Adventures in Cold Calling

[BChristgau]

So I'm wrapping up work on my ninth spec and once again it's getting around that time when I have to go about the oh-so-fun process of hustling it. E-mail and snail-mail pitching has proven largely fruitless for me in the past (with rare exceptions), so I'm taking the advice given to me by pros in the industry and going to do a major cold-calling blitz of the studios and productions companies that make the kind of movie I'm trying to sell.

I can't tell you how much I hate this part. It's the most agonizingly unpleasant part of the process for me. Even if I've got a script that industry professionals are telling me is great and that I should bust my butt trying to sell it, I can't help but feel like a douche when somebody picks that phone up at the other end of the line.

I've gotten some very useful tips from folks in the past. What I was wondering is, what are your tips and suggestions for cold calling? Success stories? Horror stories?

Cheers,

B