Adapted from: Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge:

The executive summary demands your best thinking. Ideally, your executive summary should blend an efficient delivery of key information with a convincing, well-substantiated pitch. Above all, you will need to show a clear understanding of your beneficiary’s needs and how you will achieve your core social mission with a well-rounded business strategy. Therefore, consider the Social Return on Investment your business offers.

You need to write with your audience in mind, and achieve 3 things with your executive summary:

• Establish the need or problem
• Demonstrate the unique value of your proposed solution.
  Focus on what are the returns/ benefits of implementing your solution rather than merely providing technical details. Give clear, measurable impacts.
• Substantiate, substantiate.
  Show how your company is the right company to deliver the solution. This is where you can differentiate yourself – a unique methodology, an exemplary past case study, etc.

The elements of style

• Avoid jargon.
• Avoid “purple farts” — impressive-sound phrases and adjectives that carry no substance. Do you really have to use words like “world-class”, “turnkey”, “value-added”, “leverage”, “next generation” and “dynamic”? Show, not tell. Imagine that you are explaining your venture to a friend at a casual dinner.
• State your value proposition and competitive advantage in positive terms instead of negative. Focus on what your enterprise can achieve, rather than what your competitors cannot achieve. With the exception of one or two most obvious competitors, however, you may need to be very explicit: “Unlike Brandtology’s social media monitoring solution, our on-demand web software can…”
• Avoid multi-tiered complex sentences. Use simple sentences as much as possible..
• Use anecdotes/ analogies/ examples where necessary to clarify, but avoid hyping.
• Proofread – Always have a fresh pair of eyes (ideally from outside the team) to review your executive summary for grammar, style, and especially overall coherence. Make them consider this question: Is each sentence clear, concise and compelling?

Your first paragraph

From: Garage’s Writing a Compelling Executive Summary

This should be your attention-grabber. Lead with the most compelling and concise statement of your unique solution to a big problem. It should be straightforward and specific, as opposed to cerebral and conceptual. Any impressive names that can be dropped should be in your first paragraph as well – Stellar advisors, companies you are already working with, a brand name angel investor, etc.

Here are some samples -

Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3

On a concluding note, ideally your executive summary should be written last. For a detailed walkthrough on how to write an entire business plan, check out the fantastic archive of business plans here from Deloitte.

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