I'm spending some time this week researching how sales processes work. I don't mean cold calling or selling used cars, but sales of professional services in the millions of dollars.
I found a slideshare presentation that's pretty interesting. It puts the capture lead position in almost a PM role, where the project is the pursuit of a sales opportunity and the end result of the project is a piece of business. But the pursuit is more than just making sales calls and asking for business, it's an interdisciplinary process that involves developing an understanding of your own portfolio of capabilities and how those capabilities match up with the customer's needs. From that starting point, you work with a team to develop a win strategy.
Here's the link: http://www.slideshare.net/pcsego/capture-management-overview
And here is a webinar on youtube that seems to have some good content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN8mtAOSCbk
At this point, having invested just a couple of hours into this research, I can see already why my company isn't doing well. They have no clue how to play this game and win.
