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By: Of Ash and Fire
As a sales professional, it's common to be tasked with drawing up leads via some manner of cold networking.
Sales Representatives come in all flavors and types, but persistence is a quality all must share when entering the realm of sales.
None know the soul-crushing feeling of defeat better than the representatives that have endured hearing "I'm not interested *click*" in the first 30 seconds from the official decision maker after working a lead for multiple days.
Ultimately cold calling is a numbers game. The more sales cold calls you make daily, the more likely you will reach a decision-maker and set an appointment. So we valiant reps pick up the phone and scream our pitch into the void, over and over again, until our vocal cords are dry and our spirits break. 
Okay, I'm being a little melodramatic, but when you read headlines stating that cold-calling only results in an appointment 2.3% of the time it's not hard to be struck with the feeling like: "ooof, what am I doing?"
To be fair, cold calling can indeed be a powerful tool for companies and sales reps to reach new customers, but business methodology continues to evolve, and the cold-calling process today is more lead acquisition of clients to sell to than it is actually presenting and selling.
"Essentially, we are engaged in a quest hoping to find a company and/or a decision-maker that has need for our products and services. This is searching; it's not selling." - Gil Cargill
The original framework and idea of cold-calling persist as it always has, but some angles have shifted in the modern era according to specific industry needs.
Being a custom software agency, Of Ash and Fire has a diverse range of clients and customers from differing industries; it can take time to forecast precisely what industry our next customer will come from.
If you happen to be a sales rep, take care of yourself and your vocal cords, and know that you're not alone in this void. While it may be true that the typical success rate for cold calling only ranges from 1 to 3%, it's a necessary evil in the world of sales. With the right approach and strategy, it can effectively draw in that additional sales boost once connections are finally established.
Just be persistent.