When the prime won't tell you a rate

In my book, I advise readers to ask the prime what their target rate is to give you a bit of negotiation leverage.

BUT, sometimes they won't do this, even after pressing.

In this case, what you should do is give a number that is HIGHER than the high range of what you estimate the rate is.

For example, say you estimate a job pays $150,000/year in salary.

This gives us an approximate billable rate of $120 - $180 dollars per hour (big range, I know) using the "divide by 1000, +/-20%" method.

In this case, you'd tell the prime your rate is $190/hour. You know you'd be happy at $160/hour.

At this point, you have "anchored" the prime psychologically to a high rate, so whatever number they'd give back to you will be biased closer to the high end of what they can offer.

It's not a perfect method, but you won't kill the deal, and you could end up with better than expected terms.

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