16/09/2026
BID FACT OF THE DAY
The 20-Second Rule
The average procurement evaluator spends less time reviewing your executive summary than they do deciding what to watch on Netflix.
If your hook doesn't land in the first 20 seconds, you've already lost the room.
Okay, a confession. Twenty seconds isn't a scientifically established procurement constant. I'm not suggesting evaluators sit there with a stopwatch.
But the principle matters.
Your executive summary is likely to be skim-read, certainly on the first pass. The evaluator is looking for signals. Have you understood what they are trying to achieve? What are you proposing? What difference will it make? Why should they choose you? And where is the evidence that you can actually deliver it?
That makes the opening extraordinarily valuable real estate.
Yet how often do we waste it?
“We are delighted to submit our proposal…”
“We are a leading provider of…”
“We have over 25 years' experience…”
The customer already knows you've submitted a proposal. They probably don't care that you're delighted. And your corporate history can wait.
Start with them, not you.
Show that you understand what matters to them and quickly establish the central idea behind your proposition. Your key messages shouldn't be buried halfway through dense paragraphs waiting to be discovered by a diligent reader. If they're important, make them impossible to miss.
And don't wait until the bid is finished before writing the executive summary.
Start writing it straight away.
It won't be right. It isn't supposed to be.
Write the best executive summary you can with what you know at that point. Then keep honing it as your understanding of the customer improves, the solution develops, your win themes sharpen and the evidence emerges.
In fact, the executive summary can become a useful test of the bid itself.
If you can't explain simply and compellingly why the customer should choose you, perhaps the problem isn't your writing. Perhaps your proposition isn't sufficiently developed yet.
So go back to the solution. Improve it. Then go back to the executive summary.
Keep honing both.
By submission, your executive summary should be the concentrated expression of the thinking that has developed throughout the bid — not something somebody hurriedly writes the night before the deadline.
Then give it the 20-second test.
Read it as an evaluator is likely to read it: quickly, selectively and looking for what matters.
After 20 seconds, what would you remember?
If it isn't what you want the evaluator to remember, keep honing.
