Truth about offshore companies such as virtual assistant firms, call centers, outsourcing etc.

FROM: Dave Fogg - company owner

This is an important page to read regardless if you use decide to do business.

Over the years, as company leaders asked for calls to learn about our service I can tell you many mistakenly assumed my company is same as a virtual assistant firm, outsourcing company or call center except we are in the Dominican Republic which is closer to USA and people speak English/Spanish.

That is not accurate.

Using a virtual assistant firm as the example, they hire people as their employees to control and rent to your company as remote/lower cost and expendable staff.

After they take their overhead the remaining pay is terrible poverty for the workers. The owners and managers take most of the money for themselves.

In this rent-a-worker type of business the workers know they are perceived as expendable so they have no passion for the job or loyalty to the American client company. These people bounce from job to job hoping to find something more permanent so the turnover of people at these companies is high.

And, usually the management at the American companies think of these people as rented & expendable.

Neither side cares about each other in this rent-a-worker virtual assistant/outsourcing/RPO/call center type of business.

In contrast I ask that you think of hiring a person in the USA as your long term career employee and do this through an HR company like ADP.

In this example you and the worker think of each other as Employer/Employee and on the same team. You want them to grow a long term career working for you.

The HR company is the legal employer on paper where they handle the taxes, payroll, insurance etc.

In that situation you and the worker are committed to each other because your perception is being on the same team. You do not think of them as rented staff from an outsourcing company, they are Your Career Employees while on paper are legally employed through the HR company.

That explains our business model except our HR company and the people are in the Dominican Republic where due to currency exchange rate can work remote for you for half the cost of an employee inside the USA.

And, many are American/Dominicans with dual citizenship and family in the USA.

What I just described is entirely different than renting staff from offshore companies and this is a simple common sense way to add nearshore/lower cost long term career employees to your company business model.

Ok, having said that the rest of this page is my personal story where I speak the truth about using these offshore companies.

Please continue reading:

I used to own two companies in USA that I built and sold. Due to the high cost of hiring the people I wanted in USA and turnover, I tried various offshore companies for remote and lower cost staff. Allow me to share true stories. And, these facts will help you understand why I created my nearshore business model the way I did.

1 - Offshore companies will quote very low prices for a remote worker which at first sounds attractive. However, the people they can provide at these low prices are not very good and as I threatened to cancel the managers would attempt upselling me on paying more money to get better quality people.

Even the higher quality people at these offshore companies are not high quality when compared to people who can be hired in nearshore countries like the Dominican Republic.

2 - The most serious flaw with the offshore rent-a-worker scenario is the concept of renting people from another company. These companies hire people as their employees to control and rent to American company's like yours and mine.

They will claim to provide a person who is dedicated to your company yet behind the scenes they assign that person to 2 and sometimes 3 American companies hoping nobody notices.

This double and triple dipping is the only way they can earn a profit at their low pricing.

And, the workers know they are perceived as extra, rented and expendable. Nobody is going to give their 100% to any job in this situation. Offshore workers do not care about the job with your company and they are not loyal.

They take these jobs as a gig to put food on the table and bounce from company to company so turnover is high.

3 - When these companies quote you very low prices it is important that you visualize people doing work for you who after working their shift go home to terrible poverty. Serious poverty!

The owners and managers of these offshore companies make most of the money and pay peanuts/poverty to the workers who are assign to companies like yours.

The English is usually not very good, attitudes are poor and most of these companies are located in countries like India, Pakistan, Philippines where the people are on the other side of the planet from USA.

It is difficult to get good quality people to work day shift USA time zone because that is evening in these other countries.

At night it is dangerous for people to commute to work as crime is much worse than what we are used to in the USA.

4 - One year I sent a $500 Christmas bonus to the offshore company with instructions to pay to the young lady assigned to me. I found out later the offshore company secretly took $250 to themselves and paid the other $250 to the worker.

When I found out, I was so angry that I canceled and this is when I began researching countries closer to the USA to create my own human resources company to hire and payroll English/Spanish speaking people to work direct for me as long term career employees (at their lower cost).

5 - I selected the Dominican Republic because this country has better colleges, more English/Spanish speaking people, better electricity and internet than any other country that is close to the USA.

I live in Florida and the DR is less than 2 hour flight from Fort Lauderdale or Miami. I liked the idea of flying over to DR to stay a few days and spend time with the people working for me ( or you ). Flying to India or Philippines to spend time with your staff is not realistic, but is totally realistic with people in the DR.

My personal philosophy was not to get the lowest possible cost. I was happy if my cost would be 50% less than hiring a comparable person in the USA. 

I wanted to afford paying people in the DR enough so the job working for me was better than many other jobs they can get in their country such as call centers or resorts.

I felt that if I could lift people up to a better life and also benefit from their lower cost, we both win.

The result was people being very happy and loyal working for me.

6 - For jobs like accounting, a person is expected to come to the table with the skills to do the job from day 1.

For jobs like a personal assistant or customer support, all companies are different. The work I would have an assistant do is different from the job description you would create for an assistant.

So, the people can have the basic education and skills required for you or I to train them up to work your or my way, being your needs are different from mine.

I learned how to use Zoom video call with screen sharing to SHOW my assistant how to perform tasks that are unique to my needs. She would record to video on her side. She could then view the video a few times to 100% understand my work instructions.

The better I became at creating structured training the better my Dominican staff were at understanding. That is common sense. In your life surely you have worked for some people who were better at showing you the job instructions and training than others.

The saying is true, you get out of people what you put into them.

7 - I later sold my American companies and kept the Dominican HR company. I then started this current business which is to enable your company to use my Dominican HR company as s shortcut to find, interview, hire and create your own nearshore lower cost staff operation be it just 1 person or grow a team.

8 - The pricing I can quote you can be half that of your hiring a comparable person to work in the mainland USA.

But, I do not offer "cheap" prices just to get you to sign up because to recruit the better quality people and cause them to be excited about working for you I must pay them well.

If you and I together are lifting people up to better lives while you benefit from their cost being at least 50% less than a comparable USA based employee, everyone wins!

This win/win thinking is how to get good people in the DR who can remain working for you long term and grow a long term career with your company.

My company fits in the middle as the HR/payroll provider similar to your hiring people in the USA through an HR company like ADP. The difference is my HR company is in the DR where the people can be hired to work remote for you at the lower cost.

It's really simple and common sense if you think of it.

Dave Fogg