Why Every Salesperson Should Crawl Professional Social Network

Shi Hui -

A Day in My Life as a Salesperson

Picture this. It’s 10 am on a Monday. I’m behind my desk, coffee in hand. I’ve sorted through my emails, tidied up my to-do list for the day and other ad-hoc matters. It’s time to begin my daily sales routine. First up, leads gen.

My options are:

  • Work on my ongoing email campaign
  • Comb through Crunchbase Pro for suitable firms
  • Leads prospect through Professional Social Network

At present, the email campaign is already on autopilot (we don’t believe in doing menial tasks!) and, when geographic filters are in place, Crunchbase tends to be exhaustive. I settle on option 3.

We’re a tech company. So I look for prospects with business models that would integrate well with our offerings. Then, I search for their tech guy - software engineer, developer, CTO, whatnot. Connect, message. Then, rinse and repeat. After all, leads generation is a numbers game. Tedious but necessary.

I know that any salesperson will agree on the importance of dedicating time daily to generate leads. Yet, over a long enough period of time, the process starts to feel repetitive. Mundane. Menial.

And then you start to wonder, “Damn, could a trained monkey do this for me?”

This isn’t to say that lead gen isn’t important - the truth is a far cry from that. Yet I’d be lying if I said that I wouldn’t rather be spending my time on the later stages of the sales process. Meeting, negotiating with and closing people.

“Simple, maybe. But not easy.”

A sales exec’s dream: A live data stream of prospects that fit into my desired industries, company profiles and job titles, coupled with automated messaging.

A relatively simple idea, right?

Well… Yes and no. While the idea is simple, the execution - not so much. Regarding data extraction: scaling data crawling is an issue. Bypassing CAPTCHAs, rate limiters and rendering javascript are some constituents.

Thankfully, unlike the Nolan movie I referenced in the sub-heading (props if you know which one), building a tool to crawl Professional Social Network isn’t magic. Just technology.

Spicing things up

Mankind has been to the moon and figured out how to breed glow-in-the-dark bunnies. So, automating the Professional Social Network pipeline should be very feasible!

Well, it could be - with the right tools.

To crawl Professional Social Network and get that sweet data stream, you need a web crawler that fulfills the following:

  • Many (residential) IP address to evade rate limiters
  • Ability to bypass CAPTCHA
  • Ability to mimic a browser, allowing it to render javascript

Of course, you could use some random open-source crawler to do this for you. Just keep in mind - you’re typically going to get what you pay for.

With the right crawler, you can scrape various job pages, groups, company pages and get accurate data in mere seconds. Mine the Professional Social Network profiles you want, how you want, when you want.

Tada! Now you’ve more time to focus on other important agendas.

Godsend
Anyway, I’m lucky cause I have Proxycurl to do the heavy lifting for me - allowing me to focus more time on my qualified prospects. That day in my life was months ago, and it can be for you too.

Next up: Is crawling (Professional Social Network) legal?

For now, hit me up at hello@nubela.co if you want to find out more, or if you just wanna talk shop.

Or jump right in for a free trial with Proxycurl!

Good luck!