Here’s something you may not know about me,  I used to be a vacation club Sales Manager in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (don’t let anyone ever tell you a vacation club isn’t timeshare).

I rose from Liner to Front-to-Back to Closer to Manager. Not to be a braggart, but for the sake of using my own story in this post, I was hot for a long time, a really long time. I was never less than a 20% Closer, but often 50%. I earned Top Sales Person of the Mexican Caribbean after only 2 years selling.. I earned more money in what was still at the time considered to be a 3rd world country than I ever have here in the US.

I learned more selling timeshare than I ever did in college.. I learned how to read people, about emotional intelligence, neuro linguistic programming, the art of negotiation, how tone and volume of voice can influence, body language, when to speak and when to be silent, the power of eye contact and a smile, how to push buttons and yes, how to manipulate and get someone to hand me their credit card. My clients spoke English, Spanish, Italian, French… and other languages too – but I didn’t need to speak much to sell, just a pen and paper and my brain. I even refused to sell to people if I found out they would have financial hardship if they made a purchase – so I could sleep well at night.

The point is, no matter how good I was, I wasn’t on any regular basis a 100% Closer. I got turned down and rejected most often more times than not. Yet, I was very successful. I learned that every no was one step closer to a yes and victory. Instead of pouting and licking battle wounds, suffering from self-doubt, wanting to give up for the day to go home curl up in a ball in bed, whining and complaining to bring everyone else around me down,  I couldn’t wait for my next turn with a prospect.

Rejection is a feeling no one is fond of but when dealt with in an effective way it can bring us closer to other opportunity.  ~ Karla

Commissioned sales is a tough gig, you don’t sell you don’t earn a single centavo. You can go from zero to hero (the reverse is also true) in the time it takes to extract a credit card out of a wallet. Watching others sell around you in the sales room if you’re having a mala racha can get to you in a bad way if you don’t have the right perspective and attitude and pull you down… ruin your mojo and get you off your path. People won’t want to be around you if you’re like that because negativity is contagious and they don’t want to be infected by you.

Giving up is only an option if you don’t want to succeed in whatever your goal is (though you should know when to walk away from certain things and life’s goals are malleable).

It should never be an option in a job search or quest for advancement within the company you  work for.  Use the sales principle I talked about. If you apply for 9 jobs and then give up, it could have been the 10th that would have been the one you would have been offered. You’ll never know…….

A special thanks to @CarlissaT for the inspiration for today’s post.