The number you asked for is not proof of what the idea is actually worth.
distinction — attributed to Brian Feit
Feit pitched a sponsorship at thirty-five thousand dollars, and the buyer at Coty asked what he would do with fifty thousand instead, revealing a ceiling on the idea's value that Feit himself had priced too low. The instinct to treat your own ask as the market rate is a mistake distinct from underselling out of modesty, it is a failure to separate what you assumed the client would pay from what the idea was genuinely worth to them. The number a client volunteers, unprompted, is often better data about an idea's value than the number calculated in advance.
For anyone pricing a pitch based on their own assumptions rather than testing the buyer's actual ceiling.
pricing, negotiation, self-assessment, value