Proposal Writing is like Baking a Cake
Posted by Michel TheriaultDec 5
While working on my upcoming book recently, I realized that the process of writing a proposal is exactly the same as baking a cake. Unfortunately, however, cake is a lot tastier than your RFP response.
In any case, for a successful proposal, here is the Recipe:
- You are asked to bake a cake
- Find a recipe
- Modify the recipe to suite their tastes
- Grease the Pan and heat up the oven
- Review the ingredients, put them in order
- Add the ingredients for the cake into the bowl
- Beat it until smooth. Test and repeat
- Pour it in the pan and level it out.
- Put the cake in the oven until done
- Test for doneness
- Put it back and cook some more if necessary.
- Let it cool and add some frosting.
- Serve it up
- Hope for positive reviews
If you have your own analogy or anecdote, feel free to leave a comment.
Our Book "Win More Business - Write Better Proposals". is now available at Amazon in many countries, including the USA
, Canada, UK, Japan, Germany and France. You can also order it directly from the author on this website
Related posts:
- WWP#017 : 12 Steps You Can Use to Develop Your RFP Proposal Response
- WWP#003 : Keep the Fluff out of your RFP Proposal Response
- WWP#28 : Traps to Avoid When Writing Your RFP Proposal Response
- WWP#002 : Do you get Feedback to improve your proposals?
- WWP#32 : Winning Proposals is about more than just the price and the writing – You need a strategy
Cooking is Art. Baking is Chemistry; where the ingredients and quantity matters. The challenge to responding to an RFP is balancing art and science.
This is amazing! Both funny and informative, this is a well-thought-out analogy. Great post!
Hi Michel,
I’d add some steps to your receipe:
- Find out what the cake is for – wedding/general/celebration. This will help decide on how expensive the ingredients need to be.
- Try to identify if the customer has any strong views about flavour or any other cake aspect – if your competitors are offering coffee cake and you know the customer hates it you can stay well away from that and offer another flavour.
– For your proposal create some mouth watering imagery of a prototype of your cake – maybe on a crystal glass cake stand with a sprig of mint and a scoop of creme fraiche.
Good analogy. So many cake lovers out there.