How to make a good executive summary?
These days, some of the Masters in which I teach Digital Marketing are coming to an end and students must present their Master's final projects. These projects can be in the form of research, in the form of a Marketing Plan or in the form of a Business Plan. Most of my students choose the latter option. So the tutorials of these last weeks are to finish finalizing their projects, prepare the executive summaries (which, although they are included at the beginning of a business plan, are written at the end) and to prepare the presentations that must be made before a university tribunal.
During this week's tutorials I realized that for many of these students, doing a executive summary It's not as easy as it seems to me. So for them, I have written this post.
What is an executive summary?
A executive summary It is a document that is delivered as an appendix to a business plan and whose objective is to summarize our business plan in about two pages.
This document is the one we will give to our potential investors at the first meeting. We will never give our business plan directly, for two reasons:
- Because our potential investor does not yet know whether or not he is interested in our business, and therefore, he will not want to read a document that can be more than 100 pages long (he will want to spend at most 5 minutes listening to us).
- Because we don't know our future investor (...it could be a future competitor) and we don't just hand over our business plan to anyone.
How to make an executive summary easily?
The simplest and most effective way (or at least this is my opinion based on my experience) to make a good executive summary is to pose it in the form of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), that is, in the form of questions that our potential investors may ask themselves and that we will try to answer in three lines maximum per question.
What questions does a potential investor ask?
These are some of the questions that our executive summaryAt a minimum, you should answer:
- What problem have you detected?
- What is the project about? (How are you going to fix the problem?)
- Where is the business? (How will you make money?)
- How much money does it take to create it?
- How long will it take to reach your break-even point (or your dead point, or your break even,.. depending on where the investor is from)? and what economic results will be obtained?
- What team carries it out?
- Why do we think it will be successful?
These are the same questions that the committee that will hear our Master's final thesis will surely ask themselves, so it is worthwhile for students to be well prepared and able to answer them without hesitation.
In this video I explain how to do it.
To see an example of Executive Summary with the questions included, click here: Executive summary example
To see an example of Executive Summary drafted without the questions included, click here: Executive summary example 2
Both examples are perfectly valid for presenting to a project tribunal or to potential investors.
Come on, cheer up! Here I leave you with this article from Technova, the business incubator of the La Salle Technology Park in which they interview some entrepreneurs. It is titled An entrepreneur always keeps fighting.
I hope I have been helpful.
We talk to each other.
186 responses
Thank you Montse for your knowledge and contributions to us entrepreneurs… greetings from Valencia, Venezuela.
Hello Montse.
I am writing to you from Chile and I would like to present a healthy water project to a group of investors. Ultra pure water, reconstituted for optimal hydration, which is alkaline and presents other key factors for success that make a big difference with the competition.
It is flavorless water and the concept is to provide a healthy product for all types of people who want to take care of their body and improve hydration.
What tips can you give me?
Enrique, I would write the executive summary in the form of questions and answers and then, with this information, I would prepare a very visual presentation. Make the presentation in a format that is not the normal one (a little more square, or longer... something different), save it in PDF and send it as a product presentation brochure. Look for differentiation from your competition, both in the product and in the way of presenting it.
Kisses.
M.
Sorry Estrella, I was on vacation and I didn’t see the urgency of your message. What you need is called a “sponsorship dossier.” Google how to do it. It looks like an executive summary but you have to include what you offer the sponsor… as well as explain what you need. Think about how you can be useful to the sponsor, this is the key, otherwise… they won’t give you the funds.
kisses
Montse.
Thank you very much for your contribution and help 🙂
Hello, good afternoon Montserrat Peñarroya. Could you help me with how I can make an executive summary for the search for funds for a scholarship project for young people with limited resources? They are partial scholarships and for professional development. I would really appreciate a response, because I need it urgently and I am a bit stuck on it. See you soon.
Hello Montserrat, Thank you very much for the information, your help is very valuable.
Hello Montserrat, the information you share is really helpful, thank you so much for your valuable time, especially your knowledge.
Hello Montse, Alexander from Costa Rica. Congratulations, you have helped me greatly. Your explanation was very clear and applicable to my topic on how to propose solutions to the problem of money laundering in the area of criminology. Good luck, thank you.
Thank you Alexander!
A big hug
Montse.
Hello Monserrat, you have been of great help to me in clarifying some doubts I had about how to prepare it and the steps to follow. I appreciate the information provided.
Hello Montse, thank you very much for this information, it has been very helpful.
You're welcome Juan, I'm glad it was useful to you.
A big hug
Hi Monste, 10 years since you published this article, and you generate responses & comments and on top you answer most of them. I think this is impressive! Thanks for the helpful exec summary example with questions, helped me a lot
Tks Zuzi for me it is a pleasure to help people who start creating their companies or who plan to do so…even if it's just for a college exercise 🙂
Hi Montserrat, could you help me with a job for the university?
I explain to you that with my group we carried out an analysis on the functioning of a company, its functional areas and a proposal for improvement and we have to make an executive summary but your outline is based on a project. How could I focus on an analysis?
Thank you very much in advance.
Igor… it occurs to me that the best way to do something similar to an executive summary but oriented towards explaining the functional areas of a company could be in the form of an infographic with some explanation below each area. The objective is to explain how it works in one page, maximum two… so I think my advice is to make a diagram… look on Google Images for “functional areas of a company” or also search on Google Images for “Michael Porter Value Chain” and be inspired by the images you find in both searches.
Hello Montse. I am a student from Chile, and our professor asked us to do a recruitment and selection project for a clinic called “Hospital Clínica Las Conde in Chile.” I would like to know how to relate the executive summary to the conclusion. This is to make it coherent.
I await your reply.
Jose, the same scheme can be adapted to your project.
1) What is the challenge?
2) How do you solve it?
3) How much will it cost?
4) Who will do it
5) Why do you think it will work?
Is it useful for the clinic?
Laura, follow the outline to the letter.
Gosh Pablo… I like challenges, but yours is complicated. If you apply the outline of the article, it doesn’t work for you?… the thing is that in order to help you I would need to know more about the project… and on top of that I see that you asked for help a couple of weeks ago, so maybe you have already solved it…
Sorry 🙁
Thank you very much, it was very helpful both for my TFM executive summary and for the presentation to the court.
Greetings
Hello, good evening, I am a student of pedagogy and I am doing a project on an autistic foundation. I would like to know how I can make my executive summary for this work. THANK YOU, good evening… BLESSINGS
Hi Montse, congratulations in advance for your willingness to help everyone. My case is an executive summary on the components of an information system. How do you suggest I approach it? Thank you.
Good afternoon, I saw the tutorial and it helped me a lot, but there are some questions that seem to me to be for a "business plan" in my case, the project I have is for my thesis and it is an "improvement plan" I would like to know if some of the questions posed for the executive summary vary?
Thanks in advance.
Pamela, I would start with Why do we need to improve? What do we solve by implementing the improvement plan? And that way your audience will understand the need for the improvement plan… but the rest of the questions would be the same: What needs to be done? How much will it cost? Who will do it? Maybe I would include a timeline with the phases of implementation of the improvement plan…
Kisses
Montse.
Hello! I have been asked for an assignment (The assignment is a model for the Economic Development of a country) to write an executive summary and an introduction. I am a bit lost on what I should write in each one without them being the same. For the executive summary, could I use the guiding questions for this assignment? Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Jarielys, what I would do is explain in the introduction what the problems of that country are and why it is important to solve them. And then in the executive summary, follow the questions in my model. The first question may be redundant with your introduction… when you have done it, decide whether to delete it or leave it… depending on how it turns out.
Cheer up! A hug!
Hello Montse, best regards…
My question is how can I prepare an Executive Summary of a Financial Information Standard for the university?
Krystall, do it with the question and answer technique, and then delete the questions. What is the purpose of the standard or what problem does it solve? How is it implemented? Who should do it? How much will it cost to implement it? These types of questions… cheer up!
Thanks Cinthya! I'm glad to see that what I write is helpful 🙂
A big hug.
Thank you very much Montserrat, you have really helped me. I didn't really know what to write until I found this information. I needed to write an executive summary for my plan. It's an excellent guide. Regards:)
Thank you for your great help, I understood it very well.
My name is Gildardo Antonio Giraldo C
My projects are two.
a pedagogical one
And the other is handmade in fibers such as wicker and similar materials in decoration.
Design and marketing I am located in Medellin Colombia and it is to innovate new designs.
Thanks, Girldardo, I'm glad to see that the article has been helpful to you. Thank you very much for commenting.
A big hug.
Montse.