Years ago, around the second or third time I worked with a freelancer as a project owner, I had a disappointing experience. I’d managed a few outsourced projects with great results, and this new freelancer was highly recommended and very experienced, but we were just not seeing eye to eye on the project. We had to go through two complete rewrites, one substantial revision, and then a number of tweaks and edits on my end to get it out the door. It was painful for both us, and could have resulted in us never working together again.

After launch, he and I had a short conversation to try to get to the root of our problem and it all came back to two sentences in my initial brief that he misinterpreted. Even though that project had been rough, we decided to have him work on a follow up piece for me (he’d already done all the necessary research as he developed the first piece) and made a small change to the workflow that’s since made a huge difference for me as both a project owner and a freelancer: I had him write an executive summary and get that approved by me before he wrote the piece.

The next project went beautifully, and with all that revision experience behind us, we ended up needed no edits. And from there we went on to work on dozens of projects together over the next few years.

I have found that with this one step, I almost never need revisions from my creators after the first project — between my brief and their summary, we are in sync on approach, talking points, tone, and balance of storytelling to brand promotion. It gives my freelancers (or me, when I’m working with a client) a chance to include fresh ideas or approaches that might not be detailed in the brief without investing too much of their time on something that might not actually fit the project. And with younger or less experienced team members just starting to develop content, it’s a good teaching opportunity and gives them a chance to get feedback earlier in the process.

In the executive summary, we usually include:

1. Summary/Objectives
   Why is the piece being developed? What is being showcased? How is it appealing to customers? Where does it fit in the customer journey? This information should be in the initial brief provided to the writer, but having it included here keeps it top of mind.
2. Resources and subjects
   Where is the writer pulling information from? Who are they talking to within and outside the organization?
3. Working title or title suggestions
   This will likely change as the piece is developed, but it’s a great indicator of the writer’s intentions and a good way to see how they approach your brand’s style and tone, and include keywords
4. Keyword and meta data goals and suggestions
   The initial approach to keywords should be suggested by the brief, but the writer may have additional and supporting phrases that can help boost visibility based on their research.
5. Introduction
   What’s the hook? How is this piece going to get attention or show its value from the beginning? And how does that align with our objectives?
6. Talking points, with quotes or supporting facts
   An outline of how the writer plans to take our readers through the story.
7. Conclusion
   Where are we leaving our readers? What should they walk away thinking? Are there any suggested next steps?
8. Notes
   Any questions, ideas, or problems that need to be discussed before the project proceeds?

Ideally, the executive summary should be created after a kickoff discussion (including review of the brief) and at least some of the initial research and interviews have been done, so the writer is well versed in the project. I’ve also found that this approach can be adapted to other types of projects, such as videos and complex infographics.

With this approach, I’ve not only found a reduced number of edits, but also cases with a really innovative approaches developed by the writers during the executive brief stage that took projects in a better direction or gave us fresh ideas for the next project.