What's an executive summary? 

An executive summary is a succinct body of text used to communicate a business’s considered solution to a prospect's critical buying motive/s.

Or something like that.

In simpler terms, executive summaries (or exec sums for time purposes) are often featured at the beginning of a business proposal and aim to highlight important aspects of the information that follows.

Now that's all cleared up...

1_Don’t begin your document with the words “Executive Summary”!

Yes, it might seem logical to begin with those two magical words, but ask yourself: what value are they adding?

An executive summary should rarely extend beyond two pages of A4 paper.

That means you’ve got to make every mm/pixel count.

Instead, treat your first heading as though it were the most valuable piece of lexical real estate that you own.

Hit your audience with a message that summarises your value proposition in just a few carefully considered words.

2_Talk directly to your audience, about them.

An elite executive summary should never be about your business. “Here at xxx, we provide xxx…” or “We are delighted to present our xxx…”
Just, no. It’s not about you.

Remember: executive summaries are used to communicate solutions to your audience’s most critical buying motives. Their motives. Their business. Their solutions. Make it personal.

Grammatically speaking, this is a simple one to execute: liberally pepper your executive summary with ‘you’ and ‘your’ references.

3_ Design For Readability

The Cambridge Dictionary defines readability as, “the quality of being easy or enjoyable to read.”

It shouldn’t surprise you then to learn that design plays a vital role in how much effort your audience will put in to truly digest your thoroughly considered executive summary.

Believe us, we’ve seen it happen all too often; magnificent messages diluted by poor design choices, lack of typographic conventions and our pet hate, long bodies of text made painfully shouty through the use of full caps. FULL CAPS?!

So how can you avoid readability pitfalls? Thankfully we’ve broken the essentials down into a simple, bitesize guide.

Click here to learn more.

4_ Benefits Over Features

It’s an oldie but a goodie for a reason: don’t go wild listing the features of your product/service. Focus on the benefits.

Features describe what a product or service does or includes, such as its size, colour, design, or functionality. For example, a car's features might include a sunroof, painted stripes and heated seats.

Benefits, on the other hand, explain how those features will improve your customer's life or solve a problem for them.

For example, the benefit of a car with a sunroof might be that it provides a more enjoyable driving experience, while the benefit of a car with heated seats might be that it makes winter driving more comfortable. We’re still not sure about the benefits of painting stripes on a bonnet though.

If you can, supercharge those benefits by quantifying them. How much money will your magic (x) save them? By what % will your customers (y) increase? Think long and hard about how to quantify the benefits of your proposal and display them front and centre.

5_Finish With A Bang

As the old proverb goes: “Tell them, tell them again, then tell them what you told them."

Your executive summary should end with a strong closing statement that summarizes the main points of your proposal and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

Does that mean repeating some of the key points from earlier in the summary?

Yes. Make peace with it.

Repetition is not a dirty word, but a powerful technique to build association, affinity or attachment to a certain thing.

So long as you’ve presented all of the salient selling points that speak to your audience’s deepest, darkest buying motives, repeating them will only serve to reinforce the strength of your message.

In Conclusion

There you have it, five indispensable tips to keep in mind when writing your next executive summary.

Let’s recap:

1_Make your first line count (don’t start with the words: “Executive Summary”!)

2_Speak directly to your audience, about them (it’s not all about you)

3_Design your summary with solid readability conventions in mind.

4_Don’t get bogged down in the features. Stress the benefits of your service or product.

5_Finish with a flourish, and don’t be afraid to repeat your critical selling points.

That’s all!

Happy writing, and don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram for more tips, tricks and resources.