Stand out and inspire confidence with a strong executive summary

Your personal brand and professional profile will win you business.

Selling yourself and the value you can provide doesn’t come easy to most of us; we prefer to be known by our deeds and our reputation.

Creating the right first impression and crafting your pitch is critical. Help is here. We’ve partnered with CV Writers, a leading Australian career development company, to help you sell your services on Nexpert X.

Step one in building your brand is your executive summary. Follow the guidelines below to create powerful personal value propositions to use in your executive summary.

Step two in building confidence in your ability to deliver value is your LinkedIn profile. It is your public, professional persona and will seal the deal when clients are making the final decision to purchase your services. If your LinkedIn profile is less than awesome, talk to the experts.

Want some expert assistance? You can book a 45-minute consultation with a professional career coach to develop your executive summary for only $99, by clicking here.

Here are some tips by CV Writers on how to create your Nexpert X headline statement.

HOW TO CREATE AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY USING PERSONAL VALUE PROPOSITIONS (PVPs)
If your services are focused around one specific skill, you may only need one personal value proposition (PVP) in your executive summary.

To create a broader executive summary, you may choose to combine more than one PVP.
For example, your skills in management AND your skills in quality audits.

1. Choose your subjects and skills
Your PVPs should reflect the skills needed to provide the service you are offering. These skills are usually outlined or implicit in your Service Package – they are also easy to identify in job ads or job descriptions for the type of role you’d be employed in.

2. Write PVPs using a simple 3-step framework
A PVP is made up of only 1-2 sentences. Short, sharp and to the point. The simplest way to construct one is using the WHAT, WHEN, WHO framework (generally in that order). However, even if you don’t use that framework, any statement that contains at least the WHAT and WHO components can be considered a value proposition.

a. WHAT (skill)?
What skill have you got that they want? (e.g. project management, .NET development, stakeholder management, cybersecurity auditing, creating a business case).

b. WHEN (have you used the skill?)
Tell them the scale of your experience. Provide names, numbers and data (e.g. # of years of experience, size of teams led, budget ranges, qualifications).

c. WHO (benefited)?
What were the benefits and positive things that came out of using your skill? Use names, numbers and data (e.g. client names, employers, awards, ROI, promotions, budgets, SLAs).
Important tip when writing a personal value proposition

The phrase ‘as shown by’ makes it easy. Using ‘…as shown by…’ to link WHAT and WHEN is a simple way to create a value proposition.

Examples of personal value propositions:
“My executive stakeholder management background includes 8 years presenting, advising and negotiating at CFO, GM and VP levels as a Program Manager for ANZ and Medibank Private.”

“A key strength is turning around under-performing teams. I set clear KPIs and stick to them and over the last 3 years have re-energized loyal and high-performing operations teams of up to 35 staff at IBM and HP.”

“One of my strengths is program management, as shown by the fact I have successfully delivered over 40 ICT projects for companies in the banking sector.”

“I will bring to the table proven end to end software development skills as shown by 6 years of experience working on large, complex software development projects for IBM, including bespoke software for the defence and government sectors.”

Use Your PVPs
Don’t like ‘bragging’ or ‘talking it up’ or ‘blowing smoke’? You don’t have to!

Your PVPs are all about stating the facts and letting your audience make up their own mind. It’s not salesy, but it is absolutely critical in building confidence around how you can deliver value.