I hate cold calling with a passion, but when I've had to do it, I have prepared myself by making fake cold calls to my friends, practicing my approach, and gett

I hate cold calling with a passion, but when I've had to do it, I have prepared myself by making fake cold calls to my friends, practicing my approach, and getting their feedback. For me, practicing eliminates my fear of reaching someone, totally blanking, and stammering my way through a call. And, getting feedback eliminates my fear of wasting peoples' time with the worst cold calls in the history of telephony. Toastmasters also helped quite a bit, but it was hard (for me) to transfer some of the lessons I learned in Toastmasters to cold calls. Your mileage will hopefully vary, but for me, talking in such a friendly, warm environment made disturbing people with cold calls even more intimidating. I wonder if something like a social network for non professional salespeople would help? If you and I both suffer from cold call anxiety, maybe practicing together would help us both??