Writing Effective Executive Summaries - Small Business ...

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Writing Effective Executive Summaries: An Interdisciplinary Examination
Zelimir William Todorovic, Ph.D.
Marietta Wolczacka Frye, BA, BBA
Indiana University – Purdue University, Fort Wayne
Abstract
For many years, business plans have been used as principle documents communicating the
purpose of business to various stakeholders. Applying the rhetorical techniques from the field of
English business communication, this study explores the genre conventions of executive
summaries of business plans. Using executive summaries used in Business Plan Competition,
this study compares writing effectiveness of winning business plans to those that did not win. By
examining content, structure, language, and graphics of the executive summaries, this paper
paves a way for entrepreneurs to write more effective business plans leading to greater financial
investments.
Executive Summary
For many years, business plans have been used as principle documents communicating
the purpose of business to various stakeholders. MacMillan, Siegel, and Narasimha (1985)
found that “above all it is the quality of the entrepreneur that ultimately determines the funding
decision” (p. 128). Yet, the main question still remains unanswered: “How, in what rhetorical
manner, should an entrepreneur present himself or herself in order to be successful in receiving
the funding decision?” Applying the rhetorical techniques from the field of English business
communication, this study explores the genre conventions of executive summaries of business
plans (that is, the rules for effective business writing).
Executive summaries utilized in this study came from undisclosed business plan
competitions held in Midwestern US. Seven effective (classified as competition finalists) and
eleven non-effective (plans that failed to reach the finalist stage) business plans were employed
in this study. Content analysis, a procedure of coding information obtained from interviews

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(Krippendorff, 1980; Schneider, 1992), was employed in this study. Once the coding is done,
data was analyzed.
This study provides evidence that there is a difference in writing styles and the written
content between effective and ineffective business plan summaries. Specifically, this paper posits
that effective business plan summaries are richer with appropriate information, while at the same
time being shorter in length. The following characteristics were identified as significant
differences between effective and ineffective business plans: (1) Explicit discussion of each
component of the executive summary, (2) Clear description of the product or service, strategic
plan, and market., (3) Strong support for any claims using outside sources, (4) Contains fewer
pronoun shifts, (5) Did not use adjectives that provide opinions; if used, they were supported
with explicit statements of quality, (6) Used Standard English , and (7) Contained clear figures
and visuals which were titled explicitly.
Introduction
A business plan, one of the subgenres of business written discourse, is meant to
communicate an entrepreneur’s idea to a financial firm. For an entrepreneur, a business plan’s
main purpose is to obtain funding for his or her unique idea. For a financial firm, a business plan
is used in “the deal screening stage of the venture capital process” (Hindle & Mainprize, 2006, p.
8). Deal screening, as defined by Hindle (1997), is “the initial decision process by a venture
capital firm where many entrepreneurial business plans are screened down to a few that are
deemed to have high probability of success and warrant further due diligence” (as cited in Hindle
& Mainprize, 2006, p. 8). While an entrepreneur might create and submit one business plan,
experienced venture capitalists evaluate, on average, 100 plans a month, from which only one to
three are chosen for the investment (Timmons, 1994 as cited in Diaz de Leo & Guild, 2003, p.

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139). How do venture capitalists approach this evaluating process?, What do they look for in a
business plan?, and What criteria do they use for their evaluations? were some of the questions
that rose at the outset of this study.
While a business plan is the most important document for an entrepreneur looking for
funding for his or her idea, an executive summary is deemed by a number of experts “the most
important part of this most important document” (Adams, 1991; Harmon, 2002; Sant, 2004).
Like an effective résumé’s submission invites a potential employee for an interview, an
executive summary submitted on its own has the power to determine whether or not the
submission of a complete business plan will be requested by venture capitalists. When a
business plan accompanies the submission of an executive summary, it is the executive summary
that is read first to determine whether or not venture capitalists will proceed with reading the
plan in its entirety (Harmon, 2002, p. 35). In a recent study, Lagerwerf and Bossers (2002)
observed and analyzed readers' preferences and reading behavior of executive summaries. Their
findings revealed that most readers (89.5 percent and 76.9 percent in two separate studies)
“started their selection paths with the management summary” (p. 448).
Some experts go even further in recognizing the impact of the executive summary and
claim that it is often the only part of a business plan that venture capitalists will read (Sant, 2004;
Vassallo, 2003). Furthermore, Fulscher (1996) argues that a business plan itself is “just support
material to the executive summary” (p. 64). Not all researches are as enthused about an
executive summary’s importance. Keller (1994), for instance, believes that “the impact of an
executive summary can be over-dramatized” and continues by arguing that “a good executive
summary can’t cure a bad proposal” (p. 511). Yet, Keller recognizes the fact that an executive

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summary is read by a high number of readers and does not recommend submitting a business
plan without an executive summary (p. 511).
Current business data indicates that more plans are rejected than accepted (Asner, 1991,
p. 1). Furthermore, Asner argues “that price is rarely the only consideration and, many times, not
even the main one” (p. 1). Keeping this argument in mind and accepting the above presented
knowledge about the importance of executive summaries, this study analyzes executive
summaries from a perspective of business writing genre in order to evaluate which rhetorical
components of an executive summary contribute to its acceptance or rejection.
Haselkorn (1985) argues that “business and technical writing textbooks are filed with
advice about how to write proposals. But most of this advice is untested, based on the author’s
personal experience and knowledge” (as cited in McIsaac & Aschauer, 1990, p. 527-528). Years
later, Hindle (1997) further claims that “the vast majority of the abundant literature on ‘how to
write a successful business plan’ is not research-based” (as cited in Hindle & Mainprize, 2006, p.
7). In response to the limited research existing in the area, this study aims to contribute to a
better understanding of an entrepreneur’s rhetorical choices and their impact on effectiveness of
executive summaries.
The paper is organized in the following manner: first, a review of a business plan
literature is presented in order to emphasize a need for an in-depth research of executive
summaries and a gap existing in this area of knowledge; second, an extensive discussion of genre
conventions of the executive summary is presented; third, methodology for the current study is
discussed; fourth, the findings and discussion from the current study are presented; and, finally,
the study’s implications and limitations are mentioned.

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Review of the Literature
Over the last two decades, a cadre of business researchers has investigated the concept of
a business plan in the context of entrepreneurs and their business ventures. Fry and Stoner
(1985) reported in their study that these entrepreneurs regard effective planning, including
writing business plans, “the most difficult function they have to perform” (p. 1). In spite of the
fact that effective planning contributes to a venture’s success, planning still creates challenges to
new entrepreneurs. Fry and Stoner attempted to help entrepreneurs overcome some of the
planning challenges by explaining two types of plans; namely, working plans and investment
plans (p. 2). Since Fry and Stoner were concerned with discussing differences between working
and investment plans, consequently they hardly touched on examining the rhetoric of a business
plan. Therefore, apart from learning about major distinctions between the aforementioned plans,
entrepreneurs need to look for more in-depth advice on writing effective business plans in a
different source.
Information regarding the criteria used to evaluate new ventures is presented in a formal
study conduced by MacMillan, Siegel, and Narasimha (1985). The researchers interviewed
fourteen venture capitalists in the New York metropolitan area with a main purpose of
establishing what criteria they use to evaluate new venture proposals (p. 120). A list of twentyseven
evaluating criteria emerged from those interviews, and the criteria were classified into six
major groups (for an in-depth presentation, see MacMillan, Siegel, and Narasimha, 1985). Not
surprisingly, the main finding from this study confirms the well known statement that “above all
it is the quality of the entrepreneur that ultimately determines the funding decision” (p. 128).
Yet, the main question still remains unanswered: “How, in what rhetorical manner, should an

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entrepreneur present himself or herself in order to be successful in receiving the funding
decision?”
Riquelme and Watson (2002) take the concept of venture capitalists evaluating criteria to
a next level. Not only do they discuss what criteria venture capitalists use while evaluating new
ventures, but they also conduct a study of venture capitalists in Great Britain in order to evaluate
the validity of venture capitalists selection criteria. The study’s findings suggest that “the
commonsense theories held by (their) sample of UK VCs have validity and, therefore, VCs
should continue to look for new ventures that have a product with a competitive edge backed by
a managerial team with appropriate experience” (p. 412). Although the presentations in the
above two studies explicitly list venture capitalists evaluating criteria, they do not address the
crucial ‘how’ an entrepreneur should structure and write his or her business plan to guarantee
that it meets the expectations set by those criteria.
In his discussion of executive summaries, Keller (1994) concentrates on a number of
rhetorical markers that should guide an entrepreneur in writing this crucial document. Purpose,
length, and content, along with other issues, are the center of this discussion. Even though
Keller’s presentation explicitly focuses on each of the aforementioned issues, it neither provides
an in-depth analysis of executive summaries nor examines the intended positive outcomes of
creating and submitting for funding an executive summary that follows all the rules set in the
presentation.
An investigation of the correlation between planning and failure of the US small
businesses was conducted by Perry (2001). The main finding from this study states that small
US businesses engage themselves in very little planning, a state that contributes to their failures.
Furthermore, successful businesses were found to do more planning “than similar failed firms

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did prior to failure” (p. 201). Based on the findings, Perry’s main argument is that planning is
“essential for business success” (p. 201). The findings from Perry’s study confirm Rue and
Ibrahim’s (1998) findings regarding the importance of a written business plan - businesses
without it exhibited a slower growth rate than businesses with a written plan. As important as
Perry’s findings are, apart from listing five questions that need to be addressed in each business
plan to enhance an entrepreneur’s chances of success, the presentation does not discuss the ‘how’
to address these questions and what rhetorical manner needs to be used in order to further
enhance the effectiveness of the plan.
One of the recent studies by Cook, Belliveau, and Sandberg (2004) examines the process
of creating business plans that took place as a part of a US macro enterprise training program.
However apart from discussing the importance of feedback, components of panel review score,
and writing a plan as a team versus writing it solo, the study does not provide any advice
regarding the writing strategies that need to be employed while an entrepreneur writes the plan.
From this study, an entrepreneur will learn that, in addition to working in a team, it is crucial to
seek outside feedback on the plan before its submission, as both these aspects contribute to the
plan’s effectiveness.
Finally, Hindle and Mainprize (2006) conducted a literature review concerned with
criteria used to evaluate written plans of new business ventures, and based on this review, they
articulated 10 principles, titled the Entrepreneurial Business Plan Assessment Regime, which can
serve as a guide for both writing and rating entrepreneurial business plans. However explicit in
discussing the content of a business plan, the principles do not specify how this content needs to
be presented in terms of rhetoric. Hindle and Mainprize (2006) conclude in their study, “The
focus of future research should progress towards greater standardization of the writing and rating

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of entrepreneurial business plans” (p. 21). Hence, the main purpose of the following sections
will be to discuss genre conventions of business executive summaries in order to create a more
standardized list of rhetorical components that contribute to the effectiveness of a written plan.
Even though most of the components can be easily transferable and applicable to a business plan
as a whole, the following genre discussion will focus primarily on conventions for writing an
executive summary.
Genre Conventions of Executive Summary
A paucity of research exists that examines the rhetoric of executive summaries and its
impact on the effectiveness of this document. Entrepreneurs aiming to write a business plan
might search for advice in a number of periodicals that include “how-to” tips; however, these tips
often do not have support in empirical research but come from data presented by individuals,
venture capitalist, responsible for providing funding for new ventures. Moreover, as Riquelme
and Watson (2002) point out, “in assessing new business proposals, venture capitalists rely on
their own implicit theories (beliefs) about the attributes that a potentially successful business
should possess” (p. 395). Diaz de Leo and Guild (2003) recognize the dangers associated with
the assessment of intangibles in business plans by arguing that “when evaluating these
investment opportunities, expert analysts frequently face approximate or soft data, often
presented linguistically” (p. 136). Furthermore, they claim that an accurate method needs to be
created in order to evaluate business plans more accurately (p. 136). The main purpose of this
section is to discuss genre conventions for writing executive summaries in order to attempt to
create an ‘accurate method’ that could be used for executive summaries evaluations and their
writing process.

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Genre
Each and every written document is an example of a specific genre in a broad area of a
written discourse. This document, as expected by its genre conventions, must exemplify certain
conventions. Anne Beaufort (1999) defines these conventions by claiming that each recurring
form must contain the following, most basic qualities of the document:
1. Rhetorical features – components that address the audience’s expectations and
needs in a particular way
2. Content - components that facilitate addressing the audience’s expectations and answer
their questions
3. Structure - specific guidelines for organizing and presenting information
4. Stylistic elements - appropriate language, use of jargon, formality (as cited in
Clayton, 2002, p. 3).
Therefore, as Rude (1995) points out, “genres trigger in readers assumptions about how a
document should be used and the nature of knowledge within that document. Furthermore,
genres steer readers’ approaches to interpretation and knowledge construction” (as cited in
Suchan, 1998, p. 314).
The above principles apply to business writing genre, and as
Berkenkottenm and Huckin (1995) claim, “Professional readers have certain expectations of the
documents they read. These expectations are based on genre conventions” (as cited in Lagerwerf
& Bossers 2002, p. 437-438). Therefore, when an entrepreneur attempts to write a business plan,
he or she needs to conform to the conventions set by a business discourse community and its
genre.
The following sections will discuss each component of an executive summary, as defined
by its genre conventions; namely, purpose, length, content, structure, language, and graphics.

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Purpose
Consensus exists among researchers regarding the purpose of an executive summary for a
business plan. The document is supposed to ‘highlight the most important and compelling
aspects of the plan’ (Harmon, 2002), present these aspects in ‘a unique way, embodying high
standards of literacy and numeracy’ (Hindle & Mainprize, 2006, p. 11), and ‘entice its readers to
read on’ (Adams, 1991, p. 47) in order to request the submission of the lengthier formal business
plan.
Length
Some researchers quote a specific number of pages for an executive summary, ‘no more
than two pages, one if possible’ (Adams, 1991; Chang, 1995); ‘should not exceed three pages’
(Fulscher, 1996; Harmon, 2002) while others, using percentage, state that an executive summary
should ‘take up less than 10 percent of the entire document’ (Vassallo, 2003, p. 86). At this
point, it is worth mentioning that busy venture capitalists, evaluating about one hundred plans a
month, usually spend only five to ten minutes scanning the document before they decide whether
or not to read it in its entirety (Schilit, 1987, p. 13).
Content
Business plans experts agree that poorly contextually structured proposals rarely get
accepted (Asner, 1991; Rich & Gumpert, 1985; Schilit, 1987); however, what they are not in a
definite agreement on are what components need to be included in an executive summary and
what their placement in the document should be in order for this document to be deemed
‘effective.’ Adams (1991) argues that conventions on the document structure of business reports
demand that an executive summary include the following:

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The primary purpose of the plan
A sufficient definition of a business idea
An overview of the market and market potential
A summary of significant product features
Financial history (if any)
Financial requirements
Long-term vision (p. 47).
Rich and Gumpert (1985) claim that an executive summary should discuss “the company’s
current status, its products or services, the benefits to customers, the financial forecasts, the
venture’s objectives in three to seven years, the amount of financing needed, and how investors
will benefit” (p. 162). The most explicit discussion of what components need to be included in
an executive summary and its adequate placement in the document is presented by Schilit (1987,
p. 15-16). Table 1 below presents six components of an executive summary and states what
needs to be included in each component.
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Structure
As Gilsdorf (2001) argues many “business readers tend to read rapidly, for meaning” (p.
459); therefore, it is crucial that entrepreneurs facilitate this reading process by organizing an
executive summary in an effective and easy to comprehend manner. A number of techniques
have been claimed to be invaluable in such an endeavor; namely, effective paragraph
organization, inclusion of headings and subheadings, incorporation of lists and bullets, and

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supporting one’s claims with source citations. “Boldface type, headings, bulleted points, and
white space will help you clarify your ideas. The more readable your proposal, the better your
chances that the prospect will become a client,” argues Obuchowski (2005, p. 4).
An executive summary’s text needs to broken down into clearly defined paragraphs.
Each of these paragraphs should stand alone as a coherent, unified idea. In addition, an
executive summary should be limited to a few paragraphs only (Vassallo, 2003, p. 88). To
emphasize unified ideas standing on their own, headings and subheadings should be used. Both
Aurner and Signband advocate use of headings and subheadings as aids for ‘fast and easy
reading’ (as cited in de Villier, 1972, p. 15). To broadcast key points and reduce verbiage,
entrepreneurs are advised to use bulleted lists (Clayton, 2003; Keller, 1994). Vassallo (2003)
points out that “using bullets positions writers in a brevity-focused mindset. By placing key
details into bullets, the writer keeps whittling away until every word counts and the ideas
presented are conceptually parallel” (p. 90). Finally, in order to be credible, an entrepreneur has
to “back up claims with case studies, research, or third-party recognition” (Wreden, 2002, p. 3).
Language
As Wreden (2002) emphasizes, “the most vital part of the process, of course, is writing.
Proposals are often won or lost on the effectiveness of the writing” (p. 3). Kallendorf and
Kallendorf (1985) add that “effective business prose makes its contribution to a company’s
profitability by developing what we might call ‘assurance,’ or confidence in the company, its
products, and its personnel” (p. 45). A few language rules for writing effective executive
summaries have been identified, and they are presented in the discussion below.
While linking words are known to guide readers and help them with understanding a
written discourse, they are to be limited in business writing and especially in executive

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summaries that should be written “to-the-point’ without too much context verbiage. Instead, an
entrepreneur should concentrate all the efforts on including content words (Vassallo, 2003, p.
89). Business experts reach a consensus regarding using technical vocabulary and acronyms;
they all claim that technical vocabulary should be limited, and all the acronyms need to be
spelled out the first time they are used (Asner, 1991; Fulscher, 1996; Harmon, 2002; Wreden,
2002)
The manner in which entrepreneurs refer to themselves have also been found to be a
significant aspect attributing to a success, or lack of it, of a business document. Berleant (2000)
reports that “using the term ‘we’ appears preferable to writing in the ‘I’ or the third person. Over
half the proposals ranked as ‘Highly Competitive’ used ‘we,’ compared to less than half of the
proposals in the ‘I’ and third-person categories” (p. 25). Pronoun ‘we,’ further argued by
Jameson, “conveys that two people share a problem to be solved” (2004, p. 241).
One of the language aspects that should have no place in executive summaries is an
adjective that presents an unsupported opinion. These adjectives can be excised without any loss
for the document (Weiss, 1978, p. 28). An entrepreneur needs to use concrete statements of
quality rather than support his or her claims with adjectives that are highly subjective. As
Fulscher (1996) argues, saying, ‘we have the best management company’ is meaningless.
Instead, an explicit statement should be used; for example, ‘our property expenses are 14 percent
below our competition’s’ (p. 64).
Finally the most crucial law an entrepreneur needs to obey is writing in accordance with
Standard English (SD) grammar. Grammatical errors bother readers because, as Shaughnessy
(1977) says, “they are ‘unintentional and unprofitable intrusions upon the consciousness of the
reader, … (demanding) energy without giving back any return in meaning (p.12)” (as cited in

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Gilsdorf, 2001, p. 440). Proper writing, as further argues Gilsdorf, “has been equated to morality
and virtue” (2001, p. 445).
Visuals
The last, but not the least, important component of executive summaries are visuals and
graphics. Experts encourage entrepreneurs to include visuals in their documents in order to save
space, clarify the meaning of more challenging concepts, and enhance audience’s understanding
of a document (Keller, 1994; Fulscher, 1996; Wreden, 2002).
Methodology
There is little empirical basis available to guide our understanding towards writing
effective business plan proposals. A quantitative (positivist) framework relies heavily on extant
theory (Creswell, 1994, p. 88). Consequently, the theoretical implications of effective business
plan writing must be well understood. Qualitative methods are often used to develop theory
(Creswell, 1994, p. 88). The difficulty found with qualitative methodology, however, is that it
does not lend itself very well to the quantitative manipulations needed for the quantitative
methodology which may be used in subsequent studies (Schneider, 1992, p. 337). To circumvent
this problem, the study employs content analysis methodology (Krippendorff, 1980 p. 348).
Content analysis is a methodology that is positioned between quantitative and qualitative
methods (Schneider, 1992, p. 337) and is understood as a procedure of coding information
obtained from interviews (Krippendorff, 1980; Schneider, 1992). Once the coding is done, data
is amenable to quantitative data manipulations (Schneider, 1992, p. 337). This process involves
the development of coding themes for the statements made by the participants (Schneider, 1992,

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p. 337). Schneider et al. (1992, p. 337) find that content analysis provides results that can be
utilized in quantitative data manipulations and may be useful for latter studies.
Executive summaries utilized in this study came from undisclosed business plan
competitions held in Midwestern US. Seven effective and eleven non-effective business plans
were employed in this study. Effective business plans were defined as a business plans that were
classified as competition finalists. Competitions were judged by a panel of community based
judges, mostly consisting of practicing (or former) entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Noneffective
business plans, on the other hand, were defined as plans that failed to reach the finalist
stage in these competitions. For consistency of criteria, only one competition (over a three year
period) was used, ensuring that effective and non-effective business plans were in direct
competitions with each other.
In a number of criterion that required a judgment call, inter-rater approach was utilized to
ensure the minimization of a personal bias that may be present with the investigator. For
example, an evaluation of the clarity of visual presentation, which employed a 5-point Likart
scale, was established by an average of the evaluation done by the MBA graduate, a journalist,
and present investigators.
Findings and Discussion
Content analysis methodology represents an effort to establish whether business plan
content plays a role, and more importantly, which aspects of the analysis are the most crucial.
Tables 2 to 6 present summarized results of content analysis of successful as well as
unsuccessful business plans. Table 2 presents business description, strategic direction and market
description, while Table 3 looks at the management descriptivism, financial features and exit
strategy discussions. Building upon the research from the field of English, Table 4 considers the

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organization of the paper, and Table 5 looks at the language. Finally, Table 6 looks at the visuals
present in the business plan summaries.
Written Content
Written content analysis includes the description of business (description of
product/service its features and future goals), discussion of strategic direction (including strategic
plan and its implementation) and the presentation of market conditions (including the
identification of the target market and the market channels). When analyzing the data from
presenting ‘description of business,’ (Table 1) it is evident that in general the effective executive
summaries are more successful than the non-effective summaries in defining their proposed
initiatives. While all of the effective summaries provided the ‘product/service description’ and
defined its ‘features,’ three out of 11 non-effective summaries did not discuss the product/service
at all or did not sufficiently describe the features. The difference between the summaries is more
explicit when the discussion of ‘future goals’ is analyzed; only four out of eleven non-effective
summaries concentrated on discussing ‘future goals’ while all but one effective summaries
provided such a discussion.
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Likewise, some difference is also observed in terms of ‘strategic direction’ have been
identified. The findings suggest that the effective summaries have a higher understanding of their
strategic direction (all of the effective summaries include its discussion) than the non-effective
summaries (three out of eleven summaries have no mention of their strategic direction). It
appears that venture capitalist and other audiences are made more comfortable if the business
plan shows awareness of the strategic issues and concepts.

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A similar scenario is apparent when ‘market’ is analyzed. Even though there is no
overall significance between its presentation by the effective and non-effective executive
summaries, a crucial difference exists when ‘market channel identification’ is presented. Only
two out of seven effective summaries do not discuss how they are planning to reach their defined
markets while more than 85 percent, six out of seven to be precise, of the non-effective
summaries does not include this discussion in the document.
Management Aspects
Management aspects include the discussion of management (discussion of management
team backgrounds and responsibilities), financials (projected sales, profits, capital requirements),
and exit strategies. In examining Table 3, a strong significance is observed while comparing the
presentation of ‘management responsibilities’ in the documents. While three out of seven
effective summaries discuss management responsibilities, only two out of eleven executive
summaries include this crucial aspect in their discussion. Data from ‘financial features’ sections
also demonstrate that the effective summaries exhibit an overall better understanding of this
crucial concept, especially of the ‘capital needed’ and ‘proceeds usage’ subcomponents. While
six out of seven effective summaries addressed both of these subcomponents, nine and six noneffective
summaries, respectively, failed to address the same. Examining the ‘exit’ component,
however, there are no significant differences between the summaries. A finding worth
mentioning is the fact that both the effective and non-effective summaries hardly at all discuss
this component.
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Structure
Table 4 shows the results of the structure analysis. Structure analysis refers to the
characteristics of the papers such as number of pages, words, paragraphs, and the average
number of sentences per paragraph. Structure also includes the number of headings and
subheadings, the presence of lists & bullets, as well as the presence of source citations. A couple
aspects need mentioning when analyzing the structure of the executive summaries. Overall, the
effective summaries consist of fewer words (with an average of 832 words per summary) than
the non-effective ones (with an average of 999 words per summary). These observations might
suggest that the effective summaries are more concise, presenting all the necessary information
using fewer words. It is interesting to point out, however, that the page length of the summaries
appears not to support the above observations. While on average the effective summaries have
2.2 pages, the non-effective summaries have 2.4 pages. The difference does not appear as
significant as the same discrepancy in the word count. This can be easily attributed to the
presence, or its lack, of visuals in the documents. (Visuals’ discussion is presented below.)
Another characteristic that seems to play a crucial role in the executive summary’s
effectiveness is the use of citations and supporting one’s claims with outside sources. While five
effective summaries incorporated this characteristic in their documents, nine out of eleven noneffective
summaries did not do so. (Please refer to Appendix B for detailed findings regarding
the organization evaluations.)
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Language
Language refers to the number of linking words, of undefined acronyms, of pronoun
"we" and “I” uses. It also includes the occurrence of technical jargon, third person pronoun uses,
opinion adjectives, and grammatical/mechanical errors. Language analysis of the summaries
reveals interesting findings in respect to the use of linking words, pronouns, adjectives, and
Standard English. The non-effective summaries used more linking words than did the effective
summaries, 4.9 and 2.7 respectively. A couple of possible conclusions can be made in an
attempt to understand this finding. Since the non-effective summaries are longer on average, it
can be argued that they will consequently contain more linking words. A counterargument can
be made which would suggest that the effective summaries are classified as more ‘to-the-point’
than are the non-effective ones; hence, they use fewer linking words. This second conclusion
appears more consistent with other findings of this study.
Analysis of pronouns usage shows that pronoun shifts are more common in the noneffective
summaries. The non-effective summaries shift between the first person plural and the
third person singular much more often than do the effective summaries. On average, the
effective summaries use only 2.2 pronouns in the first person plural and 12.4 pronouns in the
third person singular. Non-effective summaries, on the other hand, use 9.7 and 16.3 pronouns
respectively, creating a more frequent pronoun shift. Such a shift makes the text harder to
comprehend, as a reader might get confused as far as who a subject, a performer of an action, is.
A significant difference exists in the use of adjectives that present an opinion without giving data
to support the claim. For example, saying that sales are skyrocketing, without giving explicit
numbers, is qualified as such an adjective presenting unsupported opinion. On average, the

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0681
effective summaries use 4.1 adjectives that contain an unsupported opinion, and the noneffective
summaries use 7.8 of such adjectives.
The most crucial difference is apparent when grammatical and mechanical errors are analyzed.
While the effective summaries are written in a clear prose, mostly free of errors, and are
employing Standard English rules, the non-effective ones are written in a prose that is at times
unclear and filled with a number of destructive errors. On average, the effective executive
summaries have five errors while the non-effective summaries have 15.8. In addition, the
standard deviation for these errors is 2.6 and 12.2 respectively, suggesting that this is a
significant difference between effective and non-effective summaries. This data confirms the
claims set by a number of business experts that an executive summary, in order to be successful,
needs to be written in a clear prose and follow Standard English rules (Gilsdorf, 2001; Asner,
1991). (Please refer to Appendix C for detailed findings regarding the language evaluations.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Insert Table 5 about here
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Visuals
Finally, the visuals refer to the presence, frequency and quality of visual aides used. This
category also includes the existence of reference to the visuals in the prose of the summary itself.
Based on this study’s data, an argument in support of using visuals can be made. All of the
effective executive summaries included at least one visual, with an average of 2.2 visuals per
summary. Four out of eleven non-effective summaries did not include any visuals, with an
average of only 1.2 visuals per summary. In addition to the inclusion visuals, or the lack thereof
being a variable, the quality of visuals’ presentation provided a significant difference.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0682
Insert Table 6 about here
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzing the visuals’ clarity, the following findings are of importance (on a scale from 5
to 1 with 5 being the clearest and 1 being the least clear). On average the effective summaries’
visuals received 4.1 for their clarity while the non-effective summaries’ visuals received 3.5 for
their clarity. In addition, 81.2 percent of the visuals in the effective summaries were explicitly
titled while only 8.3 percent of the visuals of the non-effective summaries were titled.
Cumulative analysis
In an attempt to further understand the above findings, Tables 2 to 6 were agglomerated
into one table. In addition to the data extant in the tables, additional columns were added that
calculate the change in frequency, average and standard deviation between the effective and noneffective
summaries. The fields were then sorted based on the extent of difference between the
effective and ineffective summaries.
It is necessary to note that top 10 categories that are most differentiated between the
effective and ineffective summaries are made up of five categories from language and three
categories from organization sections. Remaining two categories come from visuals and
management. However, even the visual category (“visuals titled”) may be more reflective of
proper language usage than it is of the visual itself. On the other hand, four of the ten least
differentiated items come from management category, with remaining three being from content,
two from visuals and one from language.
These observations suggest that, in our sample, language and organization played a most
significant role in differentiating between the two types of summaries. It is posited that
management and content categories are not any less significant, but most likely are already
included and well presented in the majority of the summaries. This study suggests that future

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0683
teaching efforts by universities and colleges need to focus on supplementing the would be
entrepreneurs with the skills and assets that they need or lack. This is intuitively appealing if one
realizes that entrepreneurs tend to be focused on the product and process of the idea rather than
the communication of the same to the financing community.
Conclusions and Implications
A few significant guidelines (presented below) emerge from this study, and these should
be taken into a careful consideration by entrepreneurs who plan to prepare their “winning”
executive summary. They could guide an entrepreneur in the process of writing as well as they
could serve as a checklist during final revisions. In addition, revising the document a few times,
each time concentrating on its different aspect, might be beneficial to its overall effectiveness.
This study provides evidence that there is a difference in writing styles and the written
content between effective and ineffective business plan summaries. Specifically, this paper posits
that effective business plan summaries are richer with appropriate information, while at the same
time being shorter in length. Effective summaries make use of written communication to
demonstrate knowledge and awareness suggesting management capability and potential.
While specific elements of these summaries have been identified, this study demonstrates
a need for institutions of higher education to teach students more completely the craft of business
plan preparation. Findings form this study support the assumption that business plan preparation
training is focused more on the content element of business plan development, than on business
plan delivery. It follows that such training programs, therefore, enjoy lower success rate than
would otherwise be possible. Following are more specific recommendations and guidelines
extracted from the results of this study.

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0684
Executive Summary Guidelines
While writing and/or evaluating the content, make sure to:
explicitly discuss each component of the executive summary (refer to the Schilit’s
content mentioned above), and
pay particular attention to describing the product or service, strategic plan, and market.
While organizing and/or evaluating the structure of an executive summary, make sure to:
write concisely by avoiding unnecessary verbiage, and
support any claims with outside sources to enhance credibility.
While writing and/or evaluating the language, make sure to:
avoid pronoun shifts by being consistent with their usage,
avoid using adjectives that provide opinions; if used, they have to be supported with
explicit statements of quality,
use Standard English, and
avoid making grammatical and mechanical errors by proofreading extremely carefully.
While preparing the document, include visuals and make sure to:
evaluate their clarity, and
title them explicitly.
In the current competitive world, no business plan can guarantee success in obtaining
funding for a new venture; however, keeping the above guidelines in mind and applying them to
the writing process of an executive summary might enhance the chances of a positive outcome.
To conclude, it is critical to emphasize that “proposals structured along the lines of genre
conventions do enhance appreciation of business decision makers. (…) Professional readers who
read a conventionally structured document capture more information than professional readers

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0685
who read the same document with another structure” (Lagerwerf & Bossers 2002, p. 450).
Therefore, a careful analysis of the aforementioned genre conventions should only prove
beneficial to an entrepreneur.
Limitations
As with all research, the present study included limitations, in particular, the number of
samples for analysis. Having only seven effective executive summaries and eleven non-effective
summaries provided a small sample for the current analysis; therefore, literal and strict
applications should be made with constructive criticism. It would be interesting to examine
whether or not similar results to the current study emerge when the sample size is relatively
larger. This interest paves the way for future studies that could incorporate a larger sample of
data.
The competition structure could also be classified as one of the limitations. In the
competitions, the judges were supposed to choose “five” executive summaries that they deemed
effective. This number not only limited their choices (there could have been other executive
summaries that were effective but did not get chosen) but also could contribute to them choosing
executive summaries (to fulfill the specified number) that did not deserve the prize. Finally,
future research could concentrate on analyzing executive summaries from various competitions
in order to conduct a comparative study.
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Table 1.
Complete Outline of the Content of the Executive Summary*
A. Description of Business
Briefly describe nature of product or service, its unique features, and what you hope to accomplish over the
next five to ten years.
B. Strategic Direction
Briefly describe the overall strategic (or long-range) direction of the company for next three to five years.
Explain how you intend to achieve your overall long-range goals. Identify the stage (for example, start up,
development, turnaround) of the business.
C. Market
Briefly describe the market segment you are attempting to reach and the channels that you plan to use to reach
that segment. Demonstrate the benefits of the product or service to those users.
D. Management
Briefly describe the backgrounds and responsibilities of the founders and top managers of the company.
E. Financial Features
State your expected sales and profits for this year, next year, and for five years in the future. Estimate how
much capital you will need, how you intend to use the proceeds, and how much equity (as a percentage) you
are prepared to give up in exchange for such an investment. What is your expected annual return for the
investors?
F. Exit
Explain how and when the investors will get their money out of the business – for example, through buyback,
acquisition, or public offering.
* Schilit, W.K. (1987). How to Write a Winning Business Plan. Business Horizons, 30(5), 13-22.
Table 2
Content Analysis Results
Executive
Summary Subcomponents
Frequency
Count
(out of 7)
Successful Summaries
Frequency
percentage
Average
Standard
Deviation
Unsuccessful Summaries
Frequency
Count
(out of 11)
Frequency
percentage
Average
Standard
Deviation
Description of Business
Product/service
description
7 100% 1 0 10 91% 0.909 0.302
Product/service
features
7 100% 1 0 9 82% 0.818 0.405
Future goals 6 86% 0.857 0.377 4 36% 0.363 0.505
Strategic Direction
Strategic plan 7 100% 1 0 8 73% 0.727 0.467
Plan
implementation
3 43% 0.428 0.534 3 27% 0.272 0.467
Market

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Target market
identification
Market channel
identification
7 100% 1 0 10 91% 0.909 0.302
5 71% 0.714 0.487 5 45% 0.454 .0522

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0690
Table 3
Management Analysis Results
Executive
Summary Subcomponents
Successful Summaries
Frequency
Count
(out of 7)
Frequency
percentage
Average
Standard
Deviation
Unsuccessful Summaries
Frequency
Count
(out of 11)
Frequency
percentage
Average
Standard
Deviation
Management
Management
backgrounds
4 57% 0.571 0.535 6 55% 0.545 0.522
Management
responsibilities
3 43% 0.429 0.535 2 18% 0.182 0.405
Financial Features
Expected sales and
profits for this year,
next year, and for
3 43% 0.429 0.535 3 27% 0.273 0.467
five years in the
future
Capital needed 6 86% 0.857 0.378 2 18% 0.182 0.405
Proceeds usage 6 86% 0.857 0.378 5 45% 0.455 0.522
Equity amount in
exchange for
2 29% 0.286 0.488 0 0% 0 0
investment.
Expected annual
investors’ return
0 0% 0 0 0 0% 0 0
Exit
How investors will
get their money out
1 14% 0.143 0.378 1 9% 0.091 0.302
of the business
When investors will
get their money out
of the business
0 0% 0 0 1 9% 0.091 0.302
Table 4
Organization Analysis Results
Effective Executive Summaries
Non-Effective Executive Summaries
Executive
Summary
Organization
Frequency
Count
(out of 7)
Frequency
percentage
Average
Standard
Deviation
Frequency
Count (out
of 11)
Frequency
percentage
Average
Standard
Deviation
# of pages 15.6 2.229 2.229 0.875 26.75 2.432 2.432 0.807
# of words 5827 832.429 832.429 364.715 10989 999 999 402.401
# of paragraphs 72 10.286 10.286 4.071 125 11.364 11.364 3.957
Average # of
sentences per
paragraph
# of headings &
subheadings
Lists & Bullets
/ Yes or No
Source citation
/ Yes or No
22.48 3.211 3.211 0.599 42.6 3.873 3.873 0.747
46 6.571 6.571 2.225 48 4.364 4.364 4.032
4 0.571 0.571 0.535 5 0.455 0.455 0.522
5 0.714 0.714 0.488 2 0.182 0.182 0.405

USASBE_2009_Proceedings-Page0691
Table 5
Language Analysis Results
Executive
Summary
Language
Effective Executive Summaries
Frequency Frequency Average
Count percentage
(out of 7)
Standard
Deviation
Frequency
Count
(out of 11)
Non-Effective Executive Summaries
Frequency Average
percentage
Standard
Deviation
# of Linking Words 19 2.714 2.714 3.352 54 4.909 4.909 3.618
# of Uses of
0 0 0 0 11 1 1 3.317
Technical Jargon
# of Undefined
20 2.857 2.857 2.610 14 1.273 1.273 2.054
Acronyms
# of Pronoun "we"
16 2.286 2.286 3.498 107 9.727 9.727 9.371
Uses
# of Pronoun "I"
0 0 0 0 4 0.364 0.364 1.206
Uses
# of Third Person
87 12.429 12.429 5.381 180 16.364 16.364 11.750
Pronoun Uses
# of Opinion
29 4.143 4.143 2.610 86 7.818 7.818 7.319
Adjectives
# of
Grammatical/Mecha
nical Errors
35 5 5 2.646 174 15.818 15.818 12.205
Effective Executive Summaries
Executive Summary Visuals Frequency Frequency
Count percentage
(out of 7)
Table 6
Visuals Analysis Results
Average
Standard
Deviation
Frequency
Count
(out of 11)
Non-Effective Executive Summaries
Frequency Average
percentage
Standard
Deviation
# of visuals 16 2.286 2.286 1.380 14 1.273 1.273 1.191
Visual clarity (average of
29.04 4.149 4.149 0.330 24.83 2.257 3.547 0.865
three reviews and all visuals)
Visual titled (+1 for each Yes) 13 1.857 0.813 0.690 2 0.182 0.083 0.405
In-text reference to the visual
(+1 for each Yes)
4 0.571 0.250 1.512 5 0.455 0.417 0.820