Just Bring Me the Money
Why an opening number that creates room in one room destroys credibility in another.
Opening high is a legitimate negotiating technique. State a number larger than what you actually need, leave room to move, and meet somewhere in the middle. In many commercial contexts across South Asia and beyond, both sides understand the convention.
The opening number is a position, not a claim. Both parties know the dance. The logic is sound. The research behind it — Kahneman's anchoring effect — is robust. First numbers stick.
But here is the thing: anchoring only works when both parties know it is an anchor.
In institutional finance — a London-based bank, a German investment fund — the number is not read as an opening position. It is read as a claim. It goes to a credit committee. It gets stress-tested against the model. If the model supports three million and the ask is eight, the gap is not negotiating room.
It is a credibility problem.
The question the committee is now asking is not: where do we meet in the middle? It is: do these people even understand their own project?
In Hamburg, someone closes the file. Promising project. Unfortunately, the numbers did not add up.
