Imagine being approached by a person who you don’t know too well in general but for the most part you don’t have anything bad to say about them. Because you two never spoke too much it’s kind of odd when they ask you for a favor. In this case let’s just say they are asking for some kind of business favor such as customer referrals or literally helping them to run their business. You politely tell them you can’t but then they persist by saying things such as it won’t take long.
Why it got me thinking is how there are usually two approaches here I have heard. One is that you should be persistent in trying to convince the person until they say yes as you simply aren’t saying the right thing at the moment. Persistency is the key. The other train of thought is that if one person says no then time to move on as it only takes one person to say yes. Which route would you go with assuming you thought the person that you were talking to is exactly what you need?
I am inclined to not to push it for fear of damaging your potential relationships. Especially if this is a situation that you are pitching I mainly because you are the only one gaining. I can speak from personal experience too that I have often disregarded people who do this to me where it’s pretty clear that they just want something from me and were persistent at it. That encourages me to essentially avoid them for any possible future endeavors. Because of that I wouldn’t want to do that to others. I would imagine like here you need to think and offer something better as opposed to just relying in pestering someone until they say yes. There is a difference from being persistent and pushy as an example to the point where you are simply burning bridges.