I think cold calling works decently for a certain subset of business people. There are folks out there that have genuine needs that salespeople can meet. At my

I think cold calling works decently for a certain subset of business people. There are folks out there that have genuine needs that salespeople can meet. At my last job, I didn't have authority to buy nor any real interest in the risk that such an opportunity could mean for the business. My boss, on the other hand, had lots of authority and would occasionally listen to pitches because they could benefit both parties. 95% of the time things didn't go further than the first call, but every now and then it would be a good fit. Anyone more senior than him probably didn't have the time for cold calls, but there is a sweet spot in the org where they can be effective. Since my boss had the ear of the budget setters, he could pitch them the idea and reap the benefit. Like other commenters have pointed out, cold calling and spam aren't so different in the sense that if they never worked, nobody would do them. For example, I worked with with the woman in charge of our modeling team. She had a big issue managing a growing, international workflow. They used spreadsheets when the team was smaller, but that solution didn't scale and was starting to show cracks. Her boss gave her significant budget to fix the problem, but she had no idea how to spend it. I told her that one call to a Jira sales rep (or equivalent) and all her problems would evaporate. One call could have potentially saved our firm tons of money and provided another firm with a very good, sticky customer. As far as I'm aware, she was so overworked as-is that she never reached out/researched it.