a starting point. In my early years, I had a quick stint at a consulting firm. My boss was a pro when it came to using anchors. In his first conversation with any client, he made sure to fix an opening price, which, by the way, almost criminally exceeded our internal costs: ‘I’ll tell you this now so you’re not surprised when you receive the quote, Mr. So-and-So: we’ve just completed a similar project for one of your competitors and it was in the range of five million dollars.’ The anchor was dropped: the price negotiations started at exactly five million.
