From Mich, what is your best negotiation success story? I guess maybe one of the toughest clients you've ever closed that you thought maybe you weren't going to be able to close it, but you did. Can you suggest any negotiation techniques that have worked for and on you?

JC: Actually my dad and my sales group are the one directly handling sales. I don't do direct sales. But the one that I've done, maybe my biggest success story was closing an exclusive partnership for different venues. We are their exclusive caterer. Because the business model of Juan Carlo is we are accrediting, not everybody can be an accredited partner to our venues. So if we are four in a venue, that's a 25% chance that we will be picked. But what we did was, by leveraging the name, by leveraging the brand of Juan Carlo, the unique selling proposition of our food. Time tested our design and our service in food, are all award winning. We leverage on those to have our exclusive partner.

So during those negotiations, actually, I just got an extension. I just got an extension now because of everything that we've done for them. Maybe when I'm dealing with clients, the number one thing that I do, I communicate the things that we have that nobody can really offer. Those are things that are really going to set you apart. Nobody can say that they have 25 years of experience and we can help them. We have a go-to marketing strategy for the wedding industry to help them get clients in their venue. Nobody can say that your food is award-winning against the top caterers and hotels. All of those things and they can just say their design is nice but is it award winning? Is your service award winning?

There are always descriptions but these are social proof that you are giving to your clients. That when you give it to them, they have nothing more to say. And that’s it. The way that I delivered that and then I just do a summary close usually. I recap all of the things that we offer, the celebrity clients. All our clients for the past 25 years we've catered. We can cater zero to ten thousand guests. So I usually do a summary close.

And then before I give this to the client, before I give the contract, I just give the contract. So I said, can we move forward with all of this after the presentation? I answered all of their questions. It's too technical to tell you in detail the questions that we have. But basically that’s it. You make sure you present the things that nobody else has. You do a summary close. And the timing of how I did that was, you would already know. You can just tell.

There are sales techniques that go by the book like you can do a trial close and all of that. But sometimes, with experience, you can just tell when they're already excited or eager. Their body language. And I just give them the contract and then that’s it. I didn't even say much. That’s it. Then they read it and then they sign it right away.

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