Graphics
January 19, 2023
Customer Focus
February 22, 2023
Executive summaries are often the most important pages in a proposal. They set the tone for individual evaluators and are often the only pages read by the decision-makers.
The draft executive summary should be developed early during capture/ opportunity planning. The capture/ opportunity manager should prepare the first draft and present it to management to demonstrate understanding of the customer’s hot button issues, vision, and the seller’s baseline solution.
The initial draft is often only an outline with placeholders for the seller’s solution. While the capture/opportunity manager often maintains executive summary ownership, the proposal manager often transforms the outline, mockup, or first draft into a draft acceptable for the proposal kickoff.
Readers of your executive summary must clearly understand your solution and its unique benefits and be able to justify recommending your solution over competing solutions.
Effective executive summaries meet the following criteria:
- Connect your solution to the customer’s buying vision
- Identify the customer’s needs and make ownership of those needs explicit
- Connect your solution directly to the customer’s needs
- Offer clear proof of your claims
- Show how you offer greater value than the competition
- Be brief but comprehensive by eliminating confusing technical details that are better explained in the body of the proposal
- Indicate the next step, usually by previewing how your proposal is organized
Executive summaries are also powerful internal communication tools:
- Help refine your bidding strategy
- Become a vehicle to gain senior management endorsement
- Communicate your strategy in-house to all contributors
- Drive proposal development
- Become a model for the complete proposal
