The reason you are negative on cold calling is not because it doesn’t work.

You are negative on cold calling because you are afraid to engage with people directly, you fear rejection, you aren’t confident in what you are going to say, you don’t know what you want out of the conversation, you’re not sure how to create value, you’re petrified of asking for the commitments you need, you want people to like you, it makes you feel bad about yourself, you’d prefer to be rejected in some other way, you believe that somehow your emailed requests are less offensive (even though they betray your fears and your lack of confidence), you think it’s more effective to hang around and wait for your clients to raise their hand and ask for your help, you believe the lie that your dream clients spend all of their time researching potential partners, you don’t know that no one makes calls without doing research first, you don’t understand that it’s only one part of larger campaign, you aren’t in sales and never have been, and you don’t carry a quota.

It’s just a phone call. You’re just asking for an appointment. You’re only trying to help your dream client produce better results.