I wonder if the people that are condescending about Patrick's effort have ever done cold outbound prospecting and sold anything in their lives. But who am I to make assumptions...

Patrick, great job for:

1) trying something different and being persistent and polite, but not annoying

2) reaching your objective, and

2) documenting it in a post.

You've got the result on your side, and you found one possible way to get there. Are there others? Sure! Get an intro via a mutual connection, etc. You chose the one that worked for you given your constraints / circumstances.

When I saw your slide, my immediate reaction was "he must have been at Accenture". Looks like the templates haven't changed since I left in 2013 :-)