The other day I went to the pharmacy and bought some replacement heads for an electric toothbrush. This was the first time I’d bought them myself, and they seemed a little pricey, so I went with the generic store brand. A few days later I thought to look them up on Amazon. They were so much cheaper! All of them, both the name brand and generic versions. This is an example of the power of anchoring.
When I went to the pharmacy, the store suggested a price (an anchor) which gave me a frame of reference for what was normal, even though I went with the lowest cost option they had. If I had looked up the prices online first, I would have had a different anchor, and thought the pharmacy prices were much too high. You can use the power of anchoring in your request for proposal by including a budget range. Continue reading Should I include a budget range in my RFP?