As the world's largest social network for professionals, LinkedIn is a virtual treasure trove of data.

And, in the midst of rolling out its new desktop interface, LinkedIn recently announced some enhancements to its internal search engine that will open up new ways to find your ideal prospects on the platform.

LinkedIn = Google for professionals
With nearly 500 million professionals in 200 countries, along with millions of additional data points on jobs, companies, industry news, personal blogs, and more, you can think of LinkedIn like Google for professionals.

When used correctly, you can leverage LinkedIn's advanced search features to create hypertargeted, hyperspecific lists of the exact clients, customers, or investors you want to connect with and use that data to build a personal relationship quickly.
 
Prospecting with search
Here's what you need to know most about how to utilize the new, revamped LinkedIn Search to find your sales leads and ideal prospects on the network.

The key is searching for your prospects using the "job title" filter that is available when you dive into LinkedIn's internal search engine.

For example, if you want to sell your product or service to CEOs, you'd filter your LinkedIn search results by "CEO."

In addition, you can further refine your LinkedIn searches by industry or geographical location.

Say you want to target professionals with the job title CEO, and you specifically want to target CEOs in the health care industry, ideally in Chicago and New York.

With LinkedIn's advanced search filters, you can do exactly that.

Client-facing is key
You'll want to combine this prospecting strategy with creating what I call a "client-facing" LinkedIn profile -- one that quickly, simply and accurately demonstrates to your target audiences how you help them achieve their goals or desired outcomes.

(Related: How to create a killer LinkedIn profile)

Build trust with search
Also, before you hit your prospect over the head with a sales pitch, you'll want to break the ice with some digital small talk.

Because LinkedIn shares with you where a prospect lives and works, along with where he or she went to school, you have plenty of easy ways to spark a conversation.

Get advanced!
Once you do a general search, the key is to use the Advanced Search filters/features that you'll see popping up on the right-hand side of the screen with your search results -- something shown in the demo video from LinkedIn that's included with this post.

Filter your prospects by location, job title, and so on, and that way you're able to instantly create some context for a personalized conversation.

When you leverage LinkedIn's revamped search features to hyper-personalize your prospecting, and then use those same data points to personalize your engagement efforts on the platform, it becomes far easier to quickly build (and scale) the type of one-on-one relationships that lead to sales.