A deletion test for trend claims in an executive summary

A trend claim in an executive summary is a bet on scarce space. One page holds only so many sentences, and each one competes with evidence that customers buy from you. Most trend claims lose that contest. A few win, and they win for reasons you can name.

What to take away

A trend belongs on the page only when deleting it weakens the argument.
Write it as a supported fact with a period and a source, never as a mood.
A change that decides whether the business works is a fact about your situation, not a trend. It goes in the risk slot.
Obligations such as a personal guarantee belong on the page whatever the year.

The deletion test

Keep a trend claim only if deleting it weakens the argument. Read the sentence out, strike it, and read the page again. If the case for lending or investing is as strong without it, the claim was decoration, and the space is better spent on evidence.

Does the Trend Belong?

Does it change the decision?

Yes

supported fact with period and source

delete it, keep customer evidence

The test is blunt on purpose. On one page the answer is usually no, and the space better carries evidence that customers buy from you. That is not a rule against trends. It is a rule against claims that sit on the page without doing any work for the decision the reader is making.

A claim that survives needs three parts: the claim, its period and its source. Put it in the matching slot of the skeleton instead of an opening flourish. A reader who cannot tell when a claim was true, or where it came from, will discount every other figure on the page.

General sentences fail the test by default. They read smooth and hedged, and they file your page with everything else that arrived that week. A named constraint, a count you took yourself, a date or a term you were actually quoted will pass.

An illustration, with no real figures: "Demand for local services is rising" fails, because nothing says when or according to whom. "Our own waiting list, counted at each month end this year, has grown every month" passes. It carries a period, a source and a consequence for the ask.

Where each kind of claim goes

Placement depends on the kind of claim, not on how current it sounds. Market movement, a change in your own circumstances and a legal obligation each have a different home, and the summary holds only the ones that decide the reader's answer.

Kind of claim	Where it goes	Reason
Market movement	The market analysis	There is room to source it there
A lease term, a supplier withdrawing, a change in the permits and licenses you need	The risk slot	It decides whether the business works at all
The owners' personal guarantee on an SBA guaranteed loan	The page, stated plainly	A reader who learns it after the meeting has learned the page was not complete

Market movement is the common case. A summary has no space to source a shift in demand, so it belongs in the market analysis, with its period and its source written out. The summary can carry one sentence that the analysis supports.

Two kinds of claim never earn a place. One is a prediction of what investors want this year, with no investor named. The other is a statement that some length or style is now expected. Neither can be checked against a real reader's checklist.

Facts about your situation are not trends

A change that decides whether the business works is a fact, not a trend. A lease term, a supplier withdrawing, or a movement in the permits and licenses your activity needs all qualify. Write each one in the risk slot, with what you will do when it hits.

This is the deletion test in reverse. A market trend can be struck without harm, but a lease that ends before the loan does cannot. The first changes the mood of the page. The second changes the answer, and a reader who finds it in the files instead of the summary stops trusting the rest.

Which slot does the claim support?

Every claim that stays should support one of six slots. A bank's credit memo and the write-up an SBA lender prepares for its loan committee run down the same list, so the slots are the reader's own questions, not an invention of the page.

What the business is, and what it sells.
Who buys from it, and why they buy from you.
What you want, and what the money does.
How the money comes back, and when.
Who does the work.
What the risk is, and what you do when it hits.

If a trend supports none of the six, it fails the deletion test already. If it supports one, write it inside that slot, next to the figure it explains. A page that fills the slots stops being a mood piece.

Obligations belong on the page

Obligations are facts of the same kind as a lease or a permit. An SBA guaranteed loan carries the owners' personal guarantee, and the page should say so. A reader who learns it after the meeting has learned the page was not complete.

The reader of an SBA guaranteed loan application is the bank's loan officer. The lender guidance is SOP 50 10, which holds SBA's loan origination policies and procedures governing the 7(a) and 504 loan programs. Read it before you write the ask, so the page promises nothing the officer cannot approve.

Cash timing still carries a lending decision. A figure on the page that disagrees with the plan ends the reading faster than anything else, so the obligation sentence and the numbers have to agree before anything goes out.

When the reader's form decides first

Where an application collects the summary as fields with character limits, the form has already made your layout decisions. Find out before drafting whether you are writing a page or filling boxes. A trend claim then has to fit a field, or it goes.

Page or Boxes?

Free page

Layout: You decide
Length: Your call
Phone reading: Short blocks survive
First step: Draft

Form fields

Layout: Form decides
Length: Character limits
Phone reading: Field-sized survives
First step: Check the form

Federal grants work the same way. The reader is the program officer, the notice sits on Grants.gov, and a federal award requires registration. SAM.gov registration is for organizations that want to directly bid on government contracts and apply for federal assistance, so settle it before the summary is the last job left.

For free help, a SCORE mentor or your regional Small Business Development Center will read a draft and tell you what the lenders they work with ask for. Send the draft with the trend claims marked, and ask which of them a lender would actually look for.

Four Ways to Find Out

Ask the reader's process directly
Read current guidance, note revision date
Ask somebody who submitted recently
Watch the form for new fields

Before you send

Get the format requirements in writing first, from the loan officer, the program officer or the application form itself. Then put every trend claim through the deletion test, one at a time, and keep only the ones that change the decision.

Three Things This Year

Get format requirements in writing
Run the pre-send checks
Make every sentence answerable
Date the version

Each claim supports one of the six slots.
Each claim carries its period and its source.
Changes to a lease, a supplier or a permit sit in the risk slot.
The personal guarantee is stated plainly.
Every figure still matches the plan.

Run the pre-send checks on whatever remains, and make every sentence one you could answer a follow-up question about. Date the version, because a summary has a shorter shelf life than people expect. The summaries overview covers the parts that do not change.

Common questions

Can a trend claim ever lead the summary?

Not as a trend. If the change decides whether the business works, it is a fact about your situation, and it belongs in the risk slot with what you will do about it.

Where does market movement go when the page has no room?

It goes in the market analysis, where you have room to source it. The summary can point to the conclusion without carrying the evidence for it.

Does the personal guarantee need its own paragraph?

It needs a plain sentence. The point is that the reader learns it from the page, not after the meeting.

How do I date a claim?

Write its period and its source beside it. Then date the version of the whole summary, because the first thing an out-of-date page does is quote a figure the business has already passed.