I admire this guy's intensity, but I can't help but think he would do better to hunt down and train clones of himself instead of trying to be the primary sales guy in his company. The sales board showed something like $80,000 in sales he did, but most of that is recurring business. He just gets credit for it (meaning that if he stopped actively selling, the company wouldn't necessarily lose those sales). If he split those sales up among his team and spent his time coaching his staff and finding motivated sellers for his team, I think he could do a lot better (and hit the $100mm mark that he's striving for).

Working out in the morning seems to be a theme I'm noticing, as I read these little biographies about how people work. (Or people worth writing about, anyway. :)

Yeah and another of those themes is how the founders at id, Microsoft, OSF, Apple and so on used to code the whole night through.

Yup. I think that reduces to "focus" as a core value, since it doesn't matter when you do your work, as long as you get it done fast.

Seems like a dismal life. It is trinket sales, signifying nothing. It's the kind of work that should be laid to rest at 5 o' clock sharp.

ah, but it's not. It's what lies behind the trinket sales. The passion for a great product, the passion for making sales, and the passion for success. If things like trinket sales or mundane businesses, we often laugh at in tech circles were just forgot about because theyre trinket sales, we wouldn't have much. Even someone has to be passionate about waste removal, otherwise there would be a whole lot of shit piling up.

In the end it's really only about what you have a passion for. If your passion are startups and creating something you can call your own, that's great. If your passion is sales then more power to you. It's different for everyone.

This is what it takes to be a success. That simple.

(2000)

So, there should be a follow-up!

Can anyone spot if he hit his objectives despite The World Changing around him?

He isn't at the top of his industry but he seems to be growing:

May 1, 2007 Movin’ on Up

The latest issue of Promotional Marketing Magazine-an independent publication dealing with the Promotional Products industry-listed the Top 50 Distributors in America. Just a few years ago, the Cavanaugh Marketing Network was ranked around 75th. In the latest rankings, Cavanaugh has climbed to # 34 the highest ranking of any promotional products agency in Pittsburgh.

http://www.cavanaugh.com/news.php