About Me:
I have led, written, and reviewed Federal, State, and Local government proposals since 1998 at Accenture, Stanley Associates, CGI, and Buchanan & Edwards. In 2016, I founded Draughon Consulting LLC, where I have helped government contractors of all sizes win well over a billion dollars of contract awards with federal civilian and DoD agencies, as well as IDIQ and BPA awards with total ceiling values in the tens of billions of dollars. My clients have ranged from small businesses seeking their first competitive award to multi-billion dollar large businesses pursuing must-win recompetes.
Prior to my consulting career I received my MBA in Information Management from the McCombs School at the University of Texas in Austin. I also hold an undergraduate degree in English from Auburn University Montgomery. (So I guess I was destined for a career in proposals.)
Services:
Proposal Management & Strategy: I can manage your complete proposal, from evaluating the solicitation, writing clarification questions to the government, developing win themes, preparing the templates and compliance matrix, running the kickoff and standup meetings, conducting color team reviews, and working with Pricing, Contracts, and other corporate functions to ensure completion of their parts of the proposal. My default style is very hands-on. I’m not one of those Proposal Managers who only wants to facilitate and coordinate. Instead, I typically fill the gaps that no one else on your team is doing, whether that means I’m writing, helping others write, editing, or doing whatever else it takes to deliver a compliant, high quality, winning proposal.
Proposal Writing: Based on your guidance and using examples of your company’s approach and differentiators, I can write executive summaries, management and staffing sections, transition plans, quality control plans, past performance, resumes, and other proposal content. My broad technical background and years of proposal experience also enable me to assist and guide writers in developing highly technical proposal content that is compliant and understandable to non-technical evaluators.
Proposal Editing: In addition to the usual grammar and spelling fixes, my edits improve proposal clarity and ensure that the proposal language matches the solicitation language. I’m especially adept at editing proposals to meet the Government’s ever-tighter page length requirements.
Desktop Publishing: I can create templates with styles that help your authors maintain proper formatting, and when the proposal is done, I know the tricks to save a little space here and there to meet page length requirements and make sure graphics are properly positioned.
Color Team Reviews: I’m always happy to serve as an independent outside reviewer who takes the time to read and understand the solicitation requirements so I can fully evaluate your proposal. When you engage me for a review, I check for compliance, let you know whether your proposal is clear and compelling, and tell you if it contains significant strengths (or weaknesses) that a government evaluator is likely to identify. I provide detailed comments and, whenever possible, suggest rewrites for sentences or paragraphs that are not clear or compliant.