“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door,” runs an expression attributed to nineteenth century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The days of having a better mousetrap have, for the most part, gone and most of the sales teams we work with have to go out into the world and find their own opportunities. It all starts with prospecting and yet we consistently find that teams rarely have enough new opportunities in the top of the hopper. The consequences of having too shallow a prospect pool include having too much riding on a limited number of prospects leading to a reluctance to qualify properly, a poor negotiating position and inflated forecasts.