Three exec summaries I rewrote this week, part 3
Field notes from the editing desk. Three illustrative before-and-afters of executive summary openings I cut down this week, and the pattern each one is fighting.
Three exec summaries crossed my desk this week. All three opened in the same wrong place. The pattern is consistent enough that I am writing it down for the third time this year. Examples below are illustrative composites, not pulled from any single response.
One — the credentials opening
Before. “Founded in 2009, Acme Solutions is a leading provider of cloud-based services to the public sector, with offices in three states and a team of over 200 professionals dedicated to delivering excellence to our clients.”
After. “Your stated outcome is to retire the on-prem case-management system by Q3 2026 without disrupting active caseloads. We have done that twice — once for a state agency at similar scale, once for a county-level deployment. The plan in this response is built on those two prior runs.”
The first version is about Acme. The second version is about the buyer’s stated outcome. The buyer’s evaluator does not need a refresher on Acme’s existence — they have it on page two of the company overview. The opening real estate is for the answer to “why this vendor for this buy.”
Two — the everything-at-once opening
Before. “Acme Solutions is pleased to submit this proposal for the City’s IT Modernization Program. We bring deep expertise in cloud migration, cybersecurity, agile development, change management, and managed services, with a proven track record of delivering complex transformations on time and on budget.”
After. “This RFP scopes three problems: legacy data migration, identity consolidation, and a 90-day cutover window. Section 2 of this response addresses each in order. Our two named risks for the program are listed in Section 3. We name them because the cutover window is the binding constraint.”
The first version lists every capability the company has. The second version names the three things the RFP actually scopes and points at where the response answers them. Evaluators are reading five proposals. The opening that tells them how to read the rest of the document is the opening that gets read.
Three — the inevitable-partner opening
Before. “In an environment where digital transformation is no longer optional, organizations like yours need a partner who can help navigate the complexity of modern technology landscapes.”
After. “You have a 14-month runway before the current vendor contract expires. The choice in this RFP is whether to renew, replace, or rebuild. This response makes the case for replace, with a phased plan that gets you to a stable midpoint by month nine.”
The first version is content-free. It could be the opening of any proposal to any buyer at any time. The second version names the buyer’s actual decision and takes a position on it. Procurement evaluators have read the first version on every proposal they have ever read. They have a filter for it. The second version makes them read the next sentence.
The pattern
All three before-versions are about the vendor. All three after-versions are about the buyer’s situation, named specifically, with a decision the response is going to argue for. That is the difference. The exec summary is a one-page argument written from inside the buyer’s frame, not a vendor introduction.
If you cannot write the exec summary that way until the rest of the response is drafted, write it last. Most teams write it first because the template puts it first. The template is wrong.
This is part 3 of an occasional series. Part 1 covered the strategic position of the exec summary in the pipeline; part 2 worked through three rewrites from May. Part 4 will land in August.