Pastor turned finance pro Jonathan Sturgeon founded New Axis Solutions, a Texas-based accounting firm that provides full service bookkeeping, fractional CFO services, coaching and consulting to churches in the US.

After bringing two accountants in The Philippines on board through TeamUp, Jonathan says he’s found highly-skilled accountants that oftentimes outperform his US staff.

“We were just thoroughly impressed with how well the entire process was executed start to finish — all the way until we gave the final job offer to our candidate.” — Jonathan

Hiring through a BPO was a no-go

Jonathan isn’t new to offshoring. He had heard about TeamUp from other accounting firm owners, and decided to hire the company’s next full time staff member directly from the Philippines.


Jonathan was very intentional about not using a Business Process Outsourcing company, or BPO, for his hiring needs.

BPO companies, also called offshoring companies, contract out certain business functions or processes to a third-party provider. This typically includes customer service, payroll, accounting, data entry, human resources, and more.

They typically have an office where people commute to where they provide laptops, desks, and everything that they need to do their work.However, Jonathan knew this came with downsides, primarily that the staff you use through a BPO aren’t yours. This means you can’t bring them into your particular work culture.

“We have a very tight culture in how we manage things,” says Jonathan. “We're very white gloved in our approach and because of that we like to maintain a tight control over the end product. And so we felt like hiring direct was going to be the best solution for that versus hiring through a BPO or an other outsourcing service.”

Jonathan says there were several factors they thought about before choosing to bring another offshore staff member on board - primarily security.

Talking to other firm owners helped him feel more comfortable with what protocols they wanted to set up:

“We wanted to get an idea of what we were looking at for specific security protocols. And once we felt like we were comfortable with that, then it just became the tension of managing a team that’s operating in a different time zone.”

‘I Was Blown Away’

Through TeamUp, Jonathan received a big volume of highly qualified Filipino applicants.

“I was absolutely blown away with the type of candidates that we got from our job posting,” he says.

Jonathan says the candidates who applied fit the kind of exact niche they were looking for and aligned with the firm’s values.

And it’s only gotten better from there.

“Now that we've been on the integration side of things and our hire has been working with us, she's done an absolutely amazing job. We've hired very high level talent stateside that had great experience. I have to say that our Philippines-based team is outperforming most of our US-based staff,” he says.

Jonathan says the Filipino applicants he dealt with were committed to making sure that things were right and communicated very well.

“They're very thought out. That was something that we saw in our specific candidate in some of the assessments that TeamUp and our firm did. All of our candidates thought through things and you could almost see their thought process as they progressed through the different assessments.”

Jonathan says that this is something they noticed with all of the Filipino candidates they looked at, but didn’t see with any of the US-based candidates.

“That was very appealing for me because I felt like in the interview process you only get so much feedback and time and you're almost taking a gamble when you're hiring. So being able to see into their thought process made me feel that much more comfortable hiring there.”

Hiring Directly Through TeamUp Is “Absolutely Amazing”

Jonathan says working with TeamUp has been ”absolutely amazing,” and that through the process he was able to define exactly what the firm was looking for. This includes their culture, company values, and the types of clients they serve.

“We had multiple video calls throughout the entire process. I felt like I threw up a lot of information onto the TeamUp team,” says Jonathan. “But they were able to take that and refine it down to something that could be communicated easily and made clear what we were trying to accomplish.

”This helped them get a large pool of Filipino candidates to choose from in a very short amount of time.

Jonathan urges any firm owners thinking of hiring offshore to do so directly, and through TeamUp.

“I think you're going to greatly enjoy the control of what you have culturally in your company if that's a value for you, as it was for us. It made the decision to hire direct versus going through a BPO a no-brainer for us. And then, using TeamUp was also an absolute no brainer.”

Jonathan notes how beneficial it is that TeamUp has Filipino-based staff who are locals. They understand the culture and current job market and are able to help advise on how to create a competitive with a job posting.

“They really helped us navigate those things that we really weren't sure of. As an owner stepping through that process of hiring full-time offshore for the very first time, I felt completely at ease through the entire process knowing that we had somebody in our corner who had done this - and done it well.”