Ask HN: Advice on picking up the phone and selling my product.

I work in a small three person startup as the CTO/sole developer. We recently hired someone to take care of the marketing and sadly I have absolutely zero faith in their abilities or approach. It's come to the point where they've just out right said that me having a say in the marketing is making us lose focus. I'd let them go if I could, but the long story is they are a friend of the CEO who doesn't have the heart to just tell them what to do.

The CEO is away for two weeks during which time the marketing manager had a telesales person come in for two days last week. They prepared nothing for them, in terms of core message, goals etc. I had to actually cue this person and tell them what their message should be and how they should try presenting it. I can't describe how frustrated I've felt since then. Every moment they are working on the marketing feels like another moment the business feels like it's slipping away into nothingness.

So, I'm going to pick up the phone myself with the sole aim of getting meetings in-front of potential customers. We sent out a letting introducing ourselves to a list of potential clients and I'm going to follows those up myself. Problem is I've only done calling like this once and it felt like the most stressful thing I've ever done. The anxiousness and the fear of rejection.

My current thinking is I'll just be honest and say "We're trying to get the thoughts and opinions of people like yourself. Would you be open to meeting with us for only 5 minutes?".

But what can I do to make the process easier/better? Are they any simple approaches that I can use to secure meetings? How do I get over this anxiousness and stress that I feel, even when I just start to dial a number?