Raphael Lapin
An advanced, multiple-choice closing technique touted by Harvard-trained negotiation and mediation specialist Raphael Lapin — who uses it himself — gets to "yes" faster and boosts satisfaction at the same time. For financial advisors, it can help curb the widespread, off-putting penchant for applying sales pressure, Lapin tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview.
More effective than single-point offers, the MESO approach — short for Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers — comprises three different proposal packages, all of which, by their customized construction, are acceptable to the FA.
Not only does a MESO increase the chances of a mutually satisfying agreement because it makes it easier for clients and prospects to reach agreement, the technique can also be used to gather information about clients' top priorities for further discussion.
Lapin's long-established consulting practice is based on methodology taught at Harvard Law School. His firm, Lapin Negotiation Services, providing training, consulting, coaching and dispute-resolution expertise, includes among its clients AT&T, Microsoft, the U.S. Air Force and Yahoo.
In the interview, Lapin discusses the three steps to formulating a MESO, which, he says, works as a key part of a negotiation's "deliberate, orchestrated progression."
The method was developed by Victoria Husted Medvec, management professor at Northwestern University, and Adam D. Galinsky, Columbia University professor and chair of its Business School management division. In four 2005 studies, they and two other academic researchers showed that the MESO brought better outcomes versus a single offer, plus helped create value for the MESO-givers, who were perceived to be flexible and accommodating.
ThinkAdvisor recently chatted with Lapin, on the phone from his Los Angeles office. He is a member of the L.A. Superior Court Dispute Resolution Panel and author of "Working with Difficult People" (DK Penguin 2009), a guide to the art of compromise and negotiation. Lapin's sales training for firms and individuals focuses on a proprietary "Investigative Selling" approach. Here are excerpts from our interview:
THINKADVVISOR: What's the big benefit to using MESOs?
RAPHAEL LAPIN: It's more likely that you'll reach a deal than without it because you're making it easier for the other person to say yes.
When would a financial advisor use a MESO?
Negotiating an employment contract, or recommending products to clients, which is negotiating too.
MESOs "appeal to a human need for autonomy in making choices," you write. Please elaborate.
Nobody likes to feel they're having things imposed upon them. Even if they're good things, people like to feel they're making a choice. That makes it easier for them to say "yes."
How does this apply to a MESO?
You're giving someone a menu from which to choose. If you go to a restaurant and are presented with an elaborate menu, it's more likely that you'll make an optimal choice than if the waiter says, "Tell us what you want, and we'll make it for you." With a menu, you think more broadly and creatively. MESO is basically a menu of offers from which the other party can choose.
How many offers should you present in a MESO?
No more than three. Otherwise it becomes too broad, cumbersome and complicated.
What's another advantage to using MESOs?
They allow you to get more information because the client may say, for example, "None of these fully appeal to me." But then you can ask, "Which of the three is the closest? If I can understand which is closest, maybe we can develop that." By getting this information, you're learning more of what's important to the client and can then go back and massage the MESO somewhat, appealing to the need you've just learned about. In that way, you're drilling down to potential agreement.
Suppose an advisor is recommending that the client buy a bond. Do they just present three different bonds?
