Sometimes you need to know when to walk away in a sales environment. Some leads are just not going to want what you have, or at least going to commit to anything concrete.

The point at which one walks away is often defined by circumstance and context more than anything else. When I worked at Vodacom it was easy to walk away. Someone would come in to the office with a smirk or an attitude that didn’t fit the culture or the scope of the deal we were trying to do and people in the company would muzzle the deal until it went away. They walked away at the drop of a hat.

Running a startup has shown me how far away that point actually can be. I push and probe my sales leads hard. I hustle them all the time pushing a bit further for a bit more at every turn.

Occasionally there will come a time, there will come a client or a lead that you will just have to walk away from. But as the cliche states, it’s often darkest before the dawn. Don’t give up too easily and hustle as hard as you feel comfortable with.

Occasionally you’ll find that one last email was all you needed to hook that whale.