When the answer is no, the next move isn’t sulking. It’s figuring out the better question.

A refusal is information about fit, timing or the way you asked, and almost never a final ruling on the idea itself. Sulking treats no as the end of the conversation when it is usually the start of a better one. The useful move is working out what would change the answer, or who else could give it. There is nearly always a second question under the first.

After the next no, ask what specifically would have made it a yes. Then adjust either the ask or the audience. Persistence is less about repeating yourself than about revising.