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Management Summary: For a Successful Small Business

Management Summary overview 

The business management summary is described in various literature as an “Executive Summary or “Management Summary”. For descriptive purposes we will refer to it here generically as a management summary. 

You should begin your management summary by describing your business in several sentences.  For example, in relation to one of my businesses, “Senior Care Psychological Consulting P.C. will provide counseling and psychological assessment services to the elderly in an office-based practice as well as in nursing homes in the St. Louis, MO metropolitan area”. You should be able to describe exactly what you are trying to do, and with whom.  This will allow your reader to review your management summary with advanced knowledge of what your core business is to determine whether it is comprehensive enough for you to accomplish your business goals and objectives.  The following are additional elements of your management summary, and how your company will be run and how your business will be managed:

• The current status of your business.  You should describe whether you have purchased your business or are starting from scratch.  You should describe if your business was previously operated on a part-time basis. You should include this fact in the summary.
• The reasons for starting your business. Do you have experience in the industry in which you're participating? Or, have you found a niche that you would like to fill?  Is there a large contract coming up in which you think you can win?
• Your vision for the future of the company. If you have no idea where you are headed, you're not likely to go very far.  You should be able to describe where your company will be in three years and also in five years.  Be realistic when you describe how you expect to grow and develop over the years.  Do you plan to handle more products for sale over a larger geographical area?  The people who will most likely look at your plan (bankers, investors, advisers) may be able to make suggestions that will help you get where you want to go.  But, first you have to let them know where you are headed.

Your management summary should be able to provide this information succinctly, yet comprehensively.  You can refer to the following example of a sample management summary. 

Some information provided by Suzanne Caplan's Streetwise Small Business Success Kit

Web page by Paul Susic M.A. Licensed Psychologist  Ph.D. Candidate CEO/President Susic Psychological Consulting P.C.