Write a Proposal Executive Summary: Templates & Examples

So, you’ve done your discovery, run through a demo, and found your buyer champion. Nice! 

Now, it’s that stage in your sales cycle to pitch to the rest of the buying committee. An effective pitch starts with a strong executive summary.

Have you ever read an executive summary that merely summarizes the rest of the pitch? Holy snoozefest! You won’t be writing one of those if you want to win the deal.

Starting a pitch (or business case) with a summary that lifts heads and perks up ears will prime your buyers to understand the value your solution brings to their business (even the decision-makers who won’t read the rest of your proposal).

In this article, we’ll share a step-by-step recipe for writing a head-lifting, ear-perking sales proposal executive summary. We’ll then share a few executive summary examples and a ChatGPT template to use, tweak, and win more deals.

What is an executive summary in sales?

An executive summary is the opening section of a sales proposal (or business case) designed to give decision-makers, often with little time to read the entire proposal, a capsule-sized pitch of why your solution best meets their needs. 

The executive summary is a concise introduction to the value of your offering. It’s typically shared with the buying committee once they’re ready to decide among a shortlist of vetted solutions.

Although intentionally brief, an executive summary is a powerful sales tool that highlights your solution's unique value proposition. It makes an irresistible first impression that resonates with stakeholders and helps drive your sales process forward.

Effective sales proposal writing starts with understanding your audience. Most decision-makers spend less than five minutes reviewing a proposal executive summary.

A compelling executive summary speaks directly to the economic buyer—most likely a very busy CFO. To get their attention, focus on how your solution can provide the maximum benefit to their bottom line with a minimum hit to the budget. 

On our Grow & Tell podcast, Rich Liu of Navan explains why this approach is vital to wooing your economic buyer. 

“If you don't have a very clear understanding of the biggest things that the CEO, the CFO, your economic buyer is thinking about at night, what keeps them up, what they're afraid of, what they're ambitious about — and if you can't connect what you do very directly to those one or two things in a way that is credible and quantifiable, you should not expect that sale to get done.”

Are you ready to use an executive summary to get a “Heck, yes!” from your decision-makers and close more deals? Understanding an executive summary’s basic structure is an excellent first step.

Executive summary vs. business case

As we've discussed, an executive summary is most commonly used as a lead-in to a business case. This use case highlights key customer outcomes and ROI arguments to a buying committee. 

However, there are some instances, especially with more straightforward or self-evident arguments, where the executive summary functions as the entire business case.

In either scenario, the focus of the summary should be on effectively conveying the strategic value and compelling rationale behind your offering.

What to include in an executive summary

Ready to cook up an executive summary that resonates with busy decision-makers? 

Let’s explore this recipe with the ingredients that should be included to ensure your message is clear, concise, and compelling.

1. Killer subheading 
2. Company description
3. Client goals
4. Current obstacles
5. Your solution
6. Your special sauce
7. Call to action

With ingredients in hand, let’s bake this pitch to showcase your solution’s value and alignment with your client’s goals.

1. A detail-rich subheading

Use an outcomes-focused heading. "Executive summary" doesn’t grab the reader…

• Example: Removing obstacles to hit $25M ARR.

2. Company description

Mention the size, revenue, geographic locations, and number of customers—relevant company basics for your solution. For example, if collaborating across different time zones and languages isn’t essential, it’s not worth mentioning where the company is. 

• Example: Founded in 2019, Sew Soft Pillows is a 500-employee home goods company with over $50M in lifetime sales.

3. Client goals 

Your discovery call should have unearthed the company’s goals. Use this section to mention the goal (e.g., increased revenue, productivity, profitability, or market share). Use numbers with the goal and the time the buyer needs to hit that goal.

• Example: Sew Soft aims to reach $25M ARR by EOY 2025.

4. Current obstacles

What stands in the way of the decision-makers hitting their goals? Only choose the challenges that your solution can effectively tackle.

• Example: The demand gen, BDRs, and sales teams use different software to conduct business. Even with integrations linking these tools, shared data has suffered from outdated or duplicative information, preventing large retail deals from going forward. This disconnect has also resulted in tension in the teams. To hit your revenue goal and to unite teams, you seek a centralized, real-time data exchange among all three groups.

5. Your solution

Use numbers here. How many total customers (or customers in the buyer’s vertical) do you have? How much have you helped a star customer hit their goal? How long did it take?

• Example: DealWhizzard provides one platform for demand gen, BDRs, and sales teams to collaborate and win more deals easily. More than 500 home goods companies use our DW  to sync teams across the enterprise and grow. Market leader Marshmallow Pillows hit its 12-month revenue goal within four months of using our solution.

6. Your special sauce

If companies have reached the buying committee stage, they’ve already checked out your competition. What sets you apart? What’s unique about your solution that will help a buyer reach their goals?

• Example: Unlike our competitors, DealWhizzard has functionalities to help the discrete needs of BDRs and SDRs, including native call recording and AI templates for all their written correspondence. With these features, BDRs and SDRS benefit from greater touches, meetings booked, and LTV. 

7. Call to action

Infuse a pep rally into this last section of the executive summary with a strong call to action. Talk about the accomplishments that will be reached by joining forces.

• Example: Let’s partner to unite your teams and their data, improve collaboration, and hit your $25M goal.

Following the steps in this recipe ensures that your executive summary targets your buyer’s needs and persuades your most finicky stakeholders.

Executive summary tips

Use these messaging, length, collaboration, and productivity tips to avoid common mistakes when crafting your executive summary. 

1. Make the messaging about customer outcomes

Understanding your target audience shapes every aspect of your executive summary. A CFO needs information different from that of a CTO. Focus on what matters most to the specific decision-maker reading your summary.

Let’s review how to speak to your economic buyer. To win over this “financial gatekeeper,” use messaging that is:

• Customer-focused. Include pain points that your buyer shared with you in discovery. 
• Value-based. Again, don’t focus on the bells and whistles of your product. Concentrate on how your product or service aligns with a buyer’s needs.
• Business-quantifiable. Finance folks live by their numbers. So, include relevant, outcome-focused metrics whenever possible.

2. Keep the length brief 

A brief executive summary is best for connecting with a time-strapped CFO.

Matt Green, the Co-Founder and CRO of Sales Assembly, told Grow and Tell listeners what holds an economic buyer’s attention:

“They don’t want it to be more than one or two pages max, right? They don’t want details on, ‘Hey, here’s all the features and functionality.’ They just want to know, ‘How will this drive more revenue or reduce risk within the organization at a grand strategic level?’ Not just within this team but at the company level.“

If you belong to a sales team that uses digital sales rooms instead of sending PDFs, you most likely don’t think in pages. In this case, try not to exceed 500 words.

3. Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders

What better way to ensure your executive summary is customer-focused than to work with your buyer champion on its messaging? 

The buyer champion can suggest terms or company jargon that jive with your buying committee and speak to the heart (ahem, wallet) of your CFO. Set up a call with your champion so they can review your summary and propose changes based on their relationship with the key decision-makers.

Once you’ve received feedback from your buyer champion, get your draft reviewed by a trusted sales or product marketing colleague. They can provide input on positioning the solution to meet the customer’s pain points.

4. Templatize whenever possible 

While each executive summary needs to be tailored to the buyer’s needs, that doesn’t mean that you have to start each summary from scratch.

Create a reusable executive summary template. Start with a bulleted list, each line being a step in the recipe mentioned earlier. 

If your product tends to solve a few key pain points, consider adding those points to the “client obstacles” section of your template. If your solution has only a few unique features, add those to the template in the “your special sauce” section.

While many teams use basic proposal templates, successful organizations customize their executive summary template for each prospect's unique needs.

Revise the template regularly. For example, you’ll discover that you use common phrases in your summaries. Consider adding your best phrases to your template at the appropriate step.

Keeping a template in a digital sales room makes it easy to find and revise your summary whenever needed. 

With Dock, you can build your business case into your digital sales room and then tweak it for each buyer — or you can build a separate business case or executive summary template and easily add it to any workspace.

👉 Get the template: Our free digital sales room template comes with a built-in business case and executive summary section.

The takeaway from these tips? Ensure your executive summary is brief and focused, concentrating on the key points that address the buyer’s challenges and objectives.

Executive summary examples

Want to see a few executive summaries in practice? 

Here are three summaries that follow the recipe and tips we just reviewed. Spanning across diverse verticals, each executive summary example demonstrates how to speak about the value of their solution in terms that economic buyers relate to.

These executive summary examples also show how top-performing sales teams position their solutions. Each example follows our proven proposal writing framework (which will be revealed later in this article).

Note: The companies in these executive summary examples are works of fiction. Any resemblance to an actual company is purely coincidental.

Example 1: DealWhizzard (RevTech) pitching SewSoft Pillows (retail)

Executive Summary: Unifying Teams for SewSoft Pillows’ Revenue Success

‍SewSoft Pillows is an innovative home goods company with 500 employees and over $50 million in sales. Known for luxurious comfort and creativity, SewSoft plans to significantly boost sales and customer satisfaction.

SewSoft aims to reach $25 million ARR by EOY 2025, focusing on increasing efficiency and driving profitability through streamlined operations.

The company’s sales, marketing, and development teams currently operate on separate platforms, causing data silos and communication breakdowns. This fragmentation leads to outdated and duplicate information, hindering the closing of significant retail deals.

DealWhizzard offers a unified platform where SewSoft’s demand generation, business development representatives (BDRs), and sales teams can collaborate seamlessly. 

Over 500 home goods companies benefit from DealWhizzard, with clients like CozyCasa boosting their revenue goals by 50% within four months of implementation. By centralizing data access and workflows, DealWhizzard enables quick, informed decision-making that aligns with SewSoft’s revenue objectives.

Unlike our competitors, DealWhizzard offers functionalities specifically for BDRs and SDRs, including native call recording and AI-driven templates. These features increase outreach efforts, demo bookings, and long-term customer value (LTV).

Ready to unite your teams and exceed your sales goals? 

Partner with DealWhizzard to streamline operations and drive revenue growth. Let’s connect to transform your internal workflows into a powerhouse of collaboration and success!

Example 2: SocialSaweet (martech) pitching Night Night (hospitality)

Executive Summary: Elevate Night Night’s Guest Experience with Better Social Engagement

Night Night is a leading global hotel chain with over 500 properties worldwide. It is known for its exceptional guest services and innovative offerings. The company is focused on elevating its guest engagement through strategic social media initiatives.

Night Night aims to boost guest satisfaction by boosting direct social media interactions. Over the next year, it targets a 20% improvement in guest satisfaction scores and a 15% increase in direct bookings.

The chain currently needs help with scattered social media efforts across various locations, which have resulted in mixed messages, common mistakes, and slow responses to guest inquiries. This inconsistency has negatively impacted guest happiness scores and associated revenue growth.

SocialSaweet provides an interactive, user-friendly platform to manage all of Night Night’s social media activities from one place. 

With more than 300 hotel chains benefiting from our platform, SocialSaweet allows quick and consistent posting across all your hotels and better interaction with guests. Our easy-to-use, interactive features can help Night Night respond faster to guests, making them feel valued and increasing their likelihood of booking directly.

Hotels using SocialSaweet have experienced up to a 30% jump in guest engagement scores within six months. For example, market leader Tranquil Stays has seen a 20% increase in direct bookings since switching to SocialSaweet. 

Unlike other social media management tools, SocialSaweet features "Hospitality Hub," which uses machine learning to analyze guest feedback. This helps Night Night tailor posts to what guests want, ensuring excellent experiences and standing out from competitors.

Ready to boost Night Night’s guest interactions and drive more bookings? 

Join forces with SocialSaweet to create stronger customer loyalty. Let’s team up to discover how to turn your social media into a powerful tool for guest delight!

Example 3: RecruitTech (HRtech) pitching Salostia (enterprise SaaS)

Executive Summary: Transforming Salostia’s Hiring Process with Innovative HR Solutions

Salostia Technologies is a leader in software development and team collaboration tools. It serves a global market with over 5,000 employees dedicated to driving innovation and productivity.

Salostia wants to improve its recruitment workflow to attract top tech talent seamlessly, reducing the average time-to-hire by 25% while maintaining its high standards of candidate experience.

The company’s current decentralized recruitment system leads to bottlenecks and inconsistencies in candidate evaluation and feedback. This fragmentation delays hiring decisions, impacting project timelines and business growth.

RecruitTech offers a comprehensive, cloud-based HR platform that streamlines the recruitment workflow from sourcing to onboarding. 

Used by over 1,000 tech companies, RecruitTech clients see a reduction in time-to-hire by up to 30% and improved candidate satisfaction scores. For example,‍ InnovatePlus reduced its recruitment cycle by two weeks after implementation. Our advanced analytics and seamless integration capabilities ensure that Salostia can quickly adapt to hiring needs.

RecruitTech provides customizable automation tools and AI-driven insights into candidate pipelines, enabling smarter hiring decisions. Our interactive collaboration features keep all stakeholders aligned and informed, leading to more efficient recruitment cycles.

Ready to revolutionize Salostia’s hiring process and secure the best talent faster? 

Partner with RecruitTech to improve your recruitment strategy and achieve exceptional efficiency. Let’s work together to make your hiring as innovative as your technology!

‍Exploring these examples of executive summaries should give you a solid foundation for crafting your pitches to buying committees across various industries.

ChatGPT executive summary template

Interested in automating your executive summary creation? With powerful prompts, AI models like ChatGPT can streamline this task.

Use this proposal template as a plug-and-play prompt to create an effective executive summary. Fill in the double-bracket placeholders with specific details related to your scenario.

Copy this prompt: 

‍

I work for [[My Company Name]] and am writing a compelling sales executive summary as part of a sales proposal for [[Buyer Company Name]]. It should impress the stakeholders of [[Buyer Company Name]], especially the economic buyer. 

I’ve attached [[any relevant discovery call notes, discovery call transcript]] for your reference. 

Please also refer to the following URLs for context and specifics to include in the summary.

• [[Buyer’s homepage]]
• [[Buyer’s “About” page]]
• [[Relevant feature or product pages of what you’re pitching]]
• [[Relevant customer or case study pages]]

Subtitle: Based on the information in the proposal executive summary, draft a subtitle to catch readers’ attention. 

Buyer Company Description:  Mention company size, industry, and what the buyer is known for. (e.g., Salostia Technologies is a leader in software development, with over 5,000 employees worldwide.)

Client Goals: Clearly define the goals they want to achieve. (ex. Reduce time-to-hire by 25% while maintaining high candidate experience standards.)

Current Obstacles: Identify the pain points they face that my proposed solution addresses. (ex., Decentralized recruitment system leading to bottlenecks.)

Your Solution: Go big on my value proposition. Describe how my solution resolves their issues. Include metrics or examples. (ex. RecruitTech streamlines recruiting, reducing time-to-hire by up to 30%.)

Special Features/Unique Selling Points: Start with the phrase, “Unlike the competition,”. Distinguish my product from competitors. (ex. AI-driven insights and collaboration features for faster cycles.) 

Call to Action: Include a question to engage the reader and a corresponding call to action. (ex. Ready to revolutionize Salostia’s hiring process? Let’s team up to optimize your recruitment strategy.)

‍

Note: While AI can help you create a first draft, a high-quality proposal executive summary requires human insight. Use these prompts as a starting point, then refine based on the company history and client’s needs you learned about in discovery. 

Then, tweak the prompt to better align with your unique selling propositions and your client’s priorities. Make it your own!

Share your executive summary in a digital sales room

Modern proposal management gives you insight into how buyers engage with your content. See exactly when decision-makers open your sales proposal and which sections they spend time reviewing.

Sales teams love sharing proposal executive summaries in Dock sales rooms. This virtual sales room offers a streamlined hub for documents, so no PDFs get “lost in the mail.”

If you’ve created a proposal executive summary template, Dock’s integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot let you pull data from your CRM—the name of the buyer’s company, for example—to auto-populate corresponding placeholders in your template.

The digital sales room gives team members interactive, dynamic control over the content, allowing you to update their summaries in real time. No more lingering PDFs with nasty typos that make you cringe each time you see them.

With options to embed images, videos, and anything else, digital sales rooms make it easy to add color (literally!) to your mentions of successful companies using your solution. 

Want to see if your economic buyer has looked at your executive summary? Dock’s engagement analytics will show you. 

With the business case template, you can replicate winning summaries of your top reps across the entire team.

With Dock’s digital sales room, you can boost the power of your executive summaries and close more deals. 

Start your next winning executive summary today. Try Dock for free.