Proposal Writing is like Baking a Cake

Posted by Michel Theriault

Dec 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

Filed under: Proposal Writing

2 Responses to “ Proposal Writing is like Baking a Cake ”

Paul Stromdahl on December 29th, 2009 1:35 pm

Cooking is Art. Baking is Chemistry; where the ingredients and quantity matters. The challenge to responding to an RFP is balancing art and science.
Liz on July 8th, 2010 6:43 pm

This is amazing! Both funny and informative, this is a well-thought-out analogy. Great post!

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What Others Are Saying

“As a former purchasing agent who has seen many poor replies to proposals, this book captures the essence of how to write a winning proposal. Now as a consultant, reading this book and following much of the advice helped my associates and I prepare a much better proposal we recently submitted. While we were competing with significant and entrenched competition, Michel’s tip’s were valuable in gaining insight on the client and focusing us on the deliverables. This gave us more confidence knowing that we gave it our best ‘win or lose’”
David Katz, CEO
Sustainable Resources Management Inc.

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