Question

At what point in the process of putting together a business plan should the executive summary be written? Explain the statement “ The primary goal of an executive summary is to capture the reader’s attention.”

Answer 1

There are no hard and fast rules about when to write an executive summary. But, it is better to write the executive summary only after all the other parts of the business plan are completed, i.e. it is better to write it at last. This will make it easy to include important parts of the business plan in the executive summary.

It is true that the primary goal of an executive summary is to capture the reader’s attention. People like investors, CEOs, lenders, managers etc who read your business plan do not have time to go through the entire plan document. There is a high chance that they just go through the executive summary. So, it is important that this part of the business plan is as interesting as possible. It should grab the attention of the reader. As the name suggests, the executive should summarize the business plan in a few pages and must consist of the most important information of the business plan. It should consist of the description of the product , justify why the product will be profitable, snapshot of growth potential and market demand etc. Overall, the executive summary should give the reader, a clear view of why the product would work.