Three exec summaries I rewrote this week, part 11
Part 11 of the monthly series. Three real executive summaries, anonymized, rewritten. What was wrong in the original, what changed in the rewrite, and what each one taught about the shape of the RFP it responded to.
Part 11 of the monthly series. Three executive summaries rewritten this week, anonymized to remove any identifying details. Same pattern as the earlier posts — what was wrong, what changed, what each one taught.
Summary 1 — Federal DoD IT services recompete
What the original said. A 3-page exec summary that opened with four sentences about the vendor’s founding history, then spent a page on corporate capabilities, then introduced win themes in the final paragraph. No reference to the current RFP’s scoring rubric.
What was wrong. The summary inverted the editorial priority. Founding history and corporate capabilities were the weakest content for an evaluator reading a recompete response. The evaluator already knows the vendor; the history is not a question they have.
What changed in the rewrite. Opened with a sentence about the customer’s specific program (named) and the outcome the program is being measured against. Win themes moved to paragraph two, paragraphs three and four, explicitly tied to the published rubric weights. Corporate history compressed to one sentence in a closing “about us” paragraph. Total length dropped from 3 pages to 1.75.
What it taught. On a recompete, the incumbent’s history is noise. The editorial budget should go to why this recompete is a better execution than the prior period — new capabilities, new staff, improved metrics — not to the company’s founding story.
Summary 2 — Commercial SaaS DDQ-adjacent RFP
What the original said. A 2-page executive summary that read like a product datasheet. Feature lists, integration claims, a capabilities matrix. No opening tied to the buyer’s stated need.
What was wrong. Two problems. First, the buyer’s problem statement in section 1 of the RFP was about regulatory reporting under a specific framework. The datasheet framing answered a generic “what does your product do” question instead of the specific “how does your product support regulatory reporting under [framework]” question. Second, the feature-list format communicated breadth where the buyer had signaled they wanted depth on a narrow scope.
What changed in the rewrite. Opened with one sentence acknowledging the framework and the reporting cadence the buyer operates under. Paragraph two was a narrow walk-through of how the product supports that specific reporting — with three citations to product documentation. Cut the feature list entirely; moved the capabilities matrix to an appendix where it belonged.
What it taught. The wrong framing is expensive even when the facts are right. A feature list written for a datasheet is not an executive summary. The executive summary is an argument — why this vendor for this buy — and the argument has to start from the buyer’s stated need.
Summary 3 — State agency consulting services
What the original said. A 2.5-page exec summary heavy on the vendor’s staff bios. Three named principals with extensive credentials.
What was wrong. The RFP rubric weighted past performance at 40% and key personnel at 15%. The summary allocated roughly the inverse. The writer had solved for what they were proud of, not for what the evaluator was scoring.
What changed. Staff bios compressed to three sentences. Past performance expanded to open paragraph two with three named engagements matched to scope. Added a compliance statement. Total length: 1.5 pages.
What it taught. Rubric weights are the strongest signal for editorial allocation. Mismatch the weights and the writer has substituted their own sense of what matters for the evaluator’s.
The common thread
All three summaries had the same failure mode: the writer was answering a question the evaluator was not asking. The fixes were about redirecting the writing toward the question the RFP actually posed.
See section 1: the executive summary nuances most teams miss for the long form, and exec summary: two pages, max for the page-length discipline. Previous entries: three exec summaries — August batch.
Unbylined posts come from the PursuitAgent team collectively. All examples are anonymized; no identifying details retained.