It's part of the implicit negotiation to me. You get the other side to soft-commit to a given price range. A perfectly valid strategy. Not to say it can't backf

It's part of the implicit negotiation to me. You get the other side to soft-commit to a given price range. A perfectly valid strategy. Not to say it can't backfire in a multitude of ways. As a consultant you sometimes want them to do it too. For any sufficiently complex project the contractee doesn't have perfect knowledge of what they want either. Actually I view articles like that as a part of a broader meta-negotiation.