The Executive Summary

Back to: How to Write a Show-Stopping Business Plan Step-by-Step

1. It’s finally time to create your Executive Summary – the very first thing in the Business Plan!

Tip: You need only create an Executive Summary if you will be presenting your Business Plan to a third party for assessment or support. This could be in order to obtain financing from a bank or other organisation, a grant, a mentor or to generate investor interest.

1. The Executive Summary is effectively your sales pitch – but should be concisely based on the factual information you have written in the rest of the document, and not written in salesy language. To that end, all the information you need for your Executive Summary is already written, in the various parts of the Business Plan. You need only review the document, pick out the core information and connect it together in a logical way. Ideally the Executive Summary should only be 1-2 pages in total. Though this will depend on the audience and/or the size/nature of the business. Depending on the audience for the Executive Summary, more emphasis should be put on the information that is of key importance for them ie if you are looking for a bank loan, the fund request should come towards the top of the summary.

As a general guideline, here is what to include:

1. 1. 1. Description of your business vision/idea including your key objectives, core services and client groups
      2. Description of your marketing strategy ie how will you find your clients?
      3. Description of how you will run your business from an operational standpoint including the businesses structure and core staff requirements
      4. Description of the financial considerations including your start up costs (including the amount you are seeking if you are looking for financing) and your expected first year profit or else your estimate of when you foresee a positive cash-flow and for how much.

Tip 1: Remember to write a clear and concise request for anything you are seeking from the reader ie “we are looking for a partnership opportunity”, “we are looking for a one off investment of x amount”, “we are looking for a loan of x amount” etc. Put yourself in the shoes of your reader – what are the key things they need to know? Tip 2: Remember to spell-check and edit the whole Business Plan before you present it to your audience!

Activity

1. Below you will find an example business plan to download from Jennifer Rain, the health food store manager from our Case Studies. Take a look at that first, and then create your own Executive Summary. It may take a little time. If you find it hard, try addressing each one of the questions above in no more than 2 or 3 sentences. You can use the worksheet if you like to help you.

Downloads

Jennifer’s Example Executive Summary

1. 1. The example Executive Summary from Case Study, Jennifer, will show you how she’s used the information about her business she’s gathered during this course and is now presenting in Summary format.