Joe LaFerriere
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<p>My first career was serving for 22 years in the United States Air Force. My positions were in Transportation, Law Enforcement, and Recruiting.</p>
<p>For the past 13 years I have worked for Dell, Inc. and have been involved in the design and sale of servers and storage. The last five years have been specifically in data storage and disaster recovery solutions ranging from $50K to $5M.</p>
<p>I have owned a hair salon and also have been a partner in a software development company. </p>
Joe’s Career Stories
When did you get your first Big Break? How did you get it? How did it go?
When I retired from the Air Force in 1998 I partnered with Global Vision Technologies as their Director of Sales and Marketing. That year our gross revenue was $500K. When I left GVT four years later we achieved $5M in gross revenue along with $1.5M in recurring revenue. I took all of the basic tools I learned from my time in Recruiting and then applied them to the processes and products we were selling.
What is the most useful piece of career advice you got as a student, and who gave it to you?
My Dad and his advice has stuck with me all of my life. When you do a job, do it to the absolute best of your abilities. If you don't achieve the results you were looking for, enhance your abilities and go again. Never accept failure!
In layperson terms, what do you actually do at work?
I review the data storage solutions, much like the hard drive in a computer, only thousands of times larger. I provide guidance to sales teams across Latin America, The United States, and Canada.