches you can do that correlate with buying intent. Those could be:

Years in current position: I use this to find CMOs who have been at the company for less than a year. I know that CMOs in that position typically want to reposition the company.
Following your company: shows you ideal customers who already follow your company, meaning they know you and are a bit warmer leads.
Viewed your profile recently: shows you ideal customers who have viewed your profile. Another indicator that they might be worth DMing.
Connection: filter by 1st level connection to reach out to people you are already connected to.
Connections of: shows you ideal customers who are connected to someone else you know. Great way to get an intro.

Use these filters strategically to understand buying intent.