BJ and I often play with techniques drawn from the world of improv, many adapted from the work of our good friend Izzy Gesell (author of the highly-recommended “Playing Along“).We’ve been having fun with our colleagues recently, having asked them to suggest “the worst opening line imaginable in an Executive Summary.”

I started the ball rolling by proposing either: “”We were quite astonished to receive your RFP after all of our recent troubles” or “This project is doomed to failure.”

Here are a few of the team’s submissions - we’d love it if you commented with your own ideas!

Graham - “We’re really sorry for submitting this proposal so late.”

BJ - “While we’ve never done what you’ve requested before we’d sure like to give it a try.”

Natalie - “We didn’t want to bid for this project initially but as we weren’t busy we thought ‘Why not?’”

Natalie - “While we might be twice the price of our (less than gr8) competitors, you will find our attention to detail ‘n’ quality 2nd too none…”

Graham - “Disclaimer: Please note that we accept no responsibility for any content written herein. We have no trust in our team and didn’t :ave time to read the document either.”

Richard Jenkins, in the UK, offered a real-life example:

We have been supplying goods and services to the <Customer> group for over 10 years. Despite this, complacency is something that is never considered an option.

Richard Buijs has the last word, though, with:

“Our company was founded 50 years ago.” 

Actually, much as I love this as an example of bidder-centric writing, I rather hoped that Richard would submit something in Dutch, as he runs our business in the Netherlands. I think he would have stolen the prize with an opening line that was in a language that few if any of the readers could read.

Over to you to join in!