I actually HAD that job for half of one summer when I was in college (university.) it was selling b2b products, so not calling people at home but rather interrupting them at work.

I had to stick to a script and even if the potential customer was yelling and cursing, I was expected to respond with the scripted "rebuttal" and "2nd rebuttal." The calls were taped so the manager could coach us periodically.

If you had maybe three days where you didn't make a quota of sales, you got a warning and if you missed it again you were out. I held on for six weeks. First job I was fired from, and (arguably) worst job I ever had.

Glad to be doing something else now, far away from any kind of sales work. And I continue to have a general distrust of salespeople, because motivation is often to close the deal by any means necessary, even if you don't believe in the product and/or have any regard for honesty or ethics. (This is of course a grossly unfair characterization of the large and diverse field of "sales", which includes many great, honest, hard-working people. Just the feeling I took away from the experience.)

Interestingly, the leads (back then they were printed mailing labels) were treated as gold; one manager revealed that the company paid $10k for a small box of them, so even if you got a refusal, you could never just throw them out!

The next summer I had another job in an office, and overheard a colleague taking a marketing call. I could tell by the responses he was giving that it was the exact same script that I had to follow on each call. I told him it was the same snake oil company that fired me the year before, and he hung up (and probably would have anyway.)