A Self-Study Course Using a Proven Six-Part Formula to Persuade Evaluators to Award the Contract to You

Such executive summaries don’t sell – at best they leave the government evaluators cold, and at worst they cast a negative light on your entire proposal.

Two things happen when you write a poor Executive Summary:

1. When you submit your proposal and it undergoes evaluation, the evaluators often don’t even see your executive summary.  

When I polled government contracting officers (to whom you deliver your proposals) on whether they share executive summaries with the rest of the evaluators, they told me what really happens. If the executive summary is good and helps understand the proposal and the offer better, they provide copies to the source selection evaluation board; and if it is the "usual" document full of fluff, they just keep it in their own file and don't bother distributing it.

Essentially, if the RFP doesn't require an executive summary, most of the time no one really reads it – not because it’s not needed for the evaluators to better understand your offer, but because it is so poorly written.  

In the highly competitive arena, it is not enough to be compliant, to have good past performance, and competitive price.

In the world of “technical leveling” (where so many companies have very similar credentials and capabilities), and “transparent government” (where everyone knows each other’s prices since most of this information is public), you have to leave no stone unturned to make yourself shine.

Today's federal bid competitions are tough as everyone has caught on that the U.S. Government is the largest and the most stable customer in the world with $500+ billion market. This market is still growing – as Washington Technology just reported. If you want an illustration of how steep the competition has become, take a look at the Eagle II opportunity for the Department of Homeland Security – there are more than 1000 interested vendors for the unrestricted and small business vehicles. In competitions like these, being merely compliant and having great past performance and price is not enough. You have to do whatever it takes to get your proposal to shine – in every way. You have to have something that distinguishes you and gets the evaluator to notice you, and…

…you miss your chance

2. When evaluators get the full proposal copy, a badly written executive summary can cast a negative light over your whole proposal that may be otherwise a decent document.

Evaluators are human beings subject to first impressions – and bad first impressions over your otherwise good proposal may cost you the contract in a tight competition.

So what is it that stands between you and a great executive summary?

Do you agonize over what you should write in your Executive Summary – how you should structure it so that it makes the most compelling argument for selecting you? Are you tired of slapping together executive summaries in the last hours before submitting the proposal because someone else had to write it and dropped the ball – or you yourself had procrastinated and postponed the pain?

• Have you been starting your executive summaries with “We are pleased to submit…”or “In response to this Request for Proposal (RFP) …”and believing that this is the way executive summaries are supposed to start? Or, did you hear that you shouldn’t start this way but don’t know HOW to start any other way?


• Have you ever been through dozen or more revisions of the Executive Summary, wasting time and money – only to produce a mediocre document?

• Do you know definitive answers to important questions such as:

• How long your executive summary should be?
• When it should be written?
• Who should write it?
• What graphics should go into it?
• How it should be written?

…or do you pretty much wonder in the dark and “swag” it each time?

• Do you wonder if there is a BETTER way to write executive summaries, with fresher tactics that work today, rather than the dated advice you remember from years ago?

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You no longer need to wonder how to write a GREAT executive summary. I have a solution for you. My name is Olessia Smotrova-Taylor, and I head OST Global Solutions, Inc. (www.ostglobalsolutions.com),  a metro Washington, DC company that helps businesses grow by winning government proposals.

I am also a CURRENTLY practicing, hands-on capture and proposal manager. I lead highly competitive government pursuits in the services and solutions industries for a variety of customers. My client list includes some of the top U.S. government contractors: Northrop Grumman, Unisys, DynCorp International, STG, and others. I am also on the board of directors of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) National Capital Area chapter. I have been working on 10 to 20 government proposals each year for more than a decade. These proposals have ranged from a few million dollars to billions of dollars in size.

Over the years, I have developed and perfected a system for writing executive summaries that brings consistent success – I have win rate of 94% in awarded dollars, winning nearly every proposal I have ever written. I have used this exact executive summary approach that I have developed and tested in the last two years successfully on 18 proposals thus far, two of which were over a billion-dollar threshold.

This system is built around a Six-Part Formula based on modern marketing and sales techniques that have not been taught to proposal management professionals, until now. These disciplines help form the most compelling arguments, engage the evaluators, and sway them to make the decision in your favor.

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Here is what the 121-page workbook includes: 1) Three dangerous misconceptions about executive summaries that may be hurting your win rates. After going through this course, you will never have to fall into the traps most companies get caught in with executive summaries.

2) Five questions and answers that hold the key to preparing persuasive executive summaries that sell. You will find out:

 

• WHY have an executive summary in the first place. The answers will bring clarity once and for all and will help you make the decision each time on whether you should write one, or forego it for a specific proposal.
• WHO should write an executive summary. If you are an employee of a larger company (or work for a small business that teams with larger companies on proposals), this section will be very useful to you. It also provides top three techniques seasoned proposal managers use to navigate through the corporate sticky wickets – to make sure your executive summary gets done on time (and well).
• WHEN should the executive summary be written. (Hint – it is not as simple as “first” or “last”.)
• WHAT are the characteristics of a compelling executive summary. Here you will get answers to the questions as to exactly how long it should be for any length proposal and what a winning executive summary is supposed to look like.
• And finally HOW – how to go about writing it – so that you don’t have to agonize ever again and battle with the writer’s block. This part segues into the exact step-by-step instructions for creating your own highly persuasive executive summary.

 

3) My Proven 6-Part Formula that takes the agony out of writing the executive summary and makes the process simple and straight-forward.

• Eight techniques (four basic and four advanced) for starting your executive summary so that you will NEVER have to resort to “we are pleased to submit...” This is something that peaks the evaluators’ interest and gets them excited about reading your document.

This will prevent evaluators’ temptation to node off at the first sentence, or worse – have a poor executive summary cast negative perception on your proposal – which may cost you millions of dollars.


• Detailed instructions for writing compelling value proposition – or your main proposal win theme – so that your proposal truly sells. This is my sure-fire technique for writing mean lean win themes that are UNIQUE to you (and are not the generic “we are the best value, lowest risk provider" any of your competitors could use in their proposal just as easily).

This part also includes guidelines for focus boxes that summarize your win themes – with pointers on designing them for high impact.

A great bonus from this course is that you can take these techniques and apply them to your entire proposal and not just the executive summary.


• Most effective ways to introduce you and your team to convince the evaluators you are the best possible offeror for the job. This section includes the exact techniques that work for presenting your team, and that equip you with the data call text you can send to your teammates to get the right information in the consistent format. It also addresses  difficult situations such as page-limited short-turnaround proposals with dozens of companies on the team.

• Four ways to write the body (the main text) of your executive summary – with considerations of how to choose what works best for the specific proposal – no matter if it is a five-pager or a multiple-volume response.

• Creative ways to develop a roadmap to your proposal – and how to decide when you don’t need to include a roadmap.

• Techniques to develop a high-impact ending for your executive summary to make it even more persuasive, borrowed from the discipline of “direct response marketing” – as applicable and appropriate in government proposals.

4) Executive Summary outline you can use over and over again so that you never have to start with a blank page and wonder what to write.

5) Detailed guidelines for conceptualizing executive summary graphics. You will get answers as to:

• How to conceptualize effective executive summary graphics – with ideas you can use on your next proposal
• Executive Summary graphics dos and don’ts
• Where to place graphics in the executive summary for the greatest impact

6) Techniques for editing your executive summary (and even for automating most of the editing), so that your executive summary is polished – to create a favorable, highly professional impression. This is especially useful to small businesses where you have a one-person business development “department” and you don’t have the luxury of a professional editing team.

Since it is not only a book but also a workbook, you get an entire framework of questions and thought processes to plan and develop YOUR executive summary. You can literally use this workbook to create your own executive summary as you learn the concepts. I offer all kinds of tips and tricks for you along the way that come from more than a decade of hard-earned lessons learned – all in one place – so that you don’t have to make those mistakes yourself.

You also get an audio CD where I go through the entire system for you:

It is just another way for you to learn. Knowing how busy you are (since you are involved in writing proposals), a CD is a convenient way for you to listen in your car on the way to work, or while you work out.

So, in a nutshell, you get my entire system for persuading the evaluators to award the contract to you. It is like having a top-notch capture and proposal consultant next to you who charges upwards of $200/hour to tell you ALL the insider secrets of how the top federal contractors win proposals.

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Here is what those who have had the chance to review this course said:

I like very much the process you describe for writing executive summaries — it makes sense and it works!   Ciro Pinto-Coelho, Vice President of Corporate Development, Alion Science and Technology

 

I have used the Executive Summaries Workbook principles to transform compliant proposals into compelling winning proposals. You can learn the same techniques to create winning Executive Summaries to make your proposals win. Jay Carroll, Director, GWAC Programs (New Business Capture, Proposal Development and Program Management), STG, Inc.

 

Though I have been in the proposal business for over 15 years, I found the OST guide to writing Executive Summaries full of a huge number of good ideas, tips, and suggestions that I had never thought of or seen before. Wewill start applying them immediately on proposals we are working on. The guide is easy to follow, and is as useful to anexperienced business developer as a newcomer just learning the ropes.”   Malcolm Visser, Principal, Race Point Consultant

 

This is a very good formula for generating an executive summary that works. If I could get my teams to follow this, we’d do much better. The overall structure of your executive summary works for the narrative flow of subsections as well. Marc Popovich, Proposal Manager, Northrop Grumman

 

I am a long-time successful consultant on a wide range of defense and environmental matters, including business development and proposal support for a wide variety of private industry clients. This is a succinct and VERY helpful handbook on precisely how to do smashingly good executive summaries.  I have never seen such a straightforward and helpful summary.  It should be absorbed in detail by every consultant in the business development business and used at every opportunity.” Amie Hoeber, President, AMH Consulting

 

Olessia's Executive Summary how-to guide is packed with unique solutions and industry best practices. There is no doubt that following her process will amp up your win rates.” Mike Parkinson, Principal at 24 Hour Company and author of Do-It-Yourself Billion Dollar Business Graphics

 

Check out the review of Executive Summary Secrets in the APMP Journal

 

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So now you're probably wondering, "How much does this course cost?"

I wanted to make this affordable for everyone – not only for those of you who get reimbursed by the company, but also those who are on your own consulting – or who work for companies that won’t invest in training.

This course could have easily cost a lot more because of its value – but I am offering it to you at $147. 

If you do the math, you will easily make this back in spades with the first proposal you win – or actually much sooner with the countless hours you will save for you and your team not having to wonder how to get started, and not having to go through numerous revisions of your executive summary draft.

If you work for a larger company, it is also affordable enough to get a copy for each member of your proposal department – so that they are all on the same page. I offer volume discounts.

As to the time you spend on going through this course – I know how busy you are working in the proposal industry. You can listen to the CD in your “net” time – the time when you are doing something else (driving, exercising, washing dishes…) And the workbook is not written in the typical boring, formal textbook language that’s hard to get through – I’ve been told it’s a relatively easy read. You can use it to walk through developing your next executive summary, shaving hours off what you would normally spend writing and rewriting.

Do not delay getting this course – you want to stack the deck in your favor now and get those wins under your belt. As you know, the consequences of not maximizing your chances of winning are often costly. When you lose a proposal, you don’t only lose the time and money writing it. You LOSE the opportunity to:

• Bring in the revenue from this contract and hire more personnel.
• Bring in the revenue from the follow-on contracts, or strategically position to win even more business at that agency.
• Retain talented personnel – whom (most likely) the company cannot absorb elsewhere if the contract goes away.
• Improve the morale – as just the opposite happens. As you keep losing, you and your team lose faith that you can win other proposals – which causes you to lose more.
• Build your track record (past performance).
• Earn bonuses or reap other financial rewards from growing your company.
• On a personal level – further your career and your finances to perhaps enjoy more freedom such as vacations and ability to pursue expensive hobbies.

So, get this course now, and stack the deck in your favor. It is a very small investment with a potentially huge payoff, and it is completely risk free. I am offering to you an unconditional guarantee.

Unconditional Guarantee I am so confident that my self-study course will help you greatly improve your executive summaries and your proposals in general, that I am offering you an unconditional guarantee. If you are somehow dissatisfied with the content, please, return all the materials to me within 30 days upon receipt in a resalable condition, and you will get your money back. No reason needed. And that's my promise!

"I'm ready to STEP UP with Olessia's course on Executive Summary Secrets that will help me win government proposals. " Make a risk-free payment via secure payment portal $147 (+S&H )

Group discounts are available for purchases of 5 and 10 copies or more. Secure Online Payment Gateway

Again, here is how this course will benefit you:

1) Increase your proposal win rates – because in a stiff competition, every little bit counts. Executive Summary is the number one way to sell in your proposal, so using the insider information in this course, you will get an advantage over your competition. You will give evaluators the reason to award the contract to you.

2) Grow your professional career to command more respect and more pay:

• When you write great executive summaries, you will get noticed by your management, bosses, clients, and customers.
• If you win more proposals and you get compensated based on your performance, you will reap financial benefits.
• If you are a consultant, you will be in greater demand and can give yourself a raise.  
• If you get APMP accreditation, you can use this course to document your professional training.

I’m looking forward to helping you win government proposals!

Olessia Smotrova-Taylor,

Capture and Proposal Manager
President and CEO of OST Global Solutions, Inc.

"Because there is no second place in proposals!"TM

www.ostglobalsolutions.com

P.S. If you think of someone else who could benefit from this course, please, forward this invitation to them!