Well I agree and disagree with various things the poster above had to share.
First, the opening sentence. Cold calling is not a waste of personal time. The job of presidents, CEOS and owners is to SELL. Most come from a sales career. This is how companies continue to grow...if you look at companies headed by someone from the accounting or operations channel, you'll typically find they are not growing. As an owner/president/CEO, you should be learning how to sell, and part of that is making effective prospecting calls.
Everyone, including me when I started, says "I don't like making prospecting calls." That's because you don't have any skill with it. Do you like biochemistry? Math? If you don't know anything about these subjects, and have no skill, OF COURSE you don't "like" it. But if you do learn about it and develop some skill, guess what? You will feel better about it.
As far as the "pushy" thing goes, most calls are made so badly that there IS no "rest of the call"! I agree with you that nobody should be pushing you into needing something. But how about a different method? What if the call was made to find out if you had a known or hidden need for this product or service? And if it wasn't a fit, no big deal?
Telemarketers go in without any training...freaked out...desperate...it's why sales can be the lowest paying, worst work on the planet--and then at the other end of the spectrum the most fulfilling, financially rewarding activity you can do. Most people have never heard of a different approach than traditional "features and benefits"-based selling. So no wonder they all act, sound and perform alike. How about behaving differently and being treated differently by the prospect?
Since the approach is all wrong, it's understandable that making sales with cold calls can be tough. You have all these poorly trained TMs out there calling using broken processes they don't really understand, and what a surprise: it's a trainwreck.
There IS an alternative.
Roleplaying is a very effective way of trying things out in safety. I highly recommend it. You will discover responses and ways around things that could be more difficult to learn in the "real world."
Cobbling together a script based on different sources is a terrible idea. You will end up with a Frankenstein monster that doesn't have a process and that you will not understand. Pick one approach and stick with it.
Most people in sales do not have a consistent sales process. They "fly by the seat of their pants" and consequently get nowhere. They don't know why they win some orders and don't get others. They don't know where the process ended, or why. And they especially do not know what is going to happen next in a selling situation--and be able to get out in front of their prospect and INVISIBLY LEAD THEM.
As for the rest of the post, it is unfortunately filled with (broken) tranditional selling approaches that no longer work.
