From the course: What's the So What: Writing Clearly for a Business Audience
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The executive summary
From the course: What's the So What: Writing Clearly for a Business Audience
The executive summary
- Can we all make a deal together? Let's always start with an executive summary. This is the "so what" for the audience, a single slide or perhaps half a page in a written document or email. It's the TLDR, it's the elevator pitch. It's the summary of what's most important for an often time-starved reader to understand if they only read this and nothing else in the rest of our document, they've gotten the main messages. I recommend three to six main bullets, tends to be four or five, that not only convey the main "so what," but are also our map or blueprint of how the rest of our document is going to flow. Starting with the executive summary has four advantages. First, it's what the audience wants. Most of us, especially executives, want the "so what" as quickly as possible versus needing to dig into long documents or presentations. Readers expect thorough thinking as the foundation driving whenever we're recommending, but…
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