Make sure your failures are weeny ones

There is not a serious active private investor who has not got a string of failures to their name. The trick is to minimise your losses

Diary Of A Private Investor, by Terry Bond

9 September 2000 - The Independent

Timeshare salespersons should make good private investors. They have that essential ingredient necessary to the makeup of everyone who buys and sells shares: they can accept failure.

The timeshare seller – not to be confused with the timeshare tout, who accosts you on the promenade or the beach and persuades you to go and look at a property – will often complete a tour of inspection only to have the sales pitch rejected. And the refusal may come at the end of a three or four hour session, when the salesperson has used every trick in the book to get you to buy.

Despite the sales pressure, nine out of ten of the Ups (potential buyers who have been enticed to the timeshare development) walk away without having signed the purchase document. They insist on time to think about handing over a few thousand for the promise of "free" holidays for years to come. But when the timeshare salesperson hears those fatal words, "I'll be back", his or her heart sinks. The game is over.

Read this entire article in The Independent.