It's gone. The listing. The client. The hope of commission.

The good news is that the bad news isn't that bad, because losing some of your listings can be the best thing that ever happened to your business. It may be tough to believe, but the truth is that—in this business—there is always an upside to every downside.

Here's how losing a listing can actually be a good thing for your business.

1. You Were Losing Money Avoiding the Inevitable

There comes a point in every transaction when you can tell whether or not a seller is capable of closing. Denying that it's time for rubber to meet the road, or having any of these emotional seller meltdowns, both wastes your advertising dollars and your time. These can add up to a pitiful bottom line and serious frustration. Sometimes a seller bowing out early saves you in the long run.

2. Reputations Are Hard to Reverse

If you talk to a seasoned, experience agent, they'll tell you that it's a blessing when some clients pass you by. If you are interviewing with someone who's vocal about a general distrust of agents and questions your expertise at every opportunity, losing that listing could be the universe doing you a favor.

Taking on the client that's determined to be unhappy isn't doing you any favors. Even if you close, you'll likely end up the topic of that negative Nancy or Ned's next social media post and frankly, you don't need the negative press.

3. The Sellers Weren't Serious

Sometimes crafting a stellar listing presentation and doing your best to make potential seller clients uber-motivated to list with youcan paradoxically make them sift you out of the running. When sellers aren't serious, they won't choose a serious agent. If you don't win the listing when you know you rocked the presentation, count your lucky stars.

4. You Aren't a Magician

Sometimes there are no words or photos and no amount of marketing and hardcore staging that will make a home competitive for a price the sellers will agree to. Don't fret because you couldn't sell the pink shag walls or shack complete with a "built-in sunroof." Turn the loss into a plan of your own.

One great defense of being placed in the seat of agent-magician is developing a profile of the homes and clients you are great at servicing. It's better to be the agent that's known for successfully selling in a niche instead of the one who never succeeds.

5. Your Lead Sorting Is Lackluster

Sometimes losing the listing is the symptom and not the problem. If you are generating seller leads you can't close, revisit your strategy. Take a look at your lead tracking tools, IDX website data, and other analytics and figure out where the dud leads are coming from. Remember, there is no such thing as a bad lead, but there are some leads that are farther down that conversion funnel.

Losing a listing opens up time for you to perfect your lead generation strategy and look closely at your nurturing efforts. Do you have the right formula for both getting those leads into your database and the tools for converting them?

6. Your Next Client Was Waiting

The fact of the matter is that for every agent there is a client, and in most cases there are more than a few. Being in this business means toughening your skin a bit to stay in the closing mindset. Never stop lead generating, not even when you lost a client.

This article was originally published on the Trulia Pro blog. You can find the original version of this article and more tips about working with sellers here.